“She didn’t dance?” Sharpe asked.
“She’s a widow. How could she? It is too soon. She told me her husband has only been dead for three months.” Galiana paused, evidently remembering Caterina riding on the beach where her dress and demeanor had been anything but bereaved. He decided to say nothing of that. “She was most gracious to me,” he said instead. “I like her.”
“She’s very likable,” Sharpe said.
“Your brigadier was also there,” Galiana said.
“Moon? He’s not my brigadier,” Sharpe said, “and I don’t suppose he was dancing either.”
“He was on crutches,” Galiana said, “and he gave me orders.”
“You! He can’t give you orders!” Sharpe spun a stone into the water, hoping it would skip across the small waves, but it sank instantly. “I hope you told him to go to hell and stay there.”
“These orders,” Galiana said, taking a piece of paper from his uniform pocket and handing it to Sharpe to whom, surprisingly, the orders were addressed. The paper was a dance card and the words had been carelessly scrawled in pencil. Captain Sharpe and the men under his command were to post themselves at the Rio Sancti Petri until further orders or until the forces presently under the command of Lieutenant General Graham were safely returned to the Isla de León. Sharpe read the scrawled note a second time. “I’m not sure Brigadier Moon can give me orders,” he said.
“He did, though,” Captain Galiana said, “and I, of course, will come with you.”
Sharpe returned the dance card. He said nothing, just skimmed another stone that managed one bounce before vanishing. Grazing, it was called. A good artilleryman knew how to skip cannon balls along the ground to increase their effective range. The balls grazed, kicking up dust, coming flat and hard and bloody.
“It is a precaution,” Galiana said, folding the card.
“Against what?”
Galiana selected a stone, threw it fast and low, and watched as it skipped a dozen times. “General Zayas is at the bridge across the Sancti Petri,” he said, “with four battalions. He has orders to stop anyone from the city crossing the river.”
“You told me,” Sharpe said, “but why stop you?”
“Because there are folk in the city,” Galiana explained, “who are anfrancesado. You know what that is?”
“They’re on the French side.”
Galiana nodded. “And some, alas, are officers in the garrison. General Zayas has orders to stop such men offering their services to the enemy.”
“Let the buggers go,” Sharpe said. “Have fewer mouths to feed.”
“But he won’t stop British troops.”
“You told me that, too, and I said I’d help you. So why the hell do you need orders from bloody Moon?”
“In my army, Captain,” Galiana said, “a man cannot just take it upon himself to do whatever he wants. He requires orders. You now have orders. So, you can take me over the river and I shall find our army.”
“And you?” Sharpe asked. “Do you have orders?”
“Me?” Galiana seemed surprised at the question, then paused because one of the great French mortars had fired from the forts on the Trocadero. The sound came flat and dull across the bay and Sharpe waited to see where the shell would fall, but he heard no explosion. The missile must have plunged into the sea. “I have no orders,” Galiana admitted.
“Then why are you going?”
“Because the French have to be beaten,” Galiana said with a sudden vehemence. “Spain must free herself! We must fight! But I am like your brigadier, like the widow—I cannot join the dance. General Lapeña hated my father and he detests me and he does not want me to distinguish myself, so I am left behind. But I will not be left behind. I will fight for Spain.” The grandiosity of his last words were touched by passion.
Sharpe watched the cloud of smoke left by the mortar’s firing drift and dissipate across the distant marshes. He tried to imagine himself saying he would fight for Britain in that same heartfelt tone, and could not. He fought because it was all he was good for, and because he was good at it, and because he had a duty to his men. Then he thought of those riflemen. They would be unhappy at being ordered away from the taverns of San Fernando, and so they should be. But they would follow orders. “I”—he began and immediately fell silent.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Sharpe said. He had been about to say that he could not order his riflemen into a battle that was none of their business. Sharpe would fight if he saw Vandal, but that was personal, but his riflemen had no ax to grind and their battalion was miles away, and it was all too complicated to explain to Galiana. Besides, it was unlikely that Sharpe would travel to the army with Galiana. He might take the Spaniard across the river, but unless the allied army was within sight Sharpe would have to bring his men back. The Spaniard could ride across country to find Lapeña, but Sharpe and his men would not have the luxury of horses. “Did you tell Moon all that?” he asked. “About you wanting to fight?”
