Sharpe's Battle s-12

by Бернард Корнуэлл

  Sharpe again felt a pang at the injustice of the solution. "Suppose Runciman wants to call me as a witness?" he asked. "I won't lie. I like the man."

  "You have perverse tastes. Runciman won't call you, no one will call you. I'll make sure of that. This court of inquiry isn't supposed to establish the truth, Richard, but to ease Wellington and me off a painful hook that is presently inserted deep into our joint fundament." Hogan grinned, then turned and walked away. "I'll send you some picks and shovels to bury the dead," he called in callous farewell.

  "You couldn't send us what we needed, could you?" Sharpe shouted after the Major in bitterness. "But you can find bloody shovels fast enough."

  "I'm a miracle worker, that's why! Come and have lunch with me tomorrow!"

  The smell of the dead was already rank in the fort. Carrion birds wheeled overhead or perched on the crumbling ramparts. There were a few entrenching tools in the fort already and Sharpe ordered the Real Companпa Irlandesa to start digging a long trench for a grave. He made his own riflemen join the diggers. The greenjackets grumbled that such labouring was beneath their dignity as elite troops, but Sharpe insisted. "We do it because they're doing it," he told his unhappy men, jerking his thumb towards the Irish guardsmen. Sharpe even took a hand himself, stripping to the waist and wielding a pickaxe as though it was an instrument of vengeance. He slammed the point repeatedly into the hard, rocky soil, wrenched it loose and swung again until the sweat poured off him.

  "Sharpe?" A sad Colonel Runciman, mounted on his big horse, peered down at the sweating, bare-backed rifleman. "Is that really you, Sharpe?"

  Sharpe straightened and pushed the hair out of his eyes. "Yes, General. It's me."

  "You were flogged?" Runciman was staring aghast at the thick scars on Sharpe's back.

  "In India, General, for something I didn't do."

  "You shouldn't be digging now! It's beneath an officer's dignity to dig, Sharpe. You must learn to behave as an officer."

  Sharpe wiped the sweat off his face. "I like digging, General. It's honest work. I always fancied that one day I might have a farm. Just a small one, but with nothing but honest work to do from sun-up to lights-out. Are you here to say goodbye?"

  Runciman nodded. "You know there's going to be a court of inquiry?"

  "I heard, sir."

  "They need someone to blame, I suppose," Runciman said. "General Valverde says someone should hang for this." Runciman fidgeted with his reins, then turned in his saddle to stare at the Spanish General who was a hundred paces away and deep in conversation with Lord Kiely. Kiely seemed to be doing most of the talking, gesticulating wildly, but also pointing towards Sharpe every few seconds. "You don't think they'll hang me, do you, Sharpe?" Runciman asked. He seemed very close to tears.

  "They won't hang you, General," Sharpe said.

  "But it'll mean disgrace all the same," Runciman said, sounding broken-hearted.

  "So fight back," Sharpe said.

  "How?"

  "Tell them you ordered me to warn Oliveira. Which I did."

  Runciman frowned. "But I didn't order you to do that, Sharpe."

  "So? They won't know that, sir."

  "I can't tell a lie!" Runciman said, shocked at the thought.

  "It's your honour that's at stake, sir, and there'll be enough bastards telling lies about you."

  "I won't tell lies," Runciman insisted.

  "Then bend the truth, for God's sake, sir. Tell them how you had to play tricks to get some decent muskets, and if it hadn't been for those muskets then no one would have lived last night! Play the hero, sir, make the bastards wriggle!"

  Runciman shook his head slowly. "I'm not a hero, Sharpe. I'd like to think there's a valued contribution I can make to the army, as my dear father made to the church, but I'm not sure I've found my real calling yet. But I can't pretend to be what I'm not." He took off his cocked hat to wipe his brow. "I just came to say goodbye."

  "Good luck, sir."

  Runciman smiled ruefully. "I never had that, Sharpe, never. Except in my parents. I was lucky in my dear parents and in being blessed with a healthy appetite. But otherwise…?" He shrugged as though the question was unanswerable, put his hat on again and then, with a forlorn wave, turned and rode to join Hogan. Two ox-drawn wagons had come to the fort with spades and picks and as soon as the tools were unloaded Father Sarsfield commandeered the two vehicles so that the wounded could be carried to doctors and hospitals.

