Читать книгу Sharpe 3-Book Collection 7: Sharpe’s Revenge, Sharpe’s Waterloo, Sharpe’s Devil - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 19

‘This tribunal,’ Lieutenant-Colonel Wigram solemnly intoned, ‘has been convened by and under the authority of the Adjutant-General.’ Wigram was reading from a sheaf of papers and did not look up to catch the Riflemen’s eyes as he read. He went on to recite his own commission to chair this tribunal, then the separate authorities for the presence of every other person in the room.

The room was a magnificent marbled chamber in Bordeaux’s prefecture. Four tables had been arranged in the form of a hollow square in the very centre of the room. The top table, where the tribunal itself sat, was an extraordinary confection of carved and gilded legs on which was poised a slab of shining green malachite. To its left was a humble deal table where two clerks busily recorded the proceedings, while to the right was a table for the official observers and witnesses. Completing the square, and facing the magnificent malachite table, was another cheap deal table which had been reserved for Sharpe and Frederickson. The two Rifle officers had been fetched straight up the prefecture stairs and into the room. Captain Salmon had reported to Wigram that their baggage was being fetched, then had left. Sharpe and Frederickson had still not been given any indication why they had been summoned or why this pompous tribunal had been convened.

Sharpe gazed malevolently at Wigram who, apparently oblivious of the baleful look, droned on. Wigram was a man Sharpe had met before, and had disliked mightily. He was a staff colonel, a petty-minded and meticulous bore; a clerk in a colonel’s uniform. Wigram, Sharpe also remembered only too well, had been an avid supporter of Captain Bampfylde in the days before the Teste de Buch expedition had sailed. Surely this tribunal could have nothing to do with the man Sharpe had fought above a dawn-grey ocean? Yet that seemed only too possible, for one of the official observers on Sharpe’s left was a Naval officer.

Wigram tonelessly introduced the other two members of the tribunal; both Lieutenant-Colonels from the Adjutant-General’s department. One of the two was a uniformed lawyer, the other a provost officer. Both men had sallow and unfriendly faces. The Naval officer was introduced to Sharpe and Frederickson as Captain Harcourt. The second man at Harcourt’s table was, strangely, a civilian French lawyer.

‘The purpose of this tribunal,’ Wigram at last reached the meat of his document, ‘is to enquire into certain happenings at the Teste de Buch fort, in the Bay of Arcachon, during the month of January this year.’

Sharpe felt an initial pulse of relief. His conscience was entirely clear about the fight at the Teste de Buch fort, yet the relief did not last, for the formality of this tribunal was very chilling. Papers and pens had been provided on the Riflemen’s table and Sharpe wrote a question for Frederickson, ‘Why a French lawyer?’

‘God alone knows,’ Frederickson scribbled in reply.

‘I shall begin,’ Wigram selected a new sheaf of paper, ‘by recapitulating the events which took place at the Teste de Buch fortress.’

It had been decided, Wigram informed the tribunal, to capture the fort in an attempt to deceive the enemy into thinking that a sea-borne invasion might follow. The expedition was under the overall command of Captain Horace Bampfylde, RN. The land troops were commanded by Major Richard Sharpe. Wigram looked up at that point and found himself staring into Sharpe’s unfriendly eyes. The staff officer, who wore small round-lensed spectacles, quickly looked back to his paper.

The fort had been successfully captured, Wigram went on, though there was disagreement between Captain Bampfylde and Major Sharpe as to the exact manner in which that success had been achieved.

‘Wrong,’ Sharpe said, and his interruption so astonished the room that no one objected to it. ‘Any disagreement between Captain Bampfylde and myself,’ Sharpe said harshly, ‘was ended by a duel. He lost.’

‘I was about to point out,’ Wigram said icily, ‘that all the indications reveal that the predominant credit for the fort’s capture must be given to you, Major Sharpe. Or is it that you wish this tribunal to investigate a clearly illegal occurrence of duelling?’

The Naval Captain smiled, then hastily looked more solemn as Wigram continued. Among those captured at the fort, Wigram said, had been an American Privateer, Captain Cornelius Killick. Killick had been promised good treatment by Captain William Frederickson and, when it appeared that promise was being broken by Bampfylde, Major Sharpe had released the American and his crew.

‘Is that accurate, Major?’ It was the provost Lieutenant-Colonel who asked the question.

‘Yes,’ Sharpe answered.

