“Burn the ships,” Peymann said grimly, flinching as a flight of bombs crashed into the university. The British, he realized, were not short of bombs. They were unleashing hundreds onto a city that could either surrender or be obliterated. The distillery opposite Skovgaard’s warehouse was struck and the stills exploded blue fire that ran like burning quicksilver down alleys and gutters. Even from the citadel’s walls Peymann could hear screams in the streets. “Tell Major Lavisser to light the fuses quickly!” he called after the aide. He hoped that the British, seeing the fleet burning, would stop their terrible bombardment, though he knew it would be at least an hour or two before the ships could be fired because hundreds of refugees had gathered around the inner harbor in the certain knowledge that the British would not aim their mortars at the district where the fleet was stored, and those folks would have to be persuaded to move away before the fierce heat of the burning ships made the area untenable.
The aide ran down the firestep to the scorched courtyard, but found no sign of Major Lavisser. The General’s orderly said he thought the Major had gone to Bredgade and so the aide followed, but as he left the citadel a bomb landed five paces behind him and the shattering case broke his spine and threw him into the moat. The university was on fire, its library making a roaring sound as the flames devoured the shelves. The city’s separate fires were joining now, becoming higher and brighter, larger and fiercer. “Come,” the General gestured to the rest of his aides, “we shall do what we can.” There was little he could do for the city had no defense against this horror, but he could not just watch. There were people to be rescued and survivors to be comforted.
The bomb ships were throwing their shells over the citadel and one crashed into the orphanage chapel to splinter the roof and explode among the organ pipes. Astrid screamed as flames began to flicker from the organ’s shattered casing. Sharpe took her hand and dragged her into the courtyard. “The children!” she shouted.
“We’ll get them out,” Sharpe said, but where? He stood under the flagpole and stared up at the sky. The bombs, he thought, were going just to the south of the orphanage, which meant the graveyard to the north might be the safest place. “The cemetery!” he shouted to Astrid. “Take them to the cemetery!” She nodded just as a bomb slammed into the courtyard to make a small crater in which it sat malevolently, smoke hissing from its burning fuse until Hopper stepped to it and plucked the burning match clean out of the plug. “I’m going to the Captain, sir!”
Sharpe almost called Hopper back, but there were plenty of adults to help rescue the children and so he let the big man go. He ran into the building and found Clouter beside Ole Skovgaard’s bed. “There’s a cemetery that should be safe,” he told Clouter. “Take him there. Can you carry the bed as well?”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“The cemetery’s that way.” He pointed, then dropped his rifle and seven-barreled gun in a corner. “Then come back and help with the children,” he shouted after Clouter.
Someone was ringing the orphanage bell as though people needed any warning. The chapel was burning and another bomb had exploded in the kitchens so that the whole building was now lurid with flame. There were screams as another bomb crashed into a dormitory. The children were panicking. Sharpe ran up the outer stairs and shouted in his sergeant’s voice at a score of screaming children who were jostling on the balcony at the stairhead. They knew no English, but they froze, more scared of him than of the flames and noise. “You!” He grabbed a girl. “Downstairs. You next!” He made them go in single file down the stairs. More adults were coming to help and Sharpe ran into the burning dormitory. Two children were plainly dead, their small broken bodies laced with blood, but a third was crouching, screaming, her hands tight over her bloodied face and Sharpe picked her up and carried her to the balcony where he pushed her into a woman’s arms. The fire in the kitchens had broken through the roof, but no more bombs had come, though a dozen or more exploded just to the south where a row of houses was burning.
Astrid had been directing people into the sailors’ cemetery, but now ran back through the gate’s archway and up the stairs. “There are still the cripples,” she told Sharpe.
“Where?”
She pointed to a corner room and Sharpe ran round the open balcony to find six terrified children in their beds. Clouter had come back to the courtyard and Sharpe simply carried the children out to the balcony one by one and threw them down to the seaman who caught and handed them to other adults who had come to help. Sharpe tossed the last child down just as a bomb splintered through the remnants of the chapel and exploded in its doorway to slash metal fragments and slivers of wood across the yard. No one was touched. Sharpe had blood on his back where scraps of the stained glass window had slit through his coat and jacket, but he was unaware of it. “Is that all?” he shouted to Astrid over the thump of bombs and the sound of fire.
