Sharpe's Sword s-14

by Бернард Корнуэлл

  Sharpe was moved upstairs. He had his own room, small and bare, and Harper and Isabella curtained offone half and lived with him. The doctors said Sharpe would die. The pain, they said, would stay with him, even increase, and the wound would abscess into constant blood and pus. Most of what they said came true. Hogan had ordered Harper to stay, an unnecessary order, but the big Irish Sergeant sometimes found it hard to endure the pain, the smell, the helplessness of his Captain. He and Isabella washed Sharpe, cleaned away the pus, dressed the wound, and listened to the rumours that came back to the small British force left in the city.

  A letter came from the Battalion, written by Major Forrest and signed with scores of names. The Light Company wrote their own, penned by Lieutenant Price, decorated by the crosses and signatures of the men, and sometimes Sharpe was lucid and he was pleased with the letters.

  Somehow he hung on. Each morning Harper expected to find his Captain dead, but he lived, and even the doctors shrugged and conceded that sometimes, very rarely, a man recovered from that wound. Then Sharpe took the fever. The wound was still abscessed, its dressing changed twice a day, but now Harper and Isabella had to wipe the sweat that poured from Sharpe and listen to the ravings that he muttered day and night.

  Isabella found some Rifleman’s trousers, taken from a dead man who was as tall as Sharpe, and she hung them on the wall beneath the jacket and above Sharpe’s boots that Harper had found discarded in the small courtyard. The uniform waited for him, but the doctors had again given up hope. The fever would kill him. Harper wanted to know how they would treat a fever and the doctors tried to fob him off, but the Irishman had heard of some miracle cure, a new cure, something to do with the bark of a South American tree. The doctors had very little of the substance, but Harper frightened them and they yielded it up, grudgingly, and Harper gave it to Sharpe. It seemed to help, yet the doctors had very little of the precious substance. It had only reached them the previous year, it was expensive, and they made it go further by mixing the powdered quinine with black pepper. When the quinine ran out they gave Sharpe quassia bark instead, but still the fever raged, and even the Navy’s remedy, suggested by Lord Spears, which consisted of gunpowder mixed with brandy, did not work.

  There was an army remedy and Harper decided on that.

  He carried Sharpe downstairs one morning, stripped him naked, and laid him on the grass of the courtyard just beside the cloister. The Sergeant had already drawn bucket after bucket of well water and carried them to the top cloister where he had filled two rain barrels. He would have preferred to be higher, three floors at least, but the upper cloister was the best he could do. He looked down on the shivering naked body and poured the first barrel in a glittering cold shock that exploded on Sharpe. He cried out, jack-knifed, and the second barrel followed in a cascade that flattened Sharpe, choked him, and then Harper ran downstairs, wrapped Sharpe in a dry blanket, and carried the emaciated body back to the cot. The doctors said that Harper had certainly killed Sharpe with that treatment, yet that night the fever went down and Harper came back from the Cathedral to find Sharpe lucid again.

  “How are you feeling, sir?”

  “Bloody.” He looked it, too. His eyes were sunk in a pale face.

  Harper grinned at him. “You’ll be up soon.”

  Harper and Isabella took it in turns to pray. She used the chapel of the Irish College, close and beautiful, but Harper thought God might be nearer to the big Cathedral and he climbed the hill twice a day and he prayed with a childlike intensity. His broad, strong face would screw up in concentration as though the very force of his thoughts could drive the prayer up, past the statues, past the glorious ceiling, and up to a heaven where so many other prayers were clamouring for answers. He lit candles to St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes, and he prayed to him, pleaded with him, and once again the doctors began to cautiously suggest that there was a chance; that sometimes men recovered from the wound, and Harper prayed on. Yet he knew something was nüssing. They gave Sharpe medicines when they could, prayers that they did not tell him about, and Harper knew there was something else; something that might persuade Sharpe to live. Something was missing.

  Sharpe’s weapons were missing. The Rifle had been stolen in the hospital, the sword broken by Leroux. It took Harper three days, a bribe, but in the end a storekeeper with the Town Major opened up a small warehouse and rummaged through the racks. “Swords,” he muttered to himself, “swords. You can have this one.” He offered Harper a sabre.

