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

by Bernard Cornwell

  "Sir Thomas," Lord William remarked as he savaged the bread with a blunt knife, "did not just put on a uniform. He raised the 90th Foot at his own expense."

  "And a damned expense it was too!" Sir Thomas said. "Their hats alone cost me four hundred and thirty-six pounds, sixteen shillings, and fourpence. I always wondered what the fourpence was for. And here I am, Sharpe, still fighting the French. Have you had enough to eat?"

  "Yes, sir, thank you, sir."

  Sir Thomas made a point of walking Sharpe to the stables. Just before they reached the building the general stopped Sharpe. "Play cricket, do you, Sharpe?"

  "We used to play at Shorncliffe, sir," Sharpe said cautiously, referring to the barracks where the riflemen were trained.

  "I need cricketers," the general said, then frowned in thought.

  "Henry Wellesley's a damned fool," he said, abruptly changing the subject, "but he's a decent damned fool. Know what I mean?"

  "I think so, sir."

  "He's a very good man. He deals well with the Spanish. They can be infuriating. They promise the world and deliver scraps, but Wellesley has the patience to treat with them, and the sensible Spaniards know they can trust him. He's a good diplomat and we need him as ambassador."

  "I liked him, sir."

  "But he made a bloody fool of himself over that woman. Does she have the letters?"

  "I think she has some, sir."

  "So you're looking for her?"

  "I am, sir."

  "You're not going to blow her up with my shells, are you?"

  "No, sir."

  "I hope not, because she's a pretty wee thing. I saw her with him once and Henry looked like a tomcat that had found a bowl of cream. She looked happy too. I'm surprised she betrayed him."

  "Lord Pumphrey says it was her pimp, sir."

  "And what do you think?"

  "I think she saw gold, sir."

  "Of course the thing about Henry Wellesley," Sir Thomas said, apparently ignoring Sharpe's words, "is that he's a forgiving sort of man. Wouldn't surprise me if he's still sweet on her. Ah well, I'm probably just blathering. I enjoyed your company last night, Mister Sharpe. If you finish your business quickly enough, then I hope you'll give us a game or two. I've a clerk who's a ferocious bowler, but the wretched man has sprained his ankle. And I trust you'll do me the honor of sailing south with us. We can bowl a few quick ones at Marshal Victor, eh?"

  "I'd like that, sir," Sharpe said, though he knew there was no hope of it coming true.

  He went to find Harper and the other riflemen. He found a slop shop in San Fernando and, with the embassy's money, bought his men civilian clothes and then, beneath the smoke of the burning rafts that hung above Cádiz like a great dark cloud, they went to the city.

  In the afternoon the cloud was still there, and twelve common shells, boxed up and labeled as cabbages, had arrived at the embassy.

  CHAPTER 6

  N OTHING HAPPENED IN THE next three days. The wind turned east and brought persistent February rain to extinguish the burning fire rafts, though the smoke from the rafts still smeared the Trocadero marshes and drifted across the bay toward the city where Lord Pumphrey waited for a message from whoever possessed the letters. The ambassador dreaded another issue of El Correo de Cádiz. None appeared. "It publishes rarely these days," James Duff, the British consul in Cádiz, reported to the ambassador. Duff had lived in Spain for nearly fifty years and had been consul for over thirty. Some folk reckoned Duff was more Spanish than the Spaniards and even when Spain had been at war with Britain he had been spared any insult and allowed to continue his business of buying and exporting wine. Now that the embassy had been driven to seek refuge in Cádiz, there was no need for a consul in the city, but Henry Wellesley valued the older man's wisdom and advice. "Nuñez, I think, is struggling," Duff said, speaking of the owner of El Correo de Cádiz. "He has no readership beyond the city itself now, and what can he print? News of the Cortes? But everyone knows what happens there before Nuñez can set it in type. He has nothing left except rumors from Madrid, lies from Paris, and lists of arriving and departing ships."

  "Yet he won't accept money from us?" Wellesley asked.

  "Not a penny," Duff said. The consul was thin, shrunken, elegant, and shrewd. He visited the ambassador most mornings, invariably complimenting Henry Wellesley on the quality of his sherry, which Duff himself sold to the embassy, though with the French occupying Andalusia the supply was running very short. "I suspect he's in someone else's pay," Duff went on.

