Sharpe’s Regiment

by Bernard Cornwell

  Twice again men offered her lodgings. Clean lodgings, they said, respectable, run by a gentlewoman, but Jane Gibbons was not so foolish as to accept. Other men smiled at her, struck by her innocence and beauty, and it was those errant looks, as much as the bolder approach of the pimps, that drove her to seek refuge.

  She chose sensibly. She picked her helpers as carefully as Richard Sharpe chose his battlegrounds, and the chosen pair was a gaitered cleric, red-faced and amiable, and his middle-aged wife who, like her husband, gaped at the London sights.

  Jane explained that she had been sent to London by her mother, there to meet her father, but he had not been on the Portsmouth stage and she feared he might not now come until the next day. She had money, she explained, and wished no charity, but merely to be directed to a clean, safe place where she might sleep.

  The Reverend and Mrs Octavius Godolphin were staying in Tothill Street, at Mrs Paul's Lodgings, a most respectable house that ministered to the visiting clergy, and the Reverend and Mrs Godolphin, whose children were grown and gone from home, were delighted to offer their sheltering wings to Miss Gibbons. A cab was summoned, Mrs Paul was introduced, and nothing would suffice but that Miss Gibbons should accompany them to evensong and then share a shoulder of lamb for which they would not dream of taking payment. She went safe to bed, secured from an evil world by the multiplicity of bolts and bars on Mrs Paul's front door, and the Reverend Godolphin reminded her to say her prayers for her father's safe journey on the morrow. It all seemed, to Jane, like a great adventure.

  The next morning, Saturday morning, when prayers had been said around Mrs Paul's great table, Jane persuaded the Reverend and Mrs Godolphin that she had no need of their company to wait at Charing Cross. The persuasion was hard, but she achieved it and, leaving her luggage and Rascal under the watchful eye of Mrs Paul, she took a cab to her uncle's house.

  She watched the house from the street corner, half hidden by plane trees, and after a half-hour she saw her uncle leave in his open carriage. Her heart was thumping as she walked down Devonshire Terrace and as she pulled the shiny knob that rang a bell deep in the house. She saw soldiers marching at the end of the street, going towards the Queen's Gate of the park, then the door behind her opened. 'Miss Jane!'

  'Good morning.' She smiled at Cross, her uncle's London butler. 'My uncle sent me to fetch some books for him.'

  'This is a surprise!' Cross, a timid man, smiled as he beckoned her inside. 'He did not mention that you were in London.'

  'We're with Mrs Grey's sister. Isn't the weather lovely?'

  'It won't last, Miss Jane. Some books, you said?'

  'Big red account books. I expect they're in the study, Cross.'

  'Leather books?'

  'Yes. The ones he brings to Paglesham every month.'

  'But I distinctly remember the master took them with him. Just now!'

  She stared at him, feeling all her hopes crumble. She had so wanted to do this thing for Major Sharpe, a man who had given her hope and pleasure if only because of her uncle's enmity towards him. 'He took them?' Her voice was faint.

  'Indeed, Miss Jane!'

  'Cross!' A voice barked. 'My boots, Cross! Where the devil are my boots?' Lieutenant Colonel Bartholomew Girdwood opened the parlour door and stared into the hall. His eyes widened. 'Jane?'

  But she had gone. She snatched open the heavy door, threw herself down the steps, and ran as if every pimp in London chased her.

  'Jane!' Girdwood shouted from the top step, but she had gone. Far away, from the park, he heard the music which reminded him that he was late for the Review. Damned strange, he thought, but he had never truly understood women. Women, dogs and the Irish. All unnecessary things that got in the way. 'God-damn it, where are my boots? Is the cab coming?'

  'It's been sent for, Colonel, it's been sent for.' Cross brought the boots and helped the Colonel dress for the great celebration of the battle of Vitoria which, this fine day, would grace the Royal park.

  The massed bands played the inevitable "Rule Britannia" as the French trophies were paraded about Hyde Park. Enemy guns, a mere fraction of the artillery that Wellington had captured, led the procession that was bright with the flags and guidons that were the lesser standards of the French. The flags were serried in colourful abundance, but it was the eight Eagles, brightly polished and held erect in gaudy chariots, that fetched the warmest applause.

