‘On the road to Ballybofey? Where the old fort would be?’ Harper’s face suddenly took on a look of magical happiness. ‘I’ve walked that road more times than I remember, so I have.’
‘We farmed on the slopes there. Before the English took the land.’ Docherty gave Sharpe a sour, challenging look, but the English officer was leaning against the wall, apparently oblivious. ‘Docherty,’ Docherty said to Harper.
‘Harper. There was a Docherty,’ Harper said, ‘who had a smithy in Meencrumlin.’
‘My uncle.’
‘God save Ireland.’ Harper stared in wonder at the lieutenant. ‘And you from America? Do you hear that, sir? He has an uncle that used to tinker my ma’s pans.’
‘I heard,’ Sharpe spoke sourly. He was thinking that he had stuck his neck out and to small avail. He had saved these men for twelve hours, no more, and there were times, he thought, when a soldier should know when not to fight. Then he remembered how Ducos, the Frenchman, had treated him in Burgos and how a French officer had risked his career to save Sharpe, and Sharpe knew he could not have lived with his conscience if he had simply allowed Bampfylde to continue his savagery. These men might well be pirates, they probably did deserve the rope, but Frederickson had pledged his word. Sharpe walked to the table. ‘How are your wounds?’
‘I lost a tooth,’ Killick grinned to show the bloody gap.
‘That’s a fashion these days,’ Harper said equably from the range.
Sharpe pulled a bottle of wine towards him and knocked the neck off against the table. ‘Are you pirates?’
‘Privateer,’ Killick said it proudly, ‘and legally licensed.’
Frederickson, shivering from the cold in the yard, came through the door. ‘I’ve put the rest of the Jonathons in the guardroom. Rossner’s watching them.’ He looked towards the seated Americans. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Killick.’
‘Captain Killick,’ Killick said without rancour, ‘and thank you for what you did. Both of you.’ He held out a tin mug for wine. ‘When they dangle us at a rope’s end I’ll say that not every Britisher is a bastard.’
Sharpe poured wine into Killick’s cup. ‘I saw you,’ he said, ‘at St Jean de Luz.’
Killick gave a great, hoarse whoop of a laugh that reminded Sharpe of Wellington’s strange merriment. ‘That was a splendid day!’ Killick said. ‘We had them wetting their breeches, right enough!’
Sharpe nodded, remembering Bampfylde’s fury in the dining-room as the naval captain had watched the American. ‘You did.’
Killick felt in his pocket, realized he had no cigars, and shrugged. ‘Nothing in peace will offer such joy, will it?’ Sharpe made no reply and the American looked at his Lieutenant. ‘Perhaps we ought to become real pirates in peacetime, Liam?’
‘If we live that long.’ Docherty stared sourly at the Rifleman.
‘For an Irishman,’ Killick said to Sharpe, ‘he has an unnatural sense of reality. Are you going to hang us, Major?’
‘I’m feeding you.’ Sharpe avoided the question.
‘But in the morning,’ Killick said, ‘the sailormen will want us, won’t they?’
Sharpe said nothing. Patrick Harper, by the stove, watched Sharpe and took a chance. ‘In the morning,’ he said softly, ‘we’ll be away from here, so we will, and more’s the pity.’
Sharpe frowned because the sergeant had seen fit to interrupt, yet in truth he had asked for Harper’s presence because the good sense of the huge Ulsterman was something that he valued. Harper’s words had served two purposes; first to warn the Americans that the Riflemen could not control their fate, and secondly to tell Sharpe that the consensus, among the Green Jackets at least, was that a hanging would not be welcome. The Rifles had captured these Americans, had done it without bloodshed to either side, and they felt bitterly that the Navy should so high handedly decide to execute opponents whose only fault had been to fight with unrealistic hopes.
No one spoke. Harper, his pennyworth contributed, turned back to the stove. Docherty stared at the scarred, stained table, while Killick, a half smile on his bruised face, watched Sharpe and thought that here was another English officer who did not match the image encouraged by the American news-sheets.
Frederickson, still by the door, thought how alike Sharpe and the American were. The American was younger, but both had the same hard, good-looking face and both had the same savage recklessness in their eyes. It would be interesting, Frederickson decided, to see whether such similar men liked or hated each other.