‘Yes, sir,’ Wigram corrected Sharpe.

‘Yes, it is accurate,’ Sharpe said belligerently.

There was a pause, and Wigram evidently decided not to press the issue.

Major Sharpe, Wigram continued, had subsequently marched inland with all the army troops, plus a contingent of Royal Marines under the command of Captain Neil Palmer.

‘May one enquire,’ it was the army lawyer who now interrupted Wigram, ‘why Captain Palmer is not here to present his evidence?’

‘Captain Palmer has been sent on a voyage to Van Dieman’s Land,’ Wigram replied.

‘He would have been,’ Frederickson said loudly enough for the whole room to hear.

The lawyer ignored Frederickson. ‘We nevertheless have an affidavit from Captain Palmer?’

‘There was no opportunity to secure one.’ Wigram was clearly discomfited by the questions.

‘There wouldn’t have been,’ Frederickson said sardonically.

Sharpe laughed aloud. He wondered how Bampfylde had so conveniently managed to have Palmer sent all the way to Australia, then he wondered how Bampfylde had managed to have this tribunal instituted. God damn the man! He had lost a duel, but had somehow continued the fight. How? The man had lied, had been a coward, yet here, in this captured prefecture, it was Sharpe and Frederickson who were being questioned.

During Sharpe’s absence from the fort, Wigram pressed on with his account, the weather conditions were such that Captain Bampfylde deemed it sensible to take his ships off shore. That decision was made easier by intelligence which claimed that Major Sharpe and all his men had been defeated and captured. That intelligence later proved to be false.

Major Sharpe subsequently returned to the Teste de Buch fort, defended it against French attack, and finally escaped thanks to the intervention of the American, Killick. Wigram paused. ‘Is that an accurate account, Major Sharpe?’

Sharpe thought for a few seconds, then shrugged. ‘It’s accurate.’ In fact it had been surprisingly accurate. The nature of their quasi-arrest that afternoon had convinced Sharpe that this tribunal had been established solely to exonerate Bampfylde, yet so far he had to admit that the proceedings had been scrupulously fair and the facts not at all helpful to Bampfylde’s reputation. Was it possible that this tribunal was establishing the facts to present at Bampfylde’s court-martial?

Subsequently, Wigram recounted, Captain Bampfylde had accused Major Sharpe of accepting a bribe from the American, Killick. Sharpe, hearing that accusation for the first time, sat up, but Wigram anticipated his outrage by asking whether any evidence had been produced to substantiate the allegation.

‘None at all,’ Captain Harcourt said firmly.

Sharpe was sitting bolt upright now. Was this tribunal indeed to be Bampfylde’s doom? Frederickson must have felt the same hope, for he swiftly drew a sketch of a Naval officer dangling in a noose from a scaffold. He pushed the sketch to Sharpe, who smiled.

Frederickson’s sketched prognostication of Bampfylde’s fate seemed accurate, for Harcourt was now invited to offer the tribunal a summary of the Navy’s own investigation. That investigation, held at Portsmouth at the beginning of April, had found Captain Bampfylde derelict in his duty. Specifically he was blamed for his precipitate abandonment of the captured fort, and for not returning when the storm abated to seek news of the shore party.

‘So court-martial him,’ Sharpe offered harshly.

Harcourt glanced at the Riflemen, then shrugged. ‘It was decided that, for the good of the service, there will be no court-martial. You may be assured, though, that Captain Bampfylde has left the Navy, and that he still has difficulty with his bowels.’

The small jesting reference to the duel passed unnoticed. If there was to be no court-martial, Sharpe wondered, then why in hell were they here? The Navy had decided to hush up an embarrassing incident, yet this army tribunal was re-opening the sack of snakes and apparently doing it with the Navy’s connivance.

It would be assumed, Wigram continued, from the evidence already offered to the tribunal, that Captain Bampfylde’s accusations against Major Sharpe were groundless. The army had indeed already decided as much. Major Sharpe had been faced by a French brigade commanded by the notorious General Calvet, which brigade Major Sharpe had roundly defeated. Nothing but praise could attach itself to such an action. Captain Harcourt, who seemed rather sympathetic to the two Riflemen, applauded by slapping the table top. The French lawyer, who could hardly be supposed to share Harcourt’s sympathy, nevertheless beamed happily.

‘Perhaps they want to give us both Presentation swords,’ Frederickson wrote on his piece of paper.