“That’s all!”
The last of the children had been carried to the graveyard and Clouter was alone in the courtyard. “Get out!” Sharpe shouted to him, then he took Astrid’s hand and led her around the balcony toward the stairhead. The burning dormitory was like a furnace as he passed, then a bomb crashed through the outside staircase, splintering its steps. A carcass followed, hissing tongues of white fire in the courtyard. Sharpe pulled Astrid into the main landing and ran down the inside stairs to find Clouter in the small hallway. “I told you to get out.”
“Came to get this,” Clouter said, brandishing Hopper’s seven-barreled gun. Sharpe picked up his own weapons. Tiles were clattering into the courtyard as more bombs hit the building, and he hoped to God the gunners were not shifting their aim northward for then the cemetery would be under fire. “All we have to do now,” he told Clouter, “is look after Mister Skovgaard.” The orphanage shuddered as two new bombs exploded. A child’s doll, its hair burning bright, skidded across the smoke-filled yard as Sharpe led Astrid and Clouter toward the gate, then he suddenly twisted to his right and shouted a warning.
He shouted because there were soldiers in the archway and Lavisser was with them, and the men were bringing their muskets up to their shoulders. Sharpe picked up the shell that Hopper had defused and hurled it one-handed toward the men who, seeing it, flinched away and Sharpe dragged Astrid back through the door. He slammed it shut, shot its bolt then took Astrid by the shoulders. “Do the windows on this floor have bars?”
She looked at him uncertainly, then shook her head. “No.”
“Then find a window, climb out and go to the cemetery. Hurry!” Musket butts were already pounding on the bolted door.
Sharpe pushed Astrid down the corridor then he ran up the stairs and out onto the smoke-wreathed balcony. Clouter followed as Sharpe ran to the undamaged end of the building where he stopped, turned and aimed the seven-barreled gun at the soldiers trying to break the door down. Then he hesitated. His quarrel was with Lavisser, not with the soldiers, but he could not see Lavisser, or Barker, though he did see a man climbing through one of the windows that opened onto the courtyard. Was Lavisser already inside? Flames were flying high to his right, licking at the rafters of the dormitories. He and Clouter were going to be trapped here, Sharpe thought, burned to death. Then one of the soldiers saw them and shouted to his comrades and Sharpe, still unwilling to start a private war in the burning building, pulled Clouter back into the undamaged dormitory. A bomb smashed into the yard and he heard screams. “What are we going to do?” Clouter asked him.
“God knows.” Sharpe slung the seven-barreled gun on his shoulder and went to the windows. They were barred to stop boys from being daredevils and he shook the bars, hoping that they could be loosened and that he and Clouter could drop down into the orphanage garden and make their way unseen to the cemetery, but the iron bars felt frustratingly solid. He swore and tugged again. Clouter saw what he was doing and came to help and the big man gave a grunt as he heaved on an iron rod. It came away in his hand, splintering the wooden sill.
&nbs
p; Then Lavisser called from the courtyard. “Sharpe! Sharpe!”
Sharpe turned and went back to the landing. He went cautiously, half expecting a volley, but instead saw that a half-dozen of the soldiers were on the ground, bloodied, twitching and scorched. A bomb had exploded in the group beside the bolted door. But then Sharpe saw that Lavisser was not alone. Astrid was beside him and she was in the grip of a tall, pale-faced man. It was Aksel Bang. God damn it, Sharpe thought, but he had bloody forgotten Bang! “Sharpe?” Lavisser called again.
“What do you want?”
“Just come down, Sharpe, and that’s an end to it.” The city was shuddering, flaming, incandescent. Above the burning chapel Sharpe had an impression of scores of falling bombs and a sky laced with fiery rocket trails. The smoke boiled. He stepped back into the shadow and took the rifle from his shoulder. He could see Lavisser, but not Barker. Was Barker inside? Stalking him?
“End of what?” he called to Lavisser.
“I’m told Miss Skovgaard knows the names I want.”
“Let her go.”
