Sharpe’s rifles

by Bernard Cornwell

  Sharpe leaned on the wall outside the Parker’s room. He put the hourglass on a window sill and watched the first grains trickle through. Damn the bloody woman. No wonder the army discouraged the spread of Methodism in its ranks. Yet in one way Sharpe was glad to be a bodyguard, even to someone as disobliging as Mrs Parker, for it gave him an excuse not to go back to the stable where his Riflemen would make their displeasure and disdain clear once more. There had been a time when the company of such men had been his life and pleasure, but now, because he was an officer, he was bereft of such companionship. He felt an immense and hopeless weariness, and wished this damned journey was over.

  He cut one more button from his trousers which already gaped to show a length of scarred thigh, and bought himself a skin of wine. He drank it quickly and miserably, then dragged a bench close to the family’s door. The tavern customers, suspicious of the ragged, harsh-faced, foreign soldier, kept clear of him. The bench was close to a small unshuttered window that gave Sharpe a view of the stables. He half suspected that the Riflemen might attempt another mutiny, perhaps sneaking off in the darkness to rejoin their beloved Major Vivar, but except for a few men who appeared in the stableyard to urinate, all seemed calm. Calm, but not quiet. Sharpe could hear the Riflemen’s laughter and it galled his loneliness. Gradually the laughter turned to silence.

  He could not sleep. The tavern emptied, except for two drovers who snored cheerfully by the dying fire and the potman who made his bed under the serving hatch. Sharpe felt the beginnings of a headache. He suddenly missed Vivar. The Spaniard’s cheerfulness and certainty had made the long march bearable, and now he felt adrift in chaos. What if the British garrison had left Lisbon? Or what if there were no naval ships off the coast? Was he doomed to wander through Spain till, at last, the French solved his problems by making him a prisoner? And what if they did? The war must soon end with French victory, and the French would send their prisoners home. Sharpe would go back to England as just another failed officer who must eke out a bare existence on half-pay. He turned the hourglass and scratched another mark on the limewashed wall.

  There was a half-collapsed skin of wine beside the sleeping drovers and Sharpe stole it. He squirted the foul liquid into his mouth, hoping that the raw taste would cut through his burgeoning headache. He knew it would not. He knew that in the morning he would feel foul-tempered and sore. So, doubtless, would his men, and the memory of their sullenness only depressed him more. Damn them. Damn Williams. Damn Harper. Damn Vivar. Damn Sir John Moore for ruining the best damned army that had ever left England. And damn Spain and damn the bloody Parkers and damn the bloody cold that slowly seeped into the tavern as the fire died.

  He heard the bolt shifting in the door behind him. It was being drawn surreptitiously and with excruciating care. Then, after what seemed a long time, the heavy door creaked ajar. A pair of nervous eyes stared at Sharpe. “Lieutenant?”

  “Miss?”

  “I brought you this.” Louisa closed the door very, very carefully and crossed to the bench. She held out a thick silver watch. “It’s a striking watch,” she said quietly, “and I have set it to ring at four o’clock.”

  Sharpe took the heavy watch. “Thank you.”

  “I have to apologize,” Louisa said hastily.

  “No…“

  “Indeed I do. I spend many hours apologizing for my aunt’s behaviour. Perhaps tomorrow you would be kind enough to return the watch without her noticing?”

  “Of course.”

  “I also thought you might like this, Lieutenant.” She smiled mischievously as she brought a black bottle from beneath her cloak. To Sharpe’s astonishment it held Spanish brandy. “It’s my uncle’s,” she explained, “though he’s not supposed to drink it. He’ll think my aunt found it and threw it away.”

  “Thank you.” Sharpe swallowed some of the fierce liquid. Then, with awkward courtesy, he wiped the bottle’s mouth on his dirty sleeve and offered it to Louisa.

  “No, thank you.” She smiled at the clumsy gesture but, recognizing it as a friendly invitation, sat in decorous acceptance at the far end of Sharpe’s bench. She was still dressed in skirts, cloak and bonnet.

  “Your uncle drinks?” Sharpe asked in amazement.

  “Wouldn’t you? Married to her?” Louisa smiled at his expression. “Believe me, Lieutenant, I only came with my aunt for the opportunity to see Spain. It was hardly because I desired months of her company.”

