A mile ahead there was a sudden, rushing sound like a huge wave breaking on a beach and Sharpe saw a rocket rise into the air and plummet towards the east. It had been over a year since he had seen the Rocket Artillery and he supposed it was as inaccurate as ever. Yet somehow the odd sight made him feel at home. ‘Remember those?’ he asked Frederickson.
Sweet William, who had been with Sharpe when the rockets were first used against the astonished French, nodded. ‘Indeed I do.’
A mounted infantry captain, red coat bright, galloped up the track towards Sharpe. His voice, as he curbed his spirited horse, was peremptory with a staff officer’s vicarious authority. ‘Who the devil are you? What are you doing here?’
‘My name is Sharpe, my rank is Major, and you call me “sir”.’
The captain stared with incredulity, first at Sharpe, then at the dirty, draggled mixture of Riflemen and Marines who stared dully towards the rocket’s smoking trail. ‘Sharpe?’ The captain seemed to have lost his voice. ‘But you’re ...’ he checked. ‘You’ve come from the north, sir?’
‘Yes ’ It seemed too difficult to explain it all; to explain how an American privateer captain had agreed to rescue a garrison and to land that garrison as close as he dared to the British lines. To explain how the Thuella had flogged her way south through a wet night, and how Riflemen and Marines had thumped the schooner’s pump-handles till their muscles burned in the cold, or how Sharpe, his turn at the pumps over, had drunk brandy with an American enemy in a small cabin and promised, that when this damn fool war was done, to drink even more in a place called Marblehead. Or to explain how, in the rain-misted dawn, Cornelius Killick had landed Sharpe’s men north of the Adour estuary.
‘I wish I could take you further,’ the American had said.
‘You can’t.’ A strange sail had been spotted to the south, merely a scrap of ghostly white above a blurred horizon, but the sail meant danger to the Thuella and so Killick had turned for the shore.
Now Sharpe, marching south, had met British troops north of the river which could only mean that Elphinstone had built his bridge. ‘Who are you?’ Sharpe asked the staff captain.
‘First Division, sir.’
Sharpe nodded towards another racing plume of rocket smoke. ‘The Adour?’
‘Yes, sir.’
They were safe. There would be surgeons for the wounded and a precious bridge across the river; a bridge leading south to St Jean de Luz and to Jane.
The bridge was there. The miraculous bridge, the bridge that only a clever man could build, a bridge to outflank the French Army, a bridge of boats.
The bridge was made from chasse-marées. A whole fleet of the luggers was moored side-by-side in the wide river mouth and, stretching from deck to deck and supported by vast cables, was a wide roadway of planks. Over the bridge marched red-coated Companies, Company after Company, an Army outflanking an enemy and going further into France. The Divisional headquarters, the staff officer said, was still south of the river.
Sharpe took his men to the northern bank where a surgeon had erected a tent and waited for customers. ‘Best if you wait here,’ Sharpe said to Frederickson.
‘Yes, sir.’
Sharpe looked at his Marines and Riflemen, at Harper and Minver and Rossner and Palmer and all the men who had fought as no men should be asked to fight. ‘I’ll come back for you,’ he said lamely.
Sharpe left them. He walked against the tide of the invading Division, edging his way across the plank bridge that rose and fell with the small waves of the estuary. It was for this bridge that his men had taken the Teste de Buch. They had drawn the enemy to the wrong place so that the bridge could be built undisturbed.
The bridge was nearly a quarter-mile in length and had to resist the massive rise and fall of ocean tides. Seamen, under naval officers, manned windlasses that governed the anchors of the moored boats. The windlasses balanced the long bridge against the currents of river and ocean and against the vast, surging tide that swept into the Adour. The bridge, guarded by a fleet of brigs, was a miracle of engineering.
And the man who had built it waited on the southern sea-wall where a vast capstan, built into a cage of wooden beams, could compensate the roadway’s cables against the estuary’s tidefall. Colonel Elphinstone, standing on the capstan’s platform, watched the dirty, blood- and powder-stained Rifleman approach. The expression on Elphinstone’s face was one of sheer disbelief that slowly turned to pleasure. ‘He said you were captured!’
The small rain stung Sharpe’s face as he looked up to the colonel. ‘Who, sir?’
‘Bampfylde.’ Elphinstone’s eyes took in the blood on Sharpe’s thigh and head. ‘You escaped!’
