Sharpe's Prey

by Bernard Cornwell

  “He reckoned it was inside when the house burned, sir.”

  Lavisser used the efficacious word. “All that work wasted,” he said. “Wasted!”

  Barker stared up at the pigeons on the palace roof. He thought his own night had been wasted, for Lavisser had insisted he watch and count the falling bombs with him. Barker would have preferred to guard Bredgade, but Lavisser had instructed Barker to count the gun flashes from the fleet while Lavisser counted the shots from the land batteries. A real waste, Barker thought, for if he had been in Bredgade then Sharpe would have died and Skovgaard might still be revealing names. “We have to find Skovgaard again, sir,” Barker said.

  “How?” Lavisser asked sourly, then answered his own question. “He has to be in hospital, doesn’t he?”

  “At a doctor’s?” Barker suggested.

  Lavisser shook his head. “All doctors were ordered to the hospitals.”

  So Lavisser and Barker looked for Ole Skovgaard in Copenhagen’s hospitals. That search took them all morning as they went from ward to ward where hundreds of burn victims lay in awful pain, but Skovgaard was nowhere to be found. A morning wasted, and Lavisser was in a grim mood when he went to see what was left of Bredgade, but the house was a smoking ruin and the gold, if it was still there, was nothing but a molten mass deep in its cellars. But at least Jules, one of the Frenchmen left behind when the diplomats fled Copenhagen, was still in the undamaged coach house and Jules wanted his own revenge on Sharpe.

  “We know where he is,” Barker insisted.

  “Ulfedt’s Plads?” Lavisser suggested.

  “Where else?”

  “You, me and Jules,” Lavisser said, “and three of them? I think we must improve those odds.”

  Barker and Jules went to watch Ulfedt’s Plads while Lavisser went to the citadel where General Peymann had his quarters, but the General had been up all night and had now taken to his bed and it was midafter-noon before he woke and Lavisser was able to spin his tale. “A child was killed playing with an unexploded bomb, sir,” he said, “and I fear there’ll be more such deaths. There are too many bombs lying in the streets.”

  Peymann blew on his coffee to cool it. “I thought Captain Nielsen was dealing with that problem,” the General observed.

  “He’s overwhelmed, sir. I need a dozen men.”

  “Of course, of course.” Peymann signed the necessary order and Lavisser woke a reluctant lieutenant and ordered him to assemble a squad.

  The Lieutenant wondered why his men needed muskets to collect unexploded missiles, but he was too tired to argue. He just followed Lavisser to Ulfedt’s Plads where two civilians waited beside a warehouse. “Knock on the door, Lieutenant,” Lavisser ordered.

  “I thought we were here to collect bombs, sir.”

  Lavisser took the man aside. “Can you be discreet, Lieutenant?”

  “As well as the next man.” The Lieutenant was offended by the question.

  “I could not be frank with you before, Lieutenant. God knows there are too many rumors circling the city already and I didn’t want to start more, but General Peymann has been warned that there are English spies in Copenhagen.”

  “Spies, sir?” The Lieutenant’s eyes widened. He was nineteen and had only been an officer for two months and so far his most responsible duty had been making certain that the citadel’s flag was hoisted at each sunrise.

  “Saboteurs, more like,” Lavisser embroidered his tale. “The British, we think, are running out of bombs. They will probably fire a few tonight, but we think they will be relying on their agents in the city to do more damage. The General believes the men are hiding on these premises.”

  The Lieutenant snapped at his men to fix bayonets, then hammered on Skovgaard’s door which was opened by a frightened maid. She screamed when she saw the bayonets, then said that her master and mistress had disappeared.

  “What about the Englishman?” Lavisser asked over the Lieutenant’s shoulder.

  “He hasn’t come back, sir,” the maid said. “None of them have, sir.”

  “Search the premises,” Lavisser ordered the soldiers. He sent some of the men into the warehouse and others up the stairs of the house while he, Jules and Barker went to Skovgaard’s office.

  They found no list of names there. They did find a metal box crammed with money, but no names. The Lieutenant discovered an unloaded musket upstairs, but then the terrified maids told the Lieutenant that Mister Bang was locked in the old stables. The Lieutenant took that news down to the office.

