Sharpe 3-Book Collection 4: Sharpe's Escape, Sharpe's Fury, Sharpe's Battle

by Bernard Cornwell

  Brigadier Moon, his hand clutching the Marquesa's hand, just watched. Sharpe had killed one man and put another on the ground in the time it would take to swat a fly. Now two other Frenchmen came at Sharpe, and Moon expected the rifleman to step away from their frenzied attack, but instead he went to meet them and beat a bayonet aside with his sword before driving the blade up into the man's face. A boot into the crotch crumpled the man. The second lunged with his bayonet, and Moon thought Sharpe must be killed, but the rifleman had sidestepped the lunge with sudden speed and now turned on his attacker. Moon saw the ferocity on the rifleman's face and felt an unexpected pang of pity for the Frenchman who faced him. "Bastard," Sharpe snarled, and the sword lunged, hard and fast, and the Frenchman dropped his musket and clung to the blade impaling his belly. Sharpe ripped it out just as Perkins arrived to bayonet the man. Harper was beside Sharpe now and pulled the trigger of the volley gun, with the sound of a cannon firing. Two Frenchmen went backward, blood thick on their white crossbelts. The others had taken enough and were running back to the column.

  "Sharpe!" Moon called.

  Sharpe ignored the brigadier. He sheathed his sword and took the rifle from his shoulder. He knelt and aimed at Vandal. "You bastard," he said and pulled the trigger. The rifle's muzzle was lost in smoke, and when the smoke cleared Vandal was still alive, still on his horse, and still using the flat of his saber to drive his men onto Gough's Irish. Sharpe swore. "Dan," he called to Hagman, "shoot that bastard!"

  "Sharpe," the brigadier called again, "the gun!"

  Sharpe turned. He saw, without much surprise, that the veiled woman was Caterina and he wondered what kind of bloody fool the brigadier was to bring a woman into this carnage. Then he looked at the abandoned French howitzer and saw that a priming tube was still sticking out of the vent. That meant the short-barreled cannon was loaded. He looked on the scorched grass for the linstock, but could not see it. The half battalion of the 67th, the two companies of the Cauliflowers, and the survivors of the Portuguese cacadores were advancing beyond the gun, going to fight Leval's last reserve battalion that was hurrying toward the left flank of the beleaguered 8th. The cannon, Sharpe thought, might be more useful if it was aimed at that reserve battalion, but then he remembered poor Jack Bullen. "Sergeant! I want this bloody gun round!"

  Harper, Galiana, Sharpe, and Harris lifted the trail and turned the howitzer so it pointed at the 8th of the line. "Here, Sharpe!" The brigadier tossed him a tinderbox.

  "Out of the way!" Sharpe shouted to his other riflemen. Then he struck a light and blew the charred linen in the box so that it burst into flame. He took all the linen out of the box, scorching his fingers, and leaned over the gun's wheel to drop the burning mass onto the priming tube. He heard the powder fizz and ducked away.

  The howitzer crashed back, its wheels leaping off the ground as it recoiled. It was a six-inch howitzer and it had been loaded with canister. The balls tore into the French flank with the force of a battalion volley. The cannon had been too close to spread the missiles wide, but where they struck they gouged a bleeding hole in the packed ranks and Sharpe, running aside, saw that Vandal had disappeared. Sharpe drew his sword again, then waited, wanting another sight of the colonel. Behind him the men of the 67th and the 47th and the 20th Portuguese started their volleys against the reserve battalion. Duncan's guns flayed it with shell and shrapnel. Somewhere a man howled like a dog.

  Colonel Vandal was on the ground. His horse was dying, screaming as its head thrashed the sandy soil. Vandal himself was dazed, but he did not think he was wounded. He managed to stand, only to see that the redcoats were closing on his eagle. "Kill them!" he shouted, and the shout was a parched croak. A huge sergeant with a pike was slashing at the French sergeants protecting the standard. "Kill them!" Vandal shouted again, and just then a young and skinny redcoat officer leaped at the color and cut with his sword at Sous-Lieutenant Guillemain who had the honor of holding the emperor's eagle. Vandal thrust his saber at the thin officer and felt the blade's tip jar on the man's ribs. The redcoat ignored the thrust and, with his free hand, grabbed the eagle's pole and tried to pull it from Guillemain's grasp. Two French sergeants killed the man, piercing him with their long-bladed halberds, cursing him, and Vandal saw the life fade from the redcoat's eyes before he had even hit the ground. Then one of the French sergeants recoiled, his left eye nothing but a pit of jellied blood, and a huge voice shouted at the Frenchmen. "Faugh a ballagh!"

