Bernard Cornwell Box Set: Sharpe's Triumph , Sharpe's Tiger , Sharpe's Fortress

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘Down!’ It was Harper’s voice and he instinctively dropped flat as another volley crashed overhead. A horse screamed, then slid and fell in the road’s muck. One of the beast’s flailing hooves missed Sharpe’s skull by an inch.

  ‘Run!’ Harper bellowed.

  Sharpe caught a glimpse of the carnage on the road. Harper’s volley, aimed at the congestion formed by the constriction of the stone walls, had stopped the horsemen dead. Sharpe ran through the farm gate. There was an open pasture to cross before he was safe. Riflemen were already filing into the farmhouse and he saw the first shutter pushed aside by a rifle barrel.

  ‘Behind you!’ Hooves again, this time from the left, and Sharpe snarled as he turned. His sword swung towards the horse which swerved away and forced its rider to try the dificult cross-cut down and across his own body. Lunging, the Rifleman felt his own sword pierce the Dragoon’s left thigh. The impetus of man and horse dragged the rider free of the blade. More rifles fired, one bullet going so close to Sharpe that he felt its passage like a thump of wind.

  ‘Run!’ Harper called again.

  Sharpe ran. He reached the farmhouse just as the last Rifleman scrambled over its threshold. Harper was ready to shut the door and jam it tight with a chest. ‘Thank you!’ Sharpe gasped as he cannoned through the door. Harper ignored him.

  Sharpe found himself in a passage which ran clean through the farmhouse from north to south. Doors barred the passage’s outer entrances, while two other doors led into the house itself. He chose the door on the left which opened into a spacious kitchen where, quivering with fright, a man and a woman crouched beside the hearth in which, suspended from a pothook, a seething cauldron stank of lye. The Parkers’ coachman offered the couple urgent explanation, then began loading a huge horse-pistol. Louisa was trying to prise a small ivory-hilted pistol from its snug-fitting case.

  ‘Where’s your aunt?’ Sharpe asked.

  ‘There.’ She pointed to a door at the back of the kitchen.

  ‘Get in there.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘I said get in there!’ Sharpe closed the pistol case and, despite Louisa’s indignation, pushed her towards the scullery where her aunt and uncle crouched among tall stone jars. He limped to the closest window and saw the Dragoons milling about just beyond the small barn. His men were firing at them. A horse reared, a Frenchman clapped a hand to a wounded arm, and a trumpet screamed.

  The Dragoons scattered. They did not go far; only to find shelter behind the stone barn or the field walls, and Sharpe knew it would only be seconds before, dismounted, they began to rattle the farmhouse with their carbine fire. ‘How many windows are there, Sergeant?’

  ‘Dunno, sir.’ Williams was panting from the effort of running uphill.

  A bullet lashed through the kitchen from outside. It struck a high beam above Sharpe. ‘Keep your bloody heads down! And fire back!’

  There were three rooms downstairs; the large kitchen which had a window facing north and another south. The small scullery where the Parkers crouched had no windows. Beyond the passage was a much larger, windowless room, this one a byre for the animals. Two pigs and a dozen scared chickens were its only occupants.

  A ladder from the kitchen led upstairs where there was a single room for sleeping. The farm’s relative prosperity was witnessed by a massive bed and a chest of drawers. The room had two windows, also facing north and south. Sharpe put Riflemen in both windows, then ordered Sergeant Williams to take charge of the upstairs room and to make loopholes in the eastern and western walls. ‘And break through the roof.’

  ‘The roof?’ Williams gaped up at the thick beams and the timbers which hid the tiles.

  ‘To keep watch east and west,’ Sharpe ordered. Until he could see to his flanks then he was vulnerable to French surprise.

  Downstairs again, Sharpe ordered a loophole to be hacked next to the chimney breast. The Spanish farmer, understanding what needed to be done, produced a pickaxe and began to pound at his wall. A crucifix, hanging on the limewashed stone, juddered with the force of the man’s blows.

  ‘Bastards right!’ Harper shouted from the window. Rifles cracked. The greenjackets who fired ducked back, letting others take their places. Some dismounted Dragoons had tried to rush the farm, but three of them now lay in a puddle; two scrambled up and limped to safety, the third was still. Sharpe saw the splash of rain in the blood-rippled water.

