Читать книгу Sharpe 3-Book Collection 4: Sharpe’s Escape, Sharpe’s Fury, Sharpe’s Battle - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 16

The British and Portuguese army stayed on the ridge all the next day while the French remained in the valley. At times the crackle of muskets or rifles started birds up from the heather as skirmishers contested the long slope, but mostly the day was quiet. The cannons did not fire. French troops, without weapons and dressed in shirtsleeves, climbed the slope to take away their wounded who had been left to suffer overnight. Some of the injured had crawled down to the stream while others had died in the darkness. A dead voltigeur just beneath the rocky knoll lay with his clenched hands jutting to the sky while a raven pecked at his lips and eyes. The British and Portuguese picquets let the enemy work undisturbed, only challenging the few voltigeurs who climbed too close to the crest. When the wounded had been taken away, the dead were carried to the graves being dug behind the entrenchments the French had thrown up beyond the stream, but the defensive bastions were a waste of effort, for Lord Wellington had no intention of giving up the high ground to take the fight into the valley.

Lieutenant Jack Bullen, a nineteen-year-old who had been serving in number nine company, was sent to the light company to replace Iliffe. Slingsby, Lawford decreed, was now to be addressed as Captain Slingsby. ‘He was breveted as such in the 55th,’ Lawford told Forrest, ‘and it will distinguish him from Bullen.’

‘Indeed it will, sir.’

Lawford bridled at the Major’s tone. ‘It’s merely a courtesy, Forrest. You surely approve of courtesy?’

‘Indeed I do, sir, though I value Sharpe more.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘I mean, sir, that I’d rather Sharpe commanded the skirmishers. He’s the best man for the job.’

‘And so he will, Forrest, so he will, just as soon as he learns to behave in a civilized manner. We fight for civilization, do we not?’

‘I hope we do,’ Forrest agreed.

‘And we do not gain that objective by behaving with crass discourtesy. That’s what Sharpe’s behaviour is, Forrest, crass discourtesy! I want it eradicated.’

Might as well wish to extinguish the sun, Major Forrest thought. The Major was a courteous man, judicious and sensible, but he doubted the fighting efficiency of the South Essex would be enhanced by a campaign to improve its manners.

There was a sullen atmosphere in the battalion. Lawford put it down to the casualties of the battle, who had either been buried on the ridge or carried away in carts to the careless mercies of the surgeons. This was a day, Lawford thought, when the battalion ought to be busy, yet there was nothing to do except wait on the long high summit in case the French renewed their attacks. He ordered all the muskets to be cleaned with boiling water, the flints to be inspected and replaced if they were too chipped, and every man’s cartridge box to be replenished, but those useful tasks only took an hour and the men were no more cheerful at its end than they had been at the beginning. The Colonel made himself visible and tried to encourage the men, yet he was aware of reproachful glances and muttered comments, and Lawford was no fool and knew exactly what caused it. He kept hoping Sharpe would make the requisite apology, but the rifleman stayed stubbornly out of sight and finally Lawford sought out Leroy, the loyal American. ‘Talk to him,’ he pleaded.

‘Won’t listen to me, Colonel.’

‘He respects you, Leroy.’

‘It’s kind of you to suggest as much,’ Leroy said, ‘but he’s stubborn as a mule.’

‘Getting too big for his boots, that’s the trouble,’ Lawford said irritably.

‘Boots he took from a French colonel of chasseurs, if I remember,’ Leroy said, staring up at a buzzard that circled lazily above the ridge.

‘The men are unhappy,’ Lawford said, deciding to avoid a discussion of Sharpe’s boots.

‘Sharpe’s a strange man, Colonel,’ Leroy said, then paused to light one of the rough, dark brown cigars that were sold by Portuguese pedlars. ‘Most of the men don’t like officers up from the ranks, but they’re kind of fond of Sharpe. He scares them. They want to be like him.’

‘I can’t see that scaring men is a virtue in an officer,’ Lawford said, annoyed.

‘Probably the best one,’ Leroy said provocatively. ‘Of course he ain’t an easy man in the mess,’ the American went on more placidly, ‘but he’s one hell of a soldier. Saved Slingsby’s life yesterday.’

‘That is nonsense.’ Lawford sounded testy. ‘Captain Slingsby might have taken the company a little too far, but he would have retrieved them, I’m sure.’

‘Wasn’t talking about that,’ Leroy said. ‘Sharpe shot a fellow about to give Slingsby a Portuguese grave. Finest damned piece of shooting I’ve ever seen.’

Lawford had congratulated Sharpe at the time, but he was in no mood to consider mitigating circumstances. ‘There was a good deal of firing, Leroy,’ he said airily, ‘and the shot could have come from anywhere.’

