‘Probably.’.
Harper smiled. ‘I had a bet with Mr d’Alembord that you’d be back, sir.’
Sharpe laughed. ‘You’ll need money if you’re going to marry, Patrick.’
‘Aye, that’s true. Nothing like a woman for spending a man’s money, eh?’
‘So when’s the wedding?’
‘Soon as I can find a priest. She’s got herself a dress, so she has. It’s got frills.’ He said it gloomily.
‘You’ll let me know?’
‘Of course!’ Harper was embarrassed. ‘You know what women are like, sir.’
‘I’ve seen one or two, Patrick.’
‘Aye well. They like marrying, so they do.’ He shrugged.
‘Especially when they’re pregnant, yes?’
Harper laughed. There was silence again. The huge Sergeant put the cup down. ‘It is grand to see you, sir.’
‘You won your bet, eh?’
‘Only a bloody pound.’
‘You had that much faith in me, eh?’
They laughed again.
A horse’s hooves were loud outside. A voice shouted. ‘South Essex!’
‘In here!’ Sharpe shouted back, glad suddenly of the distraction from the emotion he felt.
A staff officer dismounted and ducked under the lintel. ‘Colonel Leroy?’ He straightened up.
It was Lieutenant Michael Trumper-Jones, in his hand a folded order for the Battalion. He stared at Sharpe, his mouth dropped open, and, his head slowly shaking and his eyes widening, he fell backwards in a dead faint. His scabbard chains clinked as he slumped on the floor. Sharpe nodded at the prostrate body. That’s the bugger who defended me.’
Harper laughed, then cocked his head. ‘Listen!’
The French guns had stopped. The bridge must have fallen, and suddenly Sharpe knew what he wanted to do. ‘Angel!’
‘Senor?’
‘Horses! Patrick?’
‘Sir?’
‘Grab that fool’s horse.’ He pointed at Trumper-Jones. ‘We’re going hunting!’
‘For what?’ Harper was already moving.
‘Wedding presents and a woman!’ Sharpe followed Harper into the street, looked around, and spotted a Captain of the South Essex. ‘Mr Mahoney!’
‘Sir?’
‘You’ll find orders in that house! Obey them! I’ll be back!’ He gave the mystified Mahoney the letter for Hogan, swung onto Carbine’s saddle, and rode towards the bridge.
To the north of Gamarra Mayor, at a village called Durana, Spanish troops cut the Great Road
. The defenders at Durana had been the Spanish regiments loyal to France.
Countrymen fought countrymen, the bitterest clash, and Wellington’s Spaniards, faithful to Spain, won the bridge at five o’clock. The Great Road
to France was cut.
The Spanish troops had climbed barricades of the dead. They had fought till their musket barrels were almost red hot, till they had savaged the defenders and won a great victory. They had blocked the Great Road
.
The French could still have broken through. They could have screened themselves to the west and thrown their great columns at the tired,-blood-soaked Spaniards, but in the confusion of a smoke filled plain no one knew how few men had broken through in the rear. And all the time, minute by minute, the British Battalions were coming from the west while the great guns, massed wheel to wheel by Wellington, tore huge gaps in the French lines.
The French broke.
King Joseph’s army, that had started the day with a confidence not seen by a French army in Spain for six years, collapsed.
It happened desperately fast, and it happened in pieces. One Brigade would fight, standing fast and firing at their enemies, while another would crumble and run at the first British volley. The French guns fell silent one by one, were limbered up and taken back towards the city. Generals lost touch with their troops, they shouted for information, shouted for men to stand, but the French line was being shredded by the regular, staccato volleys of the British Battalions while overhead the British shells cracked apart in smoke and shrapnel and the French troops edged backwards and then came the rumour that the Great Road was cut and that the enemy came from the north. In truth the French guns still held the British at Gamarra Mayor and the Spaniards further north were too tired and too few to attack south, but the rumour finally broke the French army. It ran.
It was early evening, the time when the trout were rising to feed in the river that flowed beneath the now unguarded bridge at Gamarra Mayor. The French who had guarded the bridge so well had seen their comrades run. They joined the flight.
