Sharpe's Battle

by Bernard Cornwell

  General"-he stressed the word 'General'-"and I would be vastly obliged if you addressed me as-"

  "My dear Wagon Master," Hogan interrupted Runciman's laborious request, "why didn't you say so earlier? Of course I shall address you as Wagon Master, and

  I apologize for not thinking of that simple courtesy myself. But now, Wagon

  Master, if you'll excuse me, the Real Companïa Irlandesa have reached the edge of town and we need to review them. If you're ready?" Hogan gestured to the inn's gateway.

  Runciman quailed at the prospect of exerting himself. "Right now, Hogan? This minute? But I can't. Doctor's orders. A man of my constitution needs to take a rest after... " He paused, seeking the right word. "After... " he went on and failed again.

  "Rest after labour?" Hogan suggested sweetly. "Very well, Wagon Master, I'll tell Lord Kiely you'll meet him and his officers at General Valverde's reception this evening while Sharpe takes the men up to San Isidro."

  "This evening at Valverde's, Hogan," Runciman agreed. "Very good. And Hogan.

  About my being Wagon Master General-"

  "No need to thank me, Wagon Master. You'd just embarrass me with gratitude, so not another word! I shall respect your wishes and tell everyone else to do the same. Now come, Richard! Where are your green fellows?"

  "In a taproom at the front of the inn, sir," Sharpe said. His riflemen were to join Sharpe in the San Isidro Fort, an abandoned stronghold on the Portuguese border, where they would help train the Real Companïa Irlandesa in musketry and skirmishing.

  "My God, Richard, but Runciman's a fool!" Hogan said happily as the two men walked through the inn's gateway. "He's a genial fool, but he must have been the worst Wagon Master General in history. McGilligan's dog would have done a better job, and McGilligan's dog was famously blind, epileptic and frequently drunk. You never knew McGilligan, did you? A good engineer, but he fell off the Old Mole at Gibraltar and drowned himself after drinking two quarts of sherry, God rest his soul. The poor dog was inconsolable and had to be shot.

  The 73rd Highlanders did the deed with a full firing party and military honours to follow. But Runciman's just the fellow to flatter the Irish and make them think we're taking them seriously, but that's not your job. You understand me?"

  "No, sir," Sharpe said, "don't understand you in the least, sir."

  "You're being awkward, Richard," Hogan said, then stopped and took hold of one of Sharpe's silver coat buttons to emphasize his next words. "The object of all we now do is to upset Lord Kiely. Your job is to insert yourself into Lord

  Kiely's fundament and be an irritant. We don't want him here and we don't want his bloody Royal Company here, but we can't tell them to bugger off because it wouldn't be diplomatic, so your job is to make them go away voluntarily. Oh!

  Sorry now," he apologized because the button had come away in his fingers.

  "The buggers are up to no good, Richard, and we have to find a diplomatic way of getting rid of them, so whatever you can do to upset them, do it, and rely on Runciman the Rotund to smooth things over so they don't think we're being deliberately rude." Hogan smiled. "They'll just blame you for not being a gentleman."

  "But I'm not, am I?"

  "As it happens, you are, it's one of your faults, but let's not worry about that now. Just get rid of Kiely for me, Richard, with all his merry men. Make them cringe! Make them suffer! But above all, Richard, please, please make the bastards go away."

  The Real Companïa Irlandesa might be called a company, but in fact it was a small battalion, one of the five that made up the household guard of Spain's royalty. Three hundred and four guardsmen had been on the company's books when it had last served in the Escorial Palace outside Madrid, but the imprisonment of Spain's king and benign neglect by the occupying French had reduced its ranks, and the journey by sea around Spain to join the British army had thinned the files even more, so that by the time the Real Companïa Irlandesa paraded on the outskirts of Vilar Formoso there were a mere one hundred and sixty-three men left. The one hundred and sixty-three men were accompanied by thirteen officers, a chaplain, eighty-nine wives, seventy-four children, sixteen servants, twenty-two horses, a dozen mules, "and one mistress," Hogan told Sharpe.