‘Now, however,’ Wigram’s voice took on a firmer tone, ‘fresh evidence has been received at the Adjutant-General’s office.’ Wigram laid down the papers from which he had been reading and looked owlishly to his right. ‘Monsieur Roland? Perhaps you would be so kind as to summarise that evidence?’

The room was suddenly expectant and quiet. Sharpe and Frederickson did not move. Even the two clerks, who had been busily writing, became entirely still. The French lawyer, as if enjoying this moment of notoriety, slowly pushed back his chair before rising to his feet.

Monsieur Roland was a fleshy, happy-looking man. He was entirely bald, all but for two luxurious side-whiskers that gave his benevolent face an air of jollity. He looked like a family man, utterly trustworthy, who would be happiest in his own drawing room with his children about him. When he spoke he did so in fluent English. He thanked the tribunal for the courtesy shown in allowing him to speak. He understood that the recent events in Europe might lead ignorant men to suppose that no Frenchman could ever again be trusted, but Monsieur Roland represented the law, and the law transcended all boundaries. He thus spoke, Roland said, with the authority of the law, which authority sprang from a ruthless regard for the truth. Then, more prosaically, he said that he was a lawyer employed by the French Treasury, and that therefore he had the honour to represent the interests of the newly restored King of France, Louis XVIII.

‘Might one therefore presume,’ the lawyer from the Adjutant-General’s department had a silky, almost feline voice, ‘that until a few weeks ago, Monsieur, you were perforce an advocate for the Emperor?’

Roland gave a small bow and a bland smile. ‘Indeed, Monsieur, I had that honour also.’

The tribunal’s members smiled to demonstrate that they understood Roland’s apparently effortless change of allegiance. The smiles suggested that the tribunal was composed of worldly men who were above such petty things as the coming and going of emperors and kings.

‘In December last year,’ Roland had arranged his papers, and could now begin his peroration, ‘the Emperor was persuaded to contemplate the possibility of defeat. He did not do this willingly, but was pressed by his family; chief among them his brother, Joseph, whom you gentlemen will remember as the erstwhile King of Spain.’ There was a delicacy in Roland’s tone which mocked Joseph Bonaparte and flattered the British. Wigram, whose contribution to Joseph’s downfall had been to amass paperwork, smiled modestly to acknowledge the compliment. Sharpe’s face was unreadable. Frederickson was drawing two Rifle officers.

‘The Emperor,’ Roland hooked his thumbs behind his coat’s lapels, ‘decided that, should he be defeated, he might perhaps sail to the United States where he was assured of a warm welcome. I cannot say that he was enthusiastic about such a plan, but it was nevertheless urged upon him by his brother who alarmed the Emperor by tales of the ignominy that the family would suffer if they were forced to surrender to their enemies. Happily the generosity of those enemies has made such prophecies worthless,’ again Roland had flattered his hosts, ‘and it is now evident that the Emperor may confidently rely on his victors to treat him with a proper dignity.’

‘Indeed.’ Wigram could not forbear the pompous interruption.

Frederickson, who had always had a great facility at sketching, was now surrounding his two Rifle officers with a battery of field artillery. All the guns faced the two Greenjackets.

Roland paused to drink water. ‘Nevertheless,’ he began again, ‘at Joseph’s instigation, preparations were made for an emergency flight from France. Thus, at all times, a travelling coach stood prepared for the Emperor. In its baggage were clothes, uniforms, and decorations. However, the Emperor understood that the carriage could not be too heavily burdened, or else its weight would impede his flight. He therefore arranged, and in the most solemn secrecy, to have his heavy baggage stored at a coastal fort where, in the event of flight, it could be swiftly loaded on board a ship and carried to the United States of America. The officer chosen to convey that baggage to the Atlantic coast was a Colonel Maillot. I have here copies of his orders, signed by the Emperor himself.’ Roland picked up the sheets of paper and carried them to the three members of the tribunal.

‘Where is this Colonel now?’ the English lawyer asked sharply. Despite his unfriendly face, the lawyer seemed assiduous to ask any question that might help Sharpe and Frederickson.

‘Colonel Maillot is being sought,’ Roland replied suavely. ‘Sadly the present confusion in France makes his whereabouts a mystery. It is even possible, alas, that Colonel Maillot was killed in the last few weeks of the fighting.’

There was silence as the tribunal scanned the papers. Frederickson, abandoning his gloomy drawing, wrote a quick question. ‘Have you heard of Maillot?’

