“You’ll be surrounded by cavalry officers and I’ll be jealous.”
She kissed his cheek. “You’ll bristle with dignity, like the first time you came to the mirador.”
He kissed her back. “We’ll meet again.” The words echoed in his head as his horse, her horse, trotted on the ridge’s spine.
To the east of the ridge was a wide sweeping valley where the ripening wheat had been flattened by the rain and where a few dark trees showed the course of a stream. At the far side of the valley was an escarpment, its steep side facing Sharpe, and he knew that beyond the sheer red-rock bluffs at its crest the French army would be marching. The ridge and the escarpment ended in a great rolling plain and it was on that plain that Marmont would swing westward into the home straight; the race to block the Portuguese road.
At the southern end of the ridge the ground fell steeply away and, a short walk from the ridge’s end to the west, was a village. It was like a thousand other Spanish villages. The cottages were low, made of rough-dressed stone, and a man could not stand upright in most of the small houses. The houses grew into each other and formed a maze of tiny alleyways that surrounded the simple church, no bigger than a storehouse. The church had a small stone arch built on one end of its roof that acted as the belfry for the one counter-weighted bell. A stork’s nest clung to the top of the arch.
The richer peasants, and there were few of them, had painted their cottages white. Roses grew against the walls. Farmyards lay next to some cottages, empty now for the villagers feared the army that the night had brought behind the ridge. The villagers had driven their cattle away, to another village, and the hovels and alleyways had been left to God and the soldiers. The village, which had never been famous, was called Arapiles.
If a man stood at the very bottom of the slope, near to the village, and looked southwards he would have seen an apparently empty, almost level plain. It was covered with wheat and grass. The horizon was dark with trees and jumbled because, beyond the plain, the country was rough and hard. If the man turned to his right he could see the village of Arapiles and, just beyond the village and so close to it that it seemed as if its rocks grew out of the small cottages, was a hill; the Teso San Miguel. Between the southern end of the ridge and the Teso San Miguel was a small valley, just two hundred yards wide at its narrowest point, and if a man were to walk up the valley’s centre, keeping the ridge to his right and the Teso San Miguel to his left, then he could see straight ahead of him, four miles to the north, the big tower of Salamanca’s New Cathedral. If the small valley were wreathed in cannon smoke, silted with musket smoke, then a man might be grateful for that landmark.
In the east was the escarpment, then the wide valley, then the high ridge which smelt of thyme and lavender and was pretty with cabbage white butterflies, and then the small valley, and then the Teso San Miguel with Arapiles at its foot, and beyond the village and the small hill the plain stretched to the west. Yet none of those things were strange in this landscape. Sharpe stood his horse at the southern end of the ridge, and his soldier’s mind took in the escarpment, the valleys, and the village, but his wonder was at the plain that stretched away to the treeline to the south. The plain, which was pale with ripening wheat, was like a great sea that lapped against the escarpment, ridge and Teso San Miguel, and in the sea were two strange islands. Two hills, and to a soldier the two hills were the key to the plain.
The first hill was small, but high. And, being small and high, it was steep, too steep for the growing of crops and so it had been left for the sheep, the rabbits, the scorpions that lived in the rocks that littered the slopes, and the hawks that nested on its flat summit. The small hill lay just to the south of the ridge, so close that the valley between them was like a saddle. From the air the ridge and the small hill would look like an exclamation mark.
If a stork flew directly south from its nest on Salamanca’s New Cathedral, over the river, and on into the farmland, it would cross the small hill. And if it still flew south, into the great plain, it would cross the second hill just three quarters of a mile from the first. This hill was truly isolated in the wheat. It was bigger than the first, but lower, and it was like a flat-topped slab that lay, like a dash, beneath the exclamation mark. It was as steep as the first hill, just as flat-topped, and the hawks and ravens lived there undisturbed for no man had a good reason to climb the steep sides, no reason unless he had a gun. Then he would have every reason for no infantry could hope to dislodge a force that was on the flat hill-top that stood like a great gun platform in the sea of wheat. The two hills were called by the villagers ‘los Hermanitos’, which means ‘the little brothers’. Their proper name was taken from the village itself. They were the Arapiles; the Lesser Arapile and, out in the plain, the Greater Arapile.
