"Wouldn't need a tavern, sir, not with fifteen hundred guineas."
"Be nice though, wouldn't it?" Sharpe said. "A tavern in a town by the sea? We could call it the Lord Pumphrey." He took a leather patch from his cartridge pouch, wrapped the bullet, and rammed it down the barrel. "But they don't have lords in America, do they?"
"They don't," Lord Pumphrey said.
"So maybe we'll call it the Ambassador and the Whore instead," Sharpe said, sliding the ramrod back into place beneath the barrel. He primed and cocked the rifle. No one was moving below, which suggested Montseny was considering his tactics. He and his men had learned to fear the firepower above them, but that would not deter them for long, not when there were fifteen hundred golden English guineas to be won.
"You wouldn't do that, Sharpe, would you?" Pumphrey asked nervously. "I mean, you're not planning on taking the money?"
"For some reason, my lord, I'm a loyal bastard. God knows why. But Sergeant Harper is Irish. He's got plenty of cause to hate us English. One shot from that volley gun and you and I are dead meat. Fifteen hundred guineas, Pat. You could do a lot with that."
"I could, sir."
"But what we have to do now," Sharpe said, "is go to our left. We climb to that window." He pointed. His eyes had adjusted to the gloom and he could see a slight sheen betraying the window beneath the dome. "We break through. There's scaffolding on the outer wall. We go down that and we're off into the city like rats into a hole."
To get there they would have to climb the scaffold above the tambour, then cross a narrow plank and climb another ladder, which led to a rickety platform just beneath the window. The ladders, like the scaffolding poles, were tied in place with rope. It was not a long journey, no more than thirty feet upward, the same across, and half as much up again, but to make it they must expose themselves to the men below. Sharpe guessed there were eight or nine men there, all with muskets, and even a musket could hit at that distance. Once they left the shelter of the wide stone ledge, then one of them would surely be struck by a bullet. "What we have to do," he said, "is distract the bastards. Pity we don't have those other smoke balls."
"They worked fine, didn't they?" Harper said happily. Smoke was leaking out of the crypt stairways and spreading on the crossing floor, but there was not enough to obscure the high dome.
Sharpe crouched on the tambour, staring at the scaffolding all about the crossing. Montseny and his men were just out of sight in the nave. They were doubtless waiting for Sharpe to move off the safety of the stone ledge. Then they would fire a volley. So distract them, he thought, confuse them, but how? "You got any more stone, Pat?"
"There's a dozen blocks here, sir."
"Throw them down. Just to keep them happy."
"Can I use the volley gun, sir?"
"Only if you see two or three of them." The volley gun was a vicious thing, but took so long to reload that it was useless once it was fired.
"What about you, sir?"
"I've got an idea," Sharpe said. It was a desperate idea, but Sharpe had seen the long rope that was tied to the base of the scaffold opposite. It climbed into the gloom, vanishing somewhere in the dome, then reappeared closer to him. There was a great iron hook on its end and that hook was tied to the scaffold to his right and on the next platform down. The rope was used to hoist the masonry blocks to the dome. "Give me back the knife," he said to Pumphrey. "Now, Pat!" he said, and Harper heaved a block of limestone into the transept. When it crashed onto the floor, Sharpe dropped down the ladder. He did not use the rungs, but went down it like a seaman using a companionway, hands and feet on the outer edge, and he swore as a splinter drove into his right hand. He hit the plank platform hard and felt it shake. A second stone banged onto the cathedral floor, and Montseny must have thought they were hurling the masonry because they had run out of ammunition, for he and three other men stepped out with muskets.
"God bless you," Harper said, and fired the volley gun. The sound was deafening, a massive explosion that reverberated around the cathedral as the seven bullets flayed the space between the choir stalls. A man cursed below as Sharpe reached the hook. A musket fired at him, but the shot came from the far transept and the ball missed by a yard. He seized the heavy hook and sawed through the rope lashing it in place, then carried the hook and its heavy line back along the plank, up the ladder, and onto the tambour just as another two shots cracked bright in the gloom below. He gave the hook to Harper. "Pull on it," he said. "Don't jerk it, just pull as hard as you can." He did not want the men below to understand what was happening, so the tension on the rope had to be gradual.
A faint squeal from the upper darkness betrayed that the rope went through a sheave up there. Sharpe saw the line tighten and heard Harper grunt. A shadow moved below and Sharpe snatched up his rifle, aimed too quickly, and fired. The shadow vanished. Harper was pulling with all his huge strength as Sharpe took out another cartridge.
"It's not moving," Harper said.
Sharpe finished reloading, then gave the rifle and his pistol to Lord Pumphrey. "Keep them amused, my lord," he said. Then he crouched by Harper and both of them heaved on the rope. It did not budge an inch. The bitter end was tied to a scaffold pole and the pole seemed immovable. The knot had slid up to where a second pole was tied crosswise and it would move no farther. The angle was all wrong, too acute, but if Sharpe could just move that pole he might have his distraction.
Lord Pumphrey fired one of his dueling pistols, then the second one, and Sharpe heard a yelp from the nave. "Well done, my lord," he said. He decided to abandon caution now. "Jerk it," Sharpe told Harper, and they gave the rope a series of hard pulls. Sharpe thought the pole moved slightly, just a shudder, and the men below must have realized what they were doing for one of them ran out of the nave with a knife in his hand. Lord Pumphrey fired a sea-service pistol and the ball struck the flagstone floor and whipped away down the nave. The man had reached the scaffold and was climbing to cut the rope. "Pull!" Sharpe said, and he and Harper gave a huge heave. The scaffold pole bent outward. The scaffolding was old. It had been in place for almost twenty years and the lashings were frayed. Masonry blocks were piled on its platforms and some of them shifted. Once they began to move, they would not stop. "Pull!" Sharpe said again, and they tugged on the rope once more. This time the far scaffold pole snapped clean away from the rest of the structure. Stones began to crash through the planking. The man with the knife jumped for his life, and just then the rest of the scaffolding on the crossing's far side collapsed in a welter of noise and dust.
"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 t
hat 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?
Sharpe 3-Book Collection 4: Sharpe's Escape, Sharpe's Fury, Sharpe's Battle Page 59