‘No,’ Sharpe scrawled in reply.

Roland had returned to his own table and picked up another sheet of paper. ‘Colonel Maillot delivered the baggage to a trusted officer here in Bordeaux. That officer was a Major named Pierre Ducos.’

Sharpe hissed a curse under his breath. Now he understood why he was in this room. He did not know how Ducos had worked this, but Sharpe knew who his enemies were, and none was more remorseless than Pierre Ducos. Sharpe felt ambushed. He had been prepared to fight down the clumsy and untruthful attack of the disgraced Captain Bampfylde, and all the time it had been the far more dangerous, and far more cunning, Pierre Ducos who had been working for his downfall. ‘I know Ducos,’ he wrote.

‘Major Ducos,’ Roland went blandly on, ‘conveyed the baggage in great secrecy to the Teste de Buch fort which covers the seaward entrance of the Bassin d’Arcachon.’

‘He’s lying!’ Sharpe interrupted.

‘Quiet!’ Wigram slapped the table.

‘It was that fortress, of course,’ Roland was quite unmoved by Sharpe’s interruption, ‘which, thanks to the great gallantry of Major Sharpe,’ here Roland bowed slightly towards the angry Sharpe, ‘was captured shortly after the baggage had been conveyed thither. The baggage consisted of four large wooden crates that had been concealed inside the fortress.’

‘How were the crates concealed?’ Frederickson asked, but in such a respectful tone that no one reprimanded him for interrupting.

‘I have here Major Ducos’s report,’ Roland held up the sheets of paper, ‘which reveals that the four wooden crates were bricked up in the fort’s main magazine. The work was done by men entirely loyal to the Emperor. None of the fort’s garrison was present when the work was done, and only the fort’s commandant was apprised of the existence of the baggage. The tribunal already has copies of the commandant’s report, and that of Major Ducos, but I now submit those officers’ original documents.’

The papers were duly handed across, and again there was silence as the tribunal perused them. It was the Adjutant-General’s lawyer who broke the silence with a petulant complaint that the Commandant’s handwriting was almost illegible.

‘Commandant Lassan explains in the final paragraph of his report that he lost two fingers of his right hand during the defence of the fort,’ Roland excused the almost indecipherable scrawl, ‘but you will nevertheless discover that your copy is an exact transcription of his words.’

‘I assume,’ the Adjutant-General’s lawyer aligned the edges of the papers in front of him, ‘that, if it should prove necessary, these officers can give evidence?’

‘Indeed,’ Roland bowed acknowledgement of the point, ‘but they were unwilling to travel into British-held territory at this moment.’

‘We are fortunate,’ Wigram said fulsomely, ‘that you yourself showed no such reluctance, Monsieur Roland.’

Roland bowed at the compliment, then explained that he had travelled with a party of British officers to London where he had taken this matter to the Judge Advocate General in Whitehall. That official had ordered the Adjutant-General to establish an investigative tribunal, and ordered the Royal Navy to bring Monsieur Roland to Bordeaux. The Frenchman picked up his papers again. ‘You will notice, gentlemen, that on the final page of Commandant Lassan’s account, he states that when the fortress was finally reoccupied by the French, the baggage was gone.’ Roland paused to look at his copy of the report. ‘You will further note from Commandant Lassan’s testimony that before the fort was evacuated by the British he saw heavy objects being transported from the seaward bastions to the American’s vessel.’

The Adjutant-General’s lawyer frowned. ‘Do we have any other evidence which confirms that the baggage was hidden in the fortress? What about this General,’ he leafed through his papers, ‘Calvet. He eventually reoccupied the fort, so wouldn’t he have known about it?’

‘General Calvet was never informed of its presence,’ Roland said, ‘the Emperor’s instructions were adamant that as few men as possible were to know of his preparations for exile. France was still fighting, gentlemen, and it would not have served the Emperor well if men had thought he was already contemplating defeat and flight.’

‘But Calvet’s evidence would be instructive,’ the English lawyer insisted. ‘He could, for instance, confirm whether baggage was indeed removed to the American’s ship?’

Roland paused, then shrugged. ‘General Calvet, gentlemen, has proclaimed an unswerving loyalty to the deposed Emperor. I doubt whether he would co-operate with this tribunal.’

‘I would have thought we had quite sufficient evidence anyway,’ Wigram said.