  Then, for a few moments, there was relative peace.

  None of Sharpe’s men was wounded. They were breathless and damp, but safe. They stayed crouched low under the threat of carbine fire that flayed at the windows, but the bullets did no harm except to the house. Sharpe, peering out, saw that the enemy was hidden in ditches or behind the dunghill. The farmer’s wife was nervously offering sliced sausage to the greenjackets.

  George Parker crept on hands and knees from the scullery. He nervously waited for Sharpe’s attention which, once gained, he used to enquire what course of action Lieutenant Sharpe planned to follow.

  Lieutenant Sharpe informed Mr Parker that he intended to wait for darkness to fall.

  Parker swallowed. ‘That could be hours!’

  ‘Five at the most, sir.’ Sharpe was reloading his rifle, ‘unless God makes the sun stand still.’

  Parker ignored Sharpe’s levity. ‘And then?’

  ‘Break out, sir. Not till it’s dead of night. Hit the bastards when they’re not expecting it. Kill a few of them, and hope the others get confused.’ Sharpe righted the rifle and primed its pan. ‘They can’t do much damage to us so long as we stay low.’

  ‘But…’ Parker flinched as a bullet smacked into the wall above his head. ‘My dear wife, Lieutenant, wishes your assurance that our carriage will be retrieved?’

  ‘Afraid not, sir.’ Sharpe knelt up, saw a flicker of a shadow beyond the dunghill, and fired his rifle. Smoke billowed from the weapon, and a wad of burning paper smoked on the floor. ‘There won’t be time, sir.’ He crouched, took a cartridge from his pouch, and bit the bullet away.

  ‘But my testaments!’

  Sharpe did not like to reveal that the testaments, when last seen, had been strewn in the Spanish mud. He spat the bullet into his rifle’s muzzle. ‘Your testaments, sir, are now in the hands of Napoleon’s army.’ He rammed ball, wadding and powder down his rifle barrel. The saltpetre from the powder was rank and dry in his mouth.

  ‘But…’ Again Parker was silenced by a carbine bullet. This one clanged against a saucepan that hung from a beam. The bullet punched a hole in the metal, hit the next beam, and dropped at Sharpe’s feet. He picked it up, juggling it because of its heat, then smelt it. Parker frowned in perplexity.

  ‘There’s a rumour that the Frogs poison their bullets, sir.’ Sharpe said it loud enough so that his men, some of whom half-believed the story, could hear. ‘It ain’t true.’

  ‘It isn’t?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Sharpe put the bullet into his mouth, grinned, then swallowed it. His men laughed at the expression on George Parker’s face. Sharpe turned to see how the farmer was progressing with the loophole. The walls of the farm were hugely thick and, though the man’s pick had pierced a foot into the centre rubble, he still had not reached daylight.

  A volley of carbine shots crashed through the rear window. The Riflemen, unharmed, jeered their defiance, but it was a defiance that the grey-haired Parker could not share. ‘You’re doomed, Lieutenant!’

  ‘Sir, if you’ve nothing better…’

  ‘Lieutenant! We are civilians! I see no reason why we should stay here and share your death!’ George Parker had found courage under fire; the courage to assert his timorous soul and demand surrender.

  Sharpe primed his rifle. ‘You want to walk out there, sir?’

  ‘A flag of truce, man!’ Parker flinched as another carbine bullet ricocheted over his head.

  ‘If that’s what you want, sir…’ But before Sharpe could finish his sentence, there was a panicked shout from Sergeant W
illiams upstairs, then a rattling crash as a massive enemy volley flogged the front of the house. A Rifleman was jerked back from the window with blood spurting from his head. Two rifles fired, more shot from upstairs, then the northern window was darkened as French Dragoons, who had charged about the blind western angle of the house, filled the frame. Sharpe and several other men fired; but the Dragoons were dragging at the chairs which blocked the window. They were repulsed only when the farmer’s wife, screaming with despair and using a strength that seemed remarkable in so scrawny a woman, snatched the cauldron from the pothook and threw it at the enemy. The scalding lye snatched the French back as though a cannon had fired at them.

