Sharpe's Battle

by Bernard Cornwell

  Castrador, Donaju and Sergeant Major Noonan were standing by the table. They gaped at Juanita, then looked at Sharpe who did not feel inclined to offer an immediate explanation of the lady's presence. "Loup's gone," Sharpe told

  Donaju. "I've got Sergeant Harper making sure the place is empty, so why don't you have your lads man the defences? Just in case Brigadier Loup decides to come back."

  Donaju glanced at Juanita, then turned on Noonan. "Sergeant Major? You heard the order. Do it."

  Noonan went. El Castrador was watching Hagman unpack the dismounted mule panniers. Juanita had gone to the remnants of the fire where she was warming herself. Donaju looked at her, then gave Sharpe an inquiring look. "The Dona

  Juanita," Sharpe explained, "is a woman of many parts. She's Lord Kiely's betrothed, General Loup's lover and an agent of the French."

  Juanita's head jerked up at the last phrase, but she made no effort to contradict Sharpe. Donaju stared at her as though he was unwilling to believe what he had just heard. Then he turned back to Sharpe with a frown. "She and

  Loup?" he asked.

  "Their love nest's upstairs, for Christ's sake," Sharpe said. "Go and look if you don't believe me. Her ladyship here let Loup into the fort last night. Her ladyship, Donaju, is a goddamned traitor."

  "Hymn sheets, sir," Hagman interrupted in a puzzled tone. "But bloody odd ones. I've seen things like it at church at home, you know, for the musicians, but not like this." The old poacher had unpacked the panniers to reveal a great pile of manuscripts that were lined with staves and inscribed with words and music.

  "They're very old." Donaju was still dazed by the revelations about Juanita, but now moved across to examine the papers unearthed by Hagman. "See, Sharpe?

  Just four staves instead of five. They could be two or three hundred years old. Latin words. Let's see now." He frowned as he made a mental translation.

  " 'Clap your hands, everyone, call unto God with a voice of victory.' The psalms, I think."

  "She wasn't carrying the psalms back to our lines," Sharpe said, and he seized the top manuscripts off the pile and began sorting through them. It took only seconds to find that there were newspapers hidden beneath the disguising manuscripts. "These, Donaju"-Sharpe held up the newspapers - "these are what she was carrying."

  Juanita's only reaction to the discovery was to start biting one of her nails.

  She glanced at the kitchen door, but Harper had come back to the house and the courtyard was now filled with his riflemen. "Place is empty, sir. Bugger's gone," Harper reported, "and he left in a rare hurry, sir, for the place is still stuffed with plunder. Something drove him out in a hurry." He nodded respectfully to Captain Donaju. "Your fellows are manning the defences, sir."

  "They're not American newspapers this time," Sharpe said, "but English ones.

  Learned their lesson last time, didn't they? Make a newspaper too old and no one believes the stories, but these dates are just last week." He threw the papers on the table one by one. "The Morning Chronicle, the Weekly Dispatch, the Salisbury Journal, the Staffordshire Advertiser, someone's been busy, my lady. Who? Someone in Paris? Is that where these papers are printed?"

  Juanita said nothing.

  Sharpe plucked another newspaper from the pile. "Probably printed three weeks ago in Paris and brought here just in time. After all, no one would be astonished to see a two-week-old Shrewsbury Chronicle in Portugal, would they?

  A fast-sailing ship could easily have brought it, and there'll be no drafts of troops to contradict these stories. So what are they saying about us this time?" He leafed through the newspaper, tilting it towards the candles as he turned the pages. "Apprentice imprisoned for playing football on the Sabbath?

  Serve the little bugger right for trying to enjoy himself, but I don't suppose his story will drive the troops to mutiny, though something in here will."

  "I've found something," Donaju said quietly. He had been searching the Morning

  Chronicle and now he folded the paper and held it towards Sharpe. "A piece about the Irish Division."