  "One mistress?" Sharpe asked in disbelief.

  "There's probably a score of mistresses," Hogan said, "two score! A walking brothel, in all likelihood, but his Lordship tells me we have to arrange accommodation suitable for himself and a lady friend. Not that she's here yet, you understand, but his Lordship tells me she's coming. The Dona Juanita de

  Elia is supposed to charm her way across the enemy lines in order to warm his

  Lordship's bed and if she's the same Juanita de Elia that I've heard about then she's well practised in bed warming. You know what they say of her? That she collects a uniform from the regiment of every man she sleeps with!" Hogan chuckled.

  "If she crosses the lines here," Sharpe said, "she'll be damned lucky to escape the Loup Brigade."

  "How the hell do you know about Loup?" Hogan asked instantly. For most of the time the Irishman was a genial and witty soul, but Sharpe knew the bonhomie disguised a very keen mind and the tone of the question was a sudden baring of that steel.

  Yet Hogan was also a friend and for a split second Sharpe was tempted to confess how he had met the Brigadier and illegally executed two of his grey- uniformed soldiers, but then decided that was a deed best forgotten. "Everyone knows about Loup here," he answered instead. "You can't spend a day on this frontier without hearing about Loup."

  "That's true enough," Hogan admitted, his suspicions allayed. "But don't be tempted to inquire further, Richard. He's a bad boy. Let me worry about Loup while you worry about that shambles." Hogan and Sharpe, followed by the riflemen, had turned a corner to see the Real Companïa Irlandesa slouching in parade order on a patch of waste land opposite a half-finished church. "Our new allies," Hogan said sourly, "believe it or not, in fatigue dress."

  Fatigue dress was meant to be a soldier's duty uniform for everyday wear, but the fatigue uniform of the Real Companïa Irlandesa was much gaudier and smarter than the full dress finery of most British line battalions. The guardsmen wore short red jackets with black-edged, gilt-fringed swallowtails behind. The same gold-trimmed black cord edged their buttonholes and collars, while the facings, cuffs and turnbacks of their coats were of emerald green.

  Their breeches and waistcoats had once been white, their calf-length boots, belts and crossbelts were of black leather, while their sashes were green, the same green as the high plume that each man wore on the side of his black bicorne hat. The gilded hat badges showed a tower and a rearing lion, the same symbols that were displayed on the gorgeous green and gold shoulder sashes worn by the sergeants and drummer boys. As Sharpe walked closer he saw that the splendid uniforms were frayed, patched and discoloured, yet they still made a brave display in the bright spring sunshine. The men themselves looked anything but brave, instead appearing dispirited, weary and aggravated.

  "Where are their officers?" Sharpe asked Hogan.

  "Gone to a tavern for luncheon."

  "They don't eat with their men?"

  "Evidently not." Hogan's disapproval was acid, but not as bitter as Sharpe's.

  "Now don't be getting sympathetic, Richard," Hogan warned. "You're not supposed to like these boys, remember?"

  "Do they speak English?" Sharpe asked.

  "As well as you or I. About half of them are Irish born, the other half are descended from Irish emigrants, and a good few, I have to say, once wore red coats," Hogan said, meaning that they were deserters from the British army.

  Sharpe turned and beckoned Harper towards him. "Let's have a look at this palace guard, Sergeant," he said. "Put 'em in open order."

  "What do I call them?" Harper asked.

  "Battalion?" Sharpe guessed.

  Harper took a deep breath. "Talion! 'Shun!" His voice was loud enough to make the closest men wince and the further ones jump in surp
rise, but only a few men snapped to attention. "For inspection! Open order march!" Harper bellowed, and again very few guardsmen moved. Some just gaped at Harper while the majority looked towards their own sergeants for guidance. One of those gorgeously sashed sergeants came towards Sharpe, evidently to inquire what authority the riflemen possessed, but Harper did not wait for explanations.

