Sharpe's Fury

by Bernard Cornwell

  “Now,” Sharpe said.

  The noise was monstrous. The falling poles, planks, and stones crashed and tore, splintered and banged as almost a hundred feet of scaffolding cascaded into the crossing. Blocks of stone ripped through the poles and planks, but what was most useful was the dust. It was thicker than smoke, and amid the tumbling stones and timber it blossomed like a dark gray cloud to dim the small candlelight coming from the cathedral’s chapels. The scaffolding that Sharpe was crossing began to shake as the destruction spread around the crossing. Then he pushed Pumphrey up the ladder. Harper was already at the top, using his volley gun’s butt to smash open the window. “Use your cloak!” Sharpe shouted. He could hear someone screaming below.

  Harper laid his cloak over the broken shards of glass in the bottom of the shattered window and then unceremoniously hauled Pumphrey up beside him. “Come on, sir!” He reached for Sharpe’s hand and grabbed it just as the planks slid out from under Sharpe’s feet. The last of the scaffolding tumbled, filling the cathedral with more noise and dust.

  They were now balanced precariously on the window’s edge. The crossing behind them was boiling with dust through which the candlelight died, plunging the cathedral into utter darkness. “There’s a drop, sir,” Harper warned. Sharpe jumped, thought the drop would never end, and suddenly sprawled on a flat roof. Pumphrey came next, hissing with pain as he landed, and Harper followed. “God save Ireland, sir,” the sergeant said fervently, “but that was desperate!”

  “Have you got the money?”

  “Yes,” Pumphrey said.

  “I enjoyed that,” Sharpe said. His head hurt like the devil and his hand was bleeding, but there was nothing he could do about either. “I really enjoyed that,” he said. The wind plucked at him. He could hear waves breaking nearby. When he went to the edge of the roof he saw the pale white fret of breakers beyond the seawall. It had begun to rain again, or perhaps it was sea spray driven on the wind. “Scaffolding’s on the other side,” he said.

  “I think my ankle’s broken,” Lord Pumphrey said.

  “No it’s bloody not,” Sharpe said, who did not know one way or the other, but this was no time for His Lordship to become feeble. “Walk and it’ll get better.”

  The monstrous sails beat against the unfinished crown of the dome and above the unbuilt sanctuary. Sharpe blundered into one of the ropes securing them, then felt his way to the roof’s edge. Just enough light came from a lantern in a courtyard below for him to see where the scaffolding was built. He could see other lanterns, bobbing as they were carried through the streets. Someone must have heard the shots in the cathedral despite the noise of the storm, but whoever went to investigate was going to the eastern facade with its three doors. No one was watching the cathedral’s northern flank where Sharpe found the ladders. With Harper now holding the gold, they went down ladder after ladder. Thunder sounded overhead and a flash of lightning lit the intricate pattern of poles and planks down which they climbed. Lord Pumphrey almost kissed the cobblestones when they reached the bottom. “Dear God,” he said. “It’s just sprained, I think.”

  “Told you it wasn’t broken,” Sharpe said. He grinned. “It was all a bit hurried at the end, but otherwise it went well.”

  “It was a cathedral!” Harper said.

  “God will forgive you,” Sharpe said. “He might not forgive those bastards inside, but he’ll forgive you. He loves the Irish, doesn’t he? Isn’t that what you keep telling me?”

  It was not far to the embassy. They knocked on the gate and a sleepy doorkeeper pulled it open. “The ambassador’s waiting?” Sharpe asked Pumphrey.

  “Of course.”

  “Then you can give him His Majesty’s money back,” Sharpe said, “less six guineas.” He opened the valise and found it filled with leather bags. He untied one, counted six guineas, and gave the rest to Pumphrey.

  “Six guineas?” Lord Pumphrey asked.

  “I might need to bribe someone,” Sharpe said.

  “I imagine His Excellency will want to see you in the morning,” Pumphrey said. He sounded dispirited.