When God made the world he made the big plain just for the cavalry. It was firm, or would be when the sun had dried off the night’s rain, and it was mostly level. The sabres could fall like scythes in the corn. The Arapiles, Greater and Lesser, God made for the gunners. From their summits, conveniently made flat so that the artillery could have a stable platform, the guns could dominate the plain. God had made nothing for the infantry, except a soil easily dug into graves, but the infantry were used to that.
All that Sharpe saw in a few seconds, because it was his trade to see ground and understand its use for killing men, and he knew, too, that if he had deceived La Marquesa then this would be the killing ground. Some men had already died here. In the wide valley between the British ridge and the French escarpment, Riflemen were fighting a desultory battle with French skirmishers. The Rifles had pushed the enemy back to the very crest of the escarpment, killing a handful, but no one was taking that battle very seriously. The second outbreak of fighting was serious. Portuguese troops had been sent to take the Greater Arapile, out in the plain, and the French infantry raced them to its summit, then poured musket fire down the precipitous slope and so the Portuguese had failed. The French had taken one of the two gun platforms that dominated the killing ground and already Sharpe could see French cannon on its summit. Two British guns sat silent on the Lesser Arapile. Their crews let their uniforms dry off from the night’s rain and they wondered what the day would bring. Probably, they thought, another desperate, scrambling march to get away from the French. They wanted to fight, but too many days of this campaign had ended in despondent retreat.
He rode close to the small farmhouse that was built at the southern end of the ridge crest. It was busy with staffofficers and Sharpe stopped the horse and slid uncomfortably to the ground. A voice made him turn round. “Richard! Richard!”
Hogan walked towards him with his arms outstretched, almost as if he wanted to embrace Sharpe. The Major stopped, shook his head. “I never thought to see you again.” He took Sharpe’s hand and pumped it up and down. “Back from the dead! You look better. How is the wound?”
“The doctors say a month, sir.”
Hogan beamed in delight. “I thought you were dead! And when we took you from that cellar.” He shook his head. „How do you feel?“
“Half strong.” Sharpe was embarrased by Hogan’s pleasure. “And you, sir?”
“I’m well. It is good to see you, it is.” He looked at the horse and his eyes widened in surprise. “You’ve come into money?”
“It’s a gift, sir.”
Hogan, who loved horses, peeled back the stallion’s lips to look at its teeth. He felt its legs, its stomach, and his voice was filled with admiration. “He’s a beauty. A gift?”
“From La Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba.”
“Oh.” Hogan reddened. “Ah.” He patted the stallion’s neck, glanced at Sharpe. “I’m sorry about that, Richard.”
“Why? I suppose I made a fool of myself.”
“I wish I could with her.” Hogan grinned. “Did you tell her?”
“Yes.”
“And she believed you?”
“Yes.”
Hogan sm
iled. “Good, good.” He could not resist his pleasure. He danced a few ludicrous jig steps on the grass and beamed at Sharpe. “Oh good! We must tell the Peer. Have you had breakfast?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then have more! I’ll have my servant stable your horse.” He stopped and looked at Sharpe. “Was it hard?”
“Yes.”
Hogan shrugged. “I’m sorry. But if it works, Richard…‘
“I know.”
If it worked there would be a battle. The great drying plain south of the village, around the hills, would become a killing ground, spawned in a dark night of thunder, betrayal, and love. Sharpe went for more breakfast.
Chapter 20
The sun rose higher, its heat stronger, and it dried the killing ground and baked the rocks till they could not be touched. It hazed the horizon and made the air shimmer above the flat rock summits of the two Arapile hills. The gunners spat on the barrels of their cannon and watched the spittle hiss and boil away, and that was before the guns fired. Insects were busy in the grass and wheat, butterflies flickered above the poppies and cornflowers, and the last ragged clouds of the rainstorm died and disappeared. The land crouched beneath the heat and it was seemingly empty. From the ridge or the escarpment, from any of the hills, a man could not see more than one hundredth of the hundred thousand men who had gathered at the Arapiles that day. Wednesday, July 22nd, 1812.