  “Mister Bang?” Lavisser said, stuffing money into his coat pocket.

  “The fellow who sold us Skovgaard,” Barker reminded him.

  The padlock was prized from the door and a startled Aksel Bang stumbled into the waning daylight. He was nervous and indignant, and so bewildered that he was hardly able to talk sense and so, to calm him down, Lavisser ordered the maids to make some tea, then he took Bang upstairs and settled him in Skovgaard’s parlor where Bang told how Lieutenant Sharpe had come back to the city and how Bang had tried to arrest him. The story was a little tangled there, for Bang was unwilling to admit how easily he had been overpowered, but Lavisser did not pursue the details. Bang did not know how many men were helping Sharpe, but he had heard their voices in the yard and knew there must be at least two or three.

  “And Mister Skovgaard’s daughter was helping these Englishmen?” Lavisser asked.

  “Not willingly, not willingly,” Bang insisted. “She must have been deceived.”

  “Of course.”

  “But her father, now, he was always on the English side,” Bang said vengefully, “and he made Astrid help him. She didn’t want to, of course, but he made her.” ;

  Lavisser sipped his tea. “So Astrid knows as much as her father?”

  “Oh yes,” Bang said.

  “She knows the names of her father’s correspondents?” Lavisser asked.

  “What he knows,” Bang said, “she knows.”

  “Does she now,” Lavisser said to himself. He lit a candle, for dusk was darkening the room. “You did well, Lieutenant,” he said, careful to flatter Bang by using his militia rank, “when you handed Skovgaard to the police.”

  A small doubt nagged Bang. “Lieutenant Sharpe said that it was you who had taken Skovgaard, sir.”

  “He said what?” Lavisser looked astonished, then unleashed his charming smile. “Of course not! I have no authority in that area. No, Mister Skovgaard was taken for questioning by the police, but, alas, he escaped. The confusion of the bombing, you understand? And our problem is that Lieutenant Sharpe and his English helpers are somewhere in the city. They may already have rescued Mister Skovgaard. General Peymann thought we would find them here, but alas.” He shrugged. “I suspect they are hiding, but you, Lieutenant, know Mister Skovgaard better than anyone.”

  “True,” Bang said.

  “And who knows how they are deceiving Astrid?” Lavisser asked in a worried tone.

  “They are deceiving her!” Bang said angrily, and spilled out his resentment of Sharpe. The Englishman, he said, had promised Astrid he would stay in Denmark. “And she believes him!” Bang said. “She believes him! He has turned her head.”

  And a pretty head it was too, Lavisser thought, and filled with knowledge that he needed. “I fear for her, Lieutenant,” he said gravely, “I truly do.” He stood and stared out of the window so that Bang would not see his amusement. So Sharpe was in love? Lavisser smiled at that realization. The darkening sky was banded in black cloud and soon, he thought, the first bombs would start falling unless the British had exhausted their stocks, in which case the city would be spared until more could be fetched from England. “They are doubtless holding poor Astrid as a hostage”-he turned back to Bang-“and we must find them.”

  “They could be anywhere,” Bang said helplessly.

  “Mister Skovgaard was injured by a bomb when he escaped,” Lavisser lied smoothly. “He needs a doctor, we think, but he’s not in an
y of the hospitals.”

  Bang shook his head. “His doctor lives in Vester Faelled.”

  “And he certainly can’t have gone there,” Lavisser said, “so where would he hide? What is it?” He had been alarmed by a sudden wide-eyed look on Bang’s face.

  But Bang was smiling. “Mister Skovgaard needs medical help?” he asked. “Then I know where they are.”

  “You do?”

  “You will give me a gun?” Bang asked eagerly. “I can help you?”

  “I should expect nothing less from a loyal Dane,” Lavisser said unctuously.

  “Then I shall take you to them,” Bang said.

  For he knew exactly where they were.

  To the west a red flash lit the sky and the first bomb climbed into the dark.

  Then the other guns hammered, their discharge ringing the city with flame-shot smoke.

  And the bombs were falling again.