  “You know where to find me,” Sharpe said. He walked toward the stables, but stopped under the arch and saw that Lord Pumphrey was not going toward the house where the embassy had its offices and Henry Wellesley had his quarters. Instead he went to the courtyard that led to the smaller houses, to his own house. He watched His Lordship disappear, then spat. “They think I’m daft, Pat.”

  “They do, sir?”

  “They all do. Are you tired?”

  “I could sleep for a month, sir, so I could.”

  “But not now, Pat. Not now.”

  “No, sir?”

  “When’s the best time to hit a man?”

  “When he’s down?”

  “When he’s down,” Sharpe agreed. There was work to do.

  SHARPE GAVE each of his riflemen a guinea. They had been fast asleep when he and Harper returned to the stables, but they woke up when Sharpe lit a lantern. “How many of you are drunk?” Sharpe asked.

  The faces looked at him resentfully. No one spoke. “I don’t care if you are,” Sharpe said, “I just want to know.”

  “I had some,” Slattery said.

  “Are you drunk?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Harris?”

  “No, sir. Some red wine, sir, but not much.”

  Perkins was frowning at his guinea. He might never have seen one before. “What does m, b, f, et, h, rex, f, d, b, et, l, d, s, r, I, a, t, et, e mean,” he asked. He had read the inscription on the coin and stumbled over the letters, half remembered from some long-ago schooling.

  “How the hell would I know?” Sharpe asked.

  “King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland,” Harris said. “Defender of the Faith, Duke of Brunswick and Luneburg, Arch-Treasurer and Elector, of course.”

  “Bloody hell,” Perkins said, impressed. “So who’s that, then?”

  “King George, you idiot,” Harris said.

  “Put it away,” Sharpe told Perkins. He was not quite sure why he had given them the guineas, except that on a night when so much money had been treated so lightly he saw no reason why his riflemen should not benefit. “You’re all going to need greatcoats and hats.”

  “Jesus,” Harris said, “we’re going out? In this storm?”

  “I need the twelve-pounder shells,” Sharpe said, “and the last two smoke balls. Put them in your packs. Did you fill the bottles with lamp oil and brandy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We need those too. And yes, we’re going out.” He did not want to. He wanted to sleep, but the time to strike was when the enemy was off balance. Montseny had taken at least six men, maybe more, to the cathedral, and those men were probably still entangled with the wreckage of the scaffolding and snared in the questions of the troops who had gone to discover the cause of the commotion. Did that mean the newspaper was unguarded? But guarded or not, the storm was a godsend. “We’re going out,” he said again.

  “Here, sir.” Hagman brought him a stone bottle.

  “What’s that?”

  “Vinegar, sir, for your head, sir. Take off your hat.” Hagman insisted on soaking the bandage with vinegar. “It’ll help, sir.”

  “I stink.”

  “We all stink, sir. We’re the king’s soldiers.”

  The storm was worsening. The rain had started again and was coming harder, driven by a wind that pounded the city’s ocean walls with heavy waves. Thunder rolled like cannon shots above the watchtowers and lightning ripped across the bay where the waiting fleet jerked at its anchor lines.

  Sharpe guessed it was past two in the morning when he reached the abandoned building close to Nuñez’s house. The rain was malevolent. Sharpe fumbled in his pocket for the key, opened the padlock, and pushed the door open. He had only got lost twice on the way here, and had eventually found the place by taking the route along the harbor wall. There had been Spanish soldiers there, sheltering by the
cannons overlooking the bay’s entrance, and Sharpe had feared being asked his business, so he had marched his five men as a squad. He reckoned the Spanish sentinels would assume the five men were a detail from the garrison, forced to endure the weather, and leave them alone. It had worked, and now they were inside the abandoned building. He closed the gates and locked them with the inside bolts. “You’ve got the lantern?” he asked Perkins.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t light it till you’re inside the building,” Sharpe said. Then he gave Harper careful orders before taking Hagman to the watchtower. They groped their way through the dark and up the steps. Once at the top, it was hard to see anything because the night was so dark. Sharpe was watching for a sentry on the roof of the Nuñez house, but could see nothing. He had brought Hagman because the old poacher had the best eyesight of any of his riflemen.