  "There isn't an Irish Division," Sharpe said, taking the newspaper. He found the item that had attracted Donaju's attention and read it aloud. " 'Recent disturbances among the Hibernian troops of the army serving in Portugal,' "

  Sharpe read, embarrassed because he was a slow and not very certain reader, "

  'have persuaded the government to adopt a new and palliative' "-he had a lot of trouble with that word-" 'policy. When the present campaigning season is over the Irish regiments of the army will be brigaded as a division that shall be posted to the garrisons of the Caribbean islands. The exchequer has forbidden the expense of carrying wives, doubting that many so described have benefited from the Almighty's blessing on their union. And in the tropics, doubtless, the hot Irish heads will find a climate more to their liking.' "

  "The same report is here." Donaju displayed another paper, then hastily offered El Castrador an explanation of all that was happening inside the smoky kitchen.

  The partisan glared at Juanita when her treachery was revealed. "Traitor!" he spat at her. "Your mother was a whore," he said, so far as Sharpe was able to follow the quick, angry Spanish, "your father a goat. You were given everything, yet you fight for Spain's enemies, while we, who have nothing, fight to save our country." He spat again and fingered his small bone-handled knife. Juanita stiffened under the onslaught, but said nothing. Her dark eyes went back to Sharpe who had just found another version of the announcement that all the Irish regiments were to be posted to the West Indies.

  "It's a clever lie," Sharpe said, looking at Juanita, "very clever."

  Donaju frowned. "Why is it clever?" He had asked the question of Patrick

  Harper. "Wouldn't the Irish like to be brigaded together?"

  "I'm sure they would, sir, but not in the Caribbean and not without their women, God help us."

  "Half of the men would be dead of the yellow fever within three months of arriving in the islands," Sharpe explained, "and the other half dead within six months. Being posted to the Caribbean, Donaju, is a death sentence." He looked at Juanita. "So whose idea was it, my lady?"

  She said nothing, just chewed on the fingernail. El Castrador shouted at her for her obstinacy and untied the small knife from his belt. Donaju blanched at the stream of obscenities and tried to restrain the big man's anger.

  "Well, the story isn't true," Sharpe interrupted the commotion. "For a start we wouldn't be so daft as to take the Irish soldiers away from the army. Who'd win the battles else?"

  Harper and Donaju smiled. Sharpe felt a quiet exultation, for if this discovery did not justify his breaking orders and marching on San Cristobal, nothing would. He made a pile of the newspapers, then looked at Donaju. "Why don't you send someone back to headquarters. Find Major Hogan, tell him what's here and ask him what we should be doing."

  "I'll go myself," Donaju said, "but what will you do?"

  "I have a few things to do here first," Sharpe said, looking at Juanita as he spoke. "Like discovering where Loup is, and why he left in such a hurry."

  Juanita bridled. "I have nothing to say to you, Captain."

  "Then maybe you'll say it to him." He jerked his head towards El Castrador.

  Juanita gave a fearful glance at the partisan, then looked back at Sharpe.

  "When did British officers cease to be gentlemen, Captain?"

  "When we began to win battles, ma'am," Sharpe said. "So who's it to be? Me or him?"

  Donaju looked as though he might make a protest at Sharpe's behaviour, then he saw the rifleman's grim face and thought better of it. "I'll take a newspaper to Hogan," he said quietly, then folded the counterfeit Morning Chronicle into his pouch and backed from the room. Harper went with him and closed the kitchen door firmly behind him.

  "Don't you worry, sir," Harper said to Donaju once they were in the yard.

  "I'll look after the lady now."

  "You will?"

 
"I'll dig her a nice deep grave, sir, and bury the witch upside down so that the harder she struggles the deeper she'll go. Have a safe ride back to the lines, sir."

  Donaju blanched, then went to find his horse while Harper shouted at Perkins to find some water, make a fire and brew a good strong morning cup of tea.