Auguste Marmont was thirty-six years old. He was Duke of Ragusa, which meant little to him compared with being the youngest Marshal of France, and he was impatient. The Englishman, Wellington, had beaten every French General who had opposed him, but he had not beaten Marmont, nor would he. Auguste Marmont, son of an ironmaster, had outmanoeuvred the Englishman, outmarched him, and all that had to be done now was to outrun him to Portugal. Yet now, as the morning came towards its end, he was uncertain.
He rode his horse to the rear of the Greater Arapile, dismounted, and climbed the steep slope on foot. He used the wheel of a cannon for his telescope rest and he stared long and hard at the Lesser Arapile, at the village, and at the farm buildings at the southern end of the ridge. Other officers were using their glasses and one of them, a staff officer, pointed at the farm on the ridge. “There, sir.”
Marmont squinted as the sun flashed off the brass of his telescope, trained it, and there, clear in the lens’ circle, was a man in a long blue coat, grey trousers, and a plain dark hat. Marmont grunted. Wellington was on the ridge. “So what’s he doing?”
“Lunch, sir?” The staffofficers laughed.
Marmont frowned at the hint. “Going or staying?”
No one answered. Marmont panned the telescope to his left and saw two British guns on the Lesser Arapile and then more guns, perhaps four, on the hill behind the village. That was not many guns and he did not fear them. He straightened up from his glass and stared westward. “How’s the ground?”
‘Dry, sir.“
The plain stretched invitingly to the west. It was empty; a great golden road that might take him ahead of Wellington. Marmont itched to be moving, to be outmarching the British so he could block the road and win the victory that would tell France, Europe, the world, that Auguste Marmont had destroyed Britain’s army. He could taste that victory already. He would choose the battlefield, he would force the red-jacketed infantry to attack up some impossible slope that he would have lined with his beloved artillery, and he could already see the roundshot and canister flailing at the hopeless British lines. Yet now, on the Greater Arapile, he could feel doubt in his mind. He could see redcoats in the village, guns on the hills, but were they just a rearguard, or something more? “Is he going or staying?”
No one answered. A Marshal of France was a fine fellow, second only to the Emperor, and he wore the dark blue uniform edged with golden leaves, and his collar and shoulders were heavy with gilt decorations. A Marshal of France was given privileges, riches, and honour, but they had to be earned by answering the difficult questions. Was he going or staying?
Marmont stumped about the top of the Greater Arapile. He was thinking. His boots were tight and that annoyed him, any man who took one hundred and fifty pairs of boots to war was entitled to find a pair that fitted. He pulled his mind back to the British. Surely they were marching? Wellington had not offered battle in a month, so why should he on this day? And why should Wellington wait? Marmont went back to the gun and peered again through the telescope. He could see the unadorned figure of his enemy talking to a tall man in the green jacket of a Rifleman. The Rifles. Britain’s light troops. Fast marchers, even faster than the French. Suppose Wellington had left his Light Division at this village? Suppose that the rest of the army was already on the road, marching west, escaping the vengeance of the French Gribeauval guns? Marmont put himself in his enemy’s place. He would want to steal this day’s march. He would want the French to stay here, thinking that the British army threatened them, and how would he do that? He would leave his finest troops at the village, stay himself, because if the General is present, then the enemy assumes the army is present, and still Marmont knew he had to make a decision. Damn these boots!
To do something was better than doing nothing. He turned to his staff officers and ordered an attack on the village itself. It was, he knew, a holding move. It would discourage the British rearguard from venturing onto the plain and it would form a screen behind which he could march west; yet he knew he still had to make the decision, the big choice, and he was frightened of it. His servant was spreading a linen tablecloth on the grass, setting it with the silver cutlery that travelled everywhere with the Marshal and his one hundred and fifty pairs of boots, and Marmont decided the war would have to wait till after an early lunch. He rubbed his hands together. “Cold duck! Excellent, excellent!”
