Hakeswill was bored. ‘In English! English!’
Dubreton looked at Sharpe, back to this wife. ‘I have the honour to introduce Major Richard Sharpe, Madame. He is of the English army.’
Sharpe bowed, saw her incline her head in acknowledgement, but her words were drowned by a great cackle from Hakeswill. ‘Major! They made you a bleeding Major, Sharpy? Christ on the cross! They must be bloody desperate! Major!’ Sharpe had not put a Major’s stars on his shoulders; Hakeswill had not known till this minute.
Madame Dubreton looked at Sharpe. ‘Lady Farthingdale will be pleased to know you were here, Major.’
‘Please pass on her husband’s solicitations, Ma’am. I trust she, and all of you, are well.‘ Hakeswill was listening, grinning. Sharpe desperately searched in his head for some form of words, any form of words, that might hint to this woman that she must give some indication of where the hostages were kept. He was determined that he would avenge this day’s insults, that he would rescue this woman and the other women, but Hakeswill had been right. If he did not know in which building they were kept, then he was helpless. Yet he could not think of anything that he could say which would not sound saspicious, which would not provoke Hakeswill into ordering the branding of Dubreton’s wife.
She nodded slowly. ‘We are well, Major, and we have not been hurt.’
‘I’m pleased to hear that, Ma’am.‘
Hakeswill leaned over the balustrade. ‘You’re happy here, aren’t you, dearie?’ He laughed. ‘Happy! Say you’re happy!’
She looked at him. ‘I am withering in my bloom, Colonel. Lost in solitary gloom.’
‘Ah!’ He grinned. ‘Doesn’t she speak nice!’ He turned to the officers. ‘Satisfied?’
‘No.’ Dubreton’s face was harsh.
‘Well I am.’ He waved at the soldiers. ‘Take her away!’
They turned her and, for the first time, her poise went. She pulled at her captors, twisted, and her voice was pleading and desperate. ‘I’m withering in my bloom!’
‘Take her away!’
Sharpe looked at Dubreton, but still his face was a mask showing no reaction to his wife’s distress. The Frenchman watched her until she was gone and then turned, wordlessly, towards the upper cloister.
Harper and Bigeard were standing together and their faces showed relief as their officers came back into the cloister. The door was shut behind them, the soldiers once more were arrayed against the western wall, and Pot-au-Feu, still in his chair, spoke in French to Dubreton. When he had finished he spooned more of the stew from the great earthenware pot.
Dubreton looked at Sharpe. ‘He’s saying what your man was saying. We’ve paid for their virtue, that’s all. We must go home empty-handed.’
Pot-au-Feu grinned as the Colonel finished, swallowed his mouthful, then waved the soldiers who barred the entrance to the Convent to make way. He gestured with his spoon at the officers. “Go! Go!‘
Dubreton glanced at Sharpe, but Sharpe did not move except to unsling the rifle from his shoulder and thumb back the flint. There was one thing unsaid, one thing that needed to be said, and even though he knew it to be hopeless he would try. He raised his voice, looking around the cloister at the men in red uniforms. ‘I have a message for you. Every man here will die except those of you who give yourselves up!’ They began jeering him, shouting him down, but Sharpe’s voice had been trained on a parade ground. He forced the words through their noise. ‘You must present yourselves to our outposts before New Year’s Day. Remember that! Before the New Year! Otherwise!’ He pulled the trigger.
The shot was a fluke, yet he knew it would work because he had willed it to work, because he would not leave without one small measure of revenge on the scum of this place. It was a shot from the hip, but the range was short and the target big, and the spinning bullet shattered the cooking pot and Pot-au-Feu screamed in pain as the hot sauce and meat exploded over his thighs. The fat man wrenched himself sideways, lost his balance and fell onto the tiles. The soldiers were silent. Sharpe looked round. ‘New Year’s Day.’
He slammed the butt of the rifle down, felt in his pouch for a cartridge and then, before their eyes, reloaded the rifle with quick professional movements. He bit the bullet out of the paper cartridge, primed the pan, closed it, then poured the rest of the powder into the barrel, followed it with the wadding, and then he spat the bullet into the greased leather patch that gripped the rifling of the barrel and made the Baker Rifle into the most accurate weapon on the battlefield. He did it fast, his eyes not on his work, but on the men who watched him, and he rammed the bullet down the seven spiralling grooves, slotted the ramrod into its brass tubes, and the gun was loaded. ‘Sergeant!’
