Sharpe's Siege s-18

by Бернард Корнуэлл

  “So bloody Bampfylde’s right?” Frederickson uttered the suspicions that Sharpe feared to face.

  But Sharpe was wondering why the Comte de Maquerre had left most of the talking to the Mayor’s assistant. Aristocrats did not usually defer to bureaucrats. And why, if there were French troops on this road, even defeated French troops, had Maquerre been so confident as to wear his Chasseurs Britannique uniform?

  “I think they were lying,” Sharpe said, “and I’m not going near Bordeaux.”

  Sweet William shrugged. “Perhaps the war’s over, sir?”

  “Maybe.” A cold wind suddenly gusted over the scattered remnants of the French convoy. Tiny flames had been lit in the carriage lamps of the coach in which the two Frenchwomen were safely sheltered. “But we’ll still blow the goddamned bridge,” Sharpe said, “because no one’s told us not to.”

  It was almost dark when the small force of Riflemen and Marines was at last assembled in the river meadow. They were weighed down with plunder, with joints of the dead oxen, with captured wine illicitly stuffed into packs and with enemy weaponry that all soldiers delighted to keep, but inevitably threw away as soon as the marching became heavy and tedious. Most of the surviving French horses had been rounded up, bridled and were being used to carry packs or wounded men, among whom was Marine Matthew Robinson whose face looked as if it had received the full recoil of a twelve-pounder field-gun. The French prisoners, their braces and belts and bootlaces cut, had been released on the river’s far bank.

  Sharpe looked around for the last time. The captured quickfuse snaked from the explosives, past the toll-house, down the bank, through the rickety fence, and reached to the centre of the meadow. The townsfolk were far back, the prisoners a half mile up the road, and only the stupid oxen were close to the gunpowder. Sharpe nodded to Minver. “Light it.”

  Flint struck on steel, half-charred linen kindling was blown to life, and the flame was lowered to the fuse.

  “Wait! Wait!” A dozen Marines were shouting suddenly.

  Minver looked to Sharpe, who nodded, and the flame was blown out. Men were staring north-east, across the river, and in the twilight Sharpe saw a small slim figure, clothed in white, running frantically towards the bridge.

  It was the girl, green-eyed and slender, who had been scratched and punched when Robinson tried to rape her. Desperately, her skirts catching the sudden wind like moth-wings, she scrambled over the bridge’s parapet, past the powder, then jumped down into the meadow. She ran on, past Sharpe, past Frederickson’s Company who would form the rearguard, running to the man with the battered face who had forced her into the byre and torn at her clothes.

  “Jesus Christ,” Sharpe said. The girl was holding one of Robinson’s hands, staring up at him, speaking in fast French, but the expression on her face was one of adoration.

  Captain Palmer, as astonished as Sharpe, laughed. “Strange things, women.” He watched the girl pulling herself up to share Robinson’s saddle. “An unmarried girl, sir, wants nothing but a husband.”

  “And once she’s got one,” Sharpe said sourly, “she wants everything. It would have been better for both of them if I’d hanged the bastard.” He looked at Minver. “Light it, Lieutenant.”

  Flint struck steel again, the flame flickered to illuminate the fuse laying in the grass, then the powder caught, sparked, and fizzed its swift way towards the bridge.

  “March!” Sharpe turned to his heavily-laden force and pointed the way home. “March!”

  “It’s a hulk, sir.” Lieutenant Tom Martin, of the brig-sloop Cavalier, twisted his bicorne hat in both his hands.

  “A hulk?” Bampfylde frowned. They were in Commandant Lassan’s old quarters where, because of a lack of firewood, Bampfylde’s steward warmed his master with volumes taken at random from the shelves. The books were in French, which made them unreadable, so both the steward and his master considered that no great harm was being done.

  Martin dropped his hat and showed Captain Bampfylde where, on the chart, the Thuella had been found. The schooner was ashore at the end of the tidal creek that led to the village of Gujan. “She’s dismasted, sir, aground, and derelict.”

  “You fired at her?”

  “Aye, sir.” Martin, when at last the damned fog had cleared, had spotted the Thuella far across the shoals. The tide was low, and still falling, so the most he could do was fire at long range. Two or three shots had crashed into the Thuella’s timbers, but at that range, and with such small calibre guns as the Cavalier carried, the damage was slight.