  Chapter 11

  Sharpe spent much of the day in a cramped storeroom above the arch of the orphanage gateway. He told Hopper and Clouter he was watching for Lavisser, but he did not really expect to see the renegade. He was thinking instead. Thinking about leaving Britain, thinking about Grace and about Astrid. Thinking about the army and about Wapping, and while he brooded, Hopper and Clouter took turns standing guard near Ole Skovgaard’s bed, which had been placed under the inside stairs because the orphanage was so crowded with folk made homeless by the bombardment. A Danish flag hung across the small space to make it private and the two seamen were there, not to protect the patient against Lavisser, but rather from the intrusion of children excited by the bombardment and its upheavals. Astrid tended her father, or else helped calm the children.

  Hopper brought Sharpe some bread and cheese toward evening and the two men ate in the storeroom, which had a small barred window looking down the street toward the houses of Nyboden. “He’s sleeping,” Hopper said, meaning Ole Skovgaard. Skovgaard’s fingers had been splinted and his wounds bandaged. “He ain’t sleeping well,” Hopper went on, “but he won’t for a while, will he?” He pushed a jug of water toward Sharpe. “I was thinking, sir, that either Clouter or me ought to go and see Captain Chase.”

  Sharpe nodded. “He’ll be worrying.”

  “Just to let him know we’re still ticking,” Hopper said. “Doesn’t matter which of us goes, sir, but the Captain, sir, he’ll want to know what’s going to happen.”

  “If I knew, I’d tell you,” Sharpe said.

  “I thought we’d wait till the bombs start again, then go. No one takes a blind bit of notice when the bombs are dropping.”

  Sharpe gazed down the street where a lame sweeper was brushing litter toward a wheelbarrow. “What we do,” Sharpe said, “really depends on what the Danes do. On whether they surrender or not.”

  “Have to drop a few more bombs than we did last night,” Hopper said scathingly. “It’s no good annoying them, is it? You have to bloody hurt them.”

  “If they surrender,” Sharpe said, “then there isn’t a problem. We’ll just take Mister Skovgaard to a British surgeon. But if they don’t surrender... “ He left the thought unfinished.

  “Then we’ll be dodging this Captain Lavatory?”

  Sharpe nodded. “Though I think we’re safe enough here.”

  Hopper nodded. “So when it’s dark, sir, and the bombs start up, I’ll sneak back to the Captain.”

  “Tell Captain Chase I’ll stay here till Mister Skovgaard can be moved.” Sharpe did not know what else he could do. He knew he should hunt Lavisser down, but guarding Ole Skovgaard now seemed the more important task. “And when it’s all over, Hopper, you, me and Clouter are going to go digging in that house. There ought to be forty-three thousand melted guineas somewhere under the ashes.”

  “Forty-three thousand?”

  “Give or take a handful.”

  Hopper whistled. “Captain Lavatory will already be digging though, won’t he?”

  “It’ll still be too hot,” Sharpe said.

  “So pray the buggers surrender, eh?” Hopper stared down the shadowed street. “Look at that silly bugger! Sweeping up a bombed city! You should get some sleep, sir, you look like a rag.” He frowned at the small storeroom. “You ain’t got room to make a proper cot in here, sir, why not go to the chapel? It’s quiet enough there.”

  “Wake me before you leave.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  It was quiet in the chapel, though Sharpe could not sleep. He sat at the very back in a white-painted pew and stared at the stained glass window above the simple altar. It was getting darker outside and the details of the window were obscured, but the golden hair of the children and Christ’s silver halo showed up brightly. There were words scrolled around the halo, but they were in Danish so he could not read them.

  He heard the door open and turned to see that Astrid had come to join him. “You look very thoughtful,” she said.

  “I was just wondering what those words say,” Sharpe said, “up on the window.”

  Astrid peered up at the dark glass. “Lader de sind Bom,” she read, “komme til mig.”

  “I’m none the wiser.”

  “Let the little children come to me,” she translated. “It’s from the Gospels.”

  “Ah.”

  Astrid smiled. “You sound disappointed.”

  “I thought it might be ‘Be sure your sin will find you out.’ “

  “So you do have some religion?”

