Sharpe's Honor

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘Sergeant!’

  The first blow landed on Sharpe’s skull, a glancing blow, but then there was a pile-driving thump in his belly and the air rushed out of him. He forced himself to the right, was helped by a blow to his head, and then he was on the ground. ‘Stop!’

  A boot thudded at his kidneys. He pulled the brass tube out of his sleeve, turned it, and gripped it with his right hand. He would have one chance only, just one.

  ‘No!’ He shouted it desperately, as if he was a child begging to be spared a beating, and then yelped as a boot hammered on his thigh. Ducos spoke a word in French.

  The blows stopped. The Sergeant leaned down to haul Sharpe up by his collar. The other three men were standing back, weapons lowered, grins on their faces.

  Lavin pulled Sharpe up and never saw the hand that struck up with the jagged brass tube.

  Sharpe bellowed in anger, the war shout. They thought him weak and beaten, but he had one fight in him and they would learn what a Rifleman was in a fight.

  The tube, jagged brass edges splayed at its end, struck Lavin’s groin and Sharpe twisted it, pushed and gouged as the Sergeant let go of him and screamed a horrid, high scream and dropped his hands to the blood and pain, but already Sharpe had let the tube go, was rising to the Sergeant’s right, was moving with all his speed and filling the room with his battle-shout.

  The Sergeant’s body blocked two men. The third raised his musket, but the muzzle was seized, pulled, and the heel of Sharpe’s right hand struck the man’s moustache, breaking bone, snapping the head back, then Sharpe dropped his bleeding hand to the musket’s lock, turned the gun, and pulled the trigger.

  The two remaining men had dared not fire for fear of their own comrades. Seconds only had passed since the Sergeant had stooped to pick up the broken English officer. Now a musket belched smoke and noise.

  One man fell, the musket ball in his lungs, and Sharpe hammered back with the brass butt at the man whose musket he had taken and who still grappled with him. The butt hit the man’s head, but he dragged Sharpe down, close to the bleeding, sobbing Sergeant, and the room echoed to a second musket shot, hammering louder than thunder in the room, drowning even the agony of Sergeant Lavin.

  Sharpe twisted, heaved, flailed with the musket at the man who had fired as he fell. He still shouted, knowing that men are frightened by noise, by savagery, and he wrenched his right foot free from the man who held it, rose snarling from the bloody floor and lunged with his captured bayonet in short, professional strokes at the last of his enemies still standing. Ducos, his mouth open, was standing terrified at the door. He had no weapon.

  The bayonets clashed, Sharpe pushed his opponent’s aside, lunged again, then broke to his right, to the table, seized the sword and his voice was triumphant as he swung it, the scabbard scraping free and flying across the room, and he sliced down with the blade, shouting in savage victory, and cut into the last man’s neck, dragging the blade back against bone and blood. He saw the man begin to fall, then finished him off with a lunge that was dragged downwards by the dying man. In seconds, just seconds, he had killed two men and wounded two others.

  He twisted and jerked the sword free, then turned to the door. ‘Ducos!’

  The door was empty.

  He went to it, the sword bloody in his hand. His face was a mask of blood, his uniform soaked with Lavin’s blood. One man against four, and that a Rifleman! Sergeant Harper would say they were fair odds.

  ‘Ducos! You bastard! Ducos!’

  He walked into the corridor. Behind him the Sergeant sobbed and wailed and bled into the hands cupped over his groin.

  ‘Ducos! You filth!’

  ‘M’sieu?‘

  The voice came from his right. Sharpe turned.

  A group of French officers stood there. They were elegant and clean, staring aghast at the bloody man with the swollen face and the savage voice and the sword that dripped blood.

  The French officers wore swords, but none was drawn.

  One man stepped forward, a tall man in green and pink, a man who frowned. ‘Major Vaughn?’

  It was Verigny. His face was screwed up, either because of the smell of blood, or the sight of Sharpe. ‘Major?’

  ‘My name is Sharpe.’ There was no point in concealment any longer. ‘Major Richard Sharpe.’ He leaned on the wall. The tip of the sword rested on the flagstones and made there a small pool of thick blood.

  Verigny seemed to stand to attention. ‘I came from honour, Major, that you would be treated in accord with honour.’