Lavisser smiled. Another bomb crashed into the orphanage and the blast of its smoke and flame whipped the skirts of Lavisser’s coat, but he showed no fear. He just smiled. “I can’t let her go, Richard, you know that. I want the names.”
“I’ve got the names. I’ve got your list.”
“Then bring it down, Richard, and I’ll let Miss Skovgaard go.”
Sharpe knelt and thumbed back the rifle’s cock. Jesus wept, he thought, but this gun had better be accurate. Aksel Bang was no more than twenty paces away, but he was standing behind Astrid with his right arm about her waist. Sharpe could only see Bang’s lugubrious face, the rest of him was hidden by Astrid, but on the range at Shorncliffe Sharpe had been able to put ten bullets out of ten through a target the size of a man’s face at sixty yards.
“What are you waiting for, Richard?” Lavisser called.
“I’m thinking.”
Clouter crouched beside Sharpe. “There’s a big fellow prowling,” Sharpe told him. “Watch out for him.”
Clouter nodded. Sharpe aimed through the bars of the balcony’s balustrade, lining the notch in the rifle’s backsight and the leaf of the foresight on Aksel Bang’s face. Then Sharpe suddenly worried about whether he had wrapped the ball in its scrap of greased leather when he had reloaded the gun. He remembered firing the rifle in the Bredgade house, but when had he reloaded it? He thought when he had arrived at the orphanage last night, but he had given it no thought. Why should he? Loading a gun was like breathing, not something a man thought about. But if he had not used the leather patch then the bullet would not be gripped by the seven spiraling grooves and lands that gave it spin and so made it accurate. And if the ball was unwrapped then it would be fractionally smaller than the barrel’s width and when he fired it would fly out at a slight angle. Very slight, but enough to make it go wide and perhaps strike Astrid.
“Sharpe! I’m waiting!” Lavisser peered up at the dark doorway. “Bring me the list!”
“Let her go!” Sharpe shouted.
“Please don’t be tedious, Richard. Just come down. Or do you want me to describe what I plan to do to the lovely Astrid if you don’t come down?”
Sharpe fired. He could not see where the bullet went, for the doorway was immediately filled with a fog of powder smoke, but he heard Astrid scream and Sharpe immediately knew he had made a mistake. He should have fired at Lavisser, not Bang. Bang did not have the guts to do anything on his own initiative, but Sharpe had picked him because he was holding Astrid and now Sharpe dashed through the smoke to lean on the balustrade and he saw that Bang was on his back, spreadeagled, and where his face had been there was only a great patch of broken bone, cartilage and bloody flesh. Astrid had vanished. Lavisser was staring at Bang in disbelief, then Sharpe saw the movement to his right and he dropped to one knee as Barker fired the musket. The ball plucked at Sharpe’s hair and scored a slash across the side of his skull and he was dazed, but not disabled, and he was screaming a war shout as he charged down the balcony and rammed the muzzle of the unloaded rifle into Barker’s groin. Another musket flashed and Sharpe felt the wind of the ball passing and he saw there was a second man behind Barker, but Clouter shouted at Sharpe to drop, and he did, and the volley gun flamed and roared as loud as an exploding bomb. The second man was snatched backward as two shells cracked through the rafters of the dormitory where Sharpe and Clouter had sheltered.
Barker was writhing on the balcony. “No!” he shouted at Sharpe who had drawn one of his pistols.
“Yes,” Sharpe said.
“I let you live!” Barker shouted.
“More bloody fool you,” Sharpe said and aimed the pistol. He fired and the ball took Barker under the chin, and then a musket banged from the courtyard and tore a splinter from the balustrade beside Sharpe. Clouter fired back with both his pistols, then crouched to reload the volley gun. Sharpe slid his last pistol along the balcony to the black man. “Wait there,” he told him.
“Where are you going?” Clouter asked.
“To find the bastard,” Sharpe said. Lavisser had vanished, so Sharpe took the volley gun from his shoulder, stepped over Barker’s corpse, and stalked along the landing. Flames were terrible to his right, threatening to roast him, but he ran past them into cooler air and came to the door leading to the inside stairs and saw Lavisser there, on the half landing, and Sharpe brought the volley gun to his shoulder, but Lavisser was quicker to raise his pistol and Sharpe ducked back. “I’m not going to shoot, Richard!” Lavisser called. “I just want to talk!”