Roland smiled his thanks for Wigram’s help, then continued. ‘The inference of Commandant Lassan’s report, gentlemen, is that the Emperor’s baggage was taken by the British forces under Major Sharpe’s command. They had every right to do so, of course, for the baggage was properly a seizure of war.’

‘Then why are you here?’ the Provost officer asked in a pained voice.

Roland smiled. ‘Permit me to remind you that I am here on behalf of his Most Christian Majesty, Louis XVIII. It is the opinion of His Majesty’s legal advisers, myself among them, that if the seizure of the imperial baggage was a legitimate act of war, and as such was duly reported to the proper authorities, then it now belongs to the government of Great Britain. If, however,’ and here Roland turned to look at the two Riflemen, ‘the seizure was for private gain, and was never so reported, then our opinion holds that the said baggage is now the property of the Emperor’s political successor, which is the French Crown, and that the French Crown would be justified in any attempts to recover it.’

Lieutenant-Colonel Wigram dipped a quill in ink. ‘Perhaps it would help the tribunal, Monsieur Roland, if you were to tell us the contents of the Emperor’s baggage?’

‘With the greatest pleasure, Colonel.’ Roland picked up another sheet of paper. ‘There were some personal items. These were not inventoried properly, for they were packed in great haste, but we know there were some uniforms, decorations, portraits, snuff boxes, swords, candlesticks, and other keepsakes of a sentimental nature. There was also a valise of monogrammed small clothes.’ He mentioned the last item with a deprecating smile, and was rewarded with appreciative laughter. Roland was making his revelations with a lawyer’s innate skill, though in truth the clumsiest of speakers could have held the room spellbound. For years the Emperor Napoleon had been an apparently superhuman enemy endowed with an exotic and fascinating evil, yet now, in this magnificent room, the tribunal was hearing from a man who could provide them with an intimate glimpse of that extraordinary being. ‘Some of these possessions,’ Roland went on, ‘belonged to Joseph Bonaparte, but the bulk of the baggage belonged to the Emperor, and the greatest part of that baggage was coin. There were twenty wooden boxes, five in each crate, and each box contained ten thousand gold francs.’

Roland paused to let each man work out the fabulous sum. ‘As I said earlier,’ he went on blandly, ‘His Most Christian Majesty will have no claim upon this property if it should transpire that it was a seizure of war. If, however, the baggage is still unaccounted for, we shall take a most strenuous interest in its recovery.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Frederickson hissed. He had written the sum of two hundred thousand francs under his drawing of the beleaguered Riflemen, and now, beside it, he wrote its crude equivalent in English pounds, £89,000, os, od. It was a fabulous sum, even dwarfing Sharpe’s fortune. Frederickson seemed dissatisfied with that simple total, for he went on feverishly totting up other figures.

Wigram’s twin lenses turned on Sharpe. ‘I believe I am correct in saying that you reported no capture of money on your return from the Teste de Buch expedition, Major?’

‘I did not, because there was none.’

‘If there had been,’ the provost Lieutenant-Colonel broke in, ‘you would agree that it would have been your duty to hand it over to the competent authorities?’

‘Of course,’ Sharpe said, though he had never known a single soldier actually to surrender such windfalls of enemy gold. Neither Sharpe nor Harper had declared the fortunes they had taken from the French baggage at Vitoria.

‘But you are insisting that you did not discover any money in the fort?’ the provost pressed Sharpe.

‘We found no money,’ Sharpe said firmly.

‘And you would deny,’ the Lieutenant-Colonel’s tone was sharper now, ‘that you divided such a spoil with the American, Killick, and that, indeed, your only motive for delaying your departure from the fort, which delay, I must say, occasioned many deaths among your men, was solely so that you could make arrangements to remove the gold?’

‘That’s a lie.’ Sharpe was standing now.

Frederickson touched a hand to Sharpe’s arm, as if to calm him. ‘By my reckonings,’ Frederickson said calmly, ‘that amount of gold would weigh somewhat over six tons. Are you suggesting that two companies of Riflemen and a handful of Marines somehow managed to remove six tons of gold, their own wounded men, and all their personal baggage while they were under enemy fire?’

‘That is precisely what is being suggested,’ the provost said icily.

‘Have you ever been under fire?’ Frederickson enquired just as icily.

Wigram, disliking the twist that the questions were taking, slapped the table and stared at Frederickson. ‘Did you enrich yourself with captured gold at the Teste de Buch fort, Captain?’