‘Sir!’
‘What will you do to these bastards in the New Year?’
‘Kill them, sir!’ Harper sounded confident, happy.
Dubreton grinned, spoke softly, his eyes on Pot-au-Feu who was struggling to his feet helped by two of the girls. ‘That was dangerous, my friend. They might have fired back.’
‘They’re scared of the Sergeants.’ Anyone would be scared of those two.
‘Shall we go, Major?’
A crowd had gathered outside the Convent, men, women and children, and they shouted insults at the two officers, insults that died as the two vast Sergeants appeared with their weapons held ready. The two big men walked down the steps and pushed the crowd back by their sheer presence. They seemed to like each other, Harper and Bigeard, each one amused, perhaps, by meeting another man as strong. Sharpe hoped they never met on a battlefield.
‘Major?’ Dubreton was standing on the top step, pulling on thin leather gloves.
‘Sir?’
‘Are you planning to rescue the hostages?’ His voice was low, though no enemy was in earshot.
‘If it can be done, sir. You?’
Dubreton shrugged. ‘This place is much further from our lines than yours. You move through the country a good deal easier than us.’ He half smiled. He was referring to the Partisans who ambushed the French in the northern hills. ‘We needed a full Regiment of cavalry to bring us within two miles of this place.’He tugged the gloves comfortable. ‘If you do, Major, may I make a request of you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I know, of course, that you would return our hostages. I would be grateful if you could also return our deserters.’ He held up an elegant hand. ‘Not, I assure you, to fight again. I would like them to pay their penalty. I assume yours will meet the same fate.’ He walked down the steps, looked back at Sharpe. ‘On the other hand, Major, the difficulties of rescue may be too great?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Unless you know where the women are kept?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Dubreton smiled. Bigeard was waiting with the horses. The Colonel looked up at the sky as if checking the weather. ‘My wife has great dignity, Major, as you saw. She did not give those bastards the satisfaction of knowing I was her husband. On the other hand she sounded a little hysterical at the end, yes?’
Sharpe nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’
Dubreton smiled happily. ‘Strange she should be overwrought in rhyme, Major? Unless she’s a poet, of course, but can you think of a woman poet?’ He looked pleased with himself. ‘They cook, they make love, they play music, they can talk, but they are not poets. My wife, though, reads a lot of poetry.’ He shrugged. ‘Withering in my bloom, lost in solitary gloom? Will you remember the words?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Dubreton peeled off a newly donned glove and held out his hand. ‘It has been my privilege, Major.’
‘Mine too, sir. Perhaps we’ll meet again.’
‘It would be a pleasure. Would you give my warmest regards to Sir Arthur Wellesley? Or Lord Wellington as we must now call him.’
Sharpe’s surprise showed on his face, to Dubreton’s delight. ‘You know him, sir?’
‘Of course. We were at the Royal Academy of Equitation together, at Angers. It’s st
range, Major, how your greatest soldier was taught to fight in France.’ Dubreton was pleased with the remark.
Sharpe laughed, straightened to attention, and saluted the French Colonel. He liked this man. ‘I wish you a safe journey home, sir.’
‘And you, Major.’ Dubreton raised a hand to Harper. ‘Sergeant! Take care!’
The French went east, skirting the village, and Sharpe and Harper went west, dropping over the crest of the pass, trotting down the winding road towards Portugal. The air suddenly seemed clean here, the madness left behind, though Sharpe knew they would be going back. A Scottish Sergeant-Major, an old and wise soldier, had once talked to Sharpe through the dark night before battle. He had been embarrassed to tell Sharpe an idea, but he said it finally and Sharpe remembered it now. A soldier, the Scotsman had said, is a man who fights for people who cannot fight for themselves. Behind Sharpe, in the Gateway of God, were women who could not fight for themselves. Sharpe would go back.
Chapter 6
‘So you didn’t see her?’
