Sharpe's Escape

by Bernard Cornwell

  "Damn you, too."

  The Colonel would clearly have liked to rest his battalion, but the brown-jacketed Portuguese troops were starting work and it was unthinkable that the South Essex should collapse while others labored, and so he ordered each company to start on the piles. "You can send men to make tea," he suggested to his officers, "but breakfast must be eaten as we work. Mister Sharpe, good morning."

  "Good morning, sir."

  "I hope you have had time to consider your predicament," Lawford said, and it took a deal of courage to say it for it stirred up an unhappy situation, and the Colonel would have been much happier if Sharpe had simply volunteered to apologize and so clear the air.

  "I have, sir," Sharpe said with a surprising willingness.

  "Good!" Lawford brightened. "And?"

  "It's the meat that's the problem, sir."

  Lawford stared incomprehensibly at Sharpe. "The meat?"

  "We can shoot the rum barrels, sir," Sharpe said cheerfully, "throw the grain and flour into the river, but the meat? Can't burn it." He turned and stared at the huge barrels. "If you give me a few men, sir, I'll see if I can find some turpentine. Soak the stuff. Even the Frogs won't eat meat doused in turpentine. Or souse it in paint, perhaps?"

  "A problem for you," Lawford said icily, "but I have battalion business to do. You have quarters for me?"

  "The tavern on the corner, sir," Sharpe pointed, "all marked up."

  "I shall see to the paperwork," Lawford said loftily, meaning he wanted to lie down for an hour, and he nodded curtly at Sharpe and, beckoning his servants, went to find his billet.

  Sharpe grinned and walked down the vast piles. Men were slitting grain sacks and levering the tops from the meat barrels. The Portuguese were working more enthusiastically, but they had reached the city late at night and so managed to sleep for a few hours. Other Portuguese soldiers had been sent into the narrow streets to tell the remaining inhabitants to flee, and Sharpe could hear women's voices raised in protest. It was still early. A small mist clung to the river, but the west wind had gone around to the south and it promised to be another hot day. The sharp crack of rifles sounded, startling birds into the air, and Sharpe saw that the Portuguese were shooting the rum barrels. Closer by, Patrick Harper was stoving in the barrels with an axe he had filched. "Why don't you shoot them, Pat?" Sharpe asked.

  "Mister Slingsby, sir, he won't let us."

  "He won't let you?"

  Harper swung the axe at another barrel, releasing a flood of rum onto the cobbles. "He says we're to save our ammunition, sir."

  "What for? There's plenty of cartridges."

  "That's what he says, sir, no shooting."

  "Work, Sergeant!" Slingsby marched smartly down the row of barrels. "You want to keep those stripes, Sergeant, then set an example! Good morning, Sharpe!"

  Sharpe turned slowly and examined Slingsby from top to bottom. The man might have marched all night and slept in a field, yet he was perfectly turned out, every button shining, his leather gleaming, the red coat brushed and boots wiped clean. Slingsby, uncomfortable under Sharpe's sardonic gaze, snorted. "I said good morning, Sharpe."

  "I hear you got lost," Sharpe said.

  "Nonsense. A detour! Avoiding wagons." The small man stepped past Sharpe and glared at the light company. "Put your backs into it! There's a war to win!"

  "For Christ's sake come back," Harper said softly.

  Slingsby swiveled, eyes wide. "Did you say something, Sergeant?"

  "He was talking to me," Sharpe said, and he stepped towards the smaller man, towering over him. He forced Slingsby back between two heaps of crates, taking him to where no one from the battalion could overhear. "He was talking to me, you piece of shit," Sharpe said, "and if you interrupt another of my conversations I'll tear your bloody guts out of your arsehole and wrap them round your bleeding throat. You want to go and tell that to the Colonel?"

  Slingsby visibly quivered, but then he seemed to shake off Sharpe's words as though they had never been spoken. He found a narrow passage between the crates, slipped through it like a terrier pursuing a rat, and clapped his hands. "I want to see progress!" he yapped at the men.

  Sharpe followed Slingsby, looking for trouble, but then he saw that the Portuguese troops were from the same battalion that had taken the rocky knoll, for Captain Vicente was commanding the men shooting at the rum barrels and that was diversion enough to save Sharpe from more foolishness with Slingsby. He veered away and Vicente saw him coming and smiled a welcome, but before the two could utter a greeting, Colonel Lawford came striding across the cobbled quay. "Sharpe! Mister Sharpe!"

