Sharpe 3-Book Collection 4: Sharpe's Escape, Sharpe's Fury, Sharpe's Battle

by Bernard Cornwell

"Of course."

  "I very much doubt they will choose this place again," His Lordship said.

  "Depends what they want," Sharpe said.

  "Meaning?"

  "If they want us dead then they'll choose this place. It worked for them once, so why not use it again?" He led the way down the stairs and so emerged into an extraordinary chamber. It was circular with a low-domed ceiling. An altar lay at one end of the chamber. Three women knelt in front of the crucifix, beads busy in their fingers, staring up at the crucified Christ as Pumphrey tiptoed to the crypt's center. Once there he put a finger to his lips and Sharpe assumed His Lordship was being reverent, but instead Pumphrey rapped his cane sharply on the floor and the sound echoed and reechoed. "Isn't it amazing?" Lord Pumphrey asked. "Amazing," the echo said, and then again, and again, and again. One of the women turned and scowled, but His Lordship just smiled at her and offered an elegant bow. "You can sing in harmony with yourself here," Pumphrey said. "Would you like to try?"

  Sharpe was more interested in the archways leading from the big chamber. There were five. The center one led to another chapel, which had an altar lit by candles, while the remaining four were dark caverns. He explored the nearest one and discovered a passage leading from it. The passage circled the big chamber, going from cavern to cavern. "Clever bastards, aren't they?" he said to Lord Pumphrey who had followed him.

  "Clever?"

  "Plummer must have died in the middle of the big chamber, yes?"

  "That's where the blood was, certainly. You can still see it if you look carefully."

  "And the bastards must have been in these side chambers. And you can never tell which one they're in because they can go around the passage. There's only one reason for meeting in a place like this. It's a killing ground. You're negotiating with the bastards? You tell them to meet us in a public place, in daylight."

  "I suspect we have reason to indulge them, rather than the other way around."

  "Whatever that means," Sharpe said. "How much money are we talking about?"

  "At least a thousand guineas. At least. Probably much more."

  "Bloody hell!" Sharpe said, then gave a humorless laugh. "That'll teach the ambassador to choose his women more carefully."

  "Henry paid the three hundred guineas that Plummer lost," Pumphrey said, "but he can well afford it. The man who stole his wife had to pay him a fortune. But from now it will be the government's money."

  "Why?"

  "Because once our enemies published a letter it became a matter of public policy. This business is no longer about Henry's unfortunate choice of bedmate, but about British policy toward Spain. Perhaps that's why they printed the one letter. It put up the price and opened His Majesty's purse strings. If that was their motive, then I must say it was rather clever of them."

  Sharpe walked back to the central chamber. He imagined enemies hidden all around, enemies who were moving through the hidden passage, enemies threatening from a new archway every few seconds. Plummer and his companions would have been like rats in a pit, never knowing which hole the terriers would come from. "Suppose they do sell you the letters," he said. "What's to stop them keeping copies and publishing them anyway?"

  "They will undertake not to. That is one of our immutable conditions."

  "Immutable rubbish," Sharpe said scornfully. "You're not dealing with other diplomats, but with bloody blackmailers!"

  "I know, Richard," Pumphrey said. "I do know. It is unsatisfactory, but we must do our best and trust that the transaction is attended by honor."

  "You mean you're just hoping for the best?"

  "Is that bad?"

  "In battle, my lord, always expect the worst. Then you might be ready for it. Where's the woman?"

  "Woman?"

  "Caterina Blazquez, is that her name? Where is she?"

  "I have no idea," Pumphrey said distantly.

  "Is she part of it?" Sharpe asked forcefully. "Does she want guineas?"

  "The letters were stolen from her!"

  "So she says."

  "You have a very suspicious mind, Richard."

  Sharpe said nothing. He disliked the way Pumphrey used his Christian name. It denoted more than familiarity. It suggested Sharpe was a valued inferior, a pet. It was patronizing and it was false. Pumphrey liked to give the impression of frailty, lightness, and frivolity, but Sharpe knew there was a razor mind at work in that well-groomed head. Lord Pumphrey was a man at home in darkness, and a man who knew well enough that ulterior motives were the driving force of the world. "Pumps," he said, and was rewarded by a slight flicker of an eyebrow, "you know bloody well that they're going to cheat us."

