Sharpe's Escape s-10

by Бернард Корнуэлл

  "And then you burned it," Vicente put in, "and what will the French conclude? That the brothers cheated them."

  "So the odds are," Sharpe said, "that the French shot the pair of them. That would be a good day's work for a bloody Frog." He slung his rifle and climbed the last stairs to the attic. He expected to find nothing there, but at least the high windows offered a vantage point from which he could look down at the lower town and see what kind of presence the French were maintaining. He knew they were still in the city for he could hear distant sporadic shots that seemed to come from close to the river, but when he stared through a broken window he could see no enemy, nor even any musket smoke. Sarah had followed him upstairs while the others stayed on the floor below. She leaned on the window sill and gazed south across the river to the far hills.

  "So what do we do now?" she asked.

  "Join the army."

  "Just like that?"

  "We have to walk a long way," Sharpe said, "and you're going to need better boots, better clothes. We'll look for them."

  "How far will we have to walk?"

  "Four days? Five? Maybe a week? I don't know."

  "And where will you find me clothes?"

  "By the road, my love, by the road."

  "The road?"

  "When the French left," he explained, "they were carrying all their plunder, but a mile or two of marching changes your mind. You start throwing things away. There'll be hundreds of things on the road south."

  She looked down at her dress, torn, dirty and wrinkled. "I look horrid."

  "You look wonderful," Sharpe said, then turned because two smart taps had sounded from the floor below and he held his finger to his lips and, moving as softly as he could, edged back to the stairwell. Harper was at the bottom of the flight and the Irishman held up three fingers, then pointed down the next stairs. So three people were in the house. Harper looked back down the stairs, then held up four fingers and rocked his hand from side to side, telling Sharpe there could be more than three. Plunderers, probably. The French had gone through Coimbra once, but there would be pickings left and enough folk ready to come up from the lower town to enrich themselves from the upper.

  Sharpe had edged down the top stairs, stepping at the side of the treads, going very slowly. Vicente was behind Harper, his rifle pointing down into the hall while Joana was in the bedroom door, her musket at her shoulder. Sharpe reached Harper's side. He could hear voices now. Someone was angry. Sharpe cocked the rifle, flinching at the small noise the mechanism made, but no one below heard. He pointed to himself, then down the stairs and Harper nodded.

  Sharpe took these stairs even more slowly. They were strewn with pieces of balustrade and littered with crystal drops and he had to find a clear space for his foot with every step and transfer his weight gently. He had got halfway down the flight when he heard the footsteps coming from the passage at the bottom of the stairs and he crouched, brought the rifle up, and just then a man came into view, saw Sharpe and gaped at him in astonishment. Sharpe did not fire. If Ferragus had come back then he did not want to alert him, and instead he gestured at the man to drop onto the floor, but instead the man twisted away, shouting a warning. Harper fired, the bullet blasting over Sharpe's shoulder to catch the man in the back and send him sprawling onto the hallway floor. Sharpe was moving now, taking the stairs four at a time. The wounded man was scrambling down the passage. Sharpe kicked him in the back, jumped over him and a second man showed in the dark entrance to the kitchen and Sharpe fired, the flame of the rifle flashing bright in the dim passageway before the smoke filled the space. Harper was downstairs now, the volley gun in his hand. Sharpe leaped down the few steps to the kitchen, found a body at the foot of the steps, ran to the back door and threw himself backwards as a man fired at him from the yard. Harper ran to the back door, did not pause, but just raised his empty rifle and the threat was enough to send whoever was there running. Sharpe was reloading. Joana came into the kitchen and he took her musket, gave her the half-loaded rifle and ran back up the passage, jumped over the dead man and over the wounded man and pushed into the parlor because its window overlooked the yard. The sash, the broken glass glinting at its edges, was raised and Sharpe ran to it and saw no one beneath him. "Yard's empty," he called to Harper.

  Harper appeared from the kitchen door, crossed the yard and closed the gate. "Plunderers?" he asked Sharpe.