  "You're in trouble, Richard," Hogan said when he finally reached Sharpe. It was early evening of the day which had begun with Sharpe's stealthy approach to Loup's abandoned stronghold. "You're in trouble. You've been shooting prisoners. God, man, I don't care if you shoot every damned prisoner between here and Paris, but why the hell did you have to tell anyone?"

  Sharpe's only response was to turn from his vantage point among the rocks and wave a hand to indicate that Hogan should keep low.

  "Don't you know the first rule of life, Richard?" Hogan grumbled as he tethered his horse to a boulder.

  "Never get found out, sir."

  "So why the hell didn't you keep your damned mouth shut?" Hogan clambered up to Sharpe's eyrie and lay down beside the rifleman. "So what have you found?"

  "The enemy, sir." Sharpe was five miles beyond San Cristobal, five miles deeper inside Spain, guided there by El Castrador who had ridden back to San

  Cristobal with the news that had brought Hogan out to this ridge overlooking the main road that led west out of Ciudad Rodrigo. Sharpe had reached the ridge on Dona Juanita's horse which was now picketed safely out of sight of anyone looking up from the road and there were plenty who might have looked, for Sharpe was staring down at an army. "The French are out, sir," he said.

  "They're marching, and there are thousands of the buggers."

  Hogan drew out his own telescope. He stared at the road for a long time, then allowed a hiss of breath to escape. "Dear God," he said, "dear sweet merciful

  God." For a whole army was on the march. Infantry and dragoons, gunners and hussars, lancers and grenadiers, voltigeurs and engineers; a trail of men that looked black in the fading light, though here and there in the long column the dying sun reflected dark scarlet from the flank of a cannon being dragged by a team of oxen or horses. Thick dust clouded up from the wheels of the cannons, wagons and coaches that were keeping to the road itself, while the infantry marched in columns in the fields either side. The cavalry rode on the outermost flanks, long lines of men with steel-tipped lances and shining helmets and tossing plumes, their horses' hooves leaving long bruised marks on the spring grass of the valley. "Dear God," Hogan said again.

  "Loup's down there," Sharpe said. "I saw him. That's why he left San

  Cristobal. He was summoned to join the army, you see?"

  "Damn it!" Hogan exploded. "Why couldn't you forget Loup? It's Loup's fault you're in trouble! Why in the name of God couldn't you keep your mouth shut about those two damned fools you shot to death? Now bloody Valverde's saying that the Portuguese lost a prime regiment of men because you stirred up the hornet's nest, and that no sane Spaniard can ever trust a soldier to British officers. What it means, you damned fool, is that we have to parade you in front of the court of inquiry. We have to sacrifice you with Runciman."

  Sharpe stared at the Irish Major. "Me?"

  "Of course! For Christ's sake, Richard! Don't you have the first inkling of politics? The Spanish don't want Wellington as Generalissimo! They see that appointment as an insult to their country and they're looking for ammunition to support their cause. Ammunition like some damned fool of a rifleman fighting a private war at the expense of a fine regiment of Portuguese caçadores whose fate will serve as an example of what might happen to any

  Spanish regiments put under the Peer's command." He paused to stare through his telescope, then pencilled a note on the cuff of his shirt. "God damn it,

  Richard, we were going to have a nice quiet court of inquiry, put all the blame on Runciman and then forget what happened at San Isidro. Now you've confused everything. Did you happen to keep notes of what you've seen here?"

  "I did, sir," Sharpe said. He was still trying to come to terms with the idea that his whole career was suddenly in jeopardy. It all seemed so monstrously unfair, but he kept the resentment to himself as he handed Hogan a stiff, folded sheet of the ancient music that had concealed the counterfeit newspapers. On the back of the sheet Sharpe had pencilled a tally of the units he had watched march beneath him. It was an awesome list of battalions and squadrons and batteries, all going towards Almeida and all expecting to meet and trounce the small British army that had to try to stop them from relieving the fortress.

