Sharpe's Eagle

by Bernard Cornwell

  He laughed. “But not quickly enough for you?” He had spoken the truth, he knew, but it did not help her. There were other girls, girls of good family like Josefina, who had risked everything to run to the soldiers. But they had been unmarried and had found refuge in a fast wedding, and their families had been forced to make the best of it. But Josefina? Sharpe knew she would find a man richer than he, a cavalry officer with money to spare and an eye for a woman, and her affection for Sharpe would be over­ridden by the need for comfort and security. He pulled her very tight to his chest, feeling the night air chill on his skin. “I’ll look after you.”

  “Promise?” Her voice was muffled.

  “I promise.”

  “Then I won’t be frightened.” She pulled slightly away. “You’re cold?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Come on.” She led him back into the dark room. He knew that she was his for a short time, and only a short time, and he was saddened by it. Outside the dog barked on at the empty sky.

  Chapter 14

  The Battalion paraded in companies forming three sides of a hollow square. The fourth side, instead of the accustomed flogging triangle, was made up of two leaning poplar trees that grew beside a shallow pool. The fringes of the pond had been trampled by cavalry, and the mud had dried ochre lumps streaked with green scum. Between the trees lay the Battalion’s bass drum, and on its grey stretched skin there rested an open Bible and prayer book. There was no wind to stir the pages, just the sun continu­ing its relentless assault on the plain and on the men who sweated at attention in full uniform.

  Sharpe stood before the Light Company at the left of the line and stared over the heads of the Grenadier Company opposite at the castle of Oropesa. It dominated the plain for miles, its curtain walls rising like stone slabs above the roofs of the town and Sharpe wondered idly what it must have been like to ride in full knightly armour in the days when the castle was a real obstacle. Today’s modern siege artillery would punch through the seeming­ly solid walls and bring the stones tumbling into the steep streets in devastating avalanches. Sweat stung his eyes, dripped onto his green jacket, trickled down his spine. He felt curiously light-hearted, not at all a fit state to watch deserters blown into eternity, and as he stared at the castle he thought of Josefina and somehow, in the morning light, the bargain did not seem such a bad one. She was his for as long as she needed him but, in return, she offered him her happiness and vivacity. And when the arrangement ends? A good soldier, he knew, always planned for the battle after the one ahead, but he could make no plans for the moment when Josefina would take herself away.

  He looked at Gibbons, who paraded on his horse with the Light Company. Simmerson was mounted in the centre of the square next to General ‘Daddy’ Hill who, with his staff, had come to fulfill his duty of watching execution done. Gibbons sat, stony faced, and stared straight ahead. As soon as this parade was done Sharpe knew he would return to the safety of his uncle’s side, and the Lieutenant had spoken no word to Sharpe, just ridden his horse over to the company, turned it, and sat still. There was no need for words. Sharpe could feel the hatred almost radiating from the man, the determination for revenge, for Sharpe had not only gained the promotion Gibbons wanted but worse than that the Rifleman had the girl too. Sharpe knew the matter was unresolved.

  Fourteen men, all guilty of minor crimes, marched into the square and were stood facing the trees. Their punish­ment was to act as the firing squad, and as the men stood there, their muskets grounded, they stared with fascina­tion at the two newly dug graves and the crude wooden coffins that waited for Ibbotson and Moss. The other two prisoners had died in the night. Sharpe half wondered whether Parton, the Battalion’s doctor, had helped them on their way rather than force the Battalion to watch two desperately sick men lashed to the trees and shot to pieces. Sharpe had seen many executions. As a child he had watched a public hanging and listened to the excitement of the crowd as the victims jerked and twitched on the gallows. He had seen men blown from the muzzles of decorated brass cannon, their bodies shredded into the Indian landscape, he had watched comrades tortured by the Tippoo’s women, fed to wild beasts, he had hung men by a casual roadside himself, yet most often he had seen men shot in the full panoply of ritual execution. He had never enjoyed the spectacle; he supposed no sensible man did, but he knew it was necessary. Somehow this execution was subtly different. It was not that Moss and Ibbotson did not deserve to die, they had deserted, planned to join the enemy, and there could be no end for them other than the firing squad. Yet coming on top of the fight at the bridge, coming on top of Simmerson’s floggings, his repeated condemnation of his men for losing the colour, the execution was seen by the Battalion as summing up Simmerson’s contempt and hatred for them. Sharpe had rarely felt such sullen resentment from any troops.