  “Derelict, you say?” Bampfylde asked.

  “Bottomed, emptied, stripped, scorched, dismasted, and smoking.” Martin delivered the gloomy words in hope that they would be sufficient. The glass was falling ominously and all the experienced sailors wanted to be at sea before the storm struck, but if Captain Bampfylde believed that the Thuella was salvageable then he might be tempted to stay at Arcachon and God alone knew what damage a storm could wreak on a brig in these enclosed waters.

  “Smoking?”

  “Looked as if the Jonathons tried to fire her, sir. Must be damp wood, though, ’cos she hadn’t burned through.“

  “You could,” Bampfylde said sourly, “have sent a party to burn her properly, Mr Martin. That would have made sure of her.”

  “They’ve made a battery ashore, sir. Mounted all her guns to face the water.” Thomas Martin sensed that perhaps he should have informed Captain Bampfylde of that salient fact earlier. “They didn’t return fire, sir, but we saw them.”

  Damn Sharpe, Bampfylde thought. The Thuella existed, her crew had made themselves a fortress on land, and it would take two days to extirpate that nest of pirates. Bampfylde might not have the two days. The weather was surly, threatening a Biscay storm. For two days fog had shrouded the Bay, and now, when at last the fog lifted, all prudent seamen were advising Bampfylde to give his squadron sea-room. “Can they refloat her?”

  “No, sir. Looks to me as if they’ve ripped out what’s good and abandoned the rest.” Captain Cornelius Killick would have loved to hear that statement, for he had worked hard to give just that impression. He had careened the schooner hard over, streaked her timbers and copper with pitch to suggest scorch marks, and lit smoking fires of damp grass to suggest smouldering embers deep in an abandoned hold. “And they’ve cut away her figurehead,” Martin added hopefully.

  “Ah!” That nugget of information pleased Bampfylde. No sailor would take away a figurehead if a ship still had life in her. “It sounds as if she’s done for! And doubtless the storm will finish her off.”

  “Indeed, sir.” Martin, dismissed, shuffled from the room.

  The storm, not the Thuella, was Bampfylde’s chief worry. The still air was being stirred now by a strangely warm wind and every look at the weatherglass confirmed that the mercury shrank inside its four-foot tube. The continued existence of the American privateer, even if grounded and abandoned, was a nuisance, but it was palliated by Bampfylde’s success in having found two splendid French brigs that were both now his prizes and already on their way to England. The chasse-marees had gone south, the fort was garrisoned by Marines and, apart from the Americans, Captain Bampfylde could count his job well done. All that was needed now was for de Maquerre to confirm that Bordeaux was ready to surrender.

  But the Comte de Maquerre had not returned and Bampfylde dared not sail until the news from Bordeaux was received. If de Maquerre did not return till Thursday, then the storm would be on the flotilla and it would take seamanship of genius to claw off this shoaled coast.

  But at least, if he must wait till Thursday, Bampfylde could send the remaining Marines by longboat to attack the Americans across the Gujan shoals. That thought made Bampfylde frown. Palmer should have searched the village of Gujan, so where was the damned Captain of Marines? Captured? Lost in the fog? Damn the bloody man! Damn and damn again. Bampfylde stared at the chart. If the two brigs covered Killick’s land-battery with gunfire, then the Marines coul
d go in with powder barrels, pitch-blende, and Chinese lights to torch the Thuella down to charred ribs. If the weather held. If.

  He climbed to the ramparts of the Teste de Buch where warm rain came ominous and heavy to aggravate his fear. An east wind, he thought, would be best. That would take his ships well offshore to the wide seas where they would be safest in a hard blow, but a west wind would destroy him and no amount of boastful despatches would forgive a captain who lost his 74 on a lee shore. Bampfylde paused to stare northwards where tiny lights flickered in a village. If de Maquerre came in the morning then Bampfylde would leave a strong garrison in the fort, sail his flotilla out to weather the storm at sea, then return to lead the advance on a rebellious Bordeaux. The storm might delay that glorious moment for two days, but it would also finish off the wounded American schooner.

  Yet, in the ominous night of falling mercury, Captain Bampfylde’s hopes of glory were mercilessly dashed. Lieutenant Ford woke the captain at half past three. “Sir!”