Sharpe waited. His head was ringing and blood was dripping from his ear. A bomb exploded in the courtyard, twitching the bloodied bodies of the dead infantrymen. A carcass was burning there and its flames set fire to a soldier’s ammunition pouch which crackled angrily. “I’m not going to shoot,” Lavisser said again, closer now. “Talk to me. Are you there?”
“I’m here,” Sharpe said.
Lavisser, the pistol held away from his body to show he meant no harm, stepped cautiously onto the balcony. “See?” He gestured with the pistol. “No more shooting, Richard.”
Sharpe had the volley gun at his waist and it’s seven barrels were pointing at Lavisser. He kept it there.
Lavisser glanced at the gun, then smiled. “Your woman’s safe. She ran out through the arch.”
“My woman?”
“Mister Bang seemed to think she was sweet on you.”
“Bang was an idiot.”
“My dear Richard, they’re all idiots. This is Denmark! Dull, insufferably dull. It threatens to be the most respectable country on God’s earth.” He flinched as a bomb fell into the storeroom over the archway, but he did not take his eyes from Sharpe. “Our gunners are showing rare form tonight. Mister Bang says you’re going to stay here.”
“So?”
“So am I, Richard, and I could do with a friend who isn’t insufferably respectable.”
Sharpe took a step forward for the heat behind him was growing intolerable. Lavisser stepped back. He still held the pistol out to one side. Clouter was walking down the far side of the balcony now, then he nimbly leaped off the balustrade onto the mast-rigged flagpole. The tarred ratlines were burning, but he scrambled down with such practiced speed that he came to no harm.
“So what’s the price of your friendship?” Sharpe asked Lavisser. “The list in my pocket?”
“Do you really care about the men on that list?” Lavisser asked. “Who are they? Unknown merchants in Prussia and Hanover? Let the French have them and the French will look after us. What do you want to be, Richard? A general in the Danish army? It can be arranged, believe me. You want a title? The Emperor is remarkably generous with titles. Everything is new in Europe, Richard. The old titles mean nothing! If you can take power then you can be a lord, a prince, an archduke or a king.” Lavisser glanced down into the courtyard where Clouter was threatening him with the reloaded volley gun. “Is
your black friend going to shoot me?”
“Let him be, Clouter!”
“Aye aye, sir.” Clouter lowered the weapon.
Sharpe again stepped forward, forcing Lavisser another pace back toward the burning chapel. Lavisser was worrying now and began to swing the pistol to face Sharpe, but Sharpe twitched his own volley gun and Lavisser obediently held the pistol out to his right side again. “I’m serious, Richard,” he said. “You and me? We can be like wolves in a land of woolly baa-lambs.”
“I’m still wearing British uniform,” Sharpe said, “or hadn’t you noticed?”
“And what will Britain do for you?” Lavisser asked. “You think it will ever accept you? Besides, you’re staying here. You’re going to need money, Richard, money and friends. I offer you both. You really think you could endure Denmark without either?” He smiled with sudden relief because Sharpe had at last moved the seven-barreled gun so that it no longer pointed at Lavisser’s waist. Now, instead, it was aimed to the side. “I confess I would like your friendship, Richard,” Lavisser said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re a rogue,” Lavisser said, “and I like rogues. I always have. And you’re efficient, impressively efficient. Like our gunners tonight.” The gunners had turned Copenhagen into hell. Great swathes of the city were burning, the flames leaping high above the remaining spires and it seemed to Sharpe, glancing above Lavisser’s head, that a bow of fire like a rainbow of pure flame was arched across the city. It was a glimpse of the world’s ending, of hell’s vengeance. It was efficient, right enough.
“I’m a thug,” Sharpe said, “remember?”
“I aspire to be the same,” Lavisser said. “This world is ruled by thugs. What is the Emperor but a thug? What is the Duke of York but another thug? Albeit a dim one. Thugs win, Richard. To the powerful go the spoils.”
“I just have one problem,” Sharpe said. The heat was burning his back, but he stayed still. “You threatened Astrid.”
Sharpe's Prey Page 30