  Sharpe jerked his head towards the door. ‘The bastards tried to kill me. I had no sword then. I fought back.’ Sergeant Lavin was sobbing in high, pitiful cries from within the square, stone-walled room.

  Verigny looked through the door. He stepped back and stared in awe at the Rifleman who had made the room look like a slaughterhouse. ‘You will be treated good, Major. You have need of a doctor?’

  ‘Yes. And water. Food. A bed.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘These clothes washed. A bath.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Sharpe pulled his right hand from the sword. His palm was a bloody mess. It hurt. He held the sword out with his left hand. ‘I am your prisoner again, it seems.’

  ‘You will do me the honour to keep the sword, M’sieur, till we have discussion on what we do to you.‘

  Sharpe nodded, then turned back into the room. He retrieved his scabbard and sword belt, but could not fasten them with his wounded hand. He went and stood over the moaning, sobbing Sergeant Lavin who looked up at him with eyes that seemed to mix pain with an astonishment that he had been beaten. Sharpe looked at the French General. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Major?’

  ‘Tell this eunuch he got his wish.’

  Verigny was chilled by the Rifleman’s voice. ‘His wish, M’sieu?‘

  ‘He wanted an Englishman. He got one.’

  CHAPTER 16

  Sharpe was led to one of the buildings in the castle yard that was still in a state of repair, then helped upstairs to a limewashed room, decently furnished with a bed, table and chairs, and with a view from a barred window into the fortress’ biggest courtyard. He could see across to the squat keep, past the castle church, and every spare inch of the courtyard was crowded with the treasure wagons.

  A doctor came. Sharpe’s wounds were washed and bandaged. He was bled with lancet and cup, then given food and brandy.

  A great tub was brought to his room, filled by a succession of buckets, and he soaked his body in it. His uniform was taken away, laundered, mended, and returned.

  He was still a prisoner. Two guards were outside his door, at the head of the stairs which led down into the courtyard. One of the guards, a cheerful young man no older than Angel, shaved him. Sharpe could not hold a razor in his bandaged right hand.

  His sword was propped by the bed. He had cleaned the blade with difficulty. In the ridges of the wooden handle, that should have been wrapped with leather and bound with wire, there was blood that he did not have the energy to clean. He slept instead; a sleep of bad dreams and intermittent pain.

  His guards brought him food, good food, and two bottles of red wine. They tried to tell him something, grinning good-naturedly at his incomprehension. He heard the name Verigny and supposed that the General had sent the food. He smiled, nodded to show he understood, and the guards left him with candles and his own thoughts. He paced the floor, thinking only that soon all Spain would think that Wellington had released the murderer of a Spanish Marqués. He had failed Wellington, Hogan, and himself.

  In the morning the doctor came again, unpeeled the bandages, and muttered to himself. He examined Sharpe’s night-soil in the bucket, seemed pleased by it, then bled Sharpe’s thigh into a small cup. He did not re-bandage Sharpe’s head, only the cut hand that was still painful.

  His lips were swollen. Their insides were coated with congealed blood. Rather that, he thought, than the Sergeant’s wound.


  He sat by the window all morning, watching the wagons roll out of the courtyard. Wagon after wagon left, their oxen prodded by drivers with pointed staves. The axle squeals never stopped as the courtyard slowly emptied. The French retreat, that had begun in Valladolid, had started again and Sharpe knew that the British must be advancing still, and that the French were sending the treasure wagons back on the Great Road towards France. He wondered if Helene’s six wagons were among the ones that left. He wondered why Ducos had arranged for him to be accused of the Marqués’ death, and why Helene had lied about it.

  The castle church had been used as an ammunition store. As the wagons made space in the big courtyard, squads of infantry began carrying shells and canister from the church towards the keep. Sharpe, with nothing else to do, watched.

  After an hour the shells were no longer being carried into the keep, but instead were being piled in the courtyard. Pile after pile was made, starting by the keep door and working slowly down the courtyard towards him. He wondered if this was a punishment detail, forced to do one of the pointless chores that all armies gave their defaulters, but then, curiously, he saw French engineer officers running white fuses to each of the conical heaps, fuses that led back into the keep.