  "So tomorrow," Hogan said, "they'll reach our positions. Tomorrow, Richard, we fight. And that's why." Hogan had spotted something new in the column and now pointed far to the west. It took Sharpe a moment to train his telescope, then he saw the vast column of ox-hauled wagons that was following the French troops west. "The relief supplies for Almeida," Hogan said, "all the food and ammunition the garrison wants, enough to keep them there through the summer while we lay siege, and if they can keep us in front of Almeida all summer then we'll never get across the frontier and the Lord alone knows how many

  Frogs will attack us next spring." He collapsed his telescope again. "And talking of spring, Richard, would you like to tell me exactly what you did with the Dona Juanita? Captain Donaju said he left her with you and our knife- happy friend."

  Sharpe coloured. "I sent her home, sir."

  There was a moment's silence. "You did what?" Hogan asked.

  "I sent her back to the Crapauds, sir."

  Hogan shook his head in disbelief. "You let an enemy agent go back to the

  French? Are you entirely mad, Richard?"

  "She was upset, sir. She said that if I took her back to the army she'd be arrested by the Spanish authorities and tried by the junta in Cadiz, sir, and like as not put in front of a firing squad. I've never been one for fighting against women, sir. And we know who she is, don't we? So she can't do any harm now."

  Hogan closed his eyes and rested his head on his forearm. "Dear God, in Your infinite mercy please save this poor bugger's soul because Wellington sure as hell will not. Did it not occur to you, Richard, that I would have liked to talk to the lady?"

  "It did, sir. But she was frightened. And she didn't want me to leave her alone with El Castrador. I was just being a gentleman, sir."

  "I thought you didn't approve of the gentry fighting wars. So what did you do?

  Pat her little bum, dry her maidenly tears, then give her a soulful kiss and send her down to Loup so she could tell him how you're stranded in San

  Cristobal?"

  "I let her go a couple of miles back"-Sharpe jerked his head north and west-

  "and made her travel on foot, sir, without any boots. I reckoned that would slow her down. And she did talk to me before she left, sir. It's all written down there if you can make out my handwriting. She says she distributed the newspapers, sir. She took them down to Irish encampments, sir."

  "The only thing that Dona Juanita could distribute, Richard, is the pox. Jesus wept! You let that bitch twist you round her little fingers. For Christ's sake, Richard, I already knew she was the one fetching the newspapers. She was an errand girl. The real villain is someone else and I was hoping to follow her to him. Now you've buggered that up. Jesus!" Hogan paused to contain his anger, then shook his head wearily. "But at least she left you your bloody jacket."

  Sharpe frowned in puzzlement. "My jacket, sir?"

  "Remember what I told you, Richard? How the Lady Juanita collects the uniforms of every man she sleeps with. Her wardrobes must be vast, but I'm glad to see she won't be hanging a jacket of rifle green along with all the other coats."

  "No, sir," Sharpe said, and blushed an even deeper red. "Sorry, sir."

  "It can't be helped," Hogan said as he wriggled back from the crest. "You're an idiot for women and always were. If we thrash Masséna then the lady can't do us much harm, and if we don't, then the war's probably lost anyway. Let's get you the hell out of here. You're on administra
tive duties till your crucifixion." He backed away from the crest and put his telescope back into a belt pouch. "I'll do my best for you, God knows why, but your best prayer,

  Richard, and I hate to tell you this, is that we lose this battle. Because if we do it'll be such a disaster that no one will have the time or energy to remember your idiocy."

  It was dark by the time they reached San Cristobal. Donaju had returned to the village with Hogan and now he led his fifty men of the Real Companïa Irlandesa back towards the British lines. "I saw Lord Kiely at headquarters," he told

  Sharpe.

  "What did you tell him?"

  "I told him his lover was an afrancesada and that she was sleeping with Loup."

  Donaju's tone was stark. "And I told him he was a fool."