‘Maybe,’ the American said, sounding dubious, ‘but you have to admit Sharpe was damned useful yesterday.’

Lawford wondered whether Leroy had overheard Sharpe’s quiet advice to turn the battalion around and then wheel them onto the French flank. It had been good advice, and taking it had retrieved a distinctly unhealthy situation, but the Colonel had persuaded himself that he would have thought of turning and wheeling the battalion without Sharpe. He had also persuaded himself that his authority was being deliberately challenged by the rifleman, and that was quite intolerable. ‘All I want is an apology!’ he protested.

‘I’ll talk to him, Colonel,’ Leroy promised, ‘but if Mister Sharpe says he won’t apologize then you can wait till doomsday. Unless you get Lord Wellington to order him. That’s the one man who scares Sharpe.’

‘I will not involve Wellington!’ Lawford said in alarm. He had once been an aide to the General and knew how his lordship detested being niggled by minor concerns, and, besides, to make such a request would only betray Lawford’s failure. And it was failure. He knew Sharpe was a far finer officer than Slingsby, but the Colonel had promised Jessica, his wife, that he would do all he could to press Cornelius’s career and the promise had to be kept. ‘Talk to him,’ he encouraged Leroy. ‘Suggest a written apology, perhaps? He won’t have to deliver it in person. I’ll convey it myself and tear it up afterwards.’

‘I’ll suggest it,’ Leroy said, then went down the reverse slope of the ridge where he found the battalion’s temporary quartermaster sitting with a dozen of the battalion’s wives. They were laughing, but fell silent as Leroy approached. ‘Sorry to disturb you, ladies.’ The Major took off his battered cocked hat as a courtesy to the women, then beckoned to Sharpe. ‘A word?’ He led Sharpe a few paces down the hill. ‘Know what I’m here to say?’ Leroy asked.

‘I can guess.’

‘And?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Reckoned as much,’ Leroy said. ‘Jesus Christ, who is that?’ He was looking back at the women and Sharpe knew the Major had to be referring to an attractive, long-haired Portuguese girl who had joined the battalion the week before.

‘Sergeant Venables found her,’ Sharpe explained.

‘Christ! She can’t be more than eleven,’ Leroy said, then stared at the other women for a moment. ‘Damn,’ he went on, ‘but that Sally Clayton is pretty.’

‘Pretty well married, too,’ Sharpe said.

Leroy grinned. ‘You ever read the story of Uriah the Hittite, Sharpe?’

‘Hittite? A prizefighter?’ Sharpe guessed.

‘Not quite, Sharpe. Fellow in the Bible. Uriah the Hittite, Sharpe, had a wife and King David wanted her in his bed, so he sent Uriah to war and ordered the general to put the poor bastard in the front line so some other bastard would kill him. Worked, too.’

‘I’ll remember that,’ Sharpe said.

‘Can’t remember the woman’s name,’ Leroy said. ‘Weren’t Sally. So what shall I tell the Colonel?’

‘That he’s just got himself the best damned quartermaster in the army.’

Leroy chuckled and walked uphill. He paused and turned after a few paces. ‘Bathsheba,’ he called back to Sharpe.

‘Bath what?’

‘That was her name, Bathsheba.’

‘Sounds like another prizefighter.’

‘But Bathsheba hit below the belt, Sharpe,’ Leroy said, ‘well below the belt!’ He raised his hat again to the battalion wives and walked on.

‘He’s thinking about it,’ he told the Colonel a few moments later.

‘Let us hope he thinks clearly,’ Lawford said piously.

But if Sharpe was thinking about it, no apology came. Instead, as evening fell, the army was ordered to ready itself for a retreat. The French could be seen leaving, evidently going towards the road that looped about the ridge’s northern end and so the gallopers pounded along the ridge with orders that the army was to march towards Lisbon before dawn. The South Essex, alone among the British battalions, received different orders. ‘It seems we’re to retreat, gentlemen,’ Lawford said to the company commanders as his tent was taken down by orderlies. There was a murmur of surprise that Lawford stilled with a raised hand. ‘There’s a route round the top of the ridge,’ he explained, ‘and if we stay the French will outflank us. They’ll be up our backsides, so we’re dancing backwards for a few days. Find somewhere else to bloody them, eh?’ Some of the officers still looked surprised that, having won a victory, they were to yield ground, but Lawford ignored their puzzlement. ‘We have our own orders, gentlemen,’ he went on. ‘The battalion is to leave tonight and hurry to Coimbra. A long march, I fear, but necessary. We’re to reach Coimbra with all dispatch and aid the commissary officers in the destruction of the army’s supplies on the river quays. A Portuguese regiment is being sent as well. The two of us are the vanguard, so to speak, but our responsibility is heavy. The General wants those provisions brought to ruin by tomorrow night.’