  "Probably." Sharpe was wishing he had not opened fire. The menace of the rifles would have been enough to frighten off plunderers, but he supposed he had been nervous and so had killed a man who almost certainly did not deserve it. "Bugger," he said in self-reproof, then went to collect his rifle from Joana, but Sarah was crouching beside the wounded man in the passageway. "It's Miguel," she said. "Who?"

  "Miguel. One of Ferragus's men."

  "You're sure?"

  "Of course I'm sure."

  "Talk to him," Sharpe said to Vicente. "Find out where those damn brothers are." Sharpe stepped over the wounded man and fetched his rifle. He finished reloading it, then went back to the passage where Vicente was questioning Miguel.

  "He won't speak," Vicente said, "except to ask for a doctor."

  "Where's he shot?"

  "The side," Vicente said, pointing to Miguel's waist where the clothes were darkened by blood.

  "Ask him where Ferragus is."

  "He won't tell me."

  Sharpe put his boot on the blood-soaked patch of clothing and Miguel gave a gasp of pain. "Ask him again," Sharpe said.

  "Sharpe, you can't… " Vicente began.

  "Ask him again!" Sharpe snarled and he stared into Miguel's eyes and then smiled at the wounded man, and there was a wealth of meaning in the smile. Miguel began talking. Sharpe left his boot on the wound, listening to Vicente's translation.

  The Ferreira brothers reckoned Sharpe was probably dead, but also that he was unimportant so long as they reached the army first and gave their version of events. And they were trying to reach the army by crossing the hills, going towards Castelo Branco because the road to that city would be free of the French, but they planned to cut south as they neared the river. They wanted to get to Lisbon, because that was where the Major's family and fortune had found temporary refuge, and they had left Miguel and two others to watch over the property in Coimbra.

  "Is that all he knows?" Sharpe asked.

  "It is all he knows," Vicente said, then moved Sharpe's foot away from Miguel's wound.

  "Ask him what else he knows," Sharpe said.

  "You can't torture a man," Vicente reproved Sharpe.

  "I'm not torturing him," Sharpe said, "but I bloody will if he doesn't tell us everything."

  Vicente spoke with Miguel again, and Miguel swore on the blessed Virgin that he had told them everything he knew, but Miguel had lied. He could have warned them about the partisans waiting in the hills, but he reckoned he was dying and, as his final wish, he wanted death for the men who had shot him. Those men bandaged him, and promised they would try to find a physician, but no physician came and Miguel, abandoned in the house, slowly bled to death.

  As Sharpe and his companions left the city.

  The bridge was unguarded. That astonished Sharpe, but he sensed that the French garrison was tiny, which suggested the enemy had decided to throw all their troops into an assault on Lisbon and risk leaving Coimbra barely protected. Folk on the street told them the convent of Santa Clara was full of troops, but it was easy enough to avoid, and by late morning they were well south of the town on the road to Lisbon.

  The verges were indeed strewn with discarded plunder, but scores of people were raking through the leavings and Sharpe did not have time to search for clothes and boots for the women. Nor could he stay on the road, for it would lead only to the French rearguard, and so, when the sun was at its height, they struck eastwards across country. Sarah and Joana, neither of whom had robust shoes, went barefoot.

  They climbed into steep hills. The few villages were deserted, an
d by mid-afternoon they were among trees. They stopped to rest where a great outcrop of rock jutted into the valley like the prow of a monstrous ship, and from its summit Sharpe could see French troops far below. He took out his telescope, found it was undamaged after his adventures, and trained it down into the shadows of the valley where he saw fifty or more dragoons searching a small village for food.

  Sarah joined him. "May I?" she asked, reaching for the telescope. Sharpe gave it to her and she stared down. "They're just pouring water onto the ground," she said after a while.

  "Looking for food, love."

  "How does that help?"

  "Peasants can't carry their whole harvest off to safety," Sharpe explained, "so sometimes they bury it. Dig a hole, put the grain in, cover it with soil and put the turf back. You could walk right across and never see it, but pour water on the soil and it drains faster where it's been dug."

  "They're not finding anything," she said.

  "Good," Sharpe said, and watched her, thinking what a fine face she had, and thinking, too, that she was a spirited creature. Like Teresa, he reflected, and wondered what the Spanish girl did, or whether she even lived.