Sharpe seemed embarrassed by the encounter, as if he was uncertain what to do with this exotic and unfamiliar enemy. He turned to Harper instead. ‘Isn’t that soup ready?’
‘Not unless you want it cold, sir.’
‘A full belly,’ Killick said, ‘to make us hang heavier?’ No one responded.
Sharpe was thinking that in the morning, once the Riflemen were gone, Bampfylde would string these Americans up like sides of beef. Ten minutes ago that thought had not upset Sharpe. Men were hanged in droves every day, and a hanging was prime entertainment in any town with a respectable sized population. Pirates had always been hanged and, besides, these Americans were the enemy. There were good reasons, therefore, to let the Thuella’s crew hang.
Yet to reason thus, in cold blood, was one thing, and it was quite another to look across a table-top and apply that chilling reason to men whose only fault had been to pick a fight with Riflemen. There were French soldiers grown old in war who would have hesitated to take on Green Jackets, so should a seaman hang because of optimism? Besides, and though Sharpe knew this was not a reasonable objection, he found it hard to think of men who spoke his own language as enemies. Sharpe fought Frenchmen.
Yet the law was the law, and in the morning Sharpe’s orders would take him far from this fort, and far from Cornelius Killick who would, abandoned to Bampfylde’s mercies, hang. That, Sharpe decided, was certain and so, unable to offer any reassurance, he poured wine instead. He wished Harper would hurry with the damned soup.
Cornelius Killick, understanding all of Sharpe’s doubts from the troubled look on the Rifleman’s bandaged face, spoke a single word. ‘Listen.’
Sharpe looked into Killick’s eyes, but the American said nothing more. ‘Well?’ Sharpe frowned.
Killick smiled. ‘You hear nothing. No wind, Major. There’s not a breath of wind out there, nothing but frost and mist.’
‘So?’
‘So we have a saying back home, Major,’ the American was staring only at Sharpe, ‘that if you hang a sailorman in still airs, his soul can’t go to hell. So it lingers on earth to take another life as revenge.’ The American pointed at Sharpe. ‘Maybe your life, Major?’
Killick could have said nothing more helpful to his cause. His words made Sharpe think of Jane, shivering in the cold sweat of her fever, and he thought, with sudden self-pity, that if she could not be saved then he would rather catch the fever and die with her than be in this cold, ice-slicked fort where the mist writhed silent about the stones.
Killick, watching the hard face that was slashed by a casual scar, saw a shudder go through the Rifleman. He sensed that Docherty was about to speak and, rather than have their situation jeopardized by Irish hostility, he kicked his lieutenant to silence. Killick, who had spoken lightly enough before, knew that his words had struck a seam of feeling and he pressed his advantage with a gentle voice. ‘There’s no peace for a man who hangs a sailorman in a calm.’
Their eyes met. Sharpe wondered whether the American’s words were true. Sharpe told himself it was nonsense, a superstition as baseless as any soldier’s talisman, yet the thought was irresistibly lodged. Sharpe had been cursed years before, his name buried on a stone, and his first wife had died within hours of that curse. He frowned. ‘The deserters must hang. That’s the law.’
No one spoke. Harper waited for the soup to seethe and Frederickson leaned against the door. Docherty licked bloodied lips, then Killick smiled. ‘All my men are citizens of
the United States, Major. What they were before is not your business, nor my President’s business, nor the business of the bloody law. They all have citizens’ papers!’ Killick ignored the fact that the certificates had been burned by Bampfylde.
‘You give those scraps of paper to anyone who volunteers; anyone!’ Sharpe said mockingly. ‘If a donkey could pull a trigger you’d make it into a citizen of the United States!’
‘And what do you give to your volunteers?’ Killick retorted with an equal scorn. ‘Everyone knows a murderer is forgiven his crime if he’ll join your Army! You expect us to be more delicate than your own service?’ There was no reply, and Killick smiled. ‘And I tell you now that none of my men deserted the Royal Navy. Some may have fouled-anchor tattoos, some may have English voices, and some may have scarred backs, but I tell you now that they are all, every last jack of them, free-born citizens of the Republic.’
Sharpe looked into the hard, bright eyes. ‘You tell me? Or do you swear to me?’