“I told him I wanted to join General Lapeña’s army and that if I traveled with British troops then Zayas would not stop me.”
“And he just wrote the orders?”
“He was reluctant to,” Galiana admitted, “but he wanted something from me, so he agreed to my request.”
“He wanted something from you,” Sharpe said, then smiled as he realized just what that something must have been. “So you introduced him to the widow?”
“Exactly.”
“And he’s a rich man,” Sharpe said, “very rich.” He skimmed another stone and thought that Caterina would skin the brigadier alive.
SIR THOMAS Graham discovered General Lapeña in an uncharacteristically cheerful mood. The Spanish commander had taken a farmhouse for his headquarters and, because the winter’s day was sunny and because the house sheltered the yard from the north wind, Lapeña was taking lunch at a table outside. He shared the table with three of his aides and with the French captain who had been captured on the way to Vejer. The five men had been served dishes of bread and beans, cheese and dark ham, and had a stone jug of red wine. “Sir Thomas!” Lapeña seemed pleased to see him. “You will join us, perhaps?” He spoke in French. He knew Sir Thomas could speak Spanish, but he preferred to use French. It was, after all, the language with which European gentlemen communicated.
“Conil!” Sir Thomas was so angry that he did not bother to show courtesy. He slid from his saddle and tossed the reins to an orderly. “You want to march to Conil?” he said accusingly.
“Ah, Conil!” Lapeña clicked his fingers at a servant and indicated that he wanted another chair brought from the farmhouse. “I had a sergeant from Conil,” he said. “He used to talk of the sardine catch. Such bounty!”
“Why Conil? You’re hungry for sardines?”
Lapeña looked sadly at Sir Thomas. “You have not met Captain Brouard? He has, of course, given us his parole.” The captain, wearing his French blue and with a sword at his side, was a thin, tall man with an intelligent face. He had watery eyes, half hidden behind thick spectacles. He stood on being introduced and offered Sir Thomas a bow.
Sir Thomas ignored him. “What is the purpose,” he asked, resting his hands on the table so that he leaned toward Lapeña, “in marching on Conil?”
“Ah, the chicken!” Lapeña smiled as a woman brought a roasted chicken from the farmhouse and placed it on the table. “Garay, you will carve?”
“Allow me the honor, Excellency,” Brouard offered.
“The honor is all ours, Captain,” Lapeña said, and ceremoniously handed the Frenchman the carving knife and a long fork.
“We hired ships,” Sir Thomas growled, ignoring the chair that had been placed next to Lapeña’s place at the table, “and we waited for the fleet to assemble. We waited for the wind to be in our favor. We sailed south. We landed at Tarifa because that gave us the ability to reach the rear of the French positions. Now we march to Conil? For God’s sake, why did we bother
with the fleet at all? Why didn’t we just cross the Rio Sancti Petri and march straight to Conil? It would have taken a short day and we wouldn’t have needed a single ship!”
Lapeña’s aides stared resentfully at Sir Thomas. Brouard pretended to ignore the conversation, concentrating instead on carving the fowl, which he did with an admirable dexterity. He had jointed the carcass and now cut perfect slice after perfect slice.
“Things change,” Lapeña said vaguely.
“What has changed?” Sir Thomas demanded.
Lapeña sighed. He hooked a finger at an aide who at last understood that his master wished to see a map. Dishes were put aside as the map was unfolded onto the table and Sir Thomas noted that the map was a good deal better than the ones the Spanish had supplied to him.
“We are here,” Lapeña said, placing a bean just north of Vejer, “and the enemy are here,” he put another bean on Chiclana, “and we have three roads by which we may approach the enemy. The first, and longest, is to the east, through Medina Sidonia.” Another bean served to mark the town. “But we know the French have a garrison there. Is that not right, monsieur?” he appealed to Brouard.
“A formidable garrison,” Brouard said, separating the drumstick from the carcass with a surgeon’s skill.