  Hogan waved goodbye to Sharpe and led the wagons out of the fort. The surviving caзadores followed, marching beneath their flags. Lord Kiely said nothing to his men, but just rode southwards. Juanita, who had not shown her face outside the gatehouse all morning, rode beside him with her dogs running behind. General Valverde touched his hat to greet Juanita, then pulled his reins sharply around and spurred his horse across the fire-blackened grass of the fort's yard until he came to where Sharpe was digging. "Captain Sharpe?" he said.

  "General?" Sharpe had to shade his eyes to look up at the tall, thin, yellow-uniformed man in his high saddle.

  "What reason did General Loup have for his attack last night?"

  "You must ask him, General," Sharpe said.

  Valverde smiled. "Maybe I shall. Now back to your digging, Captain. Or should it be Lieutenant?" Valverde waited for an answer, but when none came he turned his horse and rammed his spurs hard back.

  "What was all that about?" Harper asked.

  "God knows," Sharpe said, watching the elegant Spaniard gallop to catch up with the wagons and the other horsemen. Except he did know, and he knew it meant trouble. He swore, then plucked the pick out of the soil and rammed it hard down again. A spark flew from a scrap of flint as the pick's spike slashed deep. Sharpe let go of the handle. "But I'll tell you what I do know, Pat. Everyone loses out of last night's business except goddamned Loup, and Loup's still out there and that gives me the gripe."

  "So what can you do about it, sir?"

  "At this moment, Pat, nothing. I don't even know where to find the bastard."

  Then El Castrador arrived.

  "El Lobo is in San Cristobal, seсor," El Castrador said. The partisan had come with five of his men to collect the muskets Sharpe had promised him. The Spaniard claimed he needed a hundred weapons, though Sharpe doubted whether the man had even a dozen followers any more, yet doubtless any extra guns would be sold for a healthy profit. Sharpe gave El Castrador thirty of the muskets he had stored overnight in Runciman's quarters.

  "I cannot spare more," he had told El Castrador, who had shrugged acceptance in the manner of a man accustomed to disappointments.

  Now El Castrador was poking among the Portuguese dead, searching for plunder. He picked up a rifle horn, turned it over and saw it had been holed by a bullet. He nevertheless wrenched off the horn's metal spout and shoved it into a capacious pocket of his bloodstained apron. "El Lobo is in San Cristobal," he said again.

  "How do you know?" Sharpe asked.

  "I am El Castrador!" the gross man said boastfully, then squatted beside a blackening corpse. He prised open the dead man's jaws with his big fingers. "Is it true, seсor, that you can sell the teeth of the dead?"

  "In London, yes."

  "For gold?"

  "They pay gold, yes. Or silver," Sharpe said. The plundered teeth were made into sets of dentures for rich clients who wanted something better than replacement teeth made from bone or ivory.

  El Castrador peeled the corpse's lips back to reveal a handsome set of incisors. "If I take the teeth out, seсor, will you buy them from me? Then you can send them to London for a profit. You and me, eh? We can do business."

  "I'm too busy to do business," Sharpe said, hiding his distaste. "Besides, we only take French teeth."

  "And the French take British teeth to sell in Paris, yes? So the French bite with your teeth and you bite with theirs, and neither of you will bite with your own." El Castrador laughed as he straightened from the corpse. "Maybe they will buy teeth in Madrid," h
e said speculatively.

  "Where's San Cristobal?" Sharpe changed the subject.

  "Over the hills," El Castrador said vaguely.

  "Show me." Sharpe pulled the big man towards the eastern ramparts. "Show me," he said again as they reached the firestep.

  El Castrador indicated the track that twisted up into the hills on the valley's far side, the same track down which Juanita de Elia had fled from the pursuing dragoons. "You follow that path for five miles," El Castrador said, "and you will come to San Cristobal. It is not a big place, but it is the only place you can reach by that road."

  "And how do you know Loup is there?" Sharpe asked.

  "Because my cousin saw him arrive there this morning. My cousin said he was carrying wounded men with him."

  Sharpe gazed eastwards. Five miles. Say two hours if the moon was unclouded or six hours if it was jet dark. "What was your cousin doing there?" he asked.

  "He once lived in the village, seсor. He goes to watch it from time to time."