A horseman rode down the southern slope of the escarpment, past the troops that waited for the orders that would send them west or keep them waiting for a day. His horse splashed through a shallow ford, past an ancient footbridge that spanned the stream with flat stone slabs, and then he spurred towards the strange Arapile hill where he had been told Marmont waited. He carried a letter in his sabretache. He put the horse at the slope, urged it as high as it could climb, and then he dismounted, threw the reins to an infantryman, and scrambled up the last few steep feet. He ran to the Marshal, saluted, and handed over the folded, sealed paper.
Marmont smiled when he saw the wax seal. He knew that seal, knew it could be trusted, and he tore the paper open and called for Major Berthon. “Decode it. Quick!”
He looked again at the enemy held hills. If only he could see what was on the far side! And maybe the letter would tell him, or maybe, his thoughts became pessimistic, it was merely some piece of political news, or a report on Wellington’s health, and he fretted while Berthon worked at the numbers written on the paper. Marmont pretended to be calm. He offered the cavalryman who had brought the message on the last lap of its journey some wine. He complimented him on his uniform, and then, at last, Berthon brought him the paper. “The British march west today. A single Division remains to persuade you that they plan to fight for Salamanca. They are in a great hurry and fear to be overtaken.”
He had known it! The message merely confirmed his instinct, but he had known it! And then, as if in confirmation of his sudden certainty, he saw the tell-tale plume of dust that was rising in the western sky. They were marching! And he would overtake them! He tore La Marquesa’s note into shreds of paper, finer and finer, and he scattered them on the hilltop and he grinned at his officers. “We’ve got him, gentlemen! At last, we’ve got him!”
Five miles away the British Third Division, which had been left to screen Salamanca on the north bank of the Tormes, marched through the city and across the Roman bridge. It was an uncomfortable march. The citizens of Salamanca jeered them, accused them of running away, and the officers and sergeants kept a tight rein on their men. They marched beneath the small fortress on the bridge and turned right onto the Ciudad Rod
rigo road. Out of sight of the city they turned off the road, to their left, and went further south till they had reached a village called Aldea Tejada. They were close now to the great wheat plain that could yet become a killing ground.
It took the Third Division more than two hours to march past a single point on the road. The men were tired, dispirited at a further retreat, and ashamed that they were deserting the city. Some of them, in their tiredness, dragged their feet. The dust began to move. The road had dried and the dust rose, was stirred, and the air over the Ciudad Rodrigo road was misted with fine, white powder. The army’s baggage, sent ahead in case the British did have to retreat, added to the mist that smeared the western horizon.
Marmont had the message, had seen the dust, and now his tight boots were forgotten. He would have his victory!
There was no such elation on the British ridge. The waiting had made Wellington’s officers irritable. Sharpe had slept for a while, for he had had little rest the previous night, and now he stared at the great plain and it was empty beneath the hawks that slid against the steel-blue sky. There was no sign that Marmont had extended his left, that he had fallen into the trap, and Sharpe knew it must be past midday. He had been woken by the cannons firing on the French attack on the village. He had watched for a while as the British roundshot ploughed through the ranks of the enemy Battalions, as the skirmishers met for their private war in the wheat stalks, but the French attack was stopped at the village’s outskirts. Marmont did have one success. His guns on the Greater Arapile drove the British guns off the summit of the Lesser Arapile. Sharpe watched the gunners, helped by infantry, manhandle the great weapons down the steep slope. Round one to France.
The French attack was not heavy. About five thousand men had come from behind the Greater Arapile and advanced on the village. Sharpe could hear the sharper sound of the Baker Rifles from the plain and he knew that the French skirmishers would be cursing the British Riflemen, that Voltigeurs would be dying in the wheat, and it all seemed so far away, like a child’s battle with toy soldiers seen from an upstairs window. The blue uniforms came forward, stopped, and the white smoke rills showed where the musket volleys were fired, puffs showed where shrapnel burst over the enemy, and the sound would come seconds after the smoke appeared.
Sharpe 3-Book Collection 5: Sharpe's Company, Sharpe's Sword, Sharpe's Enemy Page 49