“So we shall find ourselves between Marshal Victor’s army here”—Lapeña touched the bean marking Chiclana—“and the garrison here.” He indicated Medina Sidonia. “We can avoid the garrison, Sir Thomas, by taking the second road. That goes north from here and will approach Chiclana from the south. It is a bad road. It is not direct. It climbs into these hills”—his forefinger tapped some hatch marks—“and the French will have picquets there. Is that not so, monsieur?”
“Many picquets,” Brouard said, easing out the wishbone. “You should inform your chef, mon général, that if he removes the wishbone before cooking the bird, the carving will be made easier.”
“How good to know that,” Lapeña said, then looked back to Sir Thomas. “The picquets will apprise Marshal Victor of our approach so he will be ready for us. He will confront us with numbers superior to our own. In all conscience, Sir Thomas, I cannot use that road, not if we are to gain the victory we both pray for. But fortunately there is a third road, a road that goes along the sea. Here”—Lapeña paused, putting a fourth bean on the shoreline—“is a place called…” He hesitated, unsure what place the bean marked and finding no help from the map.
“Barrosa,” an aide said.
“Barrosa! It is called Barrosa. From there, Sir Thomas, there are tracks across the heath to Chiclana.”
“And the French will know we’re using them,” Sir Thomas said, “and they’ll be ready for us.”
“True!” Lapeña seemed pleased that Sir Thomas had understood such an elementary point. “But here, Sir Thomas”—his finger moved to the mouth of the Sancti Petri—“is General Zayas with a whole corps of men. If we march to…” He paused again.
“Barrosa,” the aide said.
“Barrosa,” Lapeña said energetically, “then we can combine with General Zayas. Together we shall outnumber the French! At Chiclana they have, what? Two divisions?” He put the question to Brouard.
“Three divisions,” the Frenchman confirmed, “the last I heard.”
“Three!” Lapeña sounded alarmed, then waved a hand as if dismissing the news. “Two? Three? What does it matter? We shall assail them from the flank!” Lapeña said. “We shall come at them from the west, we shall destroy them, and we shall gain a great victory. Forgive my enthusiasm, Captain,” he added to Brouard.
“You trust him?” Sir Thomas asked Lapeña, jerking his head at the Frenchman.
“He is a gentleman!”
“So was Pontius Pilate,” Sir Thomas said. He thrust a big finger down onto the shoreline. “Use that road,” he said, “and you place our army between the French and the sea. Marshal Victor is not going to wait at Chiclana. He’s going to come for us. You want to see your men drowning in the surf?”
“So what do you suggest?” Lapeña asked icily.
“March to Medina Sidonia,” Sir Thomas said, “and either crush the garrison”—he paused to eat the bean denoting that town—“or let them rot behind their walls. Attack the siege lines. Force Victor to march to us instead of us marching to him.”
Lapeña looked wonderingly at Sir Thomas. “I admire you,” he said after a pause, “I truly do. Your avidity, Sir Thomas, is an inspiration to us all.” His aides nodded solemn agreement, and even Captain Brouard gave a polite inclination of his head. “But permit me to explain myself,” Lapeña went on. “The French army, you will agree, is here.” He had taken a handful of the beans and now arrayed them in crescent about the Bay of Cádiz, running from Chiclana in the south, around the siege lines, and finishing at the three great forts on the Trocadero marshes. “If we attack from here”—Lapeña tapped the road from Medina Sidonia—“then we assault the center of their lines. We shall doubtless make good progress, but the enemy will converge on us from both flanks. We shall run the risk of encirclement.” He held up a hand to stop Sir Thomas’s imminent protest.
“If we come from here,” Lapeña continued, this time indicating the southern road from Vejer, “we shall, of course, strike at Chiclana, but there will be nothing, Sir Thomas, absolutely nothing, to stop the French marching onto our right flank.” He scooped the beans into a small pile to show how the French might overwhelm his attack. “But from the east, from—” He hesitated.
“Barrosa, señor.”