‘I emphatically deny doing any such thing, sir,’ Frederickson spoke with dignity, ‘and can state with certain knowledge that Major Sharpe is equally innocent.’

‘Are you, Major?’ Wigram asked Sharpe.

‘I took no money.’ Sharpe tried to match Frederickson’s calm dignity.

Wigram’s face flickered with a smile, as though he was about to make a very telling point. ‘Yet not a month ago, Major, your wife withdrew more than eighteen thousand pounds …’

‘God damn you!’ For a second the whole tribunal thought that Sharpe was about to draw his big sword, climb the table, and cause carnage. ‘God damn you!’ Sharpe shouted again. ‘You have the temerity to suggest I’d let men die for greed and you have spied on my wife! If you were a man, Wigram, I’d call you out now and I’d fillet you.’ Such was the force of Sharpe’s words, and such the anger evident on his face, that the tribunal was cowed. Monsieur Roland frowned, not with disapproval, but at the thought of facing a man like Sharpe in battle. Frederickson, sitting beside Sharpe, watched the faces of the aghast tribunal and believed that his friend had entirely pricked the ridiculous charges with his blazing anger. Wigram, accustomed to the servility of clerks, could say nothing.

Then the tall gilded door opened.

Captain Salmon, oblivious of the room’s charged atmosphere, carried in a white cloth bag that he laid on the table in front of Colonel Wigram. He whispered something to the Colonel, then, with the obsequious step of a servant, left the room.

Wigram, with hands that almost trembled, opened the white bag. Out of it he drew Sharpe’s telescope. He peered myopically at the engraved plate, then, steeling himself for the confrontation, looked up at the Rifleman. ‘If you are innocent, Major, then how do you explain your possession of this glass?’

‘I’ve owned it for months,’ Sharpe snapped.

‘I can vouch for that,’ Frederickson said.

Wigram handed the telescope to Monsieur Roland. ‘Perhaps, Monsieur, you will translate the inscription for the benefit of the tribunal?’

The Frenchman took the telescope, peered at the plate inset on the outer barrel, then spoke the translation aloud. ‘To Joseph, King of Spain and the Indies, from his brother, Napoleon, Emperor of France.’

There was a murmur in the room. Wigram stilled the sound with a further question. ‘Is this the sort of personal belonging, Monsieur, which the Emperor or his brother might have stored in their baggage?’

‘Indeed,’ Roland said.

Wigram paused, then shrugged. ‘The tribunal should be apprised that the glass was discovered in Major Sharpe’s baggage during an authorized search that was done on my orders during the last hour.’ Wigram, buoyed up by the evidence of the telescope, had regained his former confidence and now stared directly at Sharpe. ‘It is not the business of this tribunal to be a judge of the facts, but merely to decide whether a competent court-martial should be given those facts to judge. The tribunal will now make that decision, and will inform you of its findings at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Until that hour you are forbidden to leave this building. You will discover that Captain Salmon has made adequate billeting arrangements.’

Frederickson collated his sketches and notes. ‘Are we under arrest, sir?’

Wigram paused. ‘Not yet, Captain. But you are under military discipline, and therefore ordered to remain in confinement until your fate is announced tomorrow morning.’

The other officers in the room did not look at either Rifleman. It had been the discovery of the telescope that had plunged their certainty of Sharpe’s innocence into an assurance of the Rifleman’s guilt. Sharpe stared at them one by one, but they would not look back.

Frederickson plucked Sharpe’s arm towards the door. Captain Salmon and a half dozen of his men waited on the landing outside. Sharpe and Frederickson might not be prisoners, but it was clearly only a matter of time before they were formally charged and their swords were taken away.

Salmon was embarrassed. ‘There’s a room set aside for you, sir,’ he said to Sharpe. ‘Your servant’s waiting there.’

‘We’re not under arrest,’ Sharpe challenged him.

‘The room’s upstairs, sir,’ Salmon said doggedly, and the presence of his provosts was enough to persuade the two Riflemen to accompany him to the upper floor and into a room that looked out to the city’s main square. A very indignant Patrick Harper waited there. There was also a chamber pot, two wooden chairs, and a table on which was a loaf of bread, a plate of cheese, and a tin jug of water. There was a pile of blankets and a heap of baggage that Harper had fetched from the quayside. There were three packs, three canteens, but no weapons or ammunition. Salmon hesitated, as though he wanted to stay in the room with the three Riflemen, but a glare from Harper made the Captain back abruptly into the corridor.

