Sharpe’s Gold

by Bernard Cornwell

  'Sir, is the telegraph working?'

  Lossow snapped his fingers. Cox frowned at the German. 'Yes, Captain. There's a relay station over the river, towards Pinhel.'

  'When can the first messages be sent?'

  Cox shrugged. 'Depends on the weather. Usually an hour after dawn.'

  Sharpe nodded impatiently. 'Would you, sir, consider a message to the General requesting orders concerning the gold?'

  Cox looked at him, shrugged again. 'Of course. First thing tomorrow?'

  'Please, sir.'

  Cox stood up. 'Good! Problem solved. I'll tell Colonel Jovellanos tomorrow and you can get a night's sleep. I must say you look as if you need it. Good God.' He was peering at Sharpe's shoulder. 'You're hurt!'

  'It will mend, sir.' Sharpe finished his wine; damned if politeness would stop him. And damn Wellington, too, who had held the cards too close to his chest so that Cox, a decent man, was put in this position. 'Sir?'

  Cox turned away from the doorway. 'Sharpe?'

  'How many men in Colonel Jovellanos's escort?'

  'Two hundred, Sharpe. God save me, I wouldn't want to meet them in a dark street.'

  Nor I, thought Sharpe. Nor I. He stood up, waited for the Commander of the garrison to leave. Where was El Catolico he wondered. Upstairs asleep? Or watching from a darkened window?

  Lossow, at least, understood. 'My men will guard tonight.'

  Sharpe smiled his thanks. 'And tomorrow?'

  The German shrugged, fitted his tall, plumed busby on to his head. 'If we cannot leave at dawn, then at dusk, my friend.'

  Cox put his head back round the door. 'I forgot! Remiss of me! You'll stay here, gentlemen? My orderlies can find beds.'

  Kearsey accepted, the two Captains pleaded they would rather be with their men, and Cox wished them a good night at the front door as if he were a host bidding a genial farewell to valued dinner guests. 'And sleep well! The message goes first thing!'

  Knowles and Harper waited outside and with them two Germans, one of them a barrel of a Sergeant who grinned when he was told that the Partisans were in the town. Lossow looked from his Sergeant to Harper.

  'A good match!'

  'I'll bet on the Irish.' Sharpe said the words without offence, and Lossow laughed.

  'Home. We sleep!'

  Knowles had done well, unbarring a huge house that stabled the Germans' horses, housed everyone, and on the second floor, behind a huge, polished door, was a bedroom with a feather mattress, a canopied bed, rugs, and the smell of old wood and fresh sheets. Sharpe closed the door, cutting off the sounds of his men who were sharing wine with the Germans, and looked at the girl.

  'El Catolico's here.'

  She nodded. 'What did you expect?'

  He unbuckled his belt, untied the faded red sash, and knew that his shoulder was too stiff, too painful, for him to undress properly. Teresa saw it, pushed back the sheet, and he saw she was already naked. She crossed the floor, helped him, went back to the huge, soft bed with him. Sharpe lay flat and the girl propped herself beside him.

  'What does he want?'

  'Later,' Sharpe said. 'Later.' His right arm was still good and he pulled the girl on top of him, felt her hair fall either side of his face, her hands explore the scars on his back. Her mouth was beside his ear.

  'Can I keep the rifle?'

  'It's all yours,' he said. 'All yours.' And it was.

  Chapter 19

  Her finger pressed on the scars of the flogging. 'Who did it?'

  'A man called Morris, and a Sergeant. Hakeswill.'

  'Why?'

  He shrugged. 'They lied.'

  'You kill them?'

  'Not yet.'

  She nodded slowly. 'You will?'

  'I will.' It was not yet dawn, but the sky had the grey luminance that came before first light, and Sharpe wanted to be at the telegraph early. He was reluctant to move, to lose the warm body, but others were stirring in the house and a cockerel, exploding into sound in the courtyard, jerked him upright. He lay back again, taking five more minutes, and pulled Teresa close.

  'Did Hardy want you?'

  She smiled, said something in Spanish, and he assumed she was asking if he was jealous.

  'No.'

  She wagged her head, seemed to shrug. 'Yes. He wanted me.'

  'And did you?'

  She laughed. 'No. Joaquim was too close.'