  ‘Sir!’ Harper was by the kitchen door. A crash sounded in the passage as the French broke down the southern door which the Irishman had not blocked as securely as the northern. A group of Dragoons had taken advantage of the larger attack to make a charge at the other side of the house and were now within the central passage. Harper fired his rifle through the kitchen door, which instantly splintered in two places as the French replied. Both bullets struck the table.

  The kitchen filled with powder smoke. Men were taking turns to fire through the windows, then reloading with frantic haste. The coachman emptied his huge pistol through the door and was rewarded with a shout of pain.

  ‘Open it!’ Sharpe said.

  Harper obeyed. An astonished Frenchman, levelling his carbine, found himself facing Sharpe’s sword which skewered forward so savagely that the blade’s tip jarred against the far wall of the passage after it had gone clean through the Dragoon’s body. Harper, screaming his weird battle-shouts, followed Sharpe with an axe he had plucked from the kitchen wall. He hacked down at another man, making the passage slithery with blood.

  Sharpe gouged and twisted his sword free. A Frenchman’s blade scraped up his forearm, springing warm blood, and he threw himself onto the man, forcing him against the passage wall and hammering the sword hilt at his face. A rifle exploded beside his head to throw another Dragoon back from the door. The pigs squealed in terror, while Sharpe tripped over a crawling Frenchman who was bleeding from the belly. Another rifle hammered in the passage, then Harper shouted that the enemy was gone.

  A carbine bullet slammed into the passage, ricocheted from the walls, and buried itself in the far door. Sharpe pushed into the room where the animals were kept and saw a wooden trough that would serve as some kind of barricade in the passage. He dragged it out, and the pigs took the opportunity to escape before he could slam the damaged outer door closed and ram the trough under its cross-members. ‘Lucky bloody French,’ Harper said. ‘Pork for supper.’

  The action lulled again. Dreadful squeals announced the death of the pigs; squeals which momentarily stilled the fusillade of carbine shots which raked the farmhouse. No more Frenchmen appeared as targets. One Rifleman was dead in the kitchen, another wounded. Sharpe went to the ladder. ‘Sergeant Williams?’

  There was no answer.

  ‘Sergeant Williams! How are those loopholes?’

  It was Dodd who answered. ‘He’s dead, sir. Got one in the eye, sir.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘He was looking out the roof, sir.’

  ‘Make sure someone keeps looking out!’

  Williams was dead. Sharpe sat at the foot of the ladder and stared at Patrick Harper. He was the obvious replacement, the only choice, but Sharpe suspected the big Irishman would scathingly reject the offer. So, he thought, the rank should not be offered but simply imposed. ‘Harper?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You’re a Sergeant.’

  ‘I’m bloody not.’

  ‘You’re a Sergeant!’

  ‘No, sir! Not in this damned army. No.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Sharpe spat the blasphemy at the huge man, but Harper merely turned to stare out of the window to where puffs of smoke betrayed the position of some Dragoons in a ditch.

  ‘Mister Sharpe?’ A tentative hand touched Sharpe’s wounded arm. It was George Parker again. ‘My dear wife and I have discussed it, Lieutenant, and we would appreciate it if you would communicate with the French commander.’ Parker suddenly saw Sharpe’s blood on his own fingers. He blanched and stuttered on: ‘Please don’t think we wish to desert you at this time, but…’

  ‘I know,’ Sharpe cut him short, ‘you think we’re doomed.’ He spoke savagely, not because he disapproved of Parker’s wish to be safe, but because, if the Parkers went, he would lose Louisa. He could have left the Parkers on the road, safe in their carriage, but he had panicked them into flight because he did not want to lose the girl’s company. Yet now Sharpe knew he had no choice, for the two women could not be expected to endure the French assault, nor the danger of a ricocheting bullet. Louisa must go.

  On the table, where the dead Rifleman lay among shattered crockery with the blood still dripping from his sopping hair, there was a piece of cheesecloth which, though grey and dirty, might pass for a flag of truce. Sharpe speared the flimsy material onto the tip of his sword, then shuffled over to the window. The Riflemen made way for him.

  He reached up and pushed the sword clear of the window frame. He waved it left and right, and was rewarded with a shout from outside. There was a pause in which, tentatively, Sharpe stood upright.

  ‘What do you want, Englishman?’ a voice shouted.