‘I’ll swear on every damned Bible in Massachusetts if you demand it.’ Which meant that Killick lied, but that he lied to protect his men, and Sharpe knew that he himself would tell just such a lie for his own men.
‘Thomas Taylor is American, Frederickson observed mildly to Sharpe. ’Would you approve of him being hanged if the tables were turned?‘
And if he let them go, Sharpe thought, then the Navy would complain to the Admiralty and the Admiralty would huff and puff to the Horse Guards and the Horse Guards would write a letter to Wellington and all hell would break loose about Major Richard Sharpe’s head. Men like Wigram, the bores who worshipped proper procedure, would demand explanations and decree punishments.
And if he did not let the Americans go, Sharpe thought, then a girl might die, and he would go back to St Jean de Luz to be shown the fresh, damp earth of her grave. Somehow he believed, with the fervour of a man who would cling to any hope, that he could buy Jane’s life by not hanging a sailorman in still airs. He had lost one wife by a curse; he could not risk it again.
He was silent. The soup boiled and Harper shifted it from the flames. Killick, as if he did not care what the outcome of this meeting was, smiled. ‘A flat calm, Major, and the ice will mask our dead faces just because we fought like men for our own country.’
‘If I were to let you go,’ Sharpe spoke so quietly that, even in this night’s uncanny silence, Killick and Docherty had to lean forward to hear his voice, ‘would you give me your word, as American citizens, that neither of you, nor any man in your crew, here or absent, will take up arms against Britain for the rest of this war’s duration?’
Sharpe had expected instant acceptance, even gratitude, but the tall American was wary. ‘Suppose I’m attacked?’
‘Then you run.’ Sharpe waited for a reply that did not come, then, to his astonishment, found himself pleading with a man not to choose a hanging. ‘I can’t stop Bampfylde hanging you, Killick. I don’t have the power. I can’t escort you into captivity; we’re a hundred miles behind enemy lines! So the Navy has to take you away from here and the Navy will string you up, all of you. But give me your word and I’ll release you.’
Killick suddenly let out a great breath, the first sign of the tension he had felt. ‘You have my word.’
Sharpe looked at the Irishman. ‘And you?’
Docherty stared in puzzlement at Sharpe. ‘You’ll let all of us go? All the crew?’
‘I said so.’
‘And how do we know ...?’
Harper spoke in sudden Gaelic. His words were brief, harshly spoken, and a mystery to every man in the room except to himself and Docherty. The American lieutenant listened to the huge Irishman, then looked back to Sharpe with a sudden, unnatural humility. ‘You have my word.’
Cornelius Killick held up a hand. ‘But if I’m attacked, Major, and can’t run, then by Christ I’ll fight!’
‘But you won’t seek a fight?’
‘I will not,’ Killick said.
Sharpe, his head splitting with pain from the bullet-strike, leaned back. Harper brought the cauldron to the table and splashed soup into five bowls. Frederickson came and sat down, Harper sat beside him, and only Sharpe did not eat. He looked at Killick instead, and his voice was suddenly very weary. ‘Your boat’s wrecked?’
‘Yes,’ Killick told the lie glibly.
‘Then I suggest you go to Paris. The American Minister there can arrange passage home.’
‘Indeed,’ Killick smiled. He spooned soup into his mouth.
‘So what now, Major?’
‘You finish your soup, collect your men, and go. I’ll make sure there’s no trouble at the gate. You forfeit your weapons, of course, except for officers’ swords.’
Killick stared at Sharpe as though he could not believe what he was hearing. ‘We just go?’
‘You just go,’ Sharpe said. He pushed his chair back and walked to the door. He went into the yard, stared upwards, and sure enough the Union flag that the sailors had raised to the flagpole’s peak was hanging utterly limp in the still, misting air.
It was a flat calm, an utter stillness; no airs in which to hang a sailorman, and so Richard Sharpe would let an enemy go and he would say he did it for honour, or because the war was so close to ending that there was no need for more death, or because it was just his pleasure to do it.
He felt tears in his eyes that had been earlier closed with blood, then walked to the gate to make sure that no man stopped the Thuella’s crew from leaving. His wife would live and Sharpe, for the first time since the Amelie had sailed, felt that he, just like the Americans, was free.