  “That’s bloody rubbish. It’s got bloody woodworm. I want a Heavy sword, not that bent rubbish.”

  The Corporal storekeeper sniffed. He found another sword, this one straight. “Twenty pounds?”

  “You want me to try it on you? I’ve paid already.”

  The Corporal shrugged. “I have to account for this lot.”

  “You poor wee man. And how do you account for the stuff you steal?” Harper went to the racks himself, raked through the weapons, and found a plain, sturdy, Heavy Cavalry blade. „I’ll take this one. Where are your rifles?“

  “Rifles? You didn’t say nothing about any rifles.”

  “Well I am now.” The huge Sergeant pushed past the storekeeper. “Well?”

  The Corporal glanced at the open door. “More than my bloody job’s worth.”

  “Your job’s worth cowdung. Now where are the rifles?”

  The Corporal reluctantly opened a box. “That’s all we’ve got. Don’t get many.”

  Harper picked one up. It was new, beautiful, the lock greased, but it would not do. “Are they all like this?”

  “Yes.” The Corporal was nervous.

  “You can keep it.” Harper put it back. He would have liked one for himself, let alone Sharpe, but these were the new rifles with the carbine bore, smaller than the old rifles, and he knew that they would never be able to get a reliable source of ammunition. The rifle would have to wait. He grinned at the storekeeper. “Now a scabbard.”

  The man shook his head. “Scabbards is difficult.”

  Harper pointed the blade at the storekeeper’s throat.

  “You’ve got two dollars of mine. That says scabbards are easy. Now give.”

  He gave. The sword was not like Sharpe’s old sword. This one had not been looked after, it was dull, but it was a Heavy Cavalry sword and Harper set to work on it. The first day he remade the sword’s guard. The guard was slim at the pommel and then it broadened so that it would cover a man’s fist and it ended in a broad circle that guarded against an enemy’s blade sliding down the sword and slicing into a cavalryman’s hand. It was a comfortable guard if a man spent his life in the saddle, but the heavy, steel circle cut into a man’s ribs if he wore the sword as Sharpe would wear it. It was too long a blade to hang comfortably at the waist. The slings of the scabbard would have to be shortened so that the handle and guard of the sword would lie at the bottom of Sharpe’s left rib cage. Harper borrowed a hacksaw, some files, and he worked on the guard. He cut the right hand side of the circle back, past the small holes that could be tasselled for display, right down to within an inch of the blade. He made an edge that was crude, mis-shapen, and ugly, but he filed it obsessively until the shape of the new guard was smooth and easy on the eye. Then he polished the steel until it looked as if it was fresh from the Birmingham factory of Woolley & Deakin.

  The handle of the sword was tight on the blade’s tang, but the wooden grip was rough to the palm. Harper took off the backpiece and filed the grip, and then he varnished it with oil and beeswax until the handle was dark brown and shining.

  On the second day he remade the blade. The back edge of the sword was straight and the point was made by curving the fore edge back to meet it. That was not the point Sharpe liked. The rifleman liked a blade with two edges, both sharp, and a point that was symmetrical. Harper raked through the workshops of the College and found the wheel the gardeners used to sharpen their scythes. He oiled the wheel, treadled it, and then put the blad
e onto the stone so that it rang, it shrieked, and the sparks flowed like live-fire from the steel. He worked the back edge, curving the sword’s last two inches until the fore and back edges were the same. He had made a balanced point. Then he polished the sword, holding the blade up to the light to make sure the stone marks were even. The steel gleamed.

  Finally, as the afternoon wore on, he sharpened the blade. He gave Sharpe an edge that the Captain had never had, and he worked at it, and worked, and the perfectionist in him would not give up until the fore edge, and the top seven inches of the back, were razor sharp. He let the wheel slow to a stop.

  He took a rag and poured olive oil onto the sword. He polished it again, oiled it, and the sword was unrecognisable from the blade he had taken from the storekeeper. It was no Kligenthal, but it was no ordinary sword. He had remade Sharpe’s sword, done it with care and friendship, and he had put into his work all the Celtic magic that he could muster. It was as if in working on the sword he was working on Sharpe himself, and he held the finished blade up to the westering sun and it blazed white light in a dazzling burst. It was made.