  Sharpe offered the Colonel a salute. "Sir!"

  "I am not a man given to complaint," Lawford complained, "you know that, Sharpe. I am as hardened to discomfort as any man, but that tavern is hardly a fit billet. Not in a city like this! There are fleas in the beds!"

  "You want somewhere better, sir?"

  "I do, Sharpe, I do. And quickly."

  Sharpe turned. "Sergeant Harper! I need you. Your permission to take Sergeant Harper, sir?" he asked Lawford who was too bemused to question Sharpe's need of company, but just nodded. "Give me half an hour, sir," Sharpe reassured the Colonel, "and you'll have the best billet in the city."

  "Just something adequate," Lawford said pettishly. "I'm not asking for a palace, Sharpe, just something that's barely adequate."

  Sharpe beckoned Harper and walked over to Vicente. "You grew up here, yes?"

  "I told you so."

  "So you know where a man called Ferragus lives?"

  "Luis Ferreira?" Vicente's face mingled surprise and alarm. "I know where his brother lives, but Luis? He could live anywhere."

  "Can you show me his brother's house?"

  "Richard," Vicente warned, "Ferragus is not a man to ... "

  "I know what he is," Sharpe interrupted. "He did this to me." He pointed to his fading black eye. "How far is it?"

  "Ten minutes' walk."

  "Will you take me there?"

  "Let me ask my Colonel," Vicente said, and hurried off towards Colonel Rogers-Jones who was sitting on horseback and holding an open umbrella to shade him from the early sun.

  Sharpe saw Rogers-Jones nod to Vicente. "You'll have your billet in twenty minutes, sir," he told Lawford, then plucked Harper's elbow so that they followed Vicente off the quays. "That bastard Slingsby," Sharpe said as they went. "The bastard, bastard, bastard, bastard."

  "I'm not supposed to hear this," Harper said.

  "I'll skin the bastard alive," Sharpe said.

  "Who?" Vicente asked, leading them up narrow alleys where they were forced to negotiate knots of unhappy folk who were at last readying themselves to leave the city. Men and women were bundling clothes, hoisting infants onto their backs and complaining bitterly to anyone they saw in uniform.

  "A bastard called Slingsby," Sharpe said, "but we'll worry about him later. What do you know about Ferragus?"

  "I know most folk are frightened of him," Vicente said, leading them across a small square where a church door stood open. A dozen black-shawled women were kneeling in the porch and they looked around in fear as a sudden rumble, jangle and clatter sounded from a nearby street. It was the noise of an artillery battery heading downhill towards the bridge. The army must have marched long before dawn and now the leading troops had reached Coimbra. "He is a criminal," Vicente went on, "but he wasn't raised in a poor family. His father was a colleague of my father, and even he admitted his son was a monster. The bad one of the litter. They tried to beat the evil from him. His father tried, the priests tried, but Luis is a child of Satan." Vicente made the sign of the cross. "And few dare oppose him. This is a university town!"

  "Your father teaches here, yes?"

  "He teaches law," Vicente said, "but he is not here now. He and my mother went north to Porto to stay with Kate. But people like my father don't know how to deal with a man like Ferragus."

  "That's because your father's a lawyer,"
Sharpe said. "Bastards like Ferragus need someone like me."

  "He gave you a black eye," Vicente said.

  "I gave him worse," Sharpe said, remembering the pleasure of kicking Ferragus in the crotch. "And the Colonel wants a house, so we'll find the Ferreira house and give it to him."

  "It is not wise, I think," Vicente said, "to mix private revenge with war."

  "Of course it's not wise," Sharpe said, "but it's bloody enjoyable. Enjoying yourself, Sergeant?"

  "Never been happier, sir," Harper said gloomily.

  They had climbed to the upper town where they emerged into a small, sunlit square and on its far side was a pale stone house with a grand front door, a side entrance that evidently led into a stable yard and three high floors of shuttered windows. The house was old, its stonework carved with heraldic birds. "That is Pedro Ferreira's house," Vicente said and watched as Sharpe climbed the front steps. "Ferragus is thought to have murdered many people," Vicente said unhappily, making one last effort to dissuade Sharpe.