‘That bastard of a provost searched your packs.’ Harper was still smarting under that indignity. ‘I tried to stop him, so I did, but he threatened me with a flogging.’

‘They took my rifle?’ Sharpe asked.

‘It’s in the bloody guardroom downstairs, sir.’ Harper was incensed that he, like Sharpe, had been disarmed. ‘They’ve got my rifle and gun there as well. Even my bayonet!’ Sharpe and Frederickson, because they had not been officially placed under arrest, had been allowed to keep their swords, but those were now their only weapons.

‘I hate provosts,’ Frederickson said mildly.

‘So what the hell’s happening, sir?’ Harper asked Sharpe.

‘We’re only accused of stealing half the bloody gold in France. Jesus Christ! It’s bloody madness!’

‘Indeed it is.’ Frederickson was placidly cutting the loaf into big chunks.

‘I’m sorry, William.’

‘Why should you apologize to me?’

‘Because this is my battle. Goddamn bloody Ducos!’

Frederickson shrugged. ‘They could hardly ignore me. They must have known I’d testify to your ignorance, which would be embarrassing for the authorities, so it’s much simpler to implicate me in the crime as well. Besides, if there had been that much gold in the fort, I’d have undoubtedly helped you to steal it.’ He cut the cheese with his knife. ‘Pity about the telescope, though. It’s just the corroborative evidence they needed.’

‘They need the gold,’ Sharpe said, ‘and it never existed!’

‘It existed all right, but not in the fort.’ Frederickson frowned. ‘I’ve no doubt there’ll be a battle-royal between Paris and London as to who the money really belongs to, but the one thing they’ll agree on is that we’ve got a damned good share of it. And who’s to disprove that?’

‘Killick?’ Sharpe suggested.

Frederickson shook his head. ‘The word of a confessed American pirate against a French government lawyer?’

‘Ducos, then,’ Sharpe said savagely, ‘and I’ll rip his damned bowels out.’

‘Either Ducos,’ Frederickson agreed, ‘or the Commandant,’ he looked at his notes to find the Commandant’s name, ‘Lassan. The problem is that it will be very difficult to find either man if we’re under arrest, and I would suggest to you that we will very soon be placed under arrest.’

Sharpe went to the window and stared at the ships’ masts which showed above the rooftops. ‘We’ve got to get the hell out of here.’

‘Getting the hell out of here,’ Frederickson spoke very mildly, ‘is called desertion.’ Both officers stared at each other, appalled at the enormity of what they proposed. Desertion would invite a court-martial, loss of rank, and imprisonment, but exactly the same fate would attend them if they were found guilty of stealing the Emperor’s gold and concealing it from their masters. ‘And there is rather a lot of gold at stake,’ Frederickson added gently, ‘and unlike you, I’m a poor man.’

‘You can’t come.’ Sharpe turned on Harper.

‘Mary, Mother of God, and why not?’

‘Because if you desert, and are caught, they’ll shoot you. They’ll only cashier us, because we’re officers, but they’ll shoot you.’

‘I’m coming anyway.’

‘For God’s sake, Patrick! I don’t mind taking the risk for myself, and Mr Frederickson’s in the same boat as I am, but I won’t have you …’

‘And why don’t you just save your bloody breath?’ Harper asked, then, after a pause, ‘sir?’

Frederickson smiled. ‘I wasn’t enjoying peace much anyway. So let’s go back to war, shall we?’

‘War?’ Sharpe stared back at the ships’ masts. He should have been on board one of those vessels, ready for the voyage up the Garonne estuary, across Biscay, around Ushant, and so home to Jane.

‘Because if we’re to escape this problem,’ Frederickson said softly, ‘then we’ll have to fight, and we’re rather better at fighting when we’re armed and free. So let’s get the hell out of here, find Ducos or Lassan, and make some mischief. And some money.’

Sharpe stared west. Somewhere out there, beneath the sinking sun, was an enemy who still skulked and schemed. So his reunion with Jane must wait, and peace must wait, for a last fight must still be fought. But after that, he prayed, he would find his peace in the English countryside. ‘We’ll go tonight,’ he said, but he suddenly wished to the depths of his heart that he was sailing home instead. But an enemy had decreed otherwise, so Sharpe’s war was not yet done.