  Sergeant Masterson had seen Ensign Keogh killed and now Masterson was angry. He had put down one of the killers with the spontoon's blade, and he slashed at the second, striking the man with the edge of the spear point. He brought it back and rammed the pike at Guillemain's throat. The lieutenant began gurgling, blood bubbling at his gullet, and Vandal reached for the eagle, but Masterson ripped the spontoon sideways so that Guillemain's dying body fell across the colonel. Then Masterson tore the eagle out of the Frenchman's grasp. Captain Lecroix shouted in incoherent rage and slashed his sword at Masterson, but a redcoat thrust his bayonet into Lecroix's ribs and another hit him on the skull with a musket. The last thing Lecroix saw in this world was the huge Irish sergeant flailing the precious standard. He was using the eagle to beat at the men trying to take it from him, and then a new rush of redcoats came on either side of Masterson and their bayonets went to work. "Lunge!" a sergeant was shouting in a high, cracked voice. "Recover! Stance! Lunge!"

  A surge of Frenchmen tried to recover their eagle, but the Irish bayonets were in front of it now. "Lunge! Recover!" the sergeant was shouting, while behind him Masterson was bellowing incoherently and waving the eagle above his head. "Lunge! Recover! Do your work properly!"

  Two men seized Vandal by his shoulders and pulled him away from the blood-spattered Irishmen. The colonel was not badly wounded. A bayonet had cut into his thigh, but he felt unable to walk, to speak, even to think. The eagle! It had a laurel wreath about its neck, a wreath of gilded bronze presented by the city of Paris to those regiments that had distinguished themselves at Austerlitz, and now some prancing fool was waving the eagle in the air! Vandal felt a surge of fury. He would not lose it! If he had to die in the attempt, he would take back the emperor's eagle. He screamed at the two men to drop him. He scrambled to his feet. "Pour l'empereur!" he shouted, and he ran toward Masterson, thinking to cut through the men barring his way. But suddenly there were more enemy to his left and he turned, parried a sword cut, lunged to kill the man, and saw, to his surprise, that it was a Spanish officer who, in turn, parried Vandal's lunge and riposted fast. More Frenchmen came to help their colonel. "Get the eagle!" he screamed at them, and he slashed at the Spaniard, hoping to drive the man away so he could join the attack on the redcoat who had his eagle. The slash ripped through coat and yellow sash to score a bloody wound on the Spaniard's belly, but just then the Spanish officer was thrust aside and a tall green-jacketed man beat down Vandal's saber with a huge blade, then simply reached out and gripped the collar of the colonel's coat. The green-jacketed man hauled Vandal out of the melee, tripped him, then kicked the colonel in the side of the head. Rifles fired, then a rush of Irishmen drove the last few Frenchmen back. Vandal tried to roll away from his attacker, but he was kicked again. When he looked up the big sword was at his throat.

  "Remember me?" Captain Sharpe asked.

  Vandal swung the saber, but Sharpe parried it with derisory ease. "Where's my lieutenant?" he asked.

  Vandal still held the saber. He readied himself to sweep it up at the rifleman, but then Sharpe pressed the point of the heavy cavalry sword into the colonel's throat. "I yield," Vandal said.

  The pressure relaxed. "Give me your saber," Sharpe said.

  "I give my parole," Vandal said, "and under the rules of war I may keep my saber." The colonel knew his battle was finished. His men had gone and the Irish were harrying them farther east with bayonets. All along the line the French were running, and all along the line bloodied men were pursuing the enemy, though they
did not pursue far. They had marched all night and fought all morning and they were bone tired. They followed the beaten enemy until it was certain that the broken army would not stop to re-form and then they sank down and marveled that they were still alive. "I give my parole," Vandal said again.

  "I said give me the saber," Sharpe snarled.

  "He can keep his weapon," Galiana said. "He's given his parole."

  Brigadier Moon watched and flinched as Sharpe kicked the Frenchman again, then stabbed down with the heavy cavalry sword to cut the man's wrist. Vandal let go of the saber's snakeskin grip and Sharpe bent and picked up the fallen blade. He looked at the steel, expecting to see a French name engraved there, but instead it said Bennett.