  He took the sword upstairs, looked forward to Sharpe’s face, and Isabella met him. She was running down the cloister and at first Harper was alarmed, and then he saw the look on her face and she threw herself at him, talked so fast that he had to slow her down, and she gabbled her news. A woman had come, and such a woman! Hair like gold and a coach with four horses! She had visited the hospital and she had given gifts to the wounded men and then — Isabella’s eyes still sparkled at the memory — the woman had come to Sharpe’s room and she had visited the Captain and she had been angry.

  Harper slowed her down. “Angry?” The Captain was a hero, wasn’t he? La Marquesa had shouted at the doctors, had told them it was disgusting that a hero should live in such a place and tomorrow La Marquesa was sending a carriage that was to take Sharpe to a house outside the town, a house fey the river, and the best of it was, and here Isabella jumped up and down beside her huge Irishman, clutching at his jacket in her excitement, that the aristocrat had talked to her, Isabella! She and Harper were to go with the Captain. They would have servants, cooks, and Isabella twirled in the cloister and said that La Marquesa had been kind to her, grateful to her, and by the way the Captain was feeling better.

  Harper grinned because of her infectious delight. “Say that all again.”

  She said it again, and this time she wanted to know where he had been. He had missed La Marquesa, the most gracious person Isabella had ever met, a Queen! Well, almost a Queen, and Harper missed her, and tomorrow they were all moving to a house by the river and they were to have servants! And by the way the Captain is much better.

  “What do you mean, better?”

  “I changed the bandage, si? She was here! I thought she might visit us. She visit everyone. So I change the bandage and no muck? Patrick! No muck!”

  “No pus?”

  “No nothing. No muck, no blood.”

  “Where is he now?”

  She opened her eyes wide because her tale was dramatic. “He sit up in bed, si? Up! He very happy that La Marquesa see him!.” She punched Harper. “And you do not see her! Four horses! And your friend was here.”

  “My friend?”

  “The English Lord. Lord Spears.” She sighed. “He has a blue and silver uniform, all shining, and no arm any more! The bandage is off!”

  “You mean his arm is out of the sling?”

  “That’s what I say.” She smiled at him. “You would look good in blue and silver.”

  “Aye. It would make a change from black and blue.” He grinned at her. “Would you stay here, woman? I want to talk to him.”

  He pushed open the door of Sharpe’s room and, as Isabella had said, Sharpe was sitting up. There was an expression of wonderment on Sharpe’s face as if he expected the clenching pain to come back at any moment. He looked up at Harper and smiled. “It’s better than it was. I don’t understand it.”

  “The doctors said it might happen.”

  “The doctors said I would die.” He saw the sword in Harper’s hand. “What’s that?”

  “Just an old sword, sir.” Harper tried to keep his voice matter of fact, but he could not hide his grin. He shrugged. “I thought you might be wanting it.”

  “Show me.” Sharpe held out a hand and Harper saw how desperately thin his Captain’s wrist was. Harper reversed the sword, held it out, and Sharpe grasped the handle. Harper pulled the scabbard away, the sword was in Sharpe’s hand, and the weight pulled it down, almost to the floor, and Sharpe had to use all his feeble strength to bring the long, clumsy blade up again. It shone in the small light from the window. Sharpe’s eyes stayed on the blade and his face was all that Harper could want. The blade turned over, slowly, the arm horribly weak as it rehearsed the twist that the sword needed as it lunged into an enemy. Sharpe looked up at Harper. “You did it?”

  “Aye, well, you know, sir. Not much to do, sir. Passed the time, so it did.”

  Sharpe twisted the blade back and the light ran down the steel. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Just the old ‘96 pattern, sir. Standard issue. Nothing special. I took the odd nick out the edge, sir. Would it be’true, sir, that we’re moving tomorrow? To higher circles, I hear?”