  In the distance, threading its way through the crowds of British and Spanish spectators, the Provost-Marshal’s party appeared, prisoners and guard. Forrest walked his horse forward of Simmerson.

  “Talion! Fix Bayonets!”

  Blades scraped out of scabbards and steel rippled round the ranks of the companies. The men must die with due ceremony. Sharpe watched Gibbons bend down to talk to the sixteen-year-old Ensign Denny.

  “Your first execution, Mr Denny?”

  The youngster nodded. He was pale and apprehensive, like the younger soldiers in the ranks. Gibbons chuckled. “Best target practice the men can have!”

  “Quiet!” Sharpe glared at his officers. Gibbons smiled secretly.

  “Talion!” Forrest’s horse edged sideways. The Major calmed it. “Shoulder arms!”

  The lines of men became tipped with bayonets. There was silence. The prisoners wore trousers and shirts, no jackets, and Sharpe supposed them to be half full of rough brandy or rum. A Chaplain walked with them, the mumble of his words just carrying to Sharpe, but the prisoners seemed to take no notice of him as they were marched to the trees. The drama moved inexorably forward. Moss and Ibbotson were tied to the trunks, blindfolded, and Forrest stood the firing squad to attention. Ibbotson, the son of the vicarage, was nearest to Sharpe, and he could see the man’s lips moving frenetically. Was he praying? Sharpe could not hear the words.

  Forrest gave no commands. The firing party had been rehearsed to obey signals rather than orders, and they presented and aimed to jerks of the Major’s sword. Suddenly Ibbotson’s voice came clear and loud, the educated tones filled with desperation, and Sharpe recog­nised the words. “We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep… „ Forrest dropped the sword, the muskets banged, the bodies jerked maniacally, and a flock of birds burst screeching from the branches. Two Lieutenants ran forward with drawn pistols, but the musket balls had done their work and the bodies hung with crushed and bloodied chests in front of the lingering white musket smoke.

  A murmur, barely audible, went through the ranks of the Battalion. Sharpe turned on his men.

  “Quiet!”

  The Light Company stood silent. The smoke from the firing party smelt pungent in the air. The murmur became louder. Officers and Sergeants screamed orders, but the men of the South Essex had found their protest and the humming became more insistent. Sharpe kept his own company quiet by sheer force, by standing glaring at them with drawn sword, but he could do nothing about the contempt that they showed on their faces. It was not aimed at him, it was for Simmerson, and the Colonel twitched his reins in the center of the square and bellowed for silence. The noise increased. Sergeants ran into the ranks and struck at men they suspected of making any sound, officers screamed at companies, adding to the din, and from beyond the Battalion came the jeers of the British soldiers from other units who had drifted out of the town to watch the execution.

  Gradually the moaning and humming died away, as slowly as the executioners’ smoke thinned into the air, and the Battalion stood silent and motionless. ’Daddy‘ Hill had not moved or spoken but now he motioned to his aides-de­camp and the small gro
up trotted delicately away, past the firing squad who now lifted the bodies into the coffins, and off towards Oropesa. Hill’s face was expressionless. Sharpe had never met ’Daddy‘ Hill but he knew, as did the rest of the army, that the General had a reputation as a kind and considerate officer and Sharpe wondered what he thought of Simmerson and his methods. Rowland Hill commanded six Battalions but Sharpe was certain none would offer him as many problems as the South Essex.

  Simmerson rode his horse to the graves, wrenched the beast round, and stood in his stirrups. His face was suffused with blood, his rage obvious and throbbing, his voice shrill in the silence. “There will be a parade for punishment at six o’clock this evening. Full equipment! You will pay for that display!” The men stood silent. Simmerson lowered his rump onto the saddle. “Major Forrest! Carry on!”