  "You offered generously?" the ambassador asked.

  "As you requested, Your Excellency," Duff said. He had visited Nuñez on Wellesley's behalf and had offered the man cash if he agreed to publish no more letters. The offer had been refused, so Duff had made an outright bid for the newspaper itself, a bid that had been startlingly generous. "I offered him ten times what the house, press, and business are worth, but he would not accept. He would have liked to, I'm sure, but he's a very frightened man. I think he dares not sell for fear of his life."

  "And he proposes publishing more of the letters?"

  Duff shrugged, as if to suggest he did not know the answer.

  "I am so sorry, Duff, to place you in this predicament. My foolishness, entirely my foolishness."

  Duff shrugged again. He had never married and had no sympathy for the idiocies that women provoked in men.

  "So we must hope," the ambassador went on, "that Lord Pumphrey is successful."

  "His Lordship might well succeed," Duff said, "but they'll have copies, and they'll publish them anyway. You cannot depend on their honor, Your Excellency. The stakes are much too high."

  "Dear God." Henry Wellesley rubbed his eyes, then swiveled in the chair to stare at the steady rain falling on the embassy's small garden.

  "But at least," Duff said consolingly, "you will then possess the originals and can prove that the Correo has changed them."

  Henry Wellesley winced. It might be true that he could prove forgery, but he could not escape the shame of what was not forged. "Who are they?" he asked angrily.

  "I suspect they are people in the pay of Cardenas," Duff said calmly. "I can smell the admiral behind this one, and I fear he is implacable. I surmise"—he paused, frowning slightly—"I surmise you have thought of more direct action to deter publication?"

  Wellesley was silent for a few seconds, then nodded. "I have, Duff, I have. But I would sanction such action most reluctantly."

  "You are wise to be reluctant. I have noted an increase in Spanish patrols around Nuñez's premises. I fear Admiral Cardenas has prevailed on the Regency to keep a watchful eye on the newspaper."

  "You could talk to Cardenas," Wellesley suggested.

  "I could," Duff agreed, "and he will be courteous, he will offer me excellent sherry, and he will then deny any knowledge of the matter."

  Wellesley said nothing. He did not need to. His face betrayed his despair.

  "Our only hope," Duff went on, "is if Sir Thomas Graham succeeds in lifting the siege. A victory of that sort will confound those who oppose a British alliance. The problem, of course, is not Sir Thomas, but Lapeña."

  "Lapeña." Wellesley repeated the name dully. Lapeña was the Spanish general whose forces would accompany the British southward.

  "He will have more men than Sir Thomas," Duff went on remorselessly, "so he must have command. And if he is not given command, then the Spanish will not commit troops. And Lapeña, Your Excellency, is a timid creature. We must all hope that Sir Thomas can inspire him to valor." Duff held his glass of sherry to the window light. "This is the '03?"

  "It is."

  "Very fine," Duff said. He got to his feet and, with the help of a cane, crossed to the table with the inlaid checkered top. He stared for a few seconds at the chess pieces, then advanced a white bishop to take a castle. "I fear that is check, Your Excellency. Doubtless by next week you will confound me."

  The ambassador courteously walked Duff to the sedan chair w
aiting in the courtyard. "If they publish more," Wellesley said, holding an umbrella over the consul as they approached the chair, "I shall have to resign."

  "It will not come to that, I'm sure," Duff said unconvincingly.

  "But if it does, Duff, you'll have to shoulder my burden till a new man arrives."

  "I pray you remain in office, Your Excellency."

  "As do I, Duff, as do I."

  Some kind of answer to the ambassador's prayers came on the fourth day after the fire rafts had been destroyed. Sharpe was in the stables where he struggled to keep his bored men busy by repairing the stable roof, a job they hated, but a better occupation than being drunk. Lord Pumphrey's servant found Sharpe handing tiles to Rifleman Slattery. "His Lordship requests your attendance, sir," the servant said, eyeing Sharpe's dirty overalls with distaste, "as soon as possible, sir," the servant added.