  “I see,” Sharpe said, though he really did not understand any of it, and certainly not why this girl had sought his company in the middle of the night. He did not think she had risked her aunt’s wrath just to lend him a watch, but she seemed eager to talk and, even though her presence made him shy and tongue-tied, he wanted her to stay. The dying fire cast just enough light to give a red sheen to her face. He thought her very beautiful.

  “My aunt is uncommonly rude,” Louisa said in further apology. “She had no cause to comment on your rank in the manner that she did.”

  Sharpe shrugged. “She’s right. I am old to he a Lieutenant, but five years ago I was a Sergeant.”

  Louisa looked at him with new interest. “Truly?”

  ”Truly.“

  She smiled, thus striking darts of desire into Sharpe’s soul. “I think you must be an extremely remarkable man, Lieutenant, though I should tell you that my aunt thinks you are extremely uncouth. She continually expresses amazement that you hold His Majesty’s commission, and avers that Sir Hyde would never have allowed a ruffian like you as an officer on one of his ships.”

  For an instant Sharpe’s battered self-esteem made him bristle at the criticism, then he saw that Louisa’s face was mischievous rather than serious. He saw, too, a friendliness in the girl. It was a friendliness that Sharpe had not received from anyone in months and, though he warmed to it, his awkwardness made his response clumsy. A born officer, he thought sourly, would know how to reply to the girl’s dry humour, but he could only ask a dull question. “Was Sir Hyde your father?”

  “He was a cousin of my father’s, a very distant cousin indeed. I’m told he was not a good Admiral. He believed Nelson was a mere adventurer.” She froze, alerted by a sudden noise, but it was only the fall of a log in the smouldering fire. “But he became a very rich Admiral,” Louisa went on, “and the family benefited from all that prize money.”

  “So you’re rich?” Sharpe could not help asking.

  “Not I. But my aunt received a sufficiency to create trouble in the world.” Louisa spoke very gravely. “Have you any idea, Mr Sharpe, just how embarrassing it is to be spreading Protestantism in Spain?”

  Sharpe shrugged. “You volunteered, miss.”

  “True. And the embarrassment is the price I pay for seeing Granada and Seville.” Her eyes lit up, or perhaps it was just the reflected flare of glowing embers. “I would like to see more!”

  “But you’re returning to England?”

  “My aunt thinks that is wise.” Louisa’s voice was carefully mocking. “The Spanish, you see, are not welcoming her attempts to free them from Rome’s shackles.”

  “But you’d like to stay?”

  “It’s scarcely possible, is it? Young women, Mr Sharpe, do not have the freedom of this world. I must return to Godalming where a Mr Bufford awaits me.”

  Sharpe had to smile at her tone. “Mr Bufford?”

  “He’s entirely respectable,” Louisa said, as though Sharpe had intimidated otherwise, “and, of course, a Methodist. His money comes from the manufacture of ink, a trade of such profitability that the future Mrs Bufford may look forward to a large house and a life of great, if tedious, comfort. Certainly it will never be discoloured by the ink, which is manufactured in faraway Deptford.”

  Sharpe had never before talked with a girl of Louisa’s evident education, nor heard the monied class spoken of with such deprecation. He had always believed that anyone born to great, if tedious, comfort would be eternally grateful for the gift. “You’re the future Mrs Bu
fford?”

  “That is the intention, yes.”

  “But you don’t want to be married?”

  “I do desire that, I think.” Louisa frowned. “Are you married?”

  “I’m not rich enough to marry.”

  “That’s rarely stopped others, I think. No, Mr Sharpe, I simply do not desire to marry Mr Bufford, though my reluctance is doubtless very selfish of me.” Louisa shrugged away her indiscretions. “But I did not hope to find you awakejust to impose my small unhappiness on you. I wished to ask of you, Lieutenant, whether our presence makes it more likely that you and your men will be captured by the French?”

  The answer was clearly yes, but equally clearly Sharpe could not say so. “No, miss. So long as we keep going at a fair clip, we should keep ahead of the bast—of them.”

  “I was going to enjoin you, should you have answered me truthfully, to abandon us to the bast—to them.” Louisa smiled her gravely mischievous smile.

