Sharpe's Escape

by Bernard Cornwell

  They had pride.

  And they had the precious ability to fire platoon volleys. They could fire those half-company volleys faster than any other army in the world. Stand in front of these redcoats and the balls came thick as hail. It was death to be in their way and seven French battalions were now in death's forecourt and the South Essex was tearing them to ribbons. One battalion against seven, but the French had never properly deployed into line and now the outside men tried to get back into the column's protection and so the French formation became tighter and the balls struck it relentlessly, and more men, Portuguese and British, had extended the South Essex line, and then the 88th, the Connaught Rangers, came from the north and the Frenchmen who had gained the ridge were being assailed on two sides by enemies who knew how to fire their muskets. Who had practiced musketry until they could do it blindfolded, drunk or mad. They were the red-coated killers and they were good.

  "Can you see anything, Richard?" Lawford shouted over the sound of the volleys.

  "They won't hold, sir." Thanks to a vagary of the wind, a small gust that had moved the sluggish smoke a few yards, he had a better view than the Colonel.

  "Bayonet?"

  "Not yet." Sharpe could see the French were being hit brutally. The South Essex alone was shooting close to fifteen hundred musket balls every minute and they were now one of four or five battalions who had closed on the two French columns. Smoke thickened above the ridge, ringing the Frenchmen who stubbornly stayed on the summit. As ever, Sharpe was astonished by the amount of punishment a column could endure. It seemed to shudder under the blows, yet it did not retreat, it just shrank as the outer ranks and files died, and die they did under the terrible flail of the British and Portuguese musketry.

  A big man, dressed in a shabby black coat, with a stub of dead cigar between yellowed teeth and a grubby tasseled nightcap on his head, rode up behind the South Essex. He was followed by a half-dozen aides, the only sign that the big, disheveled man in civilian dress might be someone of importance. He watched the French die, watched the South Essex platoon fire, took the cigar from between his teeth, looked at it morosely and spat out a shred of tobacco. "You must have Welshmen in your bloody battalion, Lawford," he growled.

  Lawford, surprised by the man's voice, turned and threw a hasty salute. "Sir!"

  "Well, man? Do you have bloody Welshmen?"

  "I'm sure we have some, sir."

  "They're good!" the man in the nightcap said. He gestured at the ranks with his dead cigar. "Too good to be English, Lawford. Maybe there's a Welsh settlement in Essex?"

  "I'm sure there is, sir."

  "You're sure of nothing of the bloody sort," the big man said. His name was Sir Thomas Picton and he was the General commanding this portion of the ridge. "I saw what you did, Lawford," he went on, "and I thought you'd lost your bloody mind! About turn and right wheel, eh? In the middle of a bloody battle? Gone soft in the head, I thought, but you did well, man, bloody well. Proud of you. You must have Welsh blood. Do you have any fresh cigars, Lawford?"

  "No, sir."

  "Not much bloody use, are you?" Picton nodded curtly and rode off, followed by his aides who were as well uniformed as their master was ill clothed. Lawford preened, looked back to the French and saw they were crumbling.

  Major Leroy had listened to the General, now he rode to Sharpe. "We've pleased Picton," he said, drawing his pistol, "pleased him so much that he reckons Lawford must have Welsh blood." Sharpe laughed. Leroy aimed the pistol and fired into the remnants of the nearest French column. "When I was a youngster, Sharpe," Leroy said, "I used to shoot raccoons."

  Sharpe saw a musket fail to fire in four company. Shattered flint, he suspected, and he pulled a spare one from his pocket and shouted the man's name. "Catch it!" he bellowed, and tossed the flint over the rear rank before looking at Leroy. "What's a raccoon?"

  "A useless damn animal, Sharpe, that God put on earth to improve a boy's marksmanship. Why don't the bastards move?"

  "They will."

  "Then they might take your company with them," Leroy said, and jerked his head towards the slope as if advising Sharpe to go and see for himself.