  "You stole this, you bugger," Sharpe said.

  "I gave you my parole!" Vandal protested.

  "Then stand up," Sharpe said.

  Vandal, his sight blurred because of his tears that were caused not by physical pain but by the loss of the eagle, stood. "My saber," he demanded, blinking.

  Sharpe threw the saber to Brigadier Moon, then hit Vandal. He knew he should not, but he was consumed by fury and so he hit him clean between the eyes. Vandal fell again, his hands clutching his face, and Sharpe bent over him. "Don't you remember, Colonel?" he asked. "War is war and there are no rules. That's what you told me. So where's my lieutenant?"

  Vandal recognized Sharpe then. He saw the bandage showing under the ragged shako and remembered the man who had blown the bridge, the man he thought he had killed. "Your lieutenant," he said shakily, "is in Seville, where he is being treated with honor. You hear that? With honor, as you must treat me."

  "Get up," Sharpe said. The colonel stood, then flinched as Sharpe dragged him around by tugging on one of his gilded epaulettes. Then Sharpe pointed. "Look, Colonel," he said, "there's your bloody honor."

  Sergeant Patrick Masterson, with a smile as broad as all Dublin, was parading the captured eagle. "By Jesus, boys," he was shouting, "I've got their cuckoo!"

  And Sharpe laughed.

  * * *

  HMS THORNSIDE cleared the Diamante rock off Cádiz and headed west into the Atlantic. Soon she would alter course for the mouth of the Tagus and for Lisbon. On shore a one-legged admiral watched her recede and tasted the bile in his throat. All Cádiz was praising the British now, the British who had taken an eagle and humiliated the French. No hope now of a new Regency in Spain, or of a sensible peace with the emperor, because the war fever had come to Cádiz and its hero was Sir Thomas Graham. The admiral turned away and stumped toward his home.

  Sharpe watched the shore fade. He stood beside Harper. "I'm sorry, Pat."

  "I know you are, sir."

  "He was a friend."

  "And that he was," Harper said. Rifleman Slattery had died. Sharpe had not seen it happen, but while he and Galiana had run into the disintegrating column to find Vandal, a last errant musket shot had pierced Slattery's throat and he had bled to death on Caterina's skirts.

  "It wasn't our fight," Sharpe said. "You were right."

  "It was a rare fight, though," Harper said, "and you got your man."

  Colonel Vandal had complained to Sir Thomas Graham. He protested that Captain Sharpe had wounded him after his surrender, that Captain Sharpe had insulted him and assaulted him, and that Captain Sharpe had stolen his saber. Lord William Russell had told Sharpe of the complaint and shaken his head. "I have to tell you it's serious, Sharpe. You can't upset a colonel, even a French one! Think what they'll do to our officers if they learn what we do to theirs?"

  "I didn't do it," Sharpe had lied stubbornly.

  "Of course you didn't, my dear fellow, but Vandal's made his complaint and I fear Sir Thomas insists there must be a court of inquiry."

  But the inquiry had never taken place. Brigadier Sir Barnaby Moon had written his own report of the incident, saying that he had been within twenty paces of the colonel's capture, that he had seen every action taken by Captain Richard Sharpe, and that Sharpe had behaved as a gentleman and an officer. Sir Thomas, on receiving Moon's report, had apologized to Sharpe in person. "We had to take the complaint seriously, Sharpe," Sir Thomas said, "but if that wretched Frenchman had known there was a brigadier watching, he'd never have made up such a pack of lies. And, of course, Moon dislikes you—he's made that very clear—so he's hardly likely to exonerate you if there was even the smallest chance of making trouble for you. So you can forget it, Sharpe, and I have to say I'm glad. I didn't want to think you were capable of doing what Vandal claimed."

  "Of course I'm not, sir."

  "But Brigadier Moon, eh?" Sir Thomas had asked, laughing. "Moon and the widow! Is she a widow? A proper one, I mean, not just Henry's leavings?"

  "Not that I know of, sir, no."

  "Well, she's a wife now," Sir Thomas said, amused. "Let us all hope he never discovers who she really is!"

  "She's a lovely lady, sir."