  “If he’s there, sir,” Hagman said, “he’s staying out of the wind and rain.”

  “Probably.”

  A shard of lightning lit the interior of the watchtower. Then thunder echoed across the city. The rain was pelting down, hissing on the roofs below. “Do people live above the printers, sir?” Hagman asked.

  “I think so,” Sharpe said. Most of the houses in the city seemed to have shops or workplaces on the ground floor and living quarters above.

  “Suppose there are women and children there?”

  “That’s why I’ve got the smoke balls.”

  Hagman thought about that. “You mean you’ll smoke them out?”

  “That’s the idea, Dan.”

  “Only I wouldn’t like to kill little ones, sir.”

  “You won’t have to,” Sharpe said, hoping he was right.

  There was another flash of lightning. “There’s no one there, sir,” Hagman said, nodding toward the roof of Nuñez’s house. “On the roof, sir,” he added, realizing that Sharpe could not have seen the nod.

  “They all went to the cathedral, didn’t they?”

  “They did, sir?”

  “I’m talking to myself, Dan,” Sharpe said, staring into the rain and wind. He had seen a sentry on the roof in daylight and he had assumed there would be a man there at night, but suppose that man was still in the cathedral? Or was he just keeping dry and warm inside the house? Sharpe had planned to drop the smoke balls down the chimneys. The smoke would drive whoever was inside the building out to the street. Then Sharpe would drop the shells down to wreak what damage they could. The idea of using the chimneys had come to him when he saw the firewood being carried through the city’s streets, but suppose he could get inside Nuñez’s house?

  “When this is done, sir,” Hagman asked, “do we go back to battalion?”

  “I hope so,” Sharpe said.

  “I wonder who’s commanding the company now, sir. Poor Mister Bullen isn’t.”

  “Lieutenant Knowles, I should think.”

  “He’ll be glad to see us back, sir.”

  “I shall be glad to see him. And it won’t be long, Dan. There!” Sharpe had seen a glimmer of light immediately beneath the tower. It showed for a second, then vanished, but told Sharpe that Harper had found a way onto the roof. “Down we go.”

  “How’s your head, sir?”

  “I’ll live, Dan.”

  Sharpe reckoned the flat roofs were a thief’s dream. A man could walk all around Cádiz four stories above the streets, and few of those streets were too wide to be jumped. The storm was just as big a help. The rain and wind would drown any noise, though he still told his men to take off their boots. “Carry them,” he said. Even with the storm the boots would make too much noise on the roofs of the houses between the watchtower and the newspaper.

  There were low walls between the roofs, but it took less than a minute to cross them and so discover that there was no sentry on Nuñez’s house. There was a trapdoor, but it was firmly bolted on the inside. Sharpe had seen the ladder climbing from the balcony on his first reconnaissance. He gave Perkins his boots, slung his rifle, and climbed down. The ladder went to the side of the balcony so the big wooden shutters covering the door had room to open. The shutters were closed and latched now. Sharpe groped for the place they joined, then put his knife between them. The blade slid easily because the wood had rotted. He found the latch, pushed it up, and one of the shutters caught the wind and swung violently, banging against the wall. The shutters had protected a half-glazed door that began to rattle in the wind. Sharpe put his knife into the gap between the doors, but this wood was solid. The shutter banged again. Break the glass, he thought. Easy. But suppose there were bolts at the foot of the door?

  He was about to crouch and push against the foot of the door when he saw a glimmer of light from inside the room. For a heartbeat he thought he had imagined it, then wondered whether it was the reflection of distant lightning on the glass, but the glimmer showed again. It was a spark. He stepped to one side. The light vanished a second time, reappeared, and he reckoned someone inside had been sleeping. They had been woken by the banging of the shutter and now they used a tinderbox to light a candle. The flame burned bright suddenly, then steadied as the candle was lit.