  A pity, Sharpe thought, that no one had been watching Loup the previous evening. "Tell me about San Cristobal," he said.

  It was a village, the Spaniard said, high in the hills. Not a large village, but prosperous with a fine church, a plaza, and a number of substantial stone houses. The place had once been famous for rearing bulls destined for the fighting rings of the small frontier towns. "But no more," El Castrador said. "The French stewed the last bulls."

  "Is it a hill-top village?" Sharpe asked.

  El Castrador shook his head. "It sits in a valley like that one" — he waved at the eastern valley—"but not so deep. No trees grow there, seсor, and a man cannot get close to San Cristobal without being seen. And El Lobo has built walls across all the gaps between the houses and he keeps watchmen in the church's bell tower. You cannot get close." El Castrador issued the warning in a worried voice. "You are thinking of going there?"

  Sharpe did not answer for a long time. Of course he was thinking of going there, but to what purpose? Loup had a brigade of men while Sharpe had half a company. "How close can I get without being seen?" he asked.

  El Castrador shrugged. "A half-mile? But there is also a defile there, a valley where the road runs. I've often thought we could trap Loup there. He used to scout the valley before he rode through it, but not now. Now he is too confident."

  So go to the defile, Sharpe thought, and watch. Just watch. Nothing else. No attack, no ambush, no disobedience, no heroics, just a reconnaissance. And after all, he told himself, Wellington's order to take the Real Companпa Irlandesa to the army headquarters at Vilar Formoso did not detail the route he must take. Nothing specifically forbade Sharpe taking a long, circuitous journey via San Cristobal, but he knew, even as he thought of that evasion, that it was specious. The sensible thing was to forget Loup, but it cut against all his instincts to be beaten and just lie down and accept the beating. "Does Loup have artillery at San Cristobal?" he asked the partisan.

  "No, seсor."

  Sharpe wondered if Loup had arranged for this intelligence to reach him. Was Loup enticing Sharpe into a trap? "Would you come with us, seсor?" he asked El Castrador, suspecting that the partisan would never come if Loup was the inspiration behind this news of the brigade's whereabouts.

  "To watch Loup," the Spaniard asked guardedly, "or to fight him?"

  "To watch him," Sharpe said, knowing it was not the honest answer.

  The Spaniard nodded. "You haven't enough men to fight him," he added to explain his cautious question.

  Privately Sharpe agreed. He did not have enough men, not unless he could surprise Loup or maybe ambush him in the defile. One rifle bullet, well aimed, would kill a man as surely as a full battalion attack, and when Sharpe thought of Oliveira's mangled and tortured body he reckoned that Loup deserved that bullet. So maybe tonight, Sharpe thought, he could take his riflemen to San Cristobal and pray for a private revenge in the defile at dawn. "I would welcome your help," Sharpe told El Castrador, flattering the man.

  "In a week's time, seсor," El Castrador said, "I can assemble a respectable troop."

  "We go tonight," Sharpe said.

  "Tonight?" The Spaniard was appalled.

  "I saw a bullfight once," Sharpe said, "and the matador gave the bull the killing stroke, the one over the neck and down through the shoulders, and the bull staggered, then sank to its knees. The man pulled the sword out and turned away with his arms raised in triumph. You can guess what happened."

  El Castrador nodded. "The bull rose?"

  "A horn in the small of the man's back," Sharpe confirmed. "Well, I am the bull, seсor, and I confess to being wounded, but Loup's back is turned. So tonight, when he thinks we're too weak to move, we march."

  "But only to watch him," the partisan said cautiously. He had been scorched by Loup too often to risk a fight.

  "To watch," Sharpe lied, "just to watch."

  He was truthful with Harper. He took his friend to the top of the gatehouse tower from where the two riflemen stared across the eastern valley towards the hazed country where the village of San Cristobal was hidden. "I don't honestly know why I'm going," Sharpe confessed, "and we've got no orders to go and I'm not even sure we can do a damned thing when we get there. But there's a reason for going." He paused, suddenly feeling awkward. Sharpe found it hard to articulate his more private thoughts, perhaps because to do so exposed a vulnerability and few soldiers were good at doing that, and what he wanted to say was that a soldier was only as good as his last battle and Sharpe's last battle had been this disaster that had left San Isidro smoking and bloody. And there were plenty of carping fools in the army who would be glad that the upstart from the ranks had at last got his comeuppance, all of which meant that Sharpe must strike back at Loup or else lose his reputation as a lucky and victorious soldier.