“From Barrosa,” Lapeña went on, “we strike their flank. We hit them hard!” He smacked a fist into a palm to show the force with which he envisaged making the attack. “They will still try to march against us, of course, but now their men must get through the town! They will find that hard, and we shall be destroying Victor’s forces while his reinforcements still thread the streets. There! Do I convince you?” He smiled, but Sir Thomas said nothing. It was not that the Scotsman had nothing to say, but he was struggling to say it with even a hint of courtesy. “Besides,” Lapeña went on, “I command here, and it is my belief that the victory we both desire is best achieved by marching along the coast. We were not to know that when we embarked on the fleet, but it is the duty of a commander to be flexible, is it not?” He did not wait for a response, but instead tapped the empty chair. “Join us for some chicken, Sir Thomas. Lent starts on Wednesday, and then there’ll be no more chicken till Easter, eh? And Captain Brouard has carved the fowl superbly.”
“Bugger the fowl,” Sir Thomas said in English and turned to his horse.
Lapeña watched the Scotsman ride away. He shook his head but said nothing. Captain Brouard, meanwhile, reached over and crushed the bean at Barrosa with his thumb, then smeared the pulp down the shore so that it looked reddish against the map. Blood in the surf. “How very clumsy of me,” Brouard lamented. “I simply meant to remove it.”
Lapeña was unworried by the small mess. “It is a pity,” he said, “that God in his wisdom decreed that the English should be our allies. They are”—he paused—“so very uncomfortable.”
“They are blunt creatures,” Captain Brouard sympathized. “They lack the subtlety of the French and the Spanish races. Allow me to give Your Excellency some chicken? Does Your Excellency prefer breast?”
“You are right!” General Lapeña was delighted with the Frenchman’s insight. “No subtlety, Captain, no finesse, no”—he paused, seeking the word—“no grace. The breast. How very kind of you. I am obliged.”
And he was also determined. He would take the road that offered the shortest route home to Cádiz. He would march to Conil.
THERE WAS another argument in the afternoon. Lapeña wanted to march that night and Sir Thomas protested that they were close to the enemy now, and that the men should come to any encounter with the enemy fresh, not exhausted from a night groping through unfamiliar country. “Then we march this evening”—Lapeña generously yielded the point—“and bivou
ac at midnight. In the dawn, Sir Thomas, we shall be rested. We shall be ready.”
Yet midnight passed, as did the rest of the night, and at dawn they were still marching. The column had become lost again. The troops had stopped, rested, been woken, had marched, stopped again, countermarched, turned around, rested for a few uncomfortable minutes, been woken, and then retraced their footsteps. The men were laden with packs, haversacks, cartridge boxes, and weapons and, when they stopped, they dared not unbuckle their equipment for fear they would be hurried on at any moment. None rested properly so that by dawn they were exhausted. Sir Thomas spurred past his men, his horse kicking up small gouts of sandy soil as he looked for General Lapeña. The column had stopped again. The redcoats were sitting by the track and they looked resentfully at the general as though it were his fault that they had been given no rest.
General Lapeña and his aides were on a small wooded rise where a dozen civilians were arguing. The Spanish general nodded a distant greeting to Sir Thomas. “They are not sure of the way,” Lapeña said, indicating the civilians.
“Who are they?”
“Our guides, of course.”
“And they don’t know the way?”
“They do,” Lapeña said, “but they know different ways.” Lapeña smiled and shrugged as if to suggest such things were inevitable.
“Where’s the sea?” Sir Thomas demanded. The guides looked solemnly at Sir Thomas and then all pointed westward and agreed that the sea lay that way. “Which would make sense,” Sir Thomas said caustically, nodding toward the east where the sky was suffused with new light, “because the sun has a habit of rising in the east and the sea lies to the west, which means our route to Barrosa lies that way.” He pointed north.
Lapeña looked offended. “At night, Sir Thomas, there is no sun to guide us.”
“That’s what happens when you march at night!” Sir Thomas snarled. “You get lost.”
The march began again, now following tracks across an undulating heath dotted with pinewoods. The sea came into sight soon after the sun rose. The track led north above a long sandy beach where the surf broke and seethed before sliding back to meet the next crashing wave. Far out to sea a ship bore southward, only her topsails visible above the horizon. Sir Thomas, riding on the inland flank of his leading brigade, climbed a sandy hill and saw three watchtowers punctuating the coast ahead, relics of the days when Moorish pirates sailed from the Straits of Gibraltar to murder, rob, and enslave. “The nearest, Sir Thomas, is the tower at Puerco,” his liaison officer told him. “Beyond that is the tower of Barrosa, and the furthest is at Bermeja.”
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