  Bampfylde, struggling out of a dream, noticed that the wind was stronger, gusting as it had before the fog had come down. “What is it?”

  “The Comte de Maquerre, sir. With a man from the Mayor’s office in Bordeaux. They say their news is urgent.”

  Urgent or not, Bampfylde insisted on dressing properly, and it was a half hour before, in the finery of a naval captain, he greeted the two Frenchmen. Both Favier and de Maquerre showed the tiredness of men who had ridden good horses half to death, who were weary in every bone and soaked to the skin. Their news sent a shiver through Captain Bampfylde.

  “Major Sharpe is taken.” De Maquerre spoke first.

  “Taken?” Bampfylde could only repeat the word.

  “The Bonapartistes,” Favier picked up the tale, “knew of your coming here, Captain. A brigade was deployed. It was delayed, but it will be here by tomorrow midday.”

  “A brigade?” Bampfylde, who had gone to sleep congratulating himself on the coming success of this expedition, stared at the kindly faced Favier. „A French brigade?“

  Favier wondered what other kind this plump young man expected. “Naturally, monsieur. They have defeated Major Sharpe, the Marines who were with him, and now come to capture your good self.”

  Bampfylde was overwhelmed. “Marines?” He seemed only capable of snatching single words from the disastrous flood of news.

  “Marines, Captain,” Favier said sympathetically.

  So that was where Palmer had got to! Swanning off with the Rifles! Bampfylde made a note to tear out Captain Palmer’s guts and wrap them round his neck, except that Palmer was a prisoner now. Or dead. “Coming here? A brigade?”

  Favier nodded. “We warn you at some risk to ourselves, Captain. Bordeaux was in ferment, you understand, and our Mayor would support the return of King Louis, but alas!” Favier shrugged, “the tyrant’s heel is again upon our necks and we must, as ever, submit.”

  Bampfylde, as his daydreams of glory collapsed, stared at the Comte de Maquerre. “But you said Bordeaux had no fighting troops!”

  “They do now,” de Maquerre said grimly.

  “And Sharpe’s captured?” Bampfylde snatched at another scrap in the fuddling flood.

  “Or dead. There was appalling slaughter.” Favier frowned. “General Calvet’s men are veterans of Russia, Captain, and such fiends are pitiless. They think nothing of drinking their enemies’ blood. I could tell you stories,” Favier shrugged, as though the stories were too awful for a naval captain’s ears.

  “And they’re coming here?”

  “Indeed.” De Maquerre wondered how many times it must be said before this fool believed them. “By midday tomorrow.” He repeated the lie. He doubted; whether Calvet’s troops could reach Arcachon in the next forty-eight hours, but Ducos wanted Sharpe’s escape route cut, and the urgency of fear might hasten Bampfylde’s evacuation.

  Bampfylde stared aghast at the two Frenchmen. His hopes, fed by Colonel Wigram, of leading a successful landing that would lance into Bordeaux were evaporating, but for the moment Bampfylde had other, more pressing worries. He twisted round to tap the glass and the column of mercury sank perceptibly. “You’ll come with us, of course?”

  Jules Favier, a colonel in the French Army and one of Ducos’ most trusted men, felt a sudden leap of exultation. It had worked! “I cannot, monsieur. I have a family in Bordeaux. Should I leave, then I fear for their fate.”

  “Of course.” Bampfylde imagined warriors, hardened by the Russian carnage, slashing into the fortress.

  “I have no business here.” De Maquerre desperately wanted to stay in France, but Ducos had insisted he return to the British Army to leak news of whatever scheme replaced the landing at Arcachon. “So I will sail with you, Captain.”

  Bampfylde tapped the glass again as if to confirm the bad news. There would be a storm, a ship-killing storm, but this welter of news had severed his last need to stay at Arcachon. He looked at the Comte. “We leave on the morning tide.”

  Favier’s tiredness was suddenly washed away. Ducos’ daring scheme had been more successful than Favier had dared hope and, thanks to a growling wind and a falling glass, and thanks to some well-told lies, a Rifleman would be marooned in France, and the trap-jaws would clash home. On Sharpe.

  CHAPTER 12

  Jules Favier slept. It no longer mattered whether Sharpe was turned back towards Bordeaux or continued on to the coast; either way the Rifleman was stranded and the British plan to end the war by a killing stroke into the belly of France was defeated.