‘We all did, sir. Every last goddamn man that Bampfylde abandoned. Except for the dead, of course. There were twenty-seven dead, sir.’ Sharpe paused, remembering that more had died since his last count. Two of the wounded had died on the Thuella and had been slid into a grey sea. And Sharpe supposed that the American Rifleman, Taylor, must be numbered with the dead, even though he lived and was even now sailing westwards.
‘Maybe thirty, sir. But the French sent a brigade against us, and we fought the bastards to a standstill, sir.’ Sharpe heard the anger in his own voice and knew that this honest man did not deserve it. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I need a horse.’
‘You need a rest.’ Elphinstone, with surprising agility for a heavy, middle-aged man, swung himself down the cage of beams. ‘A brigade, you say?’
‘A demi-brigade,’ Sharpe said. ‘But with artillery.’
‘Good God Almighty.’
Sharpe turned to watch a Battalion of Portuguese infantry scramble down the sea-wall towards the rope-held planks. ‘I see Bampfylde brought you the chasse-marées. The bastard did something right.’
‘He says he took the fort!’ Elphinstone said. ‘He said you went inland and were defeated.’
‘Then he’s a poxed, lying bastard. We took the fort. Then we went inland, beat the Frogs by the river, and came back to find the fort abandoned. We beat them there, too.’
‘Not too loud, Sharpe,’ Elphinstone said, “ware right flank.‘
Sharpe twisted round. Yards down the river bank was a party of some two dozen officers, both Army and Navy, who had come to see this prodigy; a floating bridge that crossed an estuary. With them were ladies who had been invited to witness the far smoke of battle. Gleaming carriages were parked on a marshy road two hundred yards to the rear. ‘Is that Bampfylde?’
‘Gently now, Sharpe!’ Elphinstone said.
‘Bugger Bampfylde.’ Sharpe was streaked with mud, spattered with dried blood, salt-stained, and scorched with powder burns. He walked along the sea-wall’s narrow path towards the spectators who clustered about two tripod-mounted telescopes. A spatter of applause and admiration sounded as another rocket arched towards the grey clouds.
Two naval lieutenants blocked Sharpe’s progress. One of them, seeing the soldier’s tattered, dirty state, suggested that Sharpe make a detour. ‘Go down there.’ The naval officer pointed to the swampy mud inland of the wall.
‘Get out of my way. Move!’ The sudden command startled all of the spectators. A woman dropped her umbrella and gave a small scream at Sharpe’s bloody, dirty appearance, but Captain Horace Bampfylde, explaining at length how he had captured a fortress and brought these chasse-marées south to help out the Army, fell into a terrified silence.
‘You poxed bastard,’ Sharpe said. ‘You coward!’
‘Sir!’ An Army officer touched Sharpe’s arm in remonstrance, but Sharpe rounded on the man, who stepped back in sudden fear from the savage face.
Sharpe looked back to Bampfylde. ‘You ran away.’
‘That is not ...’
‘Just as you did not take the fortress, you bastard, I did. And then I held it, you bastard, I held it against a goddamned brigade of crapaud troops. We beat them, Bampfylde. We fought them and beat them. I lost some of your Marines, Bampfylde, because you don’t figh
t a demi-brigade without losing men, but we won!’ There was an embarrassed silence among the elegantly dressed party. A cold wind stirred the water to Sharpe’s right, then a dull cough of artillery thumped its noise across the river. ‘Do you hear me, Bampfylde?’
The naval officer said nothing, and there was nothing but terror on his fleshy young face. The other officers, appalled by Sharpe’s face and by the anger in his voice, stood as if frozen.
‘Over two thousand men, you bastard, and less than two hundred of us. We fought them till we had no bullets left, then we fought with steel, Bampfylde. And we won!’ Sharpe took another step towards the naval captain who, terrified, stepped backwards.
‘He told me ...’ Bampfylde began, but could not go on.
‘Who told you what?’
Bampfylde’s eyes went past Sharpe and the Rifleman turned to see the Comte de Maquerre, a girl on his arm, standing with Colonel Wigram. The Comte looked at Sharpe as though he saw a revenant come from the tomb. Sharpe, who had not expected to find the Comte, stared with equal disbelief.
Then, to both minds, came the shared knowledge of treachery and the Comte de Maquerre panicked. He ran.