  ‘To talk.’

  ‘Come out then. Just one of you!’

  Sharpe plucked the cheesecloth from his sword, sheathed the blade, and went into the passage. He stepped over a dead Dragoon, pulled the chest clear of the northern door, then, feeling oddly naked and exposed, walked into the rain.

  To talk to the man in the red pelisse.

  CHAPTER 9

  A dozen French wounded lay in the barn, filling its cavernous space with the stench of blood, pus, and camphorated vinegar. The casualties lay on rough beds of hay at one end while at the other, in front of a stack of woven sheep hurdles, the officers had made a crude command post out of an upturned water barrel. A half-dozen officers stood about the barrel and among them was the chasseur in his red pelisse, who greeted Sharpe warmly and in fluent English. ‘My name is Colonel Pierre de l’Eclin, and I have the honour to be a chasseur of His Majesty’s Imperial Guard.’

  Sharpe returned the hint of a bow. ‘Lieutenant Richard Sharpe of the Rifles.’

  ‘The Rifles, eh? You make it sound like a very proud boast.’ De l’Eclin was a handsome man; as tall as Sharpe, strongly built, and with a square-jawed face and golden hair. He gestured at a flask of wine which stood on the makeshift table. ‘Will a Rifle take some wine?’

  Sharpe was not certain whether he was being mocked or complimented. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  The chasseur waved away a Lieutenant, insisting on filling the two small silver cups himself. He handed one towards Sharpe but, before the Rifleman could take the cup, de l’Eclin withdrew it slightly as though giving himself a chance to study his scarred face. ‘Have we met, Lieutenant?’

  ‘By a bridge, sir. You broke my sabre.’

  De l’Eclin seemed delighted. He gave the cup to Sharpe and clicked his fingers as the memory came back. ‘You parried! A quite remarkable parry! Or was it luck?’

  ‘Probably luck, sir.’

  ‘Soldiers should be lucky, and consider how lucky you are that I didn’t catch up with you in open ground today. All the same, Lieutenant, I salute your Rifles’ excellent defence. It’s a pity it must end like this.’

  Sharpe drank the wine to scour the sour taste of powder from his mouth. ‘It isn’t ended, sir.’

  ‘No?’ De l’Eclin raised a polite eyebrow.

  ‘I’m here, sir, solely on behalf of some English civilians, trapped inside the farm, who desire to leave. They are willing to trust to your kindness, sir.’

  ‘My kindness?’ De l’Eclin gave a gleeful bellow of laughter. ‘I told you that I am a chasseur of the Emperor’s Imperial Guard, Lieutenant. A man does not achieve that signal honour, let alone a
colonelcy, by kindness. Still, I’m grateful for what was indubitably meant as a compliment. Who are these civilians?’

  ‘English travellers, sir.’

  ‘And these are their books?’ De l’Eclin gestured at two muddy Spanish testaments which lay on the upturned barrel. The French had clearly been curious about the spilt books, a curiosity which Sharpe tried to satisfy. ‘They’re Methodist missionaries, sir, trying to turn Spain from the Papacy.’

  De l’Eclin inspected Sharpe for evidence of levity, found none, and burst into laughter. ‘They’ve as much hope, Lieutenant, of turning tigers into cows! What strange people it is a soldier’s privilege to meet. Do I have your word that these Methodists have not carried weapons?’

  Sharpe conveniently forgot Louisa’s small pistol. ‘You have, sir.’

  ‘You can send them out. God knows what we’ll make of them, but we won’t shoot them.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Sharpe turned to go.

  ‘But don’t leave me yet, Lieutenant. I’d like to talk to you.’ De l’Eclin saw the flicker of worry on Sharpe’s face, and shook his head. ‘I won’t keep you against your will, Lieutenant. I do respect flags of truce.’

  Sharpe went to the barn door and shouted to the farmhouse that the Parker family could leave. He also suggested that the three Spaniards in the farm might take this chance to escape, but it seemed none of them wanted to risk French hospitality, for only the Parker family emerged from the besieged house. Mrs Parker was the first to appear, stumping through the mud and rain with her umbrella carried like a weapon. ‘Dear God,’ de l’Eclin murmured behind Sharpe. ‘Why don’t you recruit her?’