  "Move, you bastards!" he bellowed in his Donegal accent. "You're in a war now, not guarding the royal pisspot. Behave like the good whores we all are and open up, now!"

  "And I can remember when you didn't want to be a sergeant," Sharpe said to

  Harper under his breath as the startled guards at last obeyed the greenjacket

  Sergeant's command. "Are you coming, Major?" Sharpe asked Hogan.

  "I'll wait here, Richard."

  "Come on then, Pat," Sharpe said, and the two men began inspecting the company's front rank. An inevitable band of small mocking boys from the town fell into step behind the two greenjackets and pretended to be officers, but a thump on the ear from the Irishman's fist sent the boldest boy snivelling away and the others dispersed rather than face more punishment.

  Sharpe inspected the muskets rather than the men, though he made sure that he looked into each soldier's eyes in an attempt to gauge what kind of confidence and willingness these men had. The soldiers returned his inspection resentfully, and no wonder, Sharpe thought, for many of these guards were

  Irishmen who must have been feeling all kinds of confusion at being attached to the British army. They had volunteered for the Real Companïa Irlandesa to protect a Most Catholic King, yet here they were being harried by the army of a Protestant monarch. Worse still, many of them would be avid Irish patriots, fierce for their country as only exiles can be, yet now they were being asked to fight alongside the ranks of that country's foreign oppressors. Yet, as

  Sharpe walked down the rank, he sensed more nervousness than anger and he wondered if these men were simply fearful of being asked to become proper soldiers for, if their muskets were any indication, the Real Companïa

  Irlandesa had long abandoned any pretensions to soldiering. Their muskets were a disgrace. The men carried the serviceable and sturdy Spanish-issue musket with its straight-backed hammer; however these guns were anything but serviceable, for there was rust on the locks and fouling caked inside the barrels. Some of them had no flints, others had no leather flint-seatings, while one gun did not even have the doghead screw to hold the flint in place.

  "Did you ever fire this musket, son?" Sharpe asked the soldier.

  "No, sir."

  "Have you ever fired a musket, son?"

  The boy looked nervously towards his own sergeant. "Answer the officer, lad!"

  Harper growled.

  "Once, sir. One day," the soldier said. "Just the once."

  "If you wanted to kill someone with this gun, son, you'd have to beat them over the head with it. Mind you"-Sharpe pushed the musket back into the soldier's hands - "you look big enough for that."

  "What's your name, soldier?" Harper asked him.

  "Rourke, sir."

  "Don't call me "sir". I'm a sergeant. Where are you from?"

  "My da's from Galway, Sergeant."

  "And I'm from Tangaveane in County Donegal and I'm ashamed, boy, ashamed, that a fellow Irishman can't keep a gun in half decent order. Jesus, boy, you couldn't shoot a Frenchman with that thing, let alone an Englishman." Harper unslung his own rifle and held it under Rourke's nose. "Look at that, boy!

  Clean enough to pick the dirt out of King George's nose. That's how a gun should look! 'ware right, sir." Harper added the last three words under his breath.

  Sharpe turned to see two horsemen galloping across the waste ground towards him. The horses' hooves spurted dust. The leading horse was a fine black stallion being ridden by an officer who was wearing the gorgeous uniform of the Real Companïa Irlandesa and whose coat, saddlecloth, hat and trappings fairly dripped with gold tassels, fringes and loops. The second horseman was equally splendidly uniformed and mounted, while behind them a small group of other riders curbed their horses when Hogan intercepted them. The Irish Major, still on foot, hurried after the two leading horsemen, but was too late to stop them from reaching Sharpe. "What the hell are you doing?" the first man asked as he reined in above Sharpe. He had a thin, tanned face with a moustache trained and greased into fine points. Sharpe guessed the man was still in his twenties, but despite his youth he possessed a sour and ravaged face that had all the effortless superiority of a creature born to high office.