  Sharpe rode to the flank of the line and saw that Slingsby had taken the company down the slope and to the north from where, in skirmish line, they were shooting uphill at the French left flank while a handful of his men were shooting downhill to prevent a scatter of hesitant Frenchmen from reinforcing the column. Did Slingsby want to be a hero? Did he think that the company could cut off the French column by itself? In a moment, Sharpe knew, the French would break and close to six thousand men would spill over the crest and rush down the hill to escape the slaughter and they would sweep the light company away like so much chaff. That moment came even closer when he heard the crack of a cannon from the far side of the fight. It was canister, the tin can that splintered apart at the cannon's mouth and spread its charge of musket balls like a blast from the devil's shotgun. Sharpe did not have a moment, he had seconds, and so he kicked the horse down the hill. "Back to the line!" he shouted at his men. "Back! Fast!"

  Slingsby gave him an indignant look. "We're holding them," he protested, "can't go back now!"

  Sharpe dropped from the horse and gave its reins to Slingsby. "Back to battalion, Slingsby, that's an order! Now!"

  "But ... "

  "Do it!" Sharpe bellowed like a sergeant.

  Slingsby reluctantly mounted and Sharpe shouted at his men. "Form on the battalion!"

  And just then the French broke.

  They had lasted longer than any general could ask. They had gained the hilltop and for a splendid moment it seemed as if victory had to be theirs, but they had not received the massive reinforcement they needed and the British and Portuguese battalions had reformed, outflanked them and then doused them with rolling volleys. No army in the world could have stood against those volleys, but the French had endured them until bravery alone would not suffice and their only impulse left was to survive and Sharpe saw the blue uniforms come like a breaking wave across the skyline. He and his men ran. Slingsby was well clear, kicking his horse up towards James Hooper's company, and the men who had been on the left of the skirmish line were safe enough, but most of the skirmishers could not escape the rush.

  "Form on me!" Sharpe bellowed. "Rally square!"

  It was a desperate maneuver, one that broken infantry used in their dying moments against rampaging cavalry, but it served. Thirty or forty men ran to Sharpe, faced outwards and fixed bayonets. "Edge south lads," Sharpe said calmly, "away from them."

  Harper had unslung his volley gun. The tide of Frenchmen parted to avoid the clump of redcoats and riflemen, streaming to either side, but Sharpe kept the men moving, a yard at a time, trying to escape the torrent. One Frenchman did not see Sharpe's men and ran onto Perkins's sword bayonet and stayed there until the boy pulled the trigger to blow the man off the long blade with a gout of blood. "Go slow," Sharpe said quietly, "go slow," and just then the General on the white horse, his sword drawn and gold braid bright, came straight at the rally square and he seemed astonished to find an enemy in front of him and he instinctively lowered his sword to make the straight-armed lunge and Harper pulled his trigger, as did four or five other men, and the horse's head and the man behind vanished in a cockade of blood. Both went down, the horse sliding down the hill, hooves flailing, and Sharpe bellowed at his men to hurry leftwards and so just avoided the dying beast. The rider, a bullet hole in his forehead, slid to a halt at the men's feet. "He's a bloody general, sir," Perkins said in amazement.

  "Just keep calm," Sharpe said, "edge left." They were out of the stream of Frenchmen now that was running desperately downhill, leaping over corpses, intent on nothing except escaping the musket balls. The British and Portuguese battalions were following them, not in pursuit, but to make a line on the crest from where they harried the fugitives, and some balls whistled over Sharpe's head. "Break now!" he told his men and they ran away from the square and up
towards the battalion.

  "That was close," Harper said.

  "You were in the wrong bloody place."

  "It wasn't healthy," Harper said, then looked to see if any man had been left behind. "Perkins! What the hell is that you've got?"

  "It's a French general, Sergeant," Perkins said. He had dragged the corpse all the way up the hill and now knelt by the body and began searching the pockets.

  "Leave that body alone!" It was Slingsby, back again, on foot now, striding towards the company. "Form on number nine company, look sharp now! I told you to leave that alone!" he snapped at Perkins who had ignored the order. "Take that man's name, Sergeant!" he ordered Huckfield.

  "Perkins!" Sharpe said. "Search that body properly. Lieutenant!"