  "Which is why I asked for you, Captain Sharpe."

  That was better. "We don't know the letters are at the newspaper house, do we?"

  "No."

  "But if they cheat us, which they will, then I'm going to have to deal with them. What's the object, my lord? To steal them, or to stop them from being published?"

  "His Majesty's government would like both."

  "And His Majesty's government pays me, don't they? Ten shillings and sixpence a day, with four shillings and sixpence deducted for mess costs."

  "The ambassador, I'm sure, will reward you," Lord Pumphrey said stiffly.

  Sharpe said nothing. He went to the center of the chamber where he could see the dried blood black between the flagstones. He slapped his toe on the floor and listened to the echo. Noise, he thought, noise and bullets. Scare the bastards to death. But perhaps Pumphrey was right. Perhaps they did intend to sell the letters. But if they chose this crypt for the exchange then Sharpe reckoned they wanted both letters and gold. He climbed the steps back to the cathedral's crossing and Lord Pumphrey followed. There was a door in the temporary brick wall and Sharpe tried it. It opened easily and beyond was the open air and great stacks of abandoned masonry waiting for work to resume on the cathedral. "Seen enough?" Lord Pumphrey asked.

  "Just pray they don't want to meet us in the crypt," Sharpe said.

  "Suppose they do?"

  "Just pray they don't," Sharpe said, for he had never seen a place so ideally suited for ambush and murder.

  They walked silently through the small streets. A mortar shell exploded dully at the other end of the city and a moment later every church bell in the city sounded at once. Sharpe wondered if the clangor was a summons for men to extinguish a fire set by the shell. Then he saw that everyone on the street had stopped. Men took off their hats and bowed their heads. "The oraciones," Lord Pumphrey said, taking off his own hat.

  "The what?"

  "Evening prayer time." The folk made the sign of the cross when the bells ended. Sharpe and Pumphrey walked on, but had to step into a shopfront to make way for three men carrying gigantic loads of firewood on their backs. "It's all imported," Lord Pumphrey said.

  "The wood?"

  "Can't get it from the mainland, can we? So it's fetched in from the Balearics or from the Azores. It costs a great deal of money to cook or stay warm in a Cádiz winter. Luckily the embassy gets coal from Britain."

  Firewood and coal. Sharpe watched the men disappear. They gave him an idea. A way to save the ambassador if the bastards did not sell the letters. A way to win.

  * * *

  FATHER SALVADOR Montseny ignored the two men operating the printing press while they were only too aware of him. There was something very threatening in the priest's calmness. Their employer, Eduardo Nuñez, who had brought Montseny to the pressroom, sat on a high chair in the room's corner and smoked a cigar as Montseny explored the room. "The work has been well done," Montseny said.

  "Except now we can't see." Nuñez waved at the brick rectangles where the two windows had been. "Light was bad anyway. Now we work in the dark."

  "You have lanterns," Father Montseny observed.

  "But the work is delicate," Nuñez said, pointing at his two men. One was inking the press's form with a sheepskin ball while the other was trimming a sheet of paper.

&nbs
p; "Then do the work carefully," Montseny said sourly. He was satisfied. The cellar, where the two printing apprentices lived, had no entrance other than a trapdoor that let into the pressroom's floor, while the pressroom itself, which took up almost all the ground floor, was now only accessible by the door that led from the courtyard. The first story was a storeroom, crammed with paper and ink, that could only be reached by an open stair beside the trapdoor. The second and third stories were Nuñez's living quarters, and Montseny had blocked the stairway leading to the flat roof. A guard was up on that roof at all hours, climbing to his post by a ladder from the balcony of Nuñez's bedroom. Nuñez did not like the arrangements, but Nuñez was being well paid in English gold.

  "Do you really believe we shall be attacked?" Nuñez asked.

  "I hope you're attacked," Montseny said.

  Nuñez made the sign of the cross. "Why, Father?"

  "Because then the admiral's men will kill our enemies," Montseny said.

  "We are not soldiers," Nuñez said nervously.

  "We are all soldiers," Montseny said, "fighting for a better Spain."