‘We’re expected to reach Coimbra tonight?’ Leroy asked sceptically. The city was at least twenty miles away and, by any reckoning, that was a very ambitious march, especially at night.

‘Wagons are being provided for baggage,’ Lawford said, ‘including the men’s packs. Walking wounded will guard those packs, women and children go with the wagons. We march light, we march fast.’

‘Advance party?’ Leroy wanted to know.

‘I’m sure the quartermaster will know what to do,’ Lawford said.

‘Dark night,’ Leroy said, ‘probably chaotic in Coimbra. Two battalions looking for quarters and the commissary people will mostly be drunk. Even Sharpe can’t do that alone, sir. Best let me go with him.’

Lawford looked indignant for he knew Leroy’s suggestion was an expression of sympathy for Sharpe, but the American’s objections had been cogent and so, reluctantly, Lawford nodded. ‘Do that, Major,’ he said curtly, ‘and as for the rest of us? I want to be the first battalion into Coimbra, gentlemen! We can’t have the Portuguese beating us, so be ready to march in one hour.’

‘Light company to lead?’ Slingsby asked. He was fairly bursting with pride and efficiency.

‘Of course, Captain.’

‘We’ll set a smart pace,’ Slingsby promised.

‘Do we have a guide?’ Forrest asked.

‘We can find one, I’m sure,’ Lawford said, ‘but it’s not a difficult route. West to the main road, then turn south.’

‘I can find it,’ Slingsby said confidently.

‘Our wounded?’ Forrest asked.

‘More wagons will be provided. Mister Knowles? You’ll determine those arrangements? Splendid!’ Law-ford smiled to show that the battalion was one happy family. ‘Be ready to leave in one hour, gentlemen, one hour!’

Leroy found Sharpe, who had not been invited to the company commanders’ meeting. ‘You and I are for Coimbra, Sharpe,’ the Major said. ‘You can ride my spare horse and my servant can walk.’

‘Coimbra?’

‘Billeting. Battalion’s following tonight.’

‘You don’t need to come,’ Sharpe said. ‘I’ve done billeting before.’

‘You want to walk there on your own?’ Leroy asked, then grinned. ‘I’m coming, Sharpe, because the battalion is marching twenty goddamn miles in the twilight and it’s going to be a shambles. Twenty miles at night? They’ll never do it, and two battalions on one narrow road? Hell, I don’t need that. You and I can go ahead, mark the place up, find a tavern, and ten guineas says the battalion won’t be there before the sun’s up.’

‘Keep your money,’ Sharpe said.

‘And when they do get there,’ Leroy went on happily, ‘they’re going to be in one hell of a God-awful temper. That’s why I’m appointing myself as your assistant, Sharpe.’

They rode down the hill. The sun was low and the shadows long. It was almost the end of September and the days were drawing in. The first wagons loaded with wounded British and Portuguese soldiers were already on the road and Leroy and Sharpe had to edge past them. They went through half-deserted villages where Portuguese officers were persuading the remaining folk to leave. The arguments were shrill in the dusk. A black-dressed woman, her grey hair covered in a black scarf, beat at an officer’s horse with a broom, evidently screaming at the rider to go away. ‘You can’t blame them,’ Leroy said. ‘They hear we won the battle, now they want to know why the hell they have to leave home. Nasty business leaving home.’

His tone was bitter and Sharpe glanced at him. ‘You’ve done it?’

‘Hell, yes. We were thrown out by the damned rebels. Went to Canada with nothing but the shirts on our backs. The bastards promised restitution after the war, but we never saw a goddamned penny. I was only a kid, Sharpe. I thought it was all exciting, but what do kids know?’

‘Then you went to England?’

‘And we thrived, Sharpe, we thrived. My father made his money trading with the men he once fought.’ Leroy laughed, then rode in silence for a few yards, ducking under a low tree branch. ‘So tell me about these fortifications guarding Lisbon.’

‘I only know what Michael Hogan told me.’

‘So what did he tell you?’

‘That they’re the biggest defences ever made in Europe,’ Sharpe said. He saw Leroy’s scepticism. ‘Over a hundred and fifty forts,’ Sharpe went on, ‘connected by trenches. Hills reshaped to make them too steep to climb, valleys filled with obstacles, streams dammed to flood the approaches, the whole lot filled with cannon. Two lines, stretching from the Tagus to the ocean.’

‘So the idea is to get behind them and thumb our noses at the French?’

‘And let the bastards starve,’ Sharpe said.

‘And you, Sharpe, what will you do? Apologize?’ Leroy laughed at Sharpe’s expression. ‘The Colonel ain’t going to give in.’

‘Nor am I,’ Sharpe said.

‘So you’ll stay quartermaster?’