CHAPTER 9
‘Be Pleased to acquaint the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty,’ wrote Captain Horace Bampfylde as he drafted his first despatch to the Secretary of the Admiralty, which gentleman would not only acquaint the Lords Commissioners, but also the unlordly editor of the Naval Gazette who was in a position to do much honour to Captain Bampfylde, ‘that judging it to be of Consequence that their Lordships should have as early Information as possible of the Defeat of the French Forces in the Basin of Arcachon, I have this day ordered the Lily cutter to sail with this Despatch.’ The Lily was waiting in the roads outside.
‘I had established,’ Bampfylde’s quill squeaked on the thick paper, ‘from picquets sent ahead, that an Artillery Fortification, of Breastwork, Ditch, and Emplacements, in which six pieces of artillery were arrayed, which pieces were defended by musketeers, had been constructed against just such an approach as I had the honour to make.’ Bampfylde had decided not to reveal that the ‘breastwork’ was manned by American sailors, for victory over such opponents would not be considered as praiseworthy as a triumph over French land forces. By default, therefore, Bampfylde would allow the Lords Commissioners to believe that he had faced and overcome a part of Napoleon’s Army.
He refought the battle with quill and ink, not as it had actually taken place, but as he was convinced it ought to have taken place; indeed in a manner that precisely described what Bampfylde believed would have happened if Major Sharpe had not disobeyed his orders and assaulted the Teste de Buch instead of marching inland. The quill paused and Bampfylde persuaded himself that he did Major Sharpe a favour by not writing a description of the Rifleman’s disobedience, and further persuaded himself that it might be better, all round, if Sharpe’s name did not appear in the description of the fort’s capture at all. Why raise the subject of a fellow-officer’s failure to follow orders?
‘Going forward with a file of men under Lieutenant of Marines Fytch,’ Bampfylde resumed, ‘I succeeded in drawing the Enemy fire and thus marking the position of the skilfully hidden battery to my flanking force that was under the command of Captain Palmer. The Guns were taken at point of cutlass and sword. Due to the Temerity and Masterful Gallantry shown by the men under my command our losses were trifling.’ That seemed eminently just to Bampfylde. After all the guns had been physically taken by the Marines and it seemed hardly necessary to
spell out the trifling point that the gun crews had already been captured. Guns were guns, and next to enemy flags, were valuable trophies. That thought gave Bampfylde pause. He had already sequestered the French tricolour that had flown over the Teste de Buch, but his Midshipman had so far failed to find the American ensign. That must be diligently sought, Bampfylde thought, as he bent again to his literary labours.
‘At this time, the Scylla, Captain Duncan Grant, was, as per my orders, fully engaging the guns of the fort with her main batteries. Thus distracted, the defenders were disconcerted by the sudden appearance from the woods, of my land force. Deeming the moment opportune, I went forward to the Escalade. It is with the Greatest Pleasure and Satisfaction that I make known to Their Lordships the Very Gallant Behaviour of Lieutenant Ford, who with the Utmost Intrepidity, was at the Forefront of the attack. In the crossing of two ditches, two walls, and the enceinte of the enemy position, Lieutenant Ford showed a True British spirit, as did the Marines who followed us in the Assault.’ Bampfylde frowned, wondering whether he had over-egged the pudding a little, but it was important that Ford, who had noble connections in London, should feel pleased with this despatch. Bampfylde, still frowning, was concerned that their Lordships would realize that Ford, who had been described as so very gallant, was at all times at Bampfylde’s side and that the enconium so generously penned should, in reality, be read as applying to the author.
Captain Bampfylde was not certain that meaning was entirely plain, yet he knew their Lordships to be subtle men, and he must trust to their perspicacity. Again he scanned his words as a test for truth. He and Ford had indeed crossed two ditches and walls, all of them thanks to the drawbridge which had been captured by Sharpe’s Riflemen, but it would do no harm for the word ‘escalade’ to suggest a desperate struggle.
‘Taken in the rear, their Defences broken, the Enemy retreated to the Inner Galleries of their Fortress where, with Fortitude and Determination, the Marines I had the Honour and Happiness to command, overpressed the Foe. Great Carnage was done upon the Enemy before a Surrender was accepted, whereupon I had the Privilege of Raising His Majesty’s Flag upon the Captured Mast.’ Bampfylde had indeed ordered the flag raised, and it handily gave the impression that he had been present when the fort was captured.
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