  Each French Regiment was given an Eagle standard. Not all of those on display had been taken in battle. Two, Sharpe knew, had been found in a captured French fortress, neither of them incised with their regimental numbers, obviously stored against the day when they might be needed for fresh units. One had been thrown from a high bridge by a trapped French unit, and it had taken days of diving by Spanish peasants to bring the trophy up from the river bed. They had presented it to Wellington and now, as if it had been taken in battle, it was solemnly paraded past the Prince of Wales.

  The others had been fought for. There was the Eagle of Barossa, captured by the Irish 87th, which, like the Talavera Eagle, had been taken by a sergeant and an officer together. Harper stared at the distant procession. 'Which one's ours, sir?'

  'The first one.'

  Captain Hamish Smith, seeing for the first time the distant gleam of a French Eagle, looked in some awe at the two Riflemen. They had actually done that most splendid thing, brought an enemy Colour from a battlefield, and no soldier, however grubby his career, could fail to be moved.

  'We've captured more than eight,' Harper said cheerfully.

  'More, RSM?' Smith asked.

  'There was two taken at Sally-manker, sir, but the lads broke one of them up, so they did. Thought it was gold! I heard of another one sold to an officer. Be murder if anyone found out!'

  Sharpe laughed. He had heard the rumours, but had never known if they were true.

  He had marched the half Battalion across the Serpentine bridge, then turned eastwards along the King's private road. He had stared towards the Hyde Park Gate, but Jane Gibbons was not there. He told himself that he had not expected to see her, which was true, but he was disappointed just the same. Now the men were at the southern assembly field, deserted by all the troops except some disconsolate militia who today had to pretend to be the French. They wore grubby blue fatigue jackets and carried red, white and blue tricolours; miserable thin flags run up for the day and which were doubtless destined to be captured before the afternoon was done.

  The rest of the parade troops were at the northern assembly area, drawing themselves up for the magnificent advance, with artillery flanking, which was supposed to represent the final stage of Vitoria when Wellington's army, stretched across a river plain, had swept the French in chaos from Spain.

  The trophies were at the northern end of the review ground. They had gone past the Prince, the Duke, the carriage parks, and now they were carried by the Battalions of the Review before turning back to be displayed to the packed public enclosure.

  'Sir?' Harper's voice was a warning.

  An infantry captain, harassed and hot, was trotting his horse towards them. He carried a sheaf of papers. Sharpe kicked his heels to meet the man halfway. 'Fine day!'

  The captain could not distinguish Sharpe's rank. He frowned at the South Essex's yellow facings and looked with shock at the faded, tattered uniform Sharpe wore.

  'You're . . . ?'

  'Major Richard Sharpe. You?'

  'Sir? Mellors, sir.' The captain threw a hasty salute. 'Sharpe, sir?' He sounded uncertain.

  'Yes. All going well, Mellors?'

  'Absolutely, sir. You're . . .' The captain hesitated.

  'What's the news from Spain?'

  'Spain, sir?' Captain Mellors was understandably confused. 'Wellington threw them back, sir. Over the Pyrenees.'

  'Splendid! We in France yet?'

  'Not that I've heard.'

  Thank God for that, Sharpe thought. He wanted to be back in Pasajes before the British marched north. 'Carry on, C
aptain! Well done!'

  Mellors blinked. 'You're sure you're supposed to be here, sir?'

  He was staring at the South Essex. Without their stocks, and with their uniforms stained by the week's marching, they looked an unlikely unit to be brought to this Royal Review.

  'Absolutely!' Sharpe smiled. 'Colonel Blount's orders. Someone has to clear up after this lot.'

  'Of course, sir.' The explanation made Captain Mellors much happier. Blount, as Harry Price had discovered, was in charge of the day's arrangements, and it made sense to the Captain that some troops had to have the fatigue of clearing the equipment from the park. 'You'll excuse me, sir, but you are the . . .?'

  'Yes.' Sharpe interrupted him, and nodded towards the gaudy chariot that led the parade of captured standards down the line of cheering public. 'That's mine.'

  Mellors beamed. 'Might I shake your hand, sir?"

  Sharpe shook hands. 'You don't mind if my men watch from here, do you?'

  'Of course not, sir.' Mellors was only too eager to please a man who had actually captured one of the trophies.

  'Warn your fellows that we're here.'