  A wind rose as Favier slept. It shrieked over the ramparts, dying sometimes to a low moan, then gusting again to a fearsome frenzy. The waters of the channel, normally too enclosed to be stirred by anything other than a fretting tide, were whipped to whitecaps in the dawn’s first light. The flotilla’s smaller craft snubbed at their anchors while, out beyond the Cape, the Vengeance’s great bellying bows shuddered through the waters in towering, wind-lashed sprays of white.

  Boat after boat rowed into the channel. Supplies were taken from the fort, stripping it of food and wine. Two Marines were sent to corrall a cow, which they did with difficulty, and the poor beast was prodded back to the fort where it was shot, messily butchered, and the bloody cuts of its carcass were crammed into barrels for seamen’s meat. The flagpole was cut down, and the Marines and sailors were ordered to use the garrison’s deep well as a latrine so that the brackish water would be fouled. Two seamen, hulking men with muscles hardened by years of service, took axes to the fort’s main gates and reduced them to splintered baulks that were then fired. The drawbridge was hauled up close to the burning gates so that it too would be reduced to ashes.

  The Vengeance’s sailing-master, one eye on the glass and the other on the low scurrying clouds that sometimes spat heavy rain on to the burning timbers of the gate, counselled speed, but Bampfylde was determined to do this task properly. The Comte de Maquerre’s news meant that no landing could be made at Arcachon; therefore the fort would be abandoned, but not before it had been made untenable for the French. The Teste de Buch would be slighted.

  Men were ordered to the ramparts where they hammered iron spikes into the touch-holes of the huge thirty-six pounder guns. The spikes were sawn through and filed flat so that no pincers could gain sufficient purchase to draw them free. Teams of seamen, using tackles, blocks and ropes from the Cavalier, eased the vast gun barrels from their slides and tipped them, in tumbling crashes, into the channel. The twenty-four pounders, like the six field guns that should have been delivered to Baltimore, were likewise spiked, turned off their carriages, and jettisoned into the flooded ditch. The twelve-pounder carriages were rammed into the burning gate, then Chinese Lights, signalling confections of nitre, sulphur, antimony and orpiment, were tossed among the carriages to encourage the blaze.

  Those Marines who had remained at the Teste de Buch were the first men to leave the slighted fortress. They were rowed to the brig and, on their way, tipped muskets from the fo
rt’s armoury into the corroding seawater. The Comte de Maquerre, after an emotional farewell to the newly woken Favier, went to the Scylla.

  By ten in the morning only a handful of sailors were left ashore. Quickfuses were laid into the fort’s magazines, while another was taken to a stack of powder barrels that had been piled in the kitchens beneath the barracks block. The spare rifle ammunition, left by Sharpe to await his return, was piled on to that stack. Jules Favier, who had taken his horse safely beyond the drawbridge before the destruction began, shook Bampfylde’s hand. “God save King George, Captain.”

  “God bless King Louis.”

  Favier used a naval ladder to descend the western battlements, then picked his way through the sand to where his horse was tethered. He waved a last time to Captain Bampfylde who, surrounded by his acolytes, walked to his waiting boat. A lieutenant paused, turned at the fuse’s end, and Favier saw the snap of light as flint struck steel.

  There was a pause as fire ate up the worsted quick-match that had been soaked with a liquid solution of mealed powder, spirits of wine, and isinglass. Bampfylde was being rowed through choppy waves towards the Cavalier. Spits of rain pitted the sand while gulls, wheeling effortlessly, rode the strong wind that blew from the hills towards the sea. Favier mounted his horse.

  The quick-match, hissing sparks, darted into an embrasure of the Teste de Buch. The first brig had hoisted its anchor and was already, under sails blown to a flat hardness, beating towards the channel’s mouth. The Scylla, Amelie, and Vengeance, sails reefed, were already hull down.

  Captain Bampfylde climbed the Cavalier’s tumblehome. The brig’s sidesmen twittered their pipes, the anchor was lifted, and Lieutenant Martin ordered sheets hauled tight. He was to take Captain Bampfylde to the Vengeance and it would be a pretty piece of seamanship to transfer the captain in this weather.

  Bampfylde, grinning with anticipation like a raw midshipman, stood at the rail of the Cavalier’s small quarterdeck. “It should be a picture, Ford!”