  Joaquim, damned Joaquim Jovellanos, El Catolico, Colonel and crook. The girl had told him, when they were lying hot and sweaty in the wide bed, of her father, of El Catolico, of the business of staying alive in the mountains when the enemy is everywhere and there is no law and no government. Her father, she said, was good, but weak.

  'Weak?' Sharpe had winced as he propped himself on an elbow.

  'He was strong.' Teresa still had problems with English and she shrugged helplessly.

  Sharpe helped her. 'And El Catolico?'

  She smiled, pushed hair away from her eyes. 'He wants everything. My father's men, land, money, me. He's strong.'

  Somewhere a door scraped on old hinges, boots crossed a yard, and Sharpe knew it was time to be up.

  'And you?'

  Her hand felt his scars. 'We will fight. Ramon, me, Father. Joaquim only thinks of what happens afterwards.'

  'Afterwards?'

  'When there is peace.'

  'And you?' Her hair had the smell of a woman and his hand rested on the long, muscled waist.

  'I want to kill Frenchmen.'

  'You will.'

  'I know.'

  Now, looking at the sudden smile, he wished that she was not going. He could, he decided, be happy with this woman, but he laughed inside as he remembered he had thought the same of Josefina.

  'What are you smiling for?'

  'Nothing.'

  He swung his legs out of bed, pulled up his crumpled clothes and put them on the bed. She pulled the jacket towards her, opened the pocket.

  'What's this?' A silver locket lay in her hand.

  'A locket.'

  She hit him. 'I know.' She opened it and, inside, saw the gold-haired girl with the generous mouth. 'Who's that?"

  'Jealous?'

  She seemed to understand and laughed. 'Who is she?'

  'Jane Gibbons.'

  She imitated him. 'Jane Gibbons. Who is she? Is she waiting for you?'

  'No. I've never met her.'

  She looked at the face in the miniature painting. 'She's pretty. Never?'

  'Never.'

  'Why do you have it?'

  'I knew her brother.'

  'Ah.' Friendship made sense to her. 'Is he dead?'

  'Yes.'

  'The French?' She said the word with her customary spite.

  'No.'

  She looked exasperated at his answers. 'Was he a soldier?'

  'Yes.'

  'Then how did he die?'

  Sharpe pulled on the French overalls. 'I killed him.'

  'You?'

  Sharpe paused. 'No. The Sergeant killed him. I killed the other one.'

  'What other one?' She sat up, flinched as he pulled back the curtain.

  Across the street was a church with ornate stonework and a laddered bell-tower. The soldier in Sharpe automatically understood that the church roof must have a platform for the ladder, a possible firing position.

  'They were enemies. They hurt a friend.'

  She understood the half truth. 'A woman?'

  He nodded. 'Not mine.' Another half truth, but by the time the two Lieutenants had died, Josefina had already found Hardy.

  She laughed. 'You're a good man, Richard.'

  'I know.'

  He grinned at her, picked up the locket and pushed it back into his pocket. Why had he kept it? Because Gibbons's sister was so beautiful? Or was it now his talisman, his magic charm against the killing lance and El Catolico's rapier? Teresa helped him with the jacket buttons.

  'You'll come back?'

  'I'll be back. The soldiers are here; you're safe.' />
  She leaned off the bed, pulled up the rifle. 'I'm safe.'

  He left her in the bedroom, feeling his loss, and went down to where the kitchen fire was blazing and Lossow was drinking beer from an earthenware bottle. The German Captain grinned at Sharpe.

  'A good night, my friend?"

  Knowles winced, Harper looked at the ceiling, but Sharpe growled something approximately polite and crossed to the fire. 'Tea?'

  'Here, sir.' Harper pushed a mug over the table. 'Just wet it.'

  A dozen men of the Company were in the kitchen, and some Germans, and they were sawing with knives at the new bread and looking surprised because there were pots of butter, fresh butter, on the table. Sharpe scraped his boot on the hearth and his men looked up.

  'The girl.' He wondered if he sounded embarrassed, but the men seemed not to mind. 'Look after her till I get back.'