  Sharpe nodded, but he was not listening to Harper’s words properly. He was looking at the blade, letting his gaze go up and down the steel, from the new point on the sword to the place where the steel buried itself into the reshaped guard. The weight was too much for him and it sank, slowly, until the tip rested on the rush matting. He looked up at Harper. “Thank you.”

  “For nothing, sir. Thought you might need it.”

  „I’ll kill the bastard with it.“ Sharpe grimaced with the effort, but the blade came up again. „I’ll slaughter the bastard.”

  Patrick Harper grinned. Richard Sharpe was going to live.

  PART THREE

  Tuesday, July 21st to Thursday, July 23rd, 1812

  CHAPTER 17

  Sometimes the river was silver, a sheen of pitted silver, and sometimes it was dark green like velvet. At dusk it could look like molten gold, heavy and slow, pouring itself richly towards the Roman bridge and then on towards its junction with the River Douro and then, the far off sea. Sometimes it was mirror smooth, so the far bank was perfectly seen upside down on its surface, and at other times it was grey and broken,r but Sharpe never tired of sitting in the pillared shelter that a previous Marques had built right on the water’s edge. It was a private place, entered only through one door, and when the door was shut and bolted, the sounds of the house and garden faded.

  He exercised for hours in the shelter, strengthening his sword arm, and he walked further each day so that by the time they had been in the house six nights he could walk the mile to the city and back and the only pain was a dull, tugging ache. He ate prodigiously, wolfing down the beef that, as a true Englishman, he knew to be the only source of strength. Captain Lossow, of the King’s German Legion, contrived to send Sharpe a wooden crate that proved to be full of stone-bottled beer. A letter was nailed to the crate. It was very short. “The French could not kill you, so drink yourself to death. Your Friend. Lossow.” Sharpe could not imagine how Lossow had contrived to find a whole crate of beer in Spain, but he knew how generous was the gift and he was touched by it.

  On the fifth day he fired Harper’s rifle, letting the butt kick into his shoulder, forcing his tired arms to hold the barrel steady, and on his tenth shot he smashed one of the empty stone bottles into shards and felt content. He was strengthening. He had written to Hogan on the first day without cruel pain and the Town Major’s office forwarded the reply and Hogan was delighted at Sharpe’s news. The rest of the letter was grim. It told of fruitless marching and counter-marching across the plains, of the army’s discontent because the French seemed to be outmanoeuvring the British, beating them without a battle being fought, and Hogan hinted that soon the army might be retreatin
g on Salamanca.

  Hogan apologised in his letter because he had still not reached Teresa. The message, he knew, had travelled as far as Casatejada, but Sharpe’s wife was not there. She was further north harrying the troops of the French General Caffarelli and Hogan did not know how long it would be before she heard the news. He hoped it would be soon. Sharpe felt guilty, because he did not share Hogan’s hope. Once Teresa was in Salamanca then he would be forced to give up the company of La Marquesa. She visited most evenings, coming to the shelter beside the river, and Sharpe found himself looking forward to the visits, needing her company, and Harper kept his wonder to himself.

  Major Hogan had spoken of Leroux in his letter. “You are not to concern yourself, Richard, nor to feel responsible for what happened.” That, thought Sharpe, was kind of Hogan because Sharpe was responsible. The failure nagged at him, depressed him, and he tortured himself by imagining what the Frenchman would do to La Marquesa to make her talk. She thought that Leroux was probably in the city, and Hogan agreed. “He will lie low, we think, until Salamanca is again in the hands of the French, (for that, I fear, is a possibility if we cannot bring Marmont to battle) and we must hope that his plans are frustrated. If we do fight Marmont, and win, then Leroux will have to leave Salamanca. Perhaps he has already, we do not know, but in the meantime we have put a guard on El Mirador and you are not to concern yourself with anything except a full recovery.”

  The mention of a guard puzzled Sharpe. La Marquesa came alone, except for her coachman, postilion, and chaperone. The coachman and postilion would wait in the servants’ quarters, the chaperone be sent to read a book in the long, gloomy library of the house, while La Marquesa went alone with Sharpe to the pillared shelter beside the river. He showed her the letter and she laughed. “It would be a little obvious, Richard, wouldn’t it? If I rode out here with an armed man riding beside me? Stop worrying.”