  “Do I?”

  She took his hand and held it silently for a while, then she sighed. “Why would anyone hurt another man so much?”

  “Because it’s war,” Sharpe said.

  “Because the world is cruel,” Astrid said. She stared up at the window. Christ’s halo and eyes were piercing white, the rest was darkening. “From now on,” she said, “he will be half blind, toothless and never able to hold a pen again.” She squeezed Sharpe’s hand. “And I will have to look after him.”

  “Then I’ll have to look after you, won’t I?”

  “Will you?”

  He nodded. The question, he thought, was not would he, but could he? Could he live here? Could he deal with a querulous Ole Skovgaard, with a strange language and the stifling respectability? Then Astrid rested her head on his shoulder and he knew he did not want to lose her. He sat silent, watching the dark suffuse the window, and he thought of Lord Pumphrey’s confidence that the next few years would bring enough war to guarantee promotion and he reflected that he had never proved himself as an officer. He had shown he was a soldier, but he was still floundering as an officer. A company of greenjackets, he thought, and a French enemy to be humbled, that was a dream that would be worth pursuing. But a man must make choices, and that thought made him squeeze Astrid’s fingers.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” Sharpe said, and he saw Christ’s dark-blue robe turn purple and His white eyes flash livid red. You must be dreaming, he thought, then the colors faded to darkness again and he heard the thump and he instinctively put his arms around Astrid and covered her body with his as the bomb exploded beyond the window and the stained glass, all its blues and golds and scarlets and greens, shattered into a thousand shards that screamed through the chapel. Smoke boiled after it, and then there was silence broken only by the skittering of broken glass across the chapel floor. It was like an indrawing of breath.

  Before the other bombs began to fall.

  The British had fired close to five thousand bombs on the first night of the bombardment and they had watched the fires rage beyond the walls and had been certain that another night of pain would persuade the Danes to surrender the city. They fired far fewer bombs the second night, a mere two thousand, thinking that would be sufficient to satisfy the garrison’s honor, but in the morning, when the smoke covered the city like a pall, no message came from the city, the Danish flag still flew above the citadel and the guns on the shot-scarred ramparts opened a defiant fire. So now, on the third night, they wo
uld drown Copenhagen in fire. All day they had replenished the magazines, hauling wagon after wagon of bombs to the batteries, and as soon as darkness fell the great guns began their battering until the very ground seemed to throb with the hammering of the mortars and the recoil of howitzers. The sky flickered with fuse traces and was tangled with smoke trails.

  The gunners had changed their aim, planning to devastate new areas of the city. Bombs and carcasses rained onto the cathedral and the university, while other shells reached deeper into the maze of streets to punish the defenders for their stubbornness. The bomb ships quivered with each discharge and rocket trails whipped fire across the clouds. The seven engines did their best. The teams of men pumped the long handles to spurt sea-water on the flames, but as new fires sprang up so the men deserted the machines to go and protect their families. The streets were overwhelmed by panicked refugees. Bombs cracked down, the flames roared, walls collapsed, the city burned.

  General Peymann stood on the citadel wall and watched the fires spring up in a dozen places. He saw spires and steeples outlined by fire, saw them fall and watched the sparks spew in pillars of red through which the bombs crashed down. Pigeons, woken from their nests, flew about the flames until they fell burning. Why, Peymann wondered, did they not fly away? A rocket struck the cathedral’s dome and bounced up into the sky where it exploded just as a bomb crashed though the dome’s tiles. The whole of Skindergade was alight, then a carcass broke through the roof of Skovgaard’s warehouse on Ulfedt’s Plads and the sugar caught fire. The flames spread with brutal speed, making the district as bright as day. A school in Suhmsgade that had become a home for refugees was struck by three bombs. The shops on Frederiksborggade and in Landemaerket were burning and Peymann felt an immense and impotent anger as he watched the destruction. “Is Major Lavisser here?” the General asked an aide.

  “I saw him a few moments ago, sir.”

  “Tell him to burn the fleet.”

  “Burn it?” The aide was horrified, for such an order meant that Peymann knew the city could not hold.