  They nodded, grinned at him, and he was suddenly immensely proud of them. She would be safe with them, scoundrels though they were, just as a King's ransom in gold was safe with them. He had never thought of it, not in detail, but it occurred to Sharpe that most officers would never have trusted their men with the gold. They would have feared desertion; that the temptation of so much money would be simply too much, but Sharpe had never been worried. These were his men, his Company, and he trusted his life with their skills, so why not gold, or a girl?

  Robert Knowles cleared his throat. 'When will you be back, sir?'

  'Three hours.' An hour till the message could be sent, an hour for the reply to come, and then another hour unpicking the details with Cox. 'Keep an eye out for El Catolico. He's here. Keep a guard, Robert, all the time, and don't let anyone in, no one.'

  The men grinned at him, laughed as they thought what they could do to anyone who interfered with them, and Lossow clapped his hands together.

  'We surprise the Spanish, yes? They think they have the gold? But they don't know about the telegraph. Ah! The wonders of modern war.'

  It was cold in the street, the sky still dark grey, but as Sharpe, Lossow, and Harper mounted the final steps to the rampart of the castle they could see the eastern sky blazing with the coming sun. The telegraph was unmanned, the sheep bladders tied to the mast, and in the cruel, grey light it reminded Sharpe of a gallows. The wind slapped the ropes in a forlorn tattoo against the mast.

  The sun shattered the remnants of night, dazzled over the eastern hills, and streaked its bleak, early light into the countryside round Almeida. As if in salute there was a blare of bugles, shouts from the walls, and Lossow clapped Sharpe's good shoulder and pointed south.

  'Look!'

  The bugles had responded to the first formal move of the siege. The waiting was over, and through his undamaged telescope Sharpe saw that the dawn light had revealed a mound of fresh earth that had been thrown up a thousand yards from the fortifications. It was the first French battery and, even as Sharpe watched, he saw the tiny figures of men throwing up more earth and battening great fascines to the crest of the mound. It had been years since he had carried a fascine to war, a great wicker cylinder that was filled with soil and provided an instant battlement to protect men and guns from enemy artillery. The Portuguese gunners had seen the fresh earthworks and were running along the town wall.

  Lossow pounded his fist on the ramparts. 'Fire! You bastards!'

  A Portuguese gun team on the town defences seemed to hear him, for there was the flat crack of a cannon, and through the glass, Sharpe saw an eruption of earth where the roundshot struck the ground just in front of the French battery. The ball must have bounced right over the top and he knew the Portuguese gunners would be satisfied. After another two firings their gun barrel would be hot and the shot would carry farther and he listened for the next shot, saw it fall a little beyond the first, and watched as the French soldiers hurried to take cover.

  'Next one.'

  He let the telescope lie where it was and straightened up. Over the roofs of the town he could see the smoke of the cannon drifting in the breeze, saw another smudge as the Portuguese fired again, and then, a second later, heard the crash and watched the fascines blow apart.

  'Bravo!' Lossow clapped his hands. 'That's held them up for five minutes!'

  Sharpe picked up the telescope and panned it to the south. There were few Frenchmen visible – the new battery, an encampment half a mile beyond that, and a few figures on horseback riding the circuit well beyond the range of the defenders' guns. The close siege had not started yet, the careful digging of the zigzag trenches that would bring the infantry to striking distance of the breach that the French would hope to blast through the walls with battery after battery of huge, iron siege guns. And all the time the howitzers, untouchable in their deep pits, would lob their bombs into the town day after day. He looked westward, to the road that led to the Coa, and beyond one earthen barricade there was no real attempt by the French to seal it off. That would come in a day or two, when the siege proper began, and he handed the glass to Lossow.

  'We can do it.'

  The German looked at the road, smiled. 'It will be a pleasure.'

  There were footsteps on the circular stone stairway and the young midshipman, holding a thick sandwich, emerged on to the ramparts and looked startled to see the waiting men. He put his sandwich in his mouth, saluted, rescued his sandwich.

  'Morning, sir.'

  He put down the pile of books he was carrying in his other hand.

  'Morning.' Sharpe guessed the boy was no older than fifteen. 'When do you start sending?'

  'When the messages get here, sir.'

  Sharpe pointed to the books. 'What's that?'

  'Lessons, sir. Principles of navigation. I've got to pass the exam soon, sir, even though I'm not at sea.'