The men who watched from the western hills or from the Puebla Heights were given a view of magnificence, a view granted to few men, an eagle’s view of victory.
The smoke cleared slowly from the plain to show an army marching forward. Not in parade order, but in a more glorious order. From the mountains to the river, across two miles of burned and bloodied country, the allied Regiments were spread. They marched beneath their Colours and the sun lanced between the smoke to touch the ragged flags red, white, blue, gold, and red again where the blood had soaked them. The land was heavy with the men who marched, Regiment after Regiment, Brigade after Brigade, climbing the low hills that had been the French second line. Their shadows went before them as they marched towards the city of golden spires.
And in the city the women saw the French army break, saw the troops come running, saw the cavalry heading the panicked flight. The tiered seats emptied. Through the city, from house to house, the news spread, and the camp-followers and families and lovers of the French began their own headlong flight from Vitoria. They were spurred on their way by Marshal Jourdan’s last orders in Vitoria, orders brought by harried cavalrymen who shouted at the French to make for Salvatierra.
The Great Road
was cut and the only road left for retreat was a narrow, damp track that wound its way towards Salvatierra and from there to Pamplona. From Pamplona, by tortuous paths, the army might struggle back to France through the high Pyrenees.
The chaos began. Civilians, coaches, wagons and horses blocked the narrow streets while, to the west, beneath a sun hazed by the smoke of battle, the victorious Battalions marched in their great line towards the city. The victors darkened the plain and their Colours were high.
While to the south three horsemen crossed Gamarra Mayor’s bridge. They had to pick their way through the corpses, which were already thick with flies, onto the Zadorra’s northern bank.
Sharpe touched his heels to Carbine’s flank. He had his victory, and now, with Harper and Angel beside him, he would ride into the chaos of defeat to search for the Marquesa.
Chapter 24
The road to Pamplona was wide enough for a single wagon or gun. The verges and fields either side of the road were too softened by the rain to take either.
Onto that road the whole of the French army, with more than twenty thousand camp-followers, three thousand wagons and over a hundred and fifty guns and limbers, was trying to reach safety.
All day the baggage park had listened to the thunder and watched the smoke over the spires of the cathedral. Now came the orders to retreat, not up the Great Road
, but directly east towards Salvatierra and Pamplona.
Whips cracked, oxen protested the iron-shod poles that prodded them into motion, and from a half dozen field tracks and from the crowded city streets the vehicles started towards the single, narrow road. Into the confusion came the guns, thundering from the battlefield and adding their weight to the press of baggage and animals.
The first wagon stuck just a hundred yards beyond the place where the field tracks converged on the road. A carriage, trying to go round it on the soft verge, overturned. A gun swerved, skidded, and the two tons of metal slammed into the carriage, horses screaming, gunners falling beneath the metal, and the road was blocked. Oxen, horses, carriages, wagons, carts, cannon, howitzers, portable forges,
ambulances and limbers, all were trapped between the road block and the British.
The wagons swarmed with people. Soldiers fleeing the city, drivers, camp-followers, all ran through the wagon park. Some began to slit the tarpaulins and drag boxes from the loads. Muskets fired as guards tried to protect the Emperor’s property, and then the guards realised that the Emperor had lost this property and whoever took it now might keep it. They joined the looters.
Thousands of French troops were streaming past the blocked wagons, trampling the crops and running eastwards. Generals rode with the cavalry, rehearsing the excuses they would make, while other men swerved into the wagons and searched desperately for wiveS and children.
King Joseph was in his carriage, fleeing towards the road block, and then there was the thunder of hooves, the sight of lifted sabres, and the first British cavalry, sent around the city, descended on the panicked, fleeing mob.
The King escaped only by abandoning his carriage. He scrambled from the right hand door as the British cavalry wrenched open the left. He abandoned his belongings and ran with his erstwhile subjects.