  "So have I," Sharpe said, and hammered on the door, keeping up the din until the door was opened by an alarmed woman wearing an apron. She chided Sharpe in a burst of indignant Portuguese. A younger man was behind her, but he backed into the shadows when he saw Sharpe while the woman, who was gray-haired and hefty, tried to push the rifleman down the steps. Sharpe stayed where he was. "Ask her where Luis Ferreira lives," he told Vicente.

  There was a brief conversation. "She says Senhor Luis is staying here for the moment," Vicente said, "but he is not here now."

  "He's living here?" Sharpe asked, then grinned and took a piece of chalk from a pocket and scrawled SE CO on the polished blue door. "Tell her an important English officer will be using the house tonight and he wants a bed and a meal." Sharpe listened to the conversation between Vicente and the gray-haired woman. "And ask her if there's stabling." There was. "Sergeant Harper?"

  "Sir?"

  "Can you find your way back to the quay?"

  "Down the hill, sir."

  "Bring the Colonel here. Tell him he's got the best billet in town and that there's stabling for his horses." Sharpe pushed past the woman to get into the hallway and glared at the man who backed still farther away. The man had a pistol in his belt, but he showed no sign of wanting to use it as Sharpe pushed open a door and saw a dark room with a desk, a portrait over the mantel and shelves of books. Another door opened into a comfortable parlor with spindly chairs, gilt tables and a sofa upholstered in rose-colored silk. The servant was arguing with Vicente who was trying to calm her.

  "She is Major Ferreira's cook," Vicente explained, "and she says her master and his brother will not be happy."

  "That's why we're here."

  "The Major's wife and children have gone," Vicente went on translating.

  "Never did like killing men in front of their family," Sharpe said.

  "Richard!" Vicente said, shocked.

  Sharpe grinned at him and climbed the stairs, followed by Vicente and the cook. He found the big bedroom and threw open the shutters. "Perfect," he said, looking at the four-poster bed hung with tapestry curtains. "The Colonel can get a lot of work done in that. Well done, Jorge! Tell that woman Colonel Lawford likes his food plain and well cooked. He'll provide his own rations, all it needs is to be cooked, but there are to be no damned foreign spices mucking it up. Who's the man downstairs?"

  "A servant," Vicente translated.

  "Who else is in the house?"

  "Stable boys," Vicente interpreted the cook's answer, "kitchen staff, and Miss Fry."

  Sharpe thought he had misheard. "Miss who?"

  The cook looked frightened now. She spoke fast, glancing up to the top floor. "She says," Vicente interpreted, "that the children's governess is locked upstairs. An Englishwoman."

  "Bloody hell. Locked up? What's her name?"

  "Fry."

  Sharpe climbed up to the attics. The stairs here were uncarpeted and the walls drab. "Miss Fry!" he shouted. "Miss Fry!" He was rewarded by an incoherent cry and the sound of a fist beating on a door. He pushed the door to find it was indeed locked. "Stand back!" he called.

  He kicked the door hard, thumping his heel close to the lock. The whole attic seemed to shake, but the door held. He kicked again and heard a splintering sound, drew back his leg and gave the door one last almighty blow and it flew open and there, hunched under the window, her arms wrapped about her knees, was a woman with hair the color of pale gold. She stared at Sharpe, who stared back, then he looked hastily away as he remembered his manners because the woman, who had struck him as undoubtedly beautiful, was as naked as a new-laid egg. "Your servant, ma'am," he said, staring at the wall.

  "You're English?" she asked.

  "I am, ma'am."

  "Then fetch me some clothes!" she demanded.

  And Sharpe obeyed.

  Ferragus had sent his brother's wife, children and six servants away at dawn, but had ordered Miss Fry up to her room. Sarah had protested, insisting she must travel with the children and that her trunk was already on the baggage wagon, but Ferragus had ordered her to wait in her room. "You will go with the British," he told her.

  Major Ferreira's wife had also protested. "The children need her!"

  "She will go with her own kind," Ferragus snapped at his sister-in-law, "so get in the coach!"

  "I will go with the British?" Sarah had asked.

  "Os ingleses por mar," he had snarled, "and you can run away with them. Your time is done here. You have paper, a pen?"