  Sharpe pulled on Captain Plummer's old black jacket, donned a cloak, and followed the servant through the city's maze of alleys. He discovered Lord Pumphrey in the middle balcony of the church of San Felipe Neri. The church was an oval-shaped chamber with a floor tiled in bold black and white, above which three balconies punctuated the domed ceiling from which hung a tremendous chandelier that was unlit, but thick with stalactites of candle wax. The church was now home to the Cortes, the Spanish parliament, and the upper balcony, known as paradise, was where the public could listen to the speeches being given below. The middle balcony was for grandees, churchmen, and diplomats, while the lowest was where the deputies' families and friends gathered.

  The church's huge altar had been draped in a white cloth, in front of which a portrait of Spain's king, now a prisoner in France, was displayed where the crucifix normally stood. In front of the concealed altar the president of the Cortes sat at a long table flanked by a pair of rostrums. The deputies were in three rows of chairs facing him. Sharpe slid onto the bench beside Lord Pumphrey who was listening to a speaker haranguing the church in shrill, passionate tones, but was plainly being dull, for deputies were slipping away from their chairs and hurrying out of the church's main door. "He is explicating," Lord Pumphrey whispered to Sharpe, "the crucial role played by the Holy Spirit in the governance of Spain."

  A priest turned and scowled at Pumphrey who smiled and waggled his fingers at the offended man. "It is a pity," His Lordship said, "that they've draped the altar. It possesses a quite exquisite painting of the Immaculate Conception. It's by Murillo and the cherubs are enchanting."

  "Cherubs?"

  "Plump little darlings that they are," Lord Pumphrey said, leaning back. He smelled of rosewater today, though thankfully he had resisted wearing his velvet beauty patch and was soberly dressed in plain black broadcloth. "I do think cherubs improve a church, don't you?" The priest turned and demanded silence and Lord Pumphrey raised an eyebrow in exasperation, then plucked Sharpe's elbow and led him around the balcony until they were directly above the altar and so facing the three rows where the remaining deputies sat. "Second row back," Pumphrey whispered, "right-hand side, four chairs in. Behold the enemy."

  Sharpe saw a tall thin man in a dark blue uniform. He had a stick propped between his knees and he looked bored for his head was tilted back and his eyes were closed. His right hand opened and closed repeatedly over the stick's head. "Admiral the Marquis de Cardenas," Lord Pumphrey said.

  "The enemy?"

  "He has never forgiven us for Trafalgar. We lamed him there and took him prisoner. He was well enough looked after in a very decent house in Hampshire, but he hates us all the same and that, Sharpe, is the man rumored to be paying El Correo de Cádiz. Do you have a spyglass?"

  "Mine's at the embassy," Sharpe said.

  "Fortunately I possess all the essential accoutrements of a spy," Lord Pumphrey said and gave Sharpe a small telescope with an outer barrel sheathed in mother-of-pearl. "You might care to look at the admiral's coat?"

  Sharpe opened the glass and trained the lens, focusing it on the admiral's blue jacket. "What am I looking at?"

  "The horns," Lord Pumphrey said, and Sharpe edged the glass right and saw one of the horned brooches pinned to the dark cloth. The mark of el Cornudo, the enemy's mocking badge. Then he raised the glass and saw that the admiral's eyes were now open and were staring straight up at him. A hard face, Sharpe thought, hard and knowing and vengeful. "What do we do about the admiral?" he asked Lord Pumphrey.

  "Do?" Pumphrey asked. "We do nothing, of course. He's an honored man, a deputy, a hero of Spain and, publicly at least, a valued ally. In truth he's a sour creature, animated by hatred, who is probably negotiating with Bonaparte. I suspect that, but I can't prove it."

  "You want me to murder the bastard?"

  "That would certainly improve diplomatic relations between Britain and Spain, wouldn't it?" Pumphrey asked tartly. "Why didn't I think of doing that? No, Richard, I do not want you to murder the bastard."

  The admiral had summoned a servant and now whispered to him, pointing up at Sharpe as he did. The servant hurried away and Sharpe collapsed the glass. "What did you say his name was?"

  "The Marquis de Cardenas. He owns much land in the Guadiana valley."

  "We met his mother," Sharpe said, "and she's a wicked old bitch. Well in bed with the French too."

  "Literally?"

  "No. But they haven't plundered her estate. And she summoned them when we arrived. Tried to have us taken prisoner. Bitch."