  He had nine guards to keep the press safe. They lived in the storeroom upstairs and cooked their meals in the courtyard beside the latrine. They were solid oxlike men with big hands stained by years spent in the tarred rigging of warships, and they were all familiar with weapons and all ready to kill for their king, their country, and their admiral.

  There was one small room off the pressroom. It was Nuñez's office, a charnel house of old bills, papers, and books, but Montseny had turfed Nuñez out, replacing him with a creature supplied by the admiral; a miserable creature, a whining, smoke-ridden, alcohol sodden, sweat-stinking excuse for a man, a writer. Benito Chavez was fat, nervous, peevish, and pompous. He had made his living writing opinions for the newspapers, but as the land ruled by the Spanish shrank, so the newspapers that would accept his opinions vanished until he was left only with El Correo de Cádiz, but that, at least, now promised to pay him well. He glanced around as Montseny opened the door. "Magnificent," he said, "quite magnificent."

  "Are you drunk?"

  "How can I be drunk? There's no liquor here! No, the letters!" Chavez chuckled. "They are magnificent. Listen! 'I cannot wait to caress your…'"

  "I have read the letters," Montseny interrupted coldly.

  "Passion! Tenderness! Lust! He writes well."

  "You write better."

  "Of course I do, of course. But I would like to meet this girl"—Chavez turned a letter over—"this Caterina."

  "You think she would want to meet you?" Montseny asked. Benito Chavez was corpulent, his clothes were unkempt, and his graying beard speckled with scraps of tobacco. There was a bucket beside him and it was almost filled with cigar stubs and ash. Two half-smoked cigars were in a saucer on the table. "Caterina Blazquez," Montseny said, "serves only the best clients."

  "She certainly knows how to wear out a mattress," Chavez said, ignoring Montseny's scorn.

  "So make your copies," Montseny said, "and do your work."

  "No need for copies," Chavez said. "I shall just rewrite everything and we can print it all at once."

  "All at once?"

  Chavez picked up one of the cigars, relit it from a candle, then scratched at an itch on his belly. "The English," he said, "provide the funds that keep the Regency going. The English supply the muskets for our army. The English give us the powder for the cannon on the city walls. The English have an army on the Isla de León that protects Cádiz. Without England, Father, there is no Cádiz. If we annoy the English sufficiently, then they will persuade the Regency to shut the newspaper, and what use are the letters then? So fire all our ammunition at once! Give them a volley that will finish them. All the letters, all the passion, all the sweat on the sheets, all the lies I shall write, all at once! Blast them in one edition. Then it does not matter if they do close the newspaper."

  Montseny stared at the miserable creature. There was some sense there, he allowed. "But if they do not close the newspaper," he pointed out, "then we shall have no more letters."

  "But there are other letters," Chavez said enthusiastically. "Here"—he sorted through the sheets of paper—"there's a reference to His Excellency's last letter and it isn't here. I assume this marvelous creature still has some?"

  "She does."

  "Then get them," Chavez said, "or don't, as you please. It doesn't matter. I am a journalist, Father, so I make things up."

  "Publish them all at once," Montseny said thoughtfully.

  "I need a week," Chavez said, "and I shall rewrite, translate, and invent. We shall say the English are sending muskets to the rebels in Venezuela, that they plan to impose the Protestant heresies on Cádiz"—he paused, sucking on the cigar—"and we shall say"—he went on more slowly, thoughtfully—"that they are negotiating a peace with France that will give Portugal its independence at the price of Spain. That should do it! Give me a week!"

  "Ten days," Montseny snorted. "You have five."

  Chavez's broad face took on a sly look. "I work better with brandy, Father." He gestured at the empty hearth, "and it is cold in here."

  "After five days, Chavez," Montseny said, "you shall have gold, you shall have brandy, and you shall have all the fuel you can burn. Until then, work." He closed the door.

  He could taste victory already.

  * * *

  THE NEW south wind had loosed a dozen ships on their voyages to Portugal. Sergeant Noolan and his men had left, ordered aboard a naval sloop that was carrying dispatches to Lisbon, but Lord Pumphrey's note to Sir Thomas Graham had been sufficient to keep Sharpe's riflemen on the Isla de León. That evening Sharpe went to look for them in the tent lines. He had changed back into his uniform, then borrowed one of the embassy's horses. It was dark by the time he reached the encampment where he discovered Harper trying to revive a dying fire. "There's rum in that bottle, sir," Harper said, nodding at a stone bottle at the tent door.