‘No, sir.’ Sharpe stood awkwardly. Sir Augustus Farthingdale had not seen fit to invite him to take a chair. Through the half open door of Farthingdale’s sitting room, part of his expensive lodgings in the best part of town, Sharpe could see a dinner party. Silverware caught the light, scraped on china, and two servants stood deferentially beside a heavy sideboard.
‘So you didn’t see her.’ Farthingdale grunted. He managed to convey that Sharpe had failed. Sir Augustus was not in uniform. He wore a dark red velvet jacket, its cuffs trimmed with lace, and his thin legs were tight cased in buckskin breeches above his tall polished boots. Above his waistcoat was draped a sash, washed blue silk, decorated with a heavy golden star. It was presumably some Portuguese order.
He sat down at a writing desk, lit by five candles in an elegant silver candelabra, and he toyed with a long handled paper knife. He had hair that could only be described as silver, silver cascading away from his high forehead to be gathered at the back by an old fashioned ribbon, black against the hair. His face was long and thin, with a touch of petulance about the mouth and a look of annoyance in his eyes. It was, Sharpe supposed, a good looking face, the face of a sophisticated middle-aged man who had money, intelligence, and a selfish desire to use both for his own pleasure. He turned towards the dining room. ‘Agostino!’
‘Sir?’ An unseen servant answered.
‘Shut the door!’
The wooden door was closed, cutting off the noise of mens’ voices. Sir Augustus’ eyes, unfriendly, looked Sharpe up and down. The Rifleman had just arrived back in Frenada and had not waited to straighten his uniform or wash the travel stains from his hands or face. Farthingdale’s voice was precise and cold. ‘The Marquess of Wellington is deeply concerned, Major Sharpe. Deeply.’
Farthingdale managed to convey that he and Wellington were on close terms, that he was vouchsafing a state secret to Sharpe. The paper-knife tapped the polished desk-top. ‘My wife, Major, has the highest connections in the Portuguese court. You understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘The Marquess of Wellington does not want our relationship with the Portuguese government jeopardized.’
‘No, sir.’ Sharpe resisted the impulse to tell Sir Augustus Farthingdale that he was a pompous idiot. It was interesting that Wellington had written, the letter doubtless posted north by one of the young cavalry officers who, by changing frequent horses, could cover sixty miles in a day. Wellington must be in Lisbon then, for the news could not have reached Cadiz in time for a reply to have been received. And Farthingdale was pompous because even Sharpe knew that Wellington’s concern would not be the Portuguese government. His concern would be the Spanish. The story of Adrados had spread like fire on a parched plain, feeding from the sensibilities of Spanish pride, and in the New Year the British army must march back into Spain. The army would buy its food from the Spanish; use Spanish labour to bake bread and drive mules, find forage and give shelter, and Pot-au-Feu and Hakeswill had jeopardized that co-operation. The poison of Adrados had to be lanced as one small step towards winning the war.
Yet Sharpe, who guessed he had known Wellington longer than Farthingdale, knew that there would be something else about Pot-au-Feu which would deeply disturb the General. Wellington believed that anarchy was always just a rabble rouser’s shout away from order, and order, he believed, was not just an essential but the supreme virtue. Pot-au-Feu had challenged that virtue, and Pot-au-Feu would have to be destroyed.
The paper-knife was put down on a pile of paper, perhaps Farthingdale’s next book of Practical Instructions to Young Officers, and one immaculate knee was crossed over the other. Sir Augustus straightened the tassel of a boot. ‘You say she has not been harmed?’ There was a hint of worry beneath the polished voice.
‘So Madame Dubreton assured us, sir.’
A clock in the hallway struck nine. Sharpe guessed that most of the furnishings of these lodgings had been transported north just for Sir Augustus’ visit. He and Lady Farthingdale had made their magnificent progress around the winter quarters of the Portuguese army and then stopped at Frenada on their way south so that Lady Farthingdale could visit the shrine of Adrados and pray for her mother who was dying. Farthingdale had preferred a day’s rough shooting, but two young Captains had eagerly offered to escort his wife to the hills. Sharpe wished that Sir Augustus would show him a picture of his wife, but the Colonel did not evidently think that desirable.