  "Like mother like son," Pumphrey said, "and you're not to murder him. We must frustrate his knavish tricks, of course, but we must do it without anybody noticing. You look very dirty."

  "We're mending the stable roof."

  "That is hardly an officer's occupation."

  "Nor is getting back blackmailer's letters," Sharpe said, "but I'm doing it."

  "Ah, the messenger, I suspect," Lord Pumphrey said. He was looking at a man who had come onto the balcony and was sidling behind the benches toward them. The man wore the same small horned badge as the admiral.

  "Messenger?" Sharpe asked.

  "I was told to wait here. We are to have a meeting to discuss the purchase of the letters. I was afraid you would not arrive on time." Pumphrey went silent as the man edged behind him, then leaned down to His Lordship's ear. He spoke briefly and too quietly for Sharpe to hear, then moved on toward the balcony's second door.

  "There is a coffeehouse opposite the church," Lord Pumphrey said, "and an envoy will meet us there. Shall we go?"

  They followed the messenger down the stairs, emerging on the ground floor into a small antechamber where the admiral now stood. The Marquis de Cardenas was very tall and very thin and had a black wooden leg. He leaned on an ebony stick. Lord Pumphrey gave him a low and exquisite bow, which the admiral returned with a stiff nod before turning on his heel and limping back into the church. "Bugger's not bothering to hide from us," Sharpe said.

  "He has won, Sharpe," Lord Pumphrey said. "He has won, and he gloats."

  The wind was gusting in the narrow street, snatching at Lord Pumphrey's hat as he hurried through the cold drizzle to the coffeehouse. There were a dozen tables inside, most of which were taken by men who all seemed to be talking at once. They shouted at one another, ignored one another, and gesticulated extravagantly. One, to emphasize his argument, tore a newspaper into shreds and scattered the pieces on the table, then leaned back triumphantly. "The deputies of the Cortes," Lord Pumphrey explained. He looked around him, but saw no one who was obviously waiting and so threaded the noisy crowd to take one of the empty tables at the back of the café.

  "Other chair, my lord," Sharpe said.

  "You're fussy?"

  "I want to face the door."

  Lord Pumphrey dutifully moved and Sharpe sat with his back against the wall. A girl took an order for coffee and Pumphrey twisted to look at the customers who argued in the pall of cigar smoke. "Mostly lawyers," he said.

  "Lawyers?"

  "A large proportion of the deputies are lawyers," Pumphrey said, rubbin
g his thin face with both hands. "Slaves, liberals, and lawyers."

  "Slaves?"

  Lord Pumphrey gave an exaggerated shiver and drew his coat tighter about his thin shoulders. "There are, very crudely, two factions in the Cortes. One side are the traditionalists. They're comprised of the monarchists, the pious, and the old-fashioned. They're called the serviles. It's an insulting nickname, like calling a man a Tory. Serviles means the slaves, and they wish to see the king restored and the church triumphant. They are the faction of landlords, privilege, and aristocracy." He shivered again. "The serviles are opposed by the liberales," he went on, "who are so called because they are forever talking about liberty. The liberales want to see a Spain in which the people's wishes are more influential than the decrees of a tyrannical church or the whims of a despotic king. His Brittanic Majesty's government has no official view in these discussions. We merely wish to see a Spanish government willing to pursue the war against Napoleon."

  Sharpe looked scornful. "You're on the side of the serviles. Of course you are."

  "Oddly enough, no. If anything we support the liberales, so long, of course, as their wilder ideas are not exported to Britain, God forbid that. But either faction will suffice if they continue to fight Bonaparte."

  "So where's the confusion?"

  "The confusion, Sharpe, is that men on both sides dislike us. There are serviles and liberales who earnestly believe that Spain's most dangerous enemy is not France, but Britain. The leader of that faction, of course, is Admiral Cardenas. He's a servile, naturally, but if he can scare enough liberales into believing that we'll annex Cádiz, then he should get his way. He wants Spain under a Catholic king and with himself as the king's chief adviser, and to achieve that he has to make peace with France and then where will we all be?" Lord Pumphrey shrugged. "Tell me, why did the redoubtable Sir Thomas Graham send me a gift of artillery shells? Not that I'm ungrateful, of course I'm not, but curious, yes? Good God! What are you doing?"