The Comte ran towards the bridge that led to the north bank of the Adour where a handful of French troops retreated from the First Division. There should have been more French troops there, Calvet’s troops, enough troops to turn the river into blood, but de Maquerre had been fooled by the story of a landing and so Calvet’s troops had been frittered away at Arcachon. The Comte de Maquerre had unwittingly served Wellington well, but he was a traitor and so he ran.
Sharpe ran after him.
Colonel Wigram raised a hand as if to call for prudent decorum in front of ladies, but Sharpe pushed the man down the sea-wall and into the mud.
De Maquerre leaped down the sloping wall, miraculously kept his footing on the slippery river’s edge, and climbed on to the bridge.
‘Stop him!’ Sharpe bellowed it.
Portuguese infantrymen crossing the bridge saw a tall, distinguished officer in British uniform being chased by a dirty, tattered wretch. They made way for the Comte.
Sharpe banged his wounded thigh as he clambered on to the roadway. Blood ran warm on his thigh as he snarled at men to make way. ‘Stop him!’
A jittery horse, made nervous by the strange road across which it was being led blindfolded, checked de Maquerre’s panicked flight. It swerved its rump into the Frenchman’s path and the Comte was forced to leap for the safety of one of the moored chasse-marées. He turned as he landed on the deck, saw he could run no further, and drew his sword.
Sharpe jumped forward from the planks on to the boat’s deck and drew his own sword.
The Comte de Maquerre, seeing the filth and blood of battle on Sharpe, sensed that the fight was lost before it began. He lowered his slim blade. ‘I surrender, Major.’
‘They hang spies,’ Sharpe said, ‘you bastard.’
De Maquerre glanced towards the water and Sharpe knew the man was contemplating a leap into the cold grey tide, but then a voice drew the Frenchman’s attention back to the bridge.
‘Sharpe!’ It was the petulant voice of the mud-smeared Colonel Wigram who, with Elphinstone, was forcing his way past the Portuguese troops on the crowded roadway.
The Comte de Maquerre looked at Wigram and gestured towards Sharpe. ‘He’s mad!’
‘Major!’ Wigram stepped down to the chasse-marée’s deck. ‘There are things you don’t understand, Major!’
‘He’s a traitor. A spy.’
Wigram stayed by the cable-taut roadway. ‘He was supposed to tell the French we planned a landing! Don’t you see that?’
Sharpe stared at the tall, thin Frenchman. ‘He works for a man called Pierre Ducos. Oh, you fooled him, Wigram, I understand that, but this bastard tried to trap me.’
De Maquerre, sensing survival in Wigram’s alliance, gestured again at Sharpe. ‘He’s mad, Wigram, mad!’
‘I’m mad enough,’ Sharpe said, ‘to hate hanging men.’
The Comte de Maquerre could step no further back. His retreat was blocked by two naval ratings who crouched nervously beside the anchor’s winch. The Frenchman watched Sharpe’s sword, then Sharpe’s eyes. The boat shivered as Elphinstone leaped on to the deck from the roadway, and the movement seemed to prompt de Maquerre into a burst of pleading French directed at Wigram.
‘In English, you bastard!’ Sharpe stepped a pace closer to the frightened de Maquerre. ‘Tell him who Ducos is! Tell him who Favier is! Tell him how you offered to make me a Major General in your Royalist Army!’
‘Monsieur!’ de Maquerre, faced with the Rifleman, could only plead.
‘Sharpe!’ Colonel Wigram made his voice very sensible and calm. ‘There will have to be a formal inquiry before a properly constituted tribunal ...’
‘... and what will they do? Hang him?’
‘If found guilty, yes.’ Wigram sounded uncertain.
‘But I don’t like hanging men!’ Sharpe said each word slowly and deliberately. ‘I’ve discovered a weakness in myself, and I regret it, but I can’t bear seeing men hanged!’
‘Quite understandable.’ Wigram, convinced he was dealing with a madman, spoke soothingly.
The Comte de Maquerre, sensing a reprieve in Sharpe’s words, tried a very nervous smile. ‘You don’t understand, monsieur.’
‘I understand you’re a bastard,’ Sharpe said, ‘and a spy, but you won’t hang for it. But this is for the men you killed, you pimp!’ The sword lunged as Sharpe shouted the final word. The blade, pitted with the rust of water and blood, twisted as Sharpe thrust it, twisted as it took de Maquerre in the upper belly, still twisted as the blood sprayed two feet into the air, and still was twisted so that the body’s flesh would not stick to the steel as the Frenchman, blood drenching his white breeches, fell into the river that Calvet should have defended.