  Company by company, the Battalion marched past the open coffins, and the men were made to stare at the mangled bodies waiting by their graves. There, said the army, is what will happen to you if you run away; and more than that, because the names of the dead men would be sent home to be posted on their parish notice boards so that shame could descend on their families as well. The companies marched past in silence.

  When the Battalion was gone and the other spectators had gawped at the remains, a working party lowered the coffins into the graves. Earth was shovelled into the holes, the grass turves carefully replaced so that to a casual eye there were no visible signs of the burials. They were deliberately left unmarked, the final insult, but when all the soldiers had gone Spanish peasants found the graves and hammered wooden crosses into the turf. It was no measure of respect, just the precaution of sensible men. The dead were Protestants, buried in unhallowed ground, and the crude crosses were there to keep the unquiet spirits firmly underground. The people of Spain had enough problems with the war; the armies of France, Spain, and now Britain crossed and recrossed their land. There was little a peasant could do about that, or about the men who fought the Guerilla, the little war. But the ghosts of heathen Englishmen were another matter. Who needed them to scare the cattle and stalk the fields by night? They hammered the crosses deep and slept easy.

  Chapter 15

  One man in ten was to be flogged. Sixty men from the Battalion, six from each company, the Captain of each company to deliver his six men, stripped to the waist, ready to be tied to the flogging triangles that Simmerson was having made by local carpenters. The Colonel had made his announcement, and then he glared with his small red eyes round the assembled officers. Were there any comments?

  Sharpe took a breath. To say anything was useless, to say nothing was cowardly.

  “I think it a bad idea, sir.”

  “Captain Sharpe thinks it a bad idea.” Simmerson dripped acid with every word. “Captain Sharpe, gentle­men, can tell us how to command men. Why is it a bad idea, Captain Sharpe?”

  “To shoot two men in the morning and flog sixty in the afternoon seems to me to be doing the work of the French for them, sir.”

  “You do. Well, damn you, Sharpe, and damn your ideas. If the discipline in this Battalion was as strictly enforced by the Captains as I demand, then this punishment would not be necessary. I will have them flogged! And that includes your precious Riflemen, Sharpe! I expect three of them in your six! There’ll be no favouritism.”

  There was nothing to be said or done. The Captains told their companies and, like Sharpe, cut straws and drew lots to determine who should be Simmerson’s victims. Three dozen strokes each for sixty men. By two o’clock the victims were scrounging for spirits that might dull their flesh, and their sullen companions began the long afternoon of cleaning and polishing their kit for Simmerson’s inspection. Sharpe left them to their work and went back to the house that served as the Battalion’s headquarters. There was trouble in the air, a mood reminiscent of the heaviness before a thunderstorm; Sharpe’s happiness of the morn­ing was replaced by apprehension, and he found himself wondering what might happen before he went back to the house where Josefina waited for him and dreamed of Madrid.