  Slingsby looked wide-eyed at Sharpe. "Sir?"

  "Come with me." Sharpe stalked off to the left, well out of earshot of the company, then turned on Slingsby and all his pent-up rage exploded. "Listen, you goddamn bastard, you bloody well nearly lost the company there. Lost them! Every damned man of them! And they know it. So shut your damned mouth until you've learned how to fight."

  "You're being offensive, Sharpe!" Slingsby protested.

  "I mean to be."

  "I take exception," Slingsby said stiffly. "I will not be insulted by your kind, Sharpe."

  Sharpe smiled and it was not a pretty smile. "My kind, Slingsby? I'll tell you what I am, you sniveling little bastard, I'm a killer. I've been killing men for damn near thirty years. You want a duel? I don't mind. Sword, pistol, knives, anything you bloody well like, Slingsby. Just let me know when and where. But till then, shut your damned mouth and bugger off." He walked back to Perkins who had virtually stripped the French officer naked. "What did you find?"

  "Cash, sir." Perkins glanced at an outraged Slingsby, then back to Sharpe. "And his scabbard, sir." He showed Sharpe the scabbard that was sheathed in blue velvet studded with small golden N's.

  "They're probably brass," Sharpe said, "but you never know. Keep half the cash and share the other half."

  All the Frenchmen had retreated now, except those who were dead or wounded. The voltigeurs who had held the rocky knoll had stayed, though, and those men had been reinforced by some of the survivors from the defeated columns, the rest of whom had stopped halfway down the ridge from where they just stared upwards. None had gone all the way back to the valley that was now clear of fog so that the French gunners could aim their shells which came up the hill, trailing wisps of smoke, to bang among the scatter of dead bodies. British and Portuguese skirmish companies were going down among the shell bursts to form a picquet line, but Sharpe, without any orders from Lawford or anyone else, took his own men to where the hill jutted out towards the boulder-strewn promontory held by the French. "Rifles," he ordered, "keep their heads down."

  He let his riflemen shoot at the French who, armed with muskets, could not reply. Meanwhile Sharpe searched the lower slopes with his telescope, looking for a green-jacketed body among the drifts of dead French, but he could see no sign of Corporal Dodd.

  Sharpe's riflemen kept up their desultory target practice. He sent the redcoats back a few paces so they would not be an inviting target for the French gunners at the foot of the slope. The rest of the British troops had also marched back, denying the enemy artillery a plain target, but the presence of the skirmish chain on the forward slope told the defeated enemy infantry that the volleys were still waiting just out of sight. None tried to advance and then, one by one, the French cannon fell silent and the smoke slowly drifted off the hill.

  Then the guns started a mile to the north. For a few seconds it was just one or two guns, and then whole batteries opened and the thunder started again. The next French attack was coming.

  Lieutenant Slingsby did not rejoin the company, going back to the battalion instead. Sharpe did not care.

  He rested on the hillside, watched the French, and waited.

  "The letter," Ferragus instructed Sarah, "is to a Senhor Verzi." He paced up and down behind her, the floorboards creaking beneath his weight. The sound of the guns reverberated softly on the big window through which, at the end of a street that ran downhill, Sarah could just see the River Mondego. "Tell Senhor Verzi that he is in my debt," Ferragus ordered her.

  The pen scratched. Sarah, summoned to write a second letter, had wrapped a scarf about her neck so that no skin was exposed between her hair and the blue dress's high embroidered collar.

  "Tell him he may discharge all his debts to me with a favor. I require accommodation on one of his boats. I want a cabin for my brother's wife, children and household."

  "Not too fast, senhor," Sarah said. She dipped the nib and wrote. "For your brother's wife, children and household," she said as she finished.

  "I am sending the family and their servants to Lisbon," Ferragus went on, "and I ask, no, I require Senhor Verzi to give them shelter on a suitable vessel."

  "On a suitable vessel," Sarah repeated.