The sound of Sharpe’s voice faded over the water. The two sailors gaped and one of them, spattered by blood, turned to retch into the scuppers.
‘That wasn’t wise,’ Colonel Elphinstone pushed past an appalled Wigram who watched as the body of a spy, surrounded by diluting blood, floated towards the sea.
‘He was a traitor,’ Sharpe said, ‘and he killed my men.’ The tiredness was washing through him. He wanted to sit down, but he supposed he should explain. Somehow it was too difficult. ‘Hogan knew,’ he said, remembering his friend’s fevered words. ‘Michael Hogan?’ He looked for understanding into Elphinstone’s honest face.
Elphinstone nodded. ‘It was Hogan’s idea to let the French think we planned an invasion.’
‘But Wigram sent de Maquerre, didn’t you?’ Sharpe stared at the grey-faced colonel who said nothing. ‘Hogan would never have sent that pimp to risk our lives!’
‘Hogan was ill,’ Wigram spoke defensively.
‘Then wait till he’s well,’ Sharpe glowered at the staff officer, ‘then call him before your properly constituted tribunal.’
‘That can’t be done.’ Colonel Elphinstone spoke gently. ‘Hogan died.’
For a second the news made no sense. ‘Dead?’
‘The fever. May he rest in peace.’
‘Oh, God.’ Tears came to Sharpe’s eyes and, so that neither Elphinstone nor Wigram should see them, the Rifleman turned away. Hogan, his particular friend, with whom he had so often talked of the pleasures to come when peace brought an end to killing, was dead of the fever. Sharpe watched de Maquerre’s body turning on the tide, and his grief for a friend turned into a fresh pulse of anger. ‘That should have been Bampfylde!’ Sharpe pointed at the corpse and turned to Elphinstone. ‘He ran away!’
The grimness of Sharpe’s face made Colonel Wigram scramble back to the plank bridge, but Elphinstone simply reached for Sharpe’s sword and dried the wet, bloodied blade on a corner of his jacket. He handed the sword back. ‘You did well, Major.’ He tried to imagine a handful of men facing a half brigade, and could not. ‘You need to rest.’
<
br /> Sharpe nodded. ‘Can you get me a horse, sir?’ He asked it in a voice that suggested nothing had happened, that no blood trickled on the rain-slick deck.
‘A horse? I’m sure we can.’ Elphinstone saw in Sharpe the weariness of a soldier pushed to the edge of reason. The colonel was an engineer, knowledgeable of the stresses that could shatter stone or wood or iron, and now he saw the same fracturing tension in Sharpe. ‘Of course!’ Elphinstone made his own voice redolent of normality, ‘you’re eager to see your wife! I had the honour of dining with her two nights ago.’
Sharpe stared at the colonel. ‘You dined with her?’
‘My dear Sharpe, it was entirely proper! At Lady Hope’s! There was a ragout and some very fine beef.‘
Sharpe forgot de Maquerre, forgot the bridge, and forgot the ragged skirmishes that flared and died across the river. He even forgot Hogan. ‘And Jane’s well?’
Elphinstone shrugged. ‘Shouldn’t she be? Ah, she did mention a cold, but that was soon gone. A winter’s sniff, nothing more. She was distressed for Hogan, naturally.’
Sharpe gaped incredulously at the colonel. ‘No fever?’
‘Your wife? Good Lord, no!’ Elphinstone sounded astonished that Sharpe should even ask. ‘She wouldn’t credit you were defeated, of course.’
‘Oh, God.’ Sharpe sat on the chasse-marée’s gunwale and, because he could not help it, more tears came to his eyes and ran cold on his cheeks. No fever. He had let Killick live because of Jane’s fever, and he would not contemplate surrender to Calvet because of her fever, and it had only been a cold, a winter’s sniff. Sharpe did not know whether to laugh or cry.
A gun banged over the river and a rocket wobbled into the sky to plunge uselessly into the river’s mud. A French cavalry trumpet sounded the retreat, but Sharpe did not care. He wept. He wept because a friend had died, and he wept with joy because Jane lived. He wept because at last it was over; a battle that should never have been fought, but a battle that, through stubbornness, pride, and an American enemy’s promise, had come to both this victory on a river’s edge and to this vast relief. It was over; Sharpe’s siege.
Sharpe 3-Book Collection 6: Sharpe's Honour, Sharpe's Regiment, Sharpe's Siege Page 94