  "Of course."

  "Then write yourself a character. I will sign it on my brother's behalf. But you can take refuge with your own people. So wait in your room."

  "But my clothes, my books!" Sarah pointed to the baggage cart. Her small savings, all in coin, were also in the trunk.

  "I'll have them taken off," Ferragus said. "Now go." Sarah had gone upstairs and written a letter of recommendation in which she described herself as being efficient, hard-working, and good at instilling discipline in her charges. She said nothing about the children being fond of her, for she was not sure that they were, nor did she believe it part of her job that they should be. She had paused once in writing the letter to lean from the window when she had heard the stable-yard gates being opened, and she saw the coach and baggage wagon, escorted by four mounted men armed with pistols, swords and malevolence, clatter into the street. She sat again, and added a sentence which truthfully said she was honest, sober and assiduous, and she had just been writing the last word when she had heard the heavy steps climbing the stairs to the servants' rooms. She had instantly known it was Ferragus and an instinct told her to lock her door, but before she could even get up from behind her small table Ferragus had thrust the door open and loomed in the entrance. "I am staying here," he had announced.

  "If you think that's wise, senhor," she said in a tone which suggested she did not care what he did.

  "And you will stay with me," he went on.

  For a heartbeat Sarah thought she had misheard, then she shook her head dismissively. "Don't be ridiculous," she said. "I will travel with the British troops." She stopped abruptly, distracted by gunshots coming from the lower town. The sound came from the rifles puncturing the first of the rum barrels, but Sarah could not know that and she wondered if the noise presaged the arrival of the French. Everything was so confusing. First had come news of the battle, then an announcement that the French had been defeated, and now everyone was ordered to leave Coimbra because the enemy was coming.

  "You will stay with me," Ferragus repeated flatly.

  "I most certainly will not!"

  "Shut your bloody mouth," Ferragus said, and saw the shock on her face.

  "I think you had better leave," Sarah said. She still spoke firmly, but her fear was obvious now and it excited Ferragus who leaned on her table, making its spindly legs creak.

  "Is that the letter?" he asked.

  "Which you promised to sign," Sarah said.

 
; Instead he had torn it into shreds. "Bugger you," he said, "damn you," and he added some other words he had learned in the Royal Navy, and the effect of each was as though he had slapped her around the head. It might well come to that, he thought. Indeed, it almost certainly would and that was the pleasure of teaching the arrogant English bitch a lesson. "Your duties now, woman," he had finished, "are to please me."

  "You have lost your wits," Sarah said.

  Ferragus smiled. "Do you know what I can do with you?" he had asked. "I can send you with Miguel to Lisbon and he can have you shipped to Morocco or to Algiers. I can sell you there. You know what a man will pay for white flesh in Africa?" He paused, enjoying the horror on her face. "You wouldn't be the first girl I've sold."

  "You will go!" Sarah said, clinging to her last shreds of defiance. She was looking for a weapon, any weapon, but there was nothing within reach except the inkpot and she was on the point of snatching it up and hurling it into his eyes when Ferragus tipped the table on its side and she had backed to the window. She had an idea that a good woman should rather die than be dishonored and she wondered if she ought to throw herself from the window and fall to her death in the stable yard, but the notion was one thing and the reality an impossibility.

  "Take your dress off," Ferragus said.

  "You will go!" Sarah had managed to say, and no sooner had she spoken than Ferragus punched her in the belly. It was a hard, fast blow and it drove the breath from her, and Ferragus, as she bent over, simply tore the blue frock down her back. She had tried to clutch to its remnants, but he was so massively strong, and when she did hold fast to her undergarments he just slapped her around the head so that her skull rang and she fell against the wall and could only watch as he threw her torn clothes out into the yard. Then, blessedly, Miguel had shouted up the stairs saying that the Major, Ferragus's brother, had arrived.

  Sarah opened her mouth to scream to her employer for help, but Ferragus had given her another punch in the belly, leaving her incapable of making a sound. Then he had thrown her bedclothes out of the window. "I shall be back, Miss Fry," he said, and he had forced her thin arms apart to stare at her. She was weeping with anger, but just then Major Ferreira had shouted up the stairs and Ferragus had let go of her, walked from the room and locked the door.