  Sir Thomas had looked at him with some surprise. "Sharpe," he had said, "we should all be as generous as you. What a kind thing to say." Sir Thomas had thanked him effusively then, and Henry Wellesley had thanked him again that evening, an evening during which Lord Pumphrey found he had business away from the embassy.

  Even Sir Barnaby Moon had thanked Sharpe, not just for the return of the precious saber, but for saving his life. "And for Lady Moon's life, Sharpe."

  "That was an honor, sir."

  "Her ladyship insists I must give your men some proper reward, Sharpe," Moon had said, and pressed coins into Sharpe's hand, "but I do it gladly on my own behalf as well. You're a brave man, Sharpe."

  "And you're a lucky one, sir. Her ladyship is beautiful."

  "Thank you, Sharpe," the brigadier had said, "thank you." His leg had been broken again in the fall from the curricle so he was staying a few more days in Cádiz, but Sharpe and his men were free to leave the city. And so they sailed to Portugal, to Lisbon, to the army, to the South Essex, and to the Light Company. They were sailing home.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  I would hate anyone to think that Sergeant Patrick Masterson's feat in capturing the eagle of the 8th regiment was in any way due to Sharpe's help. Masterson and Ensign Keogh were wholly responsible and poor Keogh died in the attempt. Their eagle was the first to be captured by British troops in the Peninsular War (despite Sharpe's Eagle), and Masterson was rewarded with a battlefield commission. Another member of the family, a descendant, was awarded a VC at Ladysmith. Masterson's name is sometimes given as Masterman (I've seen it spelled both ways on the same page), but Masterson seems correct. He is usually quoted as saying, "Bejabbers, boys, I have their cuckoo." He did, too.

  The colonel of the 8th was Colonel Autie and he died at Barrosa. I did not want to give a real man, who died heroically, my fictional villainy so I awarded the 8th to Vandal instead. Sous-Lieutenant Guillemain was the standard-bearer and he died trying to defend the eagle that was taken to London and presented, with great fanfare, to the prince regent. It was eventually lodged in the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, from where it was stolen in 1852. The staff is still there, but the eagle itself has never been recovered.

  Sir Thomas Graham is one of the more likable generals of the Peninsular War. The story of his life sketched in Sharpe's Fury is true. Until the French insulted his dead wife, he had been a sympathizer with France and her revolution, but he became so convinced of the evil that the revolution's fine words disguised that he raised the 90th regiment with his own money and so joined the army. Barrosa was his finest achievement, a terrible battle in which the British infantry (greatly helped on the lower ground by Major Duncan's superb gunnery) gained an astounding victory. They were outnumbered, they were tired, they remained unsupported by General Lapeña's troops, and they won. Marshal Victor, after his defeat at Wellington's hands at Talavera, should have some idea of the destructive power of British musketry, yet once again he attacked in columns, thus denying most of his men the ability to discharge their muskets. Once again the two-deep British line p
roved the superior weapon. It was still a close-run thing and, at the end, the bayonet proved decisive.

  The Spanish were mortified by General Lapeña's supine behavior. Their troops were more than capable of fighting, and of fighting well. They had proved that at Bailen where, in 1808, they had won an overwhelming victory against the French (and captured an eagle), and General Zayas and his men were to fight brilliantly at Albuera just two months after the battle of Barrosa. Zayas had wanted to help his allies at Barrosa, but Lapeña refused his permission. The Spanish government, realizing the service Graham had rendered, offered him the title of Duque del Cerro del Puerco, but Graham refused it, regarding it as a mere bribe that might persuade him to keep quiet about Lapeña's conduct. Lapeña's nickname was indeed Doña Manolito, so perhaps it should have been no surprise that he behaved so badly. One thing Graham did gain from the battle was a dog. General Rousseau, who was badly wounded when he led his grenadiers against the Guards, died of his wounds on the Cerro del Puerco. His dog, a poodle, found his dying master and refused to leave his side, or indeed, the grave where Rousseau was buried. Graham adopted the dog and sent him back to Scotland. "He seems to understand French best," he wrote home. Graham, after the battle, became Wellington's second in command for much of the Peninsular War. In time he was to become Lord Lynedoch. He lived to a great age and never remarried. His Mary was the love of his life. I strongly recommend Antony Brett-James's biography, General Graham (London, Macmillan, 1959), to anyone wishing to learn more about this extraordinary and most likeable Scot.