  'Of course, sir.' Mellors saluted again. 'It's an honour to have met you, sir.' But Sharpe was not listening. He was staring eastwards and his face was suddenly lit with a pleasure so great that Mellors twisted in his saddle. 'My word, sir!'

  She was dishevelled, hot, worn out by running, but she could still elicit admiration. She was beautiful. Sharpe kicked his heels back. 'Jane!'

  'Suffering Christ have mercy on us.' Regimental Sergeant Major Harper saw his officer swing from the saddle to clasp the girl into his arms. 'Bloody hell!'

  'Sergeant Major?' Captain Smith was nervous.

  Harper sniffed. 'Not my place to criticise officers, sir,' which he usually said when he did, 'but you'll notice there's a woman here, sir, and women and Mr Sharpe are not the gentlest mixture in the world. Trouble, sir! Trouble!'

  'It's Sir Henry's girl!'

  'That's what I said. Trouble.' Harper swivelled to face the half Battalion. 'Take your bloody heathen eyes off her! You've seen women before! Eyes front!'

  She was panting, exhausted by her journey through London, and she was in his arms. She struggled to speak through her laboured breath. 'He's got them.'

  'You came.'

  'He's got them!'

  'He's got what?'

  'The books!'

  'It doesn't matter.' Nothing mattered at this moment except that she was here, where the cut grass was fragrant, where he almost trembled as he stared at her. 'You came!' He had not known such happiness could exist, something insane and blossoming, something to fill a world.

  'I had to. He was there, you see. He's put tar on it again. It's so horrid.' She laughed, as filled with stupid, bubbling happiness as he was. 'My uncle's got the books.'

  'It doesn't matter.'

  She looked at his jacket, torn and patched, still marked with his dried blood and the blood of enemies. 'That's terrible!'

  'It's the jacket I fight in.'

  She fingered a rent. 'I can see why you want a wife.'

  He held her still, his arms on her shoulders, and for a few seconds he thought he could not speak.

  'You mean?' She said nothing, and he could hear nothing but her breath, feel nothing but her body, see nothing but her eyes.

  'Jane?'

  'I can't go back. Ever.'

  'I don't want you to.'

  'I mean we shouldn't.'

  'No.'

  'I don't know you.'

  'No.'

  'But I will marry you.' She looked so solemnly at him, he blinked, and for this glorious moment there was no war, and no crimping, and no bands playing, just her eyes and a happiness that was greater than he thought he could manage. He swallowed. 'I would be most honoured.'

  'And I, Mr Sharpe.'

  There was an awkward silence. He smiled. 'I thought I had offended you.'

  'It was sudden, I was frightened.' She bit her lower lip. 'But I did hope you'd ask.'

  He laughed, awkward still, then turned. 'Sergeant Major!'

  'Sir!' Harper did not walk to Sharpe, he marched. He did it as though the eyes of the guards were on him, as though he came to take the surrender of the Emperor of the French himself. He stamped to attention and his hand snapped into a crisp salute. 'Sir!'

  'You remember Miss Gibbons, Sergeant Major."

  'I do, sir.' He winked at her, an outrageous gesture.

  'We are to be married.'

  'Very good, sir.'

  'And when we advance, Sergeant Major, I want a good man left with her. Private Weller, perhaps?'

  'Very good, sir.'

  'Advance?' Jane looked up at him.

  Sharpe took a deep breath as he plunged back into this desperation. 'We have no proof of the auctions. I need these men, otherwise a Regiment dies. I have to do something,' he paused, looking for the right word, 'dramatic.'

  'He means foolish, Miss,' Harper said helpfully.

  'I see,' she smiled.

  Sharpe detected an unhealthy alliance developing already between these two, a repartee at his expense, but he ploughed on. 'I need to prove these men exist, that they are not a paper Battalion, and I need a powerful ally against my enemies. You understand?'

  'Entirely. What will you do?'

  'I intend,' he said grandly, 'to place, the men under the protection of the Prince Regent.'

  'He's here?'

  Sharpe took out his telescope, extended its tubes, and propped it on the saddle of his horse so that she could see the Prince where he inspected the soldiers who would re-enact the battle.