  "They're going," Sarah reported, and collapsed the telescope, noticing the small brass plate attached to the biggest barrel. "In gratitude," she read aloud, "AW. Who's AW?"

  "Wellington."

  "Why was he grateful to you?"

  "It was a fight in India," Sharpe said, "and I helped him."

  "Just that?"

  "He'd come off his horse," Sharpe said. "He was in a bit of trouble, really. Still, he got out safe enough."

  Sarah handed him the glass. "Sergeant Harper says you're the best soldier in the army."

  "Pat's full of Irish wind," Sharpe said. "Mind you, he's a terror himself. No one better in a fight."

  "And Captain Vicente says you taught him everything he knows."

  "Full of Portuguese wind."

  "Yet you think your captaincy is at risk?"

  "The army doesn't care if you're good, love."

  "I don't believe you."

  "I wish I didn't believe me," Sharpe said, then grinned. "I'll get by, love."

  Sarah was about to speak, but whatever she wanted to say went unspoken because there was a crackle of gunfire from across the valley. Sharpe turned, saw nothing. The dragoons in the village were remounting their horses and were gazing southwards, but they could evidently see nothing either for they did not move in that direction. The musketry went on, a distant splintering sound, then slowly died away.

  "There," Sharpe said, and he pointed across the wide valley to where more French horsemen were spilling out of a high saddle in the hills. Sarah gazed and could see nothing until Sharpe gave her back the glass and told her where to look. "They've been ambushed, probably," he said.

  "I thought no one was supposed to be here. Weren't they ordered to Lisbon?"

  "Folk had a choice," Sharpe explained, "they could either go to Lisbon or climb into high ground. My guess is these hills are full of people. We just have to hope they're friendly."

  "Why wouldn't they be?"

  "How would you feel about an army that says you must leave home? Which tears down your mills, destroys your harvest and breaks your ovens? They hate the French, but they've not much love for us either."

  They slept under the trees. Sharpe did not light a fire, for he had no idea who was in these hills or how they regarded soldiers. They woke early, cold and damp, and set off uphill in the gray first light. Vicente led, following a path that climbed steadily eastwards towards a range of rocky peaks, the highest of which was crowned with the stump of an ancient tower. "An atalaia," Vicente said.

  "A what?"

  "Atalaia. A watchtower. They are very old. They were built to keep a look out for the Moors." Vicente crossed himself. "Some were turned into windmills, others just decay. When we get to that one we will be able to see the route ahead."

  The sun, streaked with purple and pink clouds, was behind them. The day was warming, helped by a southern wind. Off to the south, far away, a ragged smear of smoke rose from a valley, evidence that the French were searching the countryside, but Sharpe was confident no horsemen would climb this high. There was nothing up here to steal except heather, gorse and rock.

  Both girls were suffering. The path was stony and Sarah's bare feet were too tender for the hard going so Sharpe made her wear his boots, first wrapping her feet in strips of cloth that he tore from the ragged hem of what was left of her dress. "You'll still get blisters," he warned her, but for a time she made better progress. Joana, more used to hardship, kept going, though the soles of her feet were bleeding. And still they climbed, sometimes losing sight of the watchtower as the path twisted through gullies.

  "Goat paths," Vicente guessed. "Nothing else could live up here."

  They dropped into a small high valley where a tiny stream trickled between mossy rocks and Sharpe filled their canteens, then distributed the last of the food he had taken from Ferragus's warehouse. Joana was massaging her feet and Sarah was trying not to show the pain of her newly forming blisters. Sharpe jerked his head to Harper. "You and me," he said, "up that hill."

  Harper looked at the hill looming to their left. It lay north of them, off their path, and his face showed puzzlement as to why Sharpe should want to climb it.

  "Give them a rest," Sharpe said, and he took his boots back from Sarah who gratefully put her feet into the water. "We can see a long way from that peak," Sharpe said. Perhaps not as far as they would from the watchtower, but going up the hill was an excuse to give the girls some time to recover.

  They climbed. "How are your feet?" Harper asked.

  "Cut to bloody pieces," Sharpe said.

  "I was thinking I should give my boots to Joana."