  "You have to beat the blood out of Loup?" Harper broke the silence with his suggestion.

  "I don't have enough men to do that," Sharpe said. "The riflemen will come with me, but I can't order Donaju's men to San Cristobal. The whole idea's probably a waste of time, Pat, but there's a chance, a half-chance, that I can get that one-eyed bastard in my rifle sight."

  "You'd be surprised," Harper said. "There's more than a few of the Real Companпa Irlandesa who'd love to come with us. I don't know about the officers, but Sergeant Major Noonan will come, and that fellow Rourke, and there's a wild bugger called Leon O'Reilly who wants nothing more than to kill Crapauds and there's plenty more like him. They've got something to prove, you see. That they're not all as yellow as Kiely."

  Sharpe smiled, then shrugged. "It probably is all a waste of time, Pat," he repeated.

  "So what else were you planning on doing tonight?"

  "Nothing," Sharpe said, "nothing at all." Yet he knew that if he marched to another defeat he would risk everything he had ever earned, but he also knew that not to go, however hopeless the prospect of revenge, was to accept the beating Loup had administered and Sharpe was too proud to accept that licking. He would most likely achieve nothing by marching to San Cristobal, yet march he must.

  They marched after dark. Donaju insisted on coming, and fifty of his men came too. More would have marched, but Sharpe wanted most of the Real Companпa Irlandesa to stay behind and guard the families and baggage. Everyone and everything left in the San Isidro Fort had been moved into the gatehouse just in case Loup did come back to finish off his previous night's work. "Which would just be my bloody luck," Sharpe said. "Me marching to shoot him and him marching to geld me." He had his riflemen ranging ahead as scouts just in case the French were returning to the San Isidro.

  "What do we do if we meet them?" Donaju asked.

  "Hide," Sharpe said. "Seventy of us can't beat a thousand of them, not in the open." An ambush might work this night, but not a firefight on open, level moonlit ground against an overwhelming enemy. "And I hate night fighting," Sharpe went on. "I was captured in a bloody night fight in India. We were blundering around in the
sodding dark with no one knowing what they were doing or why except for the Indians, and they knew well enough. They were firing rockets at us. The things were no bloody use as weapons, but at night their fire blinded us and the next thing I knew there were twenty big buggers with fixed bayonets all around me."

  "Where was that?" Donaju asked.

  "Seringapatam."

  "What business did you have in India?" Donaju asked in evident disapproval.

  "Same business I've got here," Sharpe said curtly. "Killing the King's enemies."

  El Castrador wanted to know what they were talking about, so Donaju translated. The partisan was suffering because Sharpe had refused to let anyone ride a horse so El Castrador's horse, like the horses of the Spanish-Irish officers, was being led at the column's rear. Sharpe had insisted on the precaution because men on horses were liable to ride away from the line of march and the sight of a mounted man on a crest could easily serve to alert a French patrol. Sharpe had similarly insisted that no man carry a loaded musket in case a stumble snapped a lock and fired a shot that would carry far in the still, almost windless night.

  The march was not hard. The first hour was the worst, for they had to climb the steep hill opposite the San Isidro, but once over the crest the road kept to fairly level ground. It was a drover's road, grassy, wide and easy marching in the cool night air. The route wound lazily between rocky outcrops where enemy picquets could have been hidden. Normally Sharpe would have reconnoitred such dangerous places, but this night he pushed his scouts urgently ahead. He was in a dangerous and fatalistic mood. Maybe, he thought, this reckless march was the aftermath of defeat, a kind of shocked reaction in which a man lashed out blindly, and this daft expedition under the half-moon was undoubtedly blind, for Sharpe knew in his inmost soul that the unfinished business between himself and Brigadier Loup would almost certainly stay unfinished. No man could expect to march by night towards a fortified village that he had not reconnoitred and then spring an ambush. The odds were that the small expedition would watch the village from afar, Sharpe would conclude that nothing could be achieved against its walls or in the nearby defile, and in the dawn the guards and riflemen would march back to San Isidro with nothing but sore feet and a wasted night.