  He spent the afternoon laboriously filling in the compa­ny books. Each month the Day Book had to be copied into the Ledger, and the Ledger was due for Simmerson’s inspection in a week. He found ink, sharpened a quill, and with his tongue between his teeth began writing the details. He could have delegated the job to the Sergeant who looked after the books, but he preferred to do the job himself and then no one could accuse the Sergeant of favouritism. To Thomas Cresacre, Private, was debited the cost of one new shoe-brush. Fivepence. Sharpe sighed; the entry in the columns hid some small tragedy. Cresacre had hurled the brush at his wife, and the wooden back had split against a stone wall. Sergeant McGivern had seen it happen and reported the man, and so on top of his marital troubles Thomas Cresacre would now lose fivepence from a day’s pay of twelvepence. The next entry in the small Day Book that lived in Sharpe’s pocket was for a pair of shoes for Jedediah Horrell. Sharpe hesitated. Horrell claimed the shoes had been stolen, and Sharpe was inclined to believe him. Horrell was a good man, a sturdy labourer from the Midlands, and Sharpe always found his musket cared for and his equipment orderly. And Horrell had already been punished. For two days he had marched in borrowed boots, and his feet were blistered and burst. Sharpe crossed the entry from his Day Book and wrote in the Ledger ‘Lost in Action’. He had saved Private Horrell six shillings and sixpence. He drew the Accoutrement Book towards him and laboriously copied the information from the ledger into the book. He was amused to see that Lennox had already described every man in the company as having lost a stock ‘in Action’, so officially the stocks, like Horrell’s boots, were now a charge on the government rather than on the individual who had lost them. For an hour he kept copying from Day Book to Ledger to Accoutrement Book, the small change of daily soldiering. When he had finished he drew the Mess Book towards him. This was easier. Sergeant Read, who kept the books, had already crossed out the names of the men who had died at Valdelacasa and written in the new names, Sharpe’s Riflemen and the six men who had been drafted into the Light Company when Wellesley made them the new Battalion of Detachments. Against each of the names Sharpe wrote the figure three shillings and sixpence, the sum that was debited each week for the cost of their food. It was unfair, he knew, because the men were already on half rations, and the word was that the supply situation was worsening. The Commissary officers were scouring the Tagus valley; there were frequent clashes between British and French patrols to decide which side could search a village for hidden food. There were even battles between the British and their Spanish allies, who had failed to deliver a hundredth part of the supplies they had prom­ised, yet they daily drove in herds of pigs, sheep, cattle or goats for their own men. But it was not in Sharpe’s power to reduce the amount the men paid, even if the rations were not delivered in full. Instead he noted at the bottom of the page that the sum was double the food delivered and hoped that he would be ordered to redress the balance later. In the next column he wrote fourpence in each line, the cost of having the men’s clothes washed by the wives on the strength. A man’s washing cost him seventeen shillings and fourpence a year, his rations over eight pounds. Each private earned a shilling a day, seventeen pounds and sixteen shillings a year, but by the time he had been deducted for food, for washing, for pipeclay and blackball, for soling and heeling, and the one day’s pay each year that went to the Military hospitals at Chelsea and Kilmainham, each man was left with the three sevens. Seven pounds, seven shillings and seven pence, and Sharpe knew from bitter experience that they were lucky to get even that. Most men lost further sums to replace missing equipment, and the truth was that each private was paid about fourpence halfpenny a day to fight the French.

  As a Captain, Sharpe received ten shillings and sixpence a day. It seemed like a fortune but more than half was deducted for his food and then the officers’ mess demand­ed a further levy of two shillings and eightpence a day to pay for wine, luxury foods, and the mess servants.
He paid more for cleaning, for the hospitals, and he knew the sums backwards. They simply did not add up. And now Josefina was looking to him for money. Hogan had lent him money and, added to the contents of his leather bag, he had enough for the next fortnight, but after that? His only hope was to find a rich corpse on the battlefield. A very rich corpse.

  Sharpe finished with the books, shut them, laid the quill on the table and yawned as a clock in the town struck four. He opened the Weekly Mess Book again and looked down at the names, wondering morbidly how many would still be there in a week’s time and how many would have the word ‘deceased’ entered against them. Would his name be crossed out? Would some other officer look at the ledger and wonder who had written fivepence, one shoe-brush‘, against the name Thomas Cresacre? He shut the books again. It was all academic. The army had not been paid for a month, and even then they had not been paid up to date. He would give the books to Sergeant Read, who would store them on the company mule and when, and if, the pay arrived, Read would make the deductions from the books and pay the men their handfuls of coins. There was a knock on the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Me, sir.” It was Harper’s voice.

  “Come in.”

  Harper’s face was bleak, his manner formal. “Well, Sergeant?”

  “Trouble, sir. Bad. The men are refusing to parade.”

  Sharpe remembered his apprehension. “Which men?”

  “Whole bloody Battalion, sir. Even our lads have joined in.” When Patrick Harper spoke of ‘our lads’ he meant the Riflemen. Sharpe stood up and slung on the big sword. “Who knows about this?”

  “Colonel does, sir. Men sent him a letter.”

  Sharpe swore under his breath. “They sent him a letter? Who signed it?”

  Harper shook his head. “No-one signed it, sir. It just tells him that they won’t parade and if he comes near they’ll blow his bloody head off.”