  "She'd probably think she was wearing a boat on each foot," Sharpe said.

  "She's managing, though. A tough one, that."

  "Needs to be if she's going to endure you, Pat."

  "Soft as lights with women, I am."

  They climbed straight up through the tangling heather, the slope every bit as steep as the one the French had assailed at Bussaco, and both stopped talking long before they reached the summit. They were saving their breath. Sweat was pouring down Sharpe's face as he neared the peak which was crowned with a scatter of rocks and he kept looking up, willing the rocks to get closer, and it was on his fourth or fifth glance that he saw the small movement, saw the foreshortened barrel moving and he threw himself sideways. "Down, Pat!"

  Sharpe was pushing the rifle forward when the musket fired. The puff of smoke blossomed among the rocks and the bullet ripped through the heather between him and Harper, and Sharpe immediately stood and, his tiredness forgotten, ran diagonally up the hill, daring anyone else on the summit to take a shot at him, but no shot sounded. Instead he could hear the clatter of a ramrod on a barrel and he knew whoever had fired was reloading and he swerved uphill, always watching the rocks for the sight of another barrel, and then he saw the man, a young man, just rising from behind a boulder, and Sharpe stopped and brought the rifle up. The young man saw him then, saw the soldier fifty paces from where he had expected him to be, and he began to move the musket and then understood that one more inch of movement would mean that the green-jacketed soldier would pull the trigger and he went very still. "Put the gun down," Sharpe said.

  The young man did not understand him. He looked from Sharpe to Harper, who was now climbing towards his other side. "Put the bloody gun down!" Sharpe snarled and walked forward, keeping the rifle at his shoulder. "Down!"

  "Arma!" Harper called. "Por terra!"

  The young man looked as if he would twist and run away. "Go on, son," Sharpe said, "give me an excuse." And then the boy put the musket down and looked terrified as the two green men came up either side of him. He dropped behind a boulder, cowering there, expecting to be shot.

  "Jesus," Sharpe said, for now he was on the hilltop and he could see that the young m
an had been a lookout, and that on the long downwards sweep of the far slope there were a score of other men, some of them bunched where the path that Sharpe and his companions had been using crossed the hill's shoulder. A half-dozen others, evidently alerted by the young man, were climbing towards the hilltop, but they stopped abruptly when they saw Sharpe and Harper appear on the summit.

  "You were sleeping, son, weren't you?" Sharpe said. "Didn't see us till it was too late."

  The young man did not understand and just looked helplessly from Sharpe to Harper.

  "That was good, Pat," Sharpe said, picking up the young man's musket and tossing it to one side. "You learned Portuguese quickly."

  "Picked up a word or two, sir."

  Sharpe laughed. "So what do these buggers want, eh?" He turned and gazed at the six closest men who were staring up the long slope.

  They were all civilians, refugees or possibly partisans. They were two hundred paces away and one had a dog, almost a wolf, on a rope leash. The dog was barking and trying to get away from his master to attack up the hill. All the men had muskets. Sharpe turned away and looked down to where Vicente was gazing up the slope, and Sharpe beckoned him. He waited, then saw Vicente and the two women begin to climb. "Best if we're all in the same place," he explained to Harper, then turned back because one of the six men had fired his musket. The men down the hill could not see their companion, who was hidden by the boulder, and perhaps they assumed he had escaped and so one of them opened fire. The ball went wild. Sharpe did not even hear it pass, but then a second man fired. The dog, excited by the sound of gunfire, was howling now, howling and leaping. A third man fired and this time the ball snapped past Sharpe's head.

  "They need a bloody lesson," Sharpe said. He strode to the young man, pulled him to his feet and put the rifle to his head. The muskets stopped firing.

  "We could shoot the bloody dog." Harper suggested.

  "You can be sure to kill it at two hundred paces?" Sharpe asked. "And not just wound it? Because if you just wing it, Pat, that dog will want a mouthful of Irish meat as revenge."

  "Better to shoot this bastard, sir, you're right," Harper said, standing on the other side of their terrified prisoner. The six men were now arguing amongst each other, while the rest, those who looked as if they had been waiting in ambush where the path crossed the lower crest, began to climb to the summit.