  “I wouldn’t abandon you, miss,” Sharpe said clumsily, glad that the gloom hid his blush.

  “My aunt does provoke great loyalty.”

  “Exactly.” Sharpe smiled, and the smile turned into a laugh which Louisa hushed by holding a finger to her lips.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.” She stood. “I hope you do not feel badly about our encumbering you?”

  “Not now, miss.”

  Louisa crept to her door. “Sleep well, Lieutenant.”

  “And you, miss.” Sharpe watched as she slipped through the door, and held his breath until he heard the bolt slide safely shut on its far side. His sleep would be turbulent now, for all his thoughts and desires and dreams had been turned inside out and upside down by a gentle, mocking smile. Richard Sharpe was far from home, endangered by a conquering enemy and, just to make things worse, he had fallen in love.

  At four in the morning Sharpe was woken by the tinkling alarm of Louisa’s silver watch. He hammered on the Parkers’ door until a groan assured him the family was awake. Then he went to the stable and found that his men had not absconded in the night. They were all present, and they were nearly all drunk.

  They were not as drunk as the men who had been abandoned to the French during the retreat, but they had come close. All but a handful of them were insensible, soused, unconscious. The wineskins which Sharpe had purchased lay empty on the floor, but among the bedding straw were also numerous empty bottles of aguardiente and he knew that the Cistercian monks, when they had brought out the sacks of bread, had secreted the brandy as part of their gift. Sharpe swore.

  Sergeant Williams was groggy, but managed to stagger to his feet. “It was the lads, sir,” he said helplessly. “They was upset, sir.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the brandy?”

  “Tell you, sir?” Williams was astonished that he should expect such a thing.

  “God damn them.” Sharpe’s head was thick, his own belly sore, but his hangover was as nothing compared to the state of the greenjackets. “Get the bastards up!”

  Williams hiccupped. The lantern revealed just how hopeless was the task of rousing the Riflemen but, scared by Sharpe’s demeanour, he made some feeble attempts to stir the nearest man.

  Sharpe brushed Williams aside. He shouted at the men. He kicked them awake, dragged them up from stupor, and he punched tender bellies so that suffering men vomited on the stable floor. “Up! Up! Up!”

  The men reeled in dazed confusion. This was ever the danger in this army. The men joined for drink. They could only be kept in the ranks by the daily issue of rum. They took every opportunity to drown themselves in liquor. Sharpe had done it himself as a redcoat, but now he was an officer and his authority once again had been flouted. He primed his loaded rifle with dry powder, and cocked the flint. Sergeant Williams flinched from the expected noise, Sharpe pulled the trigger, and the explosion hammered about the stable. “Up, you bastards! Up, up!” Sharpe kicked out again, his anger made worse by his own incompetence in not knowing about the brandy. He was also keenly and miserably aware of how badly this behaviour would appear to Miss Louisa Parker.

  By a quarter past five, in a drizzle that promised to persist all day, Sharpe finally paraded the men on the road. The Parkers’ carriage was being manoeuvred out of the tavern yard as Sharpe, in the light of a lantern carried by Sergeant Williams, inspected weapons and equipment. He smelt each canteen and poured what was left of the brandy onto the road.

  “Sergeant Williams?”

  “Sir?”

  “We’ll go at the quick!” The quick march of the Rifles was immensely fast and, anticipating the pain to come, the men groaned. “Silence!” Sharpe bellowed. “Rifles will turn to the right! Right turn!” The men’s unshaven faces were bleary, their eyes reddened, their drill sloppy. “Quick march!”

  They marched into a grey and dispiriting dawn. Sharpe forced the pace so hard that some men had to drop out to vomit into the flooded ditches. He kicked them back into line. At this moment he thought he probably hated these men, and almost wanted them to defy him so that he could swear and lash out at the ill-disciplined bastards. He forced them so fast that the Parkers’ carriage fell behind.

  Sharpe ignored its slow progress. Instead he made the Riflemen’s pace still quicker until Sergeant Williams, fearing the men’s mutinous mood, fell back to his side. At this point the road twisted down a long slope towards a wide stream that was crossed by a stone bridge. “They can’t do it, sir.”