  'You should join the Rifles, lad.' Harper picked up the book. 'We don't stuff your head with mathematics.'

  Sharpe looked westwards. 'Where's the relay station?'

  The boy pointed north-west. 'Between the two hills, sir. It's over the river, on a church.'

  Sharpe pointed the glass, held it steady by jamming it next to the telegraph's mast and, far away, like a speck of dust, he could see the tiny telegraph station. 'How the hell do you read it?'

  'With this, sir.' The boy unlocked a trunk that was part of the mast's foundation and dragged out an iron tripod that carried a telescope twice the size of Sharpe's. Lossow laughed.

  'Thank you, Captain,' Sharpe said dryly. He liked Lossow, but was not sure about the man's sense of humour. Harper seemed to enjoy it.

  In the Plaza, in front of the cathedral, Sharpe watched the foreshortened shapes of two officers walking towards the castle.

  'Are those your messages?'

  The midshipman leaned over. 'Yes, sir. Captain Charles usually brings them.'

  As Sharpe watched he saw three men rolling a keg of powder from the cathedral, across the Plaza, and towards the warren of streets. He guessed that the guns on the wall kept very little ready powder, fearing a spark and an explosion that would save the French weeks of work, and the soldiers would be busy taking the black powder from the cathedral and delivering it to the gunners who sweated on the defences. He was glad he would not be here for the siege, for the helpless feeling of watching the earthworks creep closer, the siege guns firing slowly, but with massive, hammering force.

  'Good morning! You must be Sharpe!' Captain Charles, a Portuguese officer beside him, sounded cheerful. He looked at the midshipman. 'Morning, Jeremy. Sleep well?'

  'Yes, sir.' The midshipman had put up the telescope and trained it on the far mast. 'Hold on, sir.'

  He looked through the glass for a second, then leaped to the mast, untied the bladder ropes, and hauled on them one at a time so that the black bags shot up to the pulley at the cross-trees and fell down again.

  'What was that?' Sharpe asked.

  'Just saying good morning, sir.' The midshipman left three bladders down, the other raised. 'That says we're transmitting, sir,' he added helpful
ly.

  Sharpe looked through the big telescope. The far tower, much closer now, had two black dots level and halfway up the mast, presumably the signal that said they were ready to receive a message.

  'Here you are, Jeremy.' Charles handed over the first sheet and the boy leaped to the ropes, tugged and dropped them, sometimes looking at the sheet Captain Charles had given him, but mostly doing it from memory. Cox's Staff Captain jerked a thumb at the midshipman. 'Busy little blighter, eh? Used to be two of them, but the other got the pox. Died on us.'

  Sharpe looked over the midshipman's shoulder at the sheet of paper and read 48726, 91858, 38197.

  'Code,' Captain Charles boomed at him. 'Jolly clever, yes?'

  'What does it say?'

  The Staff Captain, gold lace at his cuffs, touched his nose. 'Can't say, dear chap. Top secret. Probably says the Brigadier has run out of rum; please send supply urgent. Something like that.'

  'Isn't that the gold message?'

  'Gold? Don't know about that. Only three messages this morning. That one tells the General that the 68th Regiment of the Line are outside since yesterday. This one's the daily report on available shot, and the last one's about the French battery.'

  'Christ Almighty!' Sharpe started towards the stairs, but Lossow touched his arm.

  'I'll go.' The German was serious. 'You stay.'

  Harper stood beside Lossow. 'You should stay here, sir. You don't know what the Spanish are up to.'

  Lossow smiled. 'You see? Outvoted.'

  He ran down the stairs and Sharpe turned back to Captain Charles.

  'What the hell's happening at headquarters?'

  Charles sniffed, handed the second piece of paper to the midshipman. 'Affairs of state. I don't know. Your Major, the Spanish Colonel, and it's all arm-waving and table-thumping. Not my style, dear boy. Oh, I say! That is clever!' He was staring to the south.

  Sharpe turned, picked up the telescope, and trained it on the French battery. Nothing was happening; the fascines still lay splayed apart and split open, and there were not even men attempting to repair the damage.

  'What is it?' he asked.

  'Over there.' Charles was pointing farther to the right. 'A second battery, hidden. We bang away at a heap of earth and the clever devils sneak the real battery into place. Jolly clever.'