  "If the French come to Lisbon," Ferragus continued, "the vessel may carry them to the Azores and wait there until it is safe to return. Tell him to expect my brother's wife within three days of receipt of this letter." He waited. "And say, finally, that I know he will treat my brother's people as though they were his own." Verzi had better treat them well, Ferragus thought, if he did not want his guts punched into a liquid mess in some Lisbon alley. He stopped and stared down at Sarah's back. He could see her spine against the thin blue material. He knew she was aware of his gaze and could sense her indignation. It amused him. "Read me the letter."

  Sarah read and Ferragus gazed out of the window. Verzi would oblige him, he knew that, and so Major Ferreira's wife and family would be far away if the French came. They would escape the rape and slaughter that would doubtless occur, and when the French had settled, when they had slaked their appetites, it would be safe for the family to return.

  "You sound certain the French will come, senhor," Sarah said when she had finished reading.

  "I don't know whether they will or not," Ferragus said, "but I know preparations must be made. If they come, then my brother's family is safe; if they do not, then Senhor Verzi's services will not be needed."

  Sarah sprinkled sand on the paper. "How long would we wait in the Azores?" she asked.

  Ferragus smiled at her misapprehension. He had no intention of letting Sarah go to the Azores, but this was not the time to tell her. "As long as necessary," he said.

  "Perhaps the French will not come," Sarah suggested just as a renewed bout of gunfire sounded louder than ever.

  "The French," Ferragus said, giving her the seal, "have conquered every place in Europe. No one fights them now, except us. Over a hundred thousand Frenchmen have reinforced the armies in Spain. They have how many soldiers south of the Pyrenees? Three hundred thousand? Do you really believe, Miss Fry, that we can win against so many? If we win today then they will come back, even more of them."

  He sent three men with the letter. The road to Lisbon was safe enough, but he had heard there was trouble in the city itself. The people there believed the British planned to abandon Portugal and so leave them to the French and there had been riots in the streets, so the letter had to be guarded. And no sooner was the letter gone than two others of his men came with more news of trouble. A feitor had arrived at the warehouse and was insisting the stores be destroyed.

  Ferragus buckled on a knife belt, thrust a pistol into a pocket, and stalked across town. Many folk were in the streets, listening to the far-off gunfire as though they could tell from the rise and fall of the sound how the battle went. They made way for Ferragus, the men pulling off their hats as he passed. Two priests, loading the treasures of their church onto a handcart, made the sign of the cross when they saw him and Ferragus retaliated by giving them the devil's horns with his left hand, then spitting on the cobbles. "I gave thirty thousand vintens to that church a year ago," Ferragus said to his men. That was a small fortune, close to a hundred pounds of English
money. He laughed. "Priests," he sneered, "are like women. Give and they hate you."

  "So don't give," one of his men said.

  "You give to the church," Ferragus said, "because that is the way to heaven. But with a woman you take. That too is the way to heaven." He turned down a narrow alley and pushed through a door into a vast warehouse that was dimly lit by dusty skylights. Cats hissed at him, then scampered away. There were dozens of the beasts, kept to protect the warehouse's contents from rats. At night, Ferragus knew, the warehouse was a bloody battlefield as the rats fought against the hungry cats, but the cats always won and so protected the barrels of hard-baked biscuit, the sacks of wheat, barley and maize, the tin containers filled with rice, the jars of olive oil, the boxes of salt cod and the vats of salt meat. There was enough food here to feed Massena's army all the way to Lisbon and enough hogsheads of tobacco to keep it coughing all the way back to Paris. He stooped to tickle the throat of a great one-eyed torn cat, scarred from a hundred fights. The cat bared its teeth at Ferragus, but submitted to the caress, then Ferragus turned to two of his men who were standing with the feitor who wore a green sash to show he was on duty. "What is the trouble?" Ferragus demanded.

  A feitor was an official storekeeper, appointed by the government to make certain there were sufficient rations for the Portuguese army. Every sizable town in Portugal had a feitor, answerable to the Junta of Provisions in Lisbon, and Coimbra's storekeeper was a middle-aged, corpulent man called Rafael Pires who snatched off his hat when he saw Ferragus and seemed about to drop to one knee.