  “They can get drunk, though, can’t they? So let them bloody suffer now.”

  Sergeant Williams was clearly suffering. He was pale and breathless, dragging his feet, seemingly on the point of being sick. Other men were in a far worse state. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said feebly.

  “I should have abandoned you to the French. All of you.” Sharpe’s anger was made worse by remorse. He knew it was his own fault. He should have had the courage to inspect the stables in the night, but instead he had tried to hide from the men’s dislike by staying in the inn. He remembered the drunks who had been abandoned during Sir John Moore’s retreat; hopeless men left to the untender mercies of the pursuing French and, though he had just threatened them with the same fate, Sharpe knew he would not abandon these men. It was a matter of pride now. He would bring this group of Riflemen out of disaster. They might not thank him for it, they might not like him for it, but he would take them through hell if it led to safety. Vivar had said it could not be done, but Sharpe would do it.

  “I’m sorry, sir.” Williams still tried to assuage-him.

  Sharpe said nothing. He was thinking how much easier this ordeal would be if he had a Sergeant who could keep the men to order. Williams cared too much about being liked, but there was no one else he could see taking the stripes. Gataker was too fly and too eager for the good opinion of his fellow Riflemen. Tongue was educated, but the worst drunkard in the company. Parry Jenkins, the Welshman, could have made a Sergeant, but Sharpe suspected he lacked the necessary ruthlessness. Hagman was too lazy. Dodd, the quiet man, was too slow and diffident. There was only Harper, and he, Sharpe knew, would do nothing to help the despised Quartermaster. Sharpe was stuck with Williams, just as Williams and the company were stuck with Lieutenant Sharpe who, when he reached the stone bridge, ordered the men to halt.

  They halted. There was relief on their faces. The coach was out of sight, still negotiating the boulders beyond the hill’s crest.

  “Company!” Sharpe’s loud voice made some of the men wince. “Ground arms!”

  There was more relief as they grounded their heavy weapons, then as they unbuckled their bayonets and pouches. Sharpe separated the handful of men who had been sober that morning and ordered the rest to take off their packs, greatcoats, and boots.

  The men thought he was mad, but all soldiers were used to humouring eccentric officers and so they removed their boots under the Lieutenant’s sour gaze. The coach appeared at the top of the slope and Sharpe snapped at the men to look to their front and not gape at it
. The squeal of the carriage’s brake-blocks was like a nail scratching on slate. “You did not have my permission to get drunk.” Sharpe’s voice was flat now, no longer angry. “I hope, as a result, that you feel God-damned awful.”

  It was apparent to the men that Sharpe’s rage had passed and some of them grinned to show that they did indeed feel dreadful.

  He smüid. “Good. So now jump in the stream. All of you.”

  They stared at him. The thunder and squeal of the carnage wheels grew louder.

  Sharpe loaded his rifle with the swift movements of a man long trained to the army. The men stared in disbelief as he brought the brass butt into his shoulder and aimed the weapon at their front file. “I said jump in the stream! Go!”

  He cocked the rifle.

  The men jumped.

  The drop from the bridge parapet was perhaps eight feet and the stream, swollen by melting snow and winter rains, was four feet deep. The water was icy cold, but Sharpe stood on the parapet and ordered each man to soak himself in the bitter flood. He used the rifle as an encouragement. “You! Get your bloody head under! Harper! Duck, man, duck!” Only the sober, the wounded and, in deference to his flimsy authority, Sergeant Williams, were spared the ordeal. “Sergeant! Form threes on the bank. Hurry now!”

  The shivering men waded from the stream and formed three miserable ranks on the grass. The coach lumbered to a halt and George Parker, his face nervous, was ejected from the door. “Lieutenant? My dear wife is concerned that you might abandon us by your swift pace.” Parker then saw the soaked parade and his jaw fell.

  “They’re drunk.” Sharpe said it loudly enough for the men to hear. “Pickled. Stewed. God-damn useless! I’ve been sweating the bloody liquor out of the bastards.”

  Parker flapped a hand in protest at the blasphemy but Sharpe ignored him. Instead he shouted at his men. “Strip!”

  There was a pause of disbelief. “Strip!”

  They stripped themselves naked. Forty freezing men, pale and miserable, stood in the drizzle.