Women and children screamed. They did not know where their men were, only that the army had dissolved into a mob and they must run. Hundreds stayed in the baggage park, tearing the wagonloads down, not caring that the British cavalry were coming. Better to be rich for just a few minutes than eternally poor. From the city came the Spaniards, many with long knives ready for the slaughter.
Captain Saumier heard the shout for the army to go to Salvatierra and guessed that the city’s single eastern gate would already be cramming with desperate people. He shouted at the coachman to go for the north gate.
It was a sensible move. The narrow eastern streets were filled with carriages and wagons, with men shouting and women screaming in fear. Saumier would take La Marquesa through the northern gate and then turn east.
The wheels bounced on the cobbles, skidded at one corner, but the driver held the balance and cracked the long whip over the horses’ heads.
Saumier, his one good hand holding a pistol, leaned from the window and saw the city gate ahead. ‘Go on! Go on!’ His voice was loud over the harsh sound of the wheels and hooves, over the crack of the whip and the shouts of other fugitives. General Verigny had told .Captain Saumier to protect this woman, and Saumier, who thought her more beautiful than any woman he had ever seen, hoped that his protection would merit a reward.
The carriage slowed to pass the narrow gate, a soldier tried to jump onto the step and Saumier hit the man with the brass butt of his pistol. The man fell under the wheel, screaming, the carriage leaped into the air, jarred down, and then it was through the archway and rattling down the street of houses that lay outside the wall. The coachman turned the horses eastwards at a crossroads, shouted at them, cracked the whip again, and the carriage picked up speed as Saumier leaned back on the upholstered cushions and pushed his pistol into his belt.
La Marquesa, her maid nervous beside her, looked at him. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Wherever we can, dear lady.’ Saumier was nervous. He could see the men running from the battle and could hear the heavy noise of the gun wheels coming from the plain. As the coach cleared the last houses of the northern suburb he leaned again from the window and was appalled by the chaos he saw. It was as if a whole army ran a panicked race. Then he heard the brakeshoes slap on the wheels, he lurched as the carriage slowed, and he looked ahead to see the-massive jam of wagons, guns and carriages that blocked the eastern road. ‘Go round! Go round!’
The coachman pulled on the reins, bumping the carriage off the road and onto the verge. He shouted at the horses, cracking the whip above their ears, and the carriage seemed to surge and heave its way over the wet ground, yet whip the horses as he could, the coachman knew the carriage was slowing.
The rear of the coach dipped and Saumier, opening the door to lean out, saw people clinging to the baggage rack. He threatened them with his pistol, but their weight had slowed the carriage too much, the wheels were already sinking into the morass, and, slowly, finally, it stopped.
Saumier swore.
A dozen people were running towards the horses, knives drawn to cut the traces and use the animals for their own escape. He reached for La Marquesa, politeness forgotten, and pulled her out of the coach. ‘Come on!’
The maid was hunched into a corner, refusing to go out into the panicked mass of people. La Marquesa, made of sterner stuff, jumped onto the wet ground. Saumier saw she had a pistol. ‘Stop them!’
A man was hacking at the silver trace chains of the horses. La Marquesa aimed at him, her teeth gritted, pulled the trigger, and the man screamed, blood spurting from his neck, and Captain Saumier, his own pistol thrust into his sling, finished the man’s Work by hacking down with his sabre. He led the horse from the harness. ‘My Lady?’
‘Wait!’ She had climbed onto the driver’s seat, lifted the coachman’s bench, and now dragged a leather sack from the compartment beneath. She gestured Saumier to lead his horse closer, then, modesty gone and not caring who saw her legs, she slithered across from the driving perch onto the horse’s back. Saumier climbed up behind La Marquesa and shook the long driving rein with his good hand. Behind them, sabres raised, the British cavalry swept towards the road block. The coachman had taken another horse and galloped eastwards.
Saumier kicked back with his heels and the horse, frightened and lively, went into a gallop that took them past the stuck wagons. La Marquesa, mourning the fact that she had been forced to abandon all her belongings and her wealth, saw the soldiers and their women scattering silver dollars on the ground and scrambling at the wagons for more plunder. There were riches to be made here this day, but the British were coming fast from the west, and she would ride eastwards to safety. Saumier, the bandage on his eye flecked with mud thrown up by the hooves, took her to the north of the road and galloped onwards.