  He realised suddenly that the French must be abandoning Burgos, that they were blowing the castle apart rather than delivering such a fortress intact to their enemies, yet it struck him as odd that they should go to the trouble of piling the shells in the courtyard instead of blowing them in one great mass in the magazine. Then, hearing footsteps on the stairs, he turned from the window and forgot the strange piles of ammunition.

  He made sure the sword was within reach. He was half expecting Ducos to return and finish what he had begun, but it was a smiling French lancer who opened the door. On the man’s arm, incongruously, hung a basket covered with a linen cloth.

  More such men came, men who arranged food and wine on the table in Sharpe’s room. None spoke English. They finished their job, left, then Sharpe heard her voice on the stairs. It was La Marquesa, looking as if she had bathed in dew and sipped ambrosia, her eyes bright, her smile welcoming, and her concern about his battered, blood-marked face oddly touching. With her was the tall, dark figure of General Verigny, while behind came another French officer, a plump Major called Montbrun who spoke fluent English and trusted that Major Sharpe was not in any great pain?

  Sharpe assured him he was not. Major Montbrun nevertheless hoped that Major Sharpe would realise that his treatment at the hands of Sergeant Lavin had not been worthy of the great French army, and that Major Sharpe would forgive it, and offer Major Montbrun the pleasure of joining him in a small, light luncheon?

  Major Sharpe would.

  Major Montbrun knew that Major Sharpe had the honour of already knowing La Marquesa and the General. Montbrun explained that he was an aide to King Joseph himself, Napoleon’s brother who was the puppet King on the crumbling Spanish throne. Montbrun hoped that Major Sharpe would not take it amiss if he said that His Majesty King Joseph was flattered that so redoubtable an enemy as Major Sharpe should have been captured. Sharpe did not reply. La Marquesa smiled and brushed the crusted wound on Sharpe’s head with her fingertips. ‘Ducos is a pig.’

  Montbrun frowned. ‘Major Ducos has explained what happened, my Lady. I’m sure we must believe him.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Sharpe asked.

  Montbrun held a chair for La Marquesa, then for Sharpe, then sat himself. ‘Major Ducos explained that Sergeant Lavin lost his temper. Most sad, of course. You’ll forgive us serving ourselves, Major Sharpe? I thought we might be more intimate without orderlies.’

  ‘Of course. And how is Sergeant Lavin?’

  Montbrun frowned, as though the subject was deeply distasteful. ‘He, of course, faces disciplinary charges. Can I suggest some of this cold soup? It’s most tasteful, I’m sure. May I have the honour of assisting you?’

  He could. La Marquesa, dressed in lilac silk with a low, lace frilled neckline, smiled at him. Sharpe agreed with Montbrun that the spring had been wet, and that this summer had more rain than most in Spain. He agreed that the soup, a gazpacho, was delicious. Montbrun wondered if there was too much garlic for his taste, but Sharpe assured him there could not be too much garlic in anything for his taste, and Montbrun agreed how wise that view was.

  Verigny grinned. His moustache was stained with the soup. ‘I think you demi kill that mighou Lavin, yes?’ He looked at La Marquesa. ‘mighou?’

  ‘Bugger, darling.’

  ‘Ah! You kill the bugger Lavin, yes?’

  Sharpe smiled. ‘He tried to kill me.’

  Verigny shrugged. ‘You should kill him. I hate buggers.’

  Montbrun hastened, with a courtier’s smoothness, to recommend the red wine which, though Spanish, had a certain plangency, he thought, which Major Sharpe might find pleasing. Major Sharpe, who was thirsty, found it very pleasing. He drank.

  La Marquesa toasted him with her glass. ‘You should have more champagne, Richard.’

  ‘I shall save it.’

  ‘Why? There’s plenty!’ There was, too. The bottles of wine and champagne stood in ranks at the end of the table. Montbrun poured a separate glass of champagne for Sharpe. ‘I hear it’s scarce in your country now, Major, because of the war.’

  Sharpe, who had never drunk champagne in England, and only in Spain when he was with La Marquesa, agreed it was scarce.