  Sharpe waited, knife in hand. The rain was loud on his hat, the same hat he had bought from the beggar. He heard the bolts being drawn. Three bolts. Then the door opened and a man appeared in a nightshirt. He was an older man, in his forties or fifties, and had tousled hair and a bad-tempered face. He reached for the swinging shutter as the candle flickered in the wind behind him. Then he saw Sharpe and opened his mouth to shout. The blade touched his throat. “Silencio,” Sharpe hissed. He pushed the man inside. There was a rumpled bed, clothes heaped on a chair, a chamber pot, and nothing else. “Pat! Bring ’em down!”

  The riflemen filled the room. They were dark figures, soaking wet, who now pulled on their boots. Sharpe closed the shutters and latched them. Harris, who spoke the best Spanish, was talking to the prisoner who gesticulated wildly as he spoke. “He’s called Nuñez, sir,” Harris said, “and he says there’s two men on the ground floor.”

  “Where are the others?” Sharpe knew that there had to be more than two guards.

  There was a flurry of Spanish. “He says they went out, sir,” Harris said.

  So Montseny had stripped the place of sentries in hope of making an ungodly profit. “Ask him where the letters are.”

  “The letters, sir?”

  “Just ask him. He’ll know.”

  A sly look flickered on Nuñez’s face, then an expression of pure alarm as Sharpe turned on him with the knife. He stared into Sharpe’s face and his courage fled. He spoke fast. “He says they’re downstairs, sir,” Harris translated, “with the writer. Does that make sense?”

  “It makes sense. Tell him to be quiet now. Perkins, you’re going to stay here and watch him.”

  “Tie him up, sir?” Harris suggested.

  “And stop his mouth up too.”

  Sharpe lit a second candle and carried it into the next room where he saw a flight of stairs going up to the bolted trapdoor. Another flight went down to the second floor where there was a small kitchen and a parlor. A door opened onto the next stairway, which led to one huge storeroom, piled with paper. Light showed from the ground floor. Sharpe, leaving the candle on the stairs, went to the top of the open staircase and saw the press vast and black beneath him, and next to it a table on which playing cards had been discarded. A man was sleeping on the floor, while another, with a musket over his knees, was slouched in a chair. A huge pile of newly printed newspapers was stacked against the wall.

  Henry Wellesley had been insistent that Sharpe should do nothing to upset the Spanish. They were prickly allies, he had explained, resentful that the defense of Cádiz needed British troops. “They must be handled with a very light rein,” the ambassador had said. There must be no violence, Wellesley had declared. “Bugger that,” Sharpe said aloud, and hauled back the flint of the rifle. The sound of it made the man in the chair start.

  The man
began to lift his musket, then saw Sharpe’s face. He put it down and his hands trembled.

  “You can come down, lads,” Sharpe called back up the stairs. It was all so easy. Too easy? Except fifteen hundred guineas was a powerful incentive to carelessness and Father Montseny was doubtless still trying to explain the wreckage in the cathedral.

  The two men were disarmed. Harper discovered two apprentice printers sleeping in the cellar and they were brought up and put into a corner with the guards while the writer, a wreck of a man with an unkempt beard, was dragged out of a smaller room. “Harris,” Sharpe said, “tell that miserable bugger he’s got two minutes to live unless he gives me the letters.”

  Benito Chavez yelped as Harris put a sword bayonet to his throat. Harris forced the wretched man against a wall and started questioning him as Sharpe explored the room. The door that led to the street was blocked up with rough masonry while the back door, which presumably led to the courtyard, was locked with big iron bolts. This meant that Sharpe and his men had the place to themselves. “Sergeant? All that paper on the first floor, throw it down here. Slattery? Keep one of those newspapers”—he pointed to the newly printed editions stacked against the blocked front door—“and scatter the rest. And I want the shells.”

  Sharpe put the shells on the bed of the press, then screwed down the platen so they were held as though in a vice. Harper and Hagman were chucking the paper onto the floor and Sharpe pushed crumpled sheets into the gaps between the shells so that the burning paper would light their fuses. “Tell Perkins to bring Nuñez down,” Sharpe said.

  Nuñez came down the stairs and immediately understood what Sharpe intended. He began pleading. “Tell him to be quiet,” Sharpe told Harris.