  "Where are the others?"

  "Where I'll be in ten minutes. In a tavern, sir. How's your head?"

  "It throbs."

  "Are you keeping the bandage wet, like the surgeon said you must?"

  "I forgot."

  "Sergeant Noolan and his men are gone," Harper said. "Took a sloop of war to Lisbon. But we're staying, is that it?"

  "Not for long," Sharpe said. He slid clumsily out of the saddle and wondered what the hell he was to do with the horse.

  "Aye, we got orders from Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Graham himself," Harper said, relishing the rank and title, "delivered to us by Lord William Russell, no less." He gave Sharpe a quizzical look.

  "We've got a job, Pat," Sharpe said, "some bastards in the city who need thumping."

  "A job, eh?" There was a touch of resentment in Harper's voice.

  "You're thinking of Joana?"

  "I was, sir."

  "Only be a few days, Pat, and there might be some cash in it." It had occurred to him that Lord Pumphrey was right and that Henry Wellesley could well be generous in his reward if the letters were retrieved. He stooped to the fire and warmed his hands. "We have to get you all some civilian clothes, then move you into Cádiz for a day or two, and after that we can go home. Joana will wait for you."

  "She will, I hope. And what are you doing with that horse, sir? It's wandering off."

  "Bloody hell." Sharpe retrieved the mare. "I'm going to take it to Sir Thomas's quarters. He'll have stables. And I want to see him anyway. Got a favor to ask him."

  "I'll come with you, sir," Harper said. He abandoned the fire and Sharpe realized Harper had been waiting for him. The big Irishman retrieved his rifle, volley gun, and the rest of his equipment from the tent. "If I leave anything here, sir, the bastards will steal it. There's nothing but bloody thieves in this army." Harper was happier now, not because Sharpe had returned, but because his officer had remembered to ask about Joana. "So what's this job, sir?"

  "We've got to steal something."
r />   "God save Ireland. They need us? This camp is full of thieves!"

  "They want a thief they can trust," Sharpe said.

  "I suppose that's difficult. Let me lead the horse, sir."

  "I need to talk to Sir Thomas," Sharpe said, handing over the reins. "Then we'll join the others. I could do with a drink."

  "I think you'll find Sir Thomas is busy, sir. They've been running around all evening like starlings, they have. Something's brewing."

  They walked into the small town. The streets of San Fernando were much more spacious than the alleys of Cádiz and the houses were lower. Lamps burned on some corners and light spilled from the taverns where British and Portuguese soldiers drank, watched by the ever-present provosts. San Fernando had become a garrison town, home to the five thousand men sent to guard the isthmus of Cádiz. Sharpe asked one of the provosts where Sir Thomas's quarters were and was pointed down a lane that led to the quays beside the creek. The creek made the isthmus into an island. Two large torches flamed outside the headquarters, illuminating a group of animated officers. Sir Thomas was one of them. He was standing on the doorstep and it was clear that Harper had been right: something was brewing and the general was busy. He was giving orders, but then he saw Sharpe and broke off. "Sharpe!" he shouted.

  "Sir?"

  "Good man! You want to come? Good man! Willie, look after him." Sir Thomas said nothing more, but turned brusquely away and, accompanied by a half dozen officers, strode toward the creek.

  Lord William Russell turned to Sharpe. "You're coming!" Lord William said. "Good!"

  "Coming where?" Sharpe asked.

  "Frog-hunting, of course."

  "Do I need a horse?"

  "Good God, no, not unless it can swim?"

  "Can I stable it here?"

  "Pearce!" Lord William shouted. "Pearce!"

  "I'm here, Your Lordship, I'm here, ever present and correct, sir." A bowlegged cavalry trooper who appeared old enough to be Lord William's father appeared from the alley beside the headquarters. "Your Lordship's forgotten Your Lordship's saber."

  "Dear God, have I? So I have, thank you, Pearce." Lord William took the proffered saber and slid it into its scabbard. "Look after Captain Sharpe's gee-gee, will you, Pearce? There's a good fellow. Sure you don't want to come with us?"