  'He's very fat.' She took her eye away and looked at the telescope itself, a gorgeous instrument encased in a barrel of ivory and gold. She read the French inscription aloud. '"To Joseph, King of Spain and the Indies, from his brother, Napoleon, Emperor of France." Richard!' It was the first time she had used his name. 'Where did you get it?'

  It had been a gift from the Marquesa, but Sharpe thought that was better unsaid. 'At Vitoria.'

  'It really belonged to King Joseph?'

  'It did. Would you like it?'

  'Only when I've bought you another. Do you think Napoleon held this?'

  'I'm sure.'

  A gun fired at the far end of the field, startling pigeons into the sky. The Prince and his entourage were back in the pavilion. A trumpet blared, drumsticks fell onto taut skins, and the militia started forward. Mounted officers with speaking trumpets announced to the separate crowds that they watched the advance of the French army, to which event the spectators in their carriages gave polite applause and the public enclosure lusty jeers. The militia had to split in their advance, to pass either side of the trophies which now were parked in a solid phalanx to the south of the review ground. Seeing them there made Sharpe remember the Colours that Sir Henry had purloined to display in his house. He turned and looked at his men. It would do them good to march beneath a standard.

  'Patrick?'

  'Sir?'

  'If you need me, I'm over there!' He pointed to the trophies. 'Would you look after Miss Gibbons?' He smiled at her, left the telescope in her hands, then pulled himself into his saddle.

  Harper looked down on Jane. 'I'm very happy for you, Miss.'

  She smiled so beautifully that he truly was. 'What's he doing, Sergeant?'

  'There are some times, Miss, when I don't ask, I just pray.'

  She laughed, and Harper began to think she might even be a good thing for his officer who now reined in beside the trophies in their chariots.

  The "chariots" were mere two wheeled carts that had been tricked out with painted cardboard. They were parked in front of the gleaming French guns, each with its wreathed "N" on the barrel that made Sharpe think of Spain and the number of times he had faced such guns. Some of these captured guns had tried to kill him, perhaps at Badajoz or Salamanca, yet now they stood, polished and docile, in a London park. He shouted to the men with the standards. 'Who's i
n charge?'

  A major frowned at him. 'Who the devil are you?'

  'Sharpe. Major Richard Sharpe, and I'll trouble you to be civil. I'm here for that!' He pointed at his Eagle, a green laurel wreath draped about its plinth, its one wing still bent where he had killed a man with it.

  'You can't . . .' the major started.

  Sharpe produced the embossed, engraved invitation card, unfolded it, and waved it at the Major. 'Orders of His Royal Highness!'

  'Who did you say you were?'

  Sharpe smiled. It was pleasant, sometimes, to use the prestige that the Eagle had given to him. 'I'm the man who captured it.'

  'Sharpe?'

  'Yes.' The happiness of Jane's arrival still worked in him. He could not fail now! She was going to marry him, and that was a token of success, of a victory greater than this Eagle.

  The major was torn between his orders, which were not to let a single captured trophy out of his sight, and this privilege of meeting the man who had provided the first of these Eagles. Sharpe's uniform disturbed him, but the engraved card seemed impressive. Sharpe smiled again. 'It's all nonsense, of course, but Prinny wants to see us with it.'

  Understanding dawned on the major. 'Those are your men?'

  'Yes.'

  'And you're showing him what they looked like in Spain, eh?'

  'Exactly.'

  'Splendid.' The major smiled. 'You'll bring it back?'

  'I did before, Major.'

  The major laughed, gave the order, and the Eagle was handed to Sharpe who, hoisting it up, and almost wishing that it had its magnificent flag attached to the staff, galloped with it to his men. It would go into battle one last time. He smiled at Jane. 'There.' He lowered it so she could touch it. 'Napoleon handled that as well.'

  'This is the one you captured?'

  'With Patrick.' He tossed the standard to the Irishman. 'Harps! Here!'

  The officers from Foulness crowded about it, then Harper paraded it down the ragged ranks, letting men touch it, letting them take from it some of the magic of a far off battle. Only Sergeant Lynch showed an ostentatious disinterest in the trophy, turning his back and walking some yards away from Harper's triumphant progress.

  Sharpe watched what happened to his north. The militia had formed a line across the great rectangular arena, and now he heard the bands strike up from the far side of the park, and he knew that the moment was close. Timing now, as in every battle, was everything. 'Jane? You'll have to stay here.'