Pierre Ducos, in the stables of the French headquarters, had kept a swift, English horse taken from a captured officer. He had mounted it when disaster struck, had taken his precious papers, and was already a mile beyond the blockage on the road. He paused where the road climbed a small rise and looked behind.
A rabble swarmed towards him.
Soldiers, bloody soldiers! Trust the soldiers to lose a country which could have been kept by politics and guile. He smiled thinly. He did not feel any desperate sadness at defeat. He had become used to military defeat while in Spain. Wellington against the Emperor, he thought, that would be a battle worth seeing! Like ice meeting fire, or intelligence meeting genius.
He turned east again. He had planned for defeat, and now France would find its salvation in his plans. The fine intricate machine he had wrought, the Treaty of Valencay, would be needed after all. He smiled thinly, spurred his horse, and rode towards the greatness he had so long planned.
Saumier had chosen to go north of the road, well clear of the panic, but he had chosen wrong. A great ditch faced him, full of dirty water, but without a saddle and with the horse double-ridden, he knew he could not jump it. He slid from the horse’s back. ‘Stay there, my Lady.’
‘I’d not planned on leaving you, Captain.’
Saumier gripped the long driving reins with the fingers of his injured arm and walked to the ditch’s edge. He plumbed it with his sabre and found that it was shallow, but with a soft, treacherous bottom. ‘Sit tight, my Lady! Hold onto the collar!’
The horse was nervous so Saumier would have to lead it through the ditch. He stepped into the water and felt his boot sucked into the slimy mud. He slipped, held his balance, then tugged on the reins.
The horse nervously came forward. It put its head down and La Marquesa gripped the mane.
Saumier smiled at her with his yellow teeth. ‘Don’t frighten it, my Lady! Gently, now, gently!’
The horse stepped into the water.
‘Come on! Come on!’
A horseman took the ditch in one stride a few yards to Sa
umier’s left. The Frenchman looked up, fearing a British cavalryman, but the man wore no uniform. Saumier tugged on the reins again. ‘Come on, boy! Come on!’
La Marquesa screamed and Saumier looked up at her, ready to chide her for frightening the horse, then he saw why she had shouted in fear.
The horseman had stopped beyond the ditch. The man grinned at Saumier.
More horsemen were behind La Marquesa. One of them was a huge man with a beard that seemed to grow from every part of his face.
The bearded man came forward and smiled. From his belt he drew a pistol.
Saumier let go of the reins. He had his sabre drawn, but his boots were stuck in the filth at the ditch’s bottom.
El Matarife still smiled. He had followed the carriage from the city and now he had found the woman he had been ordered to capture. She was to be taken to a nunnery, those were his brother’s orders, but El Matarife planned to give her one taste of the joys she would miss in the close confinement of a convent. He glanced at her, and she was more beautiful than a man could wish for, even screaming in horror at the sight of his face. The man in the ditch dropped his sabre and fumbled for the pistol in his holster.
El Matarife pulled his trigger.
Captain Saumier jerked backwards, hands flying up and pistol falling.
He splashed into the ditch, his boots slowly sucking up from the bubbling mud.
He floated.
His blood drifted in the dirty water, spreading as he died, choking on ditch-water and blood.
El Matarife smiled at La Marquesa, at the woman whose golden hair had been like a beacon in the havoc. ‘My Lady,’ he said. He began to laugh, the laugh getting louder and louder until it blotted out the screams of the chaos. ‘My Lady, my dear lady.’ He reached, for her, dragged her belly-downwards over his saddle. She screamed, and he slapped her rump to keep her quiet, then headed back towards the wagons. As he had followed her carriage here he had seen the gold and silver scattered like leaves upon the ground. There would be time, he knew, to take some for himself before he delivered the golden whore to her new prison. He went into the chaos with his prisoner.
Sharpe’s Honour Page 28