  "I'm making an inspection," Sharpe answered coldly.

  The second man reined in on Sharpe's other side. He was older than his companion and was wearing the bright-yellow coat and breeches of a Spanish dragoon, though the uniform was so crusted with looped chains and gold frogging that Sharpe assumed the man had to be at least a general. His thin, moustached face had the same imperious air as his companion's. "Haven't you learned to ask a commanding officer's permission before inspecting his men?" he asked with a distinct Spanish accent, then snapped an order in Spanish to his younger companion.

  "Sergeant Major Noonan," the younger man shouted, evidently relaying the older man's command, "close order, now!"

  The Real Companïa Irlandesa's Sergeant Major obediently marched the men back into close order just as Hogan reached Sharpe's side. "There you are, my

  Lords"-Hogan was addressing both horsemen - "and how was your Lordships' luncheon?"

  "It was shit, Hogan. I wouldn't feed it to a hound," the younger man, whom

  Sharpe assumed was Lord Kiely, said in a brittle voice that dripped with aloofness but was also touched by the faint slur of alcohol. His Lordship,

  Sharpe decided, had drunk well at lunch, well enough to loosen whatever inhibitions he might have possessed. "You know this creature, Hogan?" His

  Lordship now waved towards Sharpe.

  "Indeed I do, my Lord. Allow me to name Captain Richard Sharpe of the South

  Essex, the man Wellington himself chose to be your tactical adviser. And

  Richard? I have the honour to present the Earl of Kiely, Colonel of the Real

  Companïa Irlandesa."

  Kiely looked grimly at the tattered rifleman. "So you're supposed to be our drillmaster?" He sounded dubious.

  "I give lessons in killing too, my Lord," Sharpe said.

  The older Spaniard in the yellow uniform scoffed at Sharpe's claim. "These men don't need lessons in killing," he said in his accented English. "They're soldiers of Spain and they know how to kill. They need lessons in dying."

  Hogan interrupted. "Allow me to name His Excellency Don Luis Valverde," he said to Sharpe. "The General is Spain's most valued representative to our army." Hogan gave Sharpe a wink that neither horseman could see.

  "Lessons in dying, my Lord?" Sharpe asked the General, puzzled by the man's statement and wondering whether it sprang from an incomplete mastery of

  English.

  For answer the yellow-uniformed General touched his horse's flanks with the tips of his spurs to make the animal walk obediently along the line of the

  Real Companïa Irlandesa's front rank and, superbly oblivious of whether Sharpe was following him or not, lectured the rifleman from his saddle. "These men are going to war, Captain Sharpe," General Valverde said in a voice loud enough for a good portion of the guard to hear him. "They are going to fight for Spain, for King Ferdinand and Saint James, and fighting means standing tall and straight in front of your enemy. Fighting means staring your enemy in the eye while he shoots at you, and the side that wins, Captain Sharpe, is the side that stands tallest, straightest and longest. So you don't teach men how to kill or how to fight, but rather how to stand still while all hell comes at them. That's what you teach them, Captain Sharpe. Teach them drill. Teach them obedience. Teach them to stand longer than the French. Teach them"-the General at last twisted in his saddle to look down on the rifleman-"to die."

  "I'd rather teach
them to shoot," Sharpe said.

  The General scoffed at the remark. "Of course they can shoot," he said.

  "They're soldiers!"

  "They can shoot with those muskets?" Sharpe asked derisively.

  Valverde stared down at Sharpe with a look of pity on his face. "For the last two years, Captain Sharpe, these men have stayed at their post of duty on the sufferance of the French." Valverde spoke in the tone he might have used to a small and unintelligent child. "Do you really think they would have been allowed to stay there if they had posed a threat to Bonaparte? The more their weapons decayed, the more the French trusted them, but now they are here and you can provide them with new weapons."