‘I have it in mind, Major, to lead the rescue of Lady Farthingdale?’ Sir Augustus inflected the statement as a question, almost a challenge, but Sharpe said nothing. The Colonel dabbed the corner of his mouth with a finger, then inspected the fingertip as if something might have adhered to it. ‘Tell me how possible a rescue is, Major?’
‘It could be done, sir.’
‘The Marquess of Wellington,’ again the annoying circumlocution of Wellington’s full title, ‘wishes it to be done.’
‘We’d need to know which of the buildings she’s in, sir. There’s a Castle, a Convent, and a whole village, sir.’
‘Do we know?’
‘No, sir.’ Sharpe did not want to speculate here. That could wait till he saw Nairn.
The eyes looked at Sharpe with hostility. Sir Augustus’ expression implied that Sharpe had failed utterly. He sighed. ‘So. I have lost my wife, five hundred guineas, at least I’m glad to see you still have my watch.’
‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir.’ Sharpe unclipped the chain reluctantly. He had never owned a watch, indeed he had often been scathing about them, saying that any officer who needed a machine for telling the time of day did not deserve to wear a uniform, but now he felt that the possession of this timepiece, albeit borrowed, lent him a certain air of success and property; something proper to a Major. ‘Here, sir.’ He handed it to Sir Augustus who opened the lid, checked that both hands and the glass were still there, and who then slid open a drawer of the desk and put the watch away. Then the long slim fingers wiped delicately against each other. ‘Thank you, Major. I am sorry this has been so fruitless an experience. Doubtless we will meet at Major General Nairn’s headquarters meeting in the morning.’ He stood up, his movements precise as a cat. ‘Good night, Major.’
‘Sir.’
Orders for Sharpe to attend the headquarters the following morning waited at his lodgings. Orders and a bottle of brandy, donated by Nairn, with a scrawled letter saying that if Sharpe had got back on time then he would need the contents of this bottle. Sir Augustus had not even offered him a glass of water, let alone a glass of wine, and Sharpe shared the bottle with Lieutenant Harry Price and let vent to his feelings about velvet-clad civilians who thought they were Colonels. Price smiled happily. ‘That’s my ambition, sir. A velvet coat, a young wife full of juice, and all the heroes like you saluting me.’
‘May it happen for you, Harry.’
‘May all the dreams come true, sir.’ Price had been sewing a patch onto his red jacket. Like
most of the South Essex he wore a red coat; only Sharpe and his few Riflemen who had survived the Retreat to Corunna and then been formed into the South Essex’s Light Company kept their prided Green coats. Green coats! Of course! Green bloody coats!
‘What is it, sir?’ Price was holding the bottle upside down, hoping for a miracle.
‘Nothing, Harry, nothing. Just an idea.’
‘Then God help someone, sir.’
Sharpe held the idea, and with it a second thought, and took them both to the headquarters in the morning. It had clouded in the night, light cold rain falling for most of the morning, and the table in the hallway outside the room where Nairn waited was heaped with coats, cloaks, scabbards and damp hats. Sharpe added his own to the pile, propped the rifle against the wall where an orderly promised to keep watch over it.
Nairn, Farthingdale, Sharpe and one unknown Lieutenant Colonel made up the meeting. Nairn, for once, had eschewed his dressing gown and wore the dark green facings and gold lace of one of the Highland Regiments. Sir Augustus was resplendent in the red, black and gold of the Princess Royal’s Dragoons, his cavalry spurs tearing at the carpet. The Lieutenant Colonel was a Fusilier, his red coat faced in white, and he nodded warmly at Sharpe. Nairn made the introductions. ‘Lieutenant Colonel Kinney. Major Sharpe.’
‘Your servant, Sharpe, and it’s an honour.’ Kinney was big, broad faced, with a ready smile. Nairn looked at him and smiled.
‘Kinney’s a Welshman, Sharpe, so don’t trust him further than you can throw a cat.’
Kinney laughed. ‘He’s been like that ever since my lads rescued his Regiment at Barossa.’
Sir Augustus coughed pointedly in protest at the Celtic badinage, and Nairn glanced at him from beneath his huge eyebrows.
‘Of course, Sir Augustus, of course. Sharpe! Your story, man?’
Sharpe told it all and was only interrupted once. Nairn looked at him incredulously. ‘Took her bodice off! Threw her at you?’
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