  ‘Indeed,’ Montbrun poured himself a glass, ‘I was told by an Englishman we took prisoner that you’re paying twenty-three shillings a bottle now in London! Twenty-three shillings! Why that’s nearly thirty francs a bottle!’

  La Marquesa looked astonished and wondered how anyone could possibly live with prices like that, and asked why there were not riots in the street by a champagne-starved populace. What did the English drink instead?

  ‘Beer, my Lady.’

  Montbrun helped Sharpe to some cold ham and cold chicken. He apologized for such simple fare. The ham had been baked in a glaze of honey and mustard.

  La Marquesa wanted some English beer and seemed unhappy that there was none immediately available in Burgos castle. General Verigny promised to find some. He grunted as he drew the corks of two more bottles of the red wine. ‘We have to drink it. We cannot take it with this bloody army.’

  Montbrun frowned.

  Sharpe smiled. ‘Bloody army?’

  Verigny tossed back a glass of wine and poured himself another. ‘It is not an army, Major, not a true army. We are a - ’ he paused, frowned, ‘un bordel ambulant!’

  ‘I think you’ll find the terrine especially good, Major.’ Montbrun smiled. ‘You’ll allow me to cut you some bread?’

  ‘A what?’ Sharpe asked.

  ‘A walking brothel, Major.’ La Marquesa smiled brightly. ‘There do seem to be rather a lot of ladies with us. Especially since King Joseph joined us.’

  ‘Allow me, Major.’ Montbrun put some of the terrine onto Sharpe’s plate. ‘More wine? Champagne, perhaps?’

  ‘Wine.’

  When the meal was over, and when the peel of oranges littered the table among grape-stalks and the rinds of cheeses, Major Montbrun brought the talk to Sharpe’s future. He took from the tail pocket of his gilt-encrusted jacket a folded sheet of paper.

  ‘We’re most pleased to offer you parole.’ Montbrun smiled and put the paper in front of Sharpe. ‘General Verigny will count it an honour, Major, if you will let him provide you with all your necessities. A horse, your expenses.’ Montbrun shrugged as though the generous offer was a mere nothing.

  ‘The General has done me enough honour already.’ Verigny, in addition to providing this room and Sharpe’s food, had given Sharpe a new razor, a change of shirt, new stockings, and even a fine new tinder box; all to replace the articles stolen from Sharpe since he fell into Ducos’ hands.

  Sharpe opened the paper, not understanding the French words, but seeing his own name, misspelt, on the top line. He looked at Mon
tbrun. ‘Is my name to be submitted for exchange?’

  They must have expected the question. An officer was rarely kept as a prisoner of war if he was captured close to the battlelines. Montbrun frowned. ‘We fear not, Major.’

  ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘You have, M’sieu, a certain notoriety?‘ Montbrun smiled. ’It would be foolish of us to release so formidable a soldier to wreak further damage on our cause.‘

  It was a pretty enough compliment, but not the answer Sharpe wanted. If he was not to be exchanged, then he faced a journey to the frontier, where he would be released on his parole to make his unescorted way across France. Verigny, speaking eagerly, explained that it would be his pleasure to provide Sharpe with the means to stay only in the best hotels, that he would, indeed, furnish him with introductions and the Major would be welcome to linger on his journey north to savour the summer delights of France. ‘Take the entirely summer, Major. You can drink, there are women, there are more drink!’ He demonstrated by finishing his glass. Already, Sharpe noted, Verigny was slurring his words.

  There was yet more. Once at Verdun, the great northern fortress where officer prisoners were kept, Montbrun explained that the General would ensure that Sharpe had money to take rooms in the town, servants, and membership of all the best clubs organized by the captured British officers. Even, he said, the Literary and Philosophical Association, which was neither literary nor philosophical, but provided the wealthiest British captives with the discreet pleasures a man needed.

  Sharpe thanked him.

  Montbrun reached into his pouch and produced a quill and ink bottle. He pushed them to Sharpe. ‘You will sign, Major?’

  ‘When will I be leaving Burgos?’ Sharpe had not touched the quill.

  ‘Tomorrow, Major. The General is with the rearguard. You may travel by horseback or, if your wounds are troublesome, in the Marquesa’s coach. We will leave, it is expected, at nine o’clock.‘