‘The Portuguese want British officers,’ Sharpe said, ‘and if I join them I get a promotion.’

‘Hell,’ Leroy said, thinking about it.

‘Not that I want to leave the light company,’ Sharpe went on, thinking about Pat Harper and the other men he counted as friends. ‘But Lawford wants Slingsby, he doesn’t want me.’

‘He wants you, Sharpe,’ Leroy said, ‘but he’s made promises. Have you ever met the Colonel’s wife?’

‘No.’

‘Pretty,’ Leroy said, ‘pretty as a picture, but about as soft as an angry dragoon. I watched her ream out a servant once because the poor bastard hadn’t filled a flower vase with enough water, and by the time she’d done there was nothing left of the man but slivers of skin and spots of blood. A formidable lady, our Jessica. She’d make a much better commanding officer than her husband.’ The Major drew on a cigar. ‘But I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to join the Portuguese. I have a suspicion that Mister Slingsby will cook his own goose.’

‘Drink?’

‘He was liquored to the gills on the night of the battle. Staggering, he was. Fine next morning.’

They reached Coimbra long after dark and it was close to midnight before they discovered the office of the Town Major, the British officer responsible for liaison with the town authorities, and the Major himself was not there, but his servant, wearing a tasselled nightcap, opened the door and grumbled about officers keeping unseasonable hours. ‘What is it you want, sir?’

‘Chalk,’ Sharpe said, ‘and you’ve got two battalions arriving before dawn.’

‘Oh, Jesus Christ,’ the servant said, ‘two battalions? Chalk?’

‘At least four sticks. Where are the commissary officers?’

‘Up the street, sir, six doors on the left, but if it’s rations you’re after help yourself from the town quay. Bloody tons there, sir.’

‘A lantern would be useful,’ Major Leroy put in.

‘Lantern, sir. There is one somewhere.’

‘And we need to stable two horses.’

‘Round the back, sir. Be safe there.’

Once the horses were stabled and Leroy was equipped with the lantern they worked their way up the street chalking on the doors. SE, Sharpe chalked, meaning South Essex, 4–6, which said six men of number four company would be billeted in the house. They used the small streets close to the bridge over the Mondego, and after a half-hour they encountered two Portuguese officers chalking up for their battalion. Neither of the battalions had arrived by the time the work was done, so Sharpe and Leroy found a tavern on the quay where lights still glowed and ordered themselves wine, brandy and food. They ate salt cod and, just as it was served, the sound of boots echoed in the street outside. Leroy leaned over, pulled open the tavern door and peered out. ‘Portuguese,’ he said laconically.

‘So they beat us?’ Sharpe said. ‘Colonel won’t be pleased.’

‘The Colonel is going to be one very unhappy man about that,’ Leroy said and was about to close the door when he saw the legend chalked on the woodwork. SE, CO, ADJ, LCO, it said, and the American grinned. ‘Putting Lawford and the light company officers in here, Sharpe?’

‘I thought the Colonel might want to be with his relative, sir. Friendly like.’

‘Or are you putting temptation in Mister Slingsby’s path?’

Sharpe looked shocked. ‘Good lord,’ he said, ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘You lying bastard,’ Leroy said, closing the door. He laughed. ‘I don’t think I’d want you as an enemy.’

They slept in the taproom and, when Sharpe woke at dawn, the South Essex had still not reached the city. A sad procession of wagons, all with men wounded on Bussaco’s slope, was crossing the bridge and Sharpe, going to the quayside, saw that the sills of the wagon beds were stained where blood had dripped from the vehicles. He had to wait to cross to the river bank because the convoy of wounded was followed by a smart travelling coach, drawn by four horses and heaped with trunks, accompanied by a wagon piled with more goods on which a half-dozen unhappy servants clung, and both vehicles were escorted by armed civilian horsemen. Once they were gone Sharpe crossed to the vast heaps of army provisions that had been brought to Coimbra. There were sacks of grain, barrels of salt meat, puncheons of rum, boxes of biscuit, all unloaded from the river boats that were tied to the wharves. Each boat had a number painted on its bow beneath the owner’s name and town. The Portuguese authorities had ordered the boats to be numbered and labelled, then listed town by town, so they could be sure that all the craft would be destroyed before the French arrived. The name Ferreira was painted on a half-dozen of the larger vessels, and Sharpe assumed that meant the craft belonged to Ferragus. The boats were all under the guard of redcoats, one of whom, seeing Sharpe, slung his musket and walked along the quay. ‘Is it true we’re retreating, sir?’

‘We are.’

‘Bloody hell.’ The man gazed at the vast heaps of provisions. ‘What happens to this lot?’

‘We have to get rid of it. And those boats.’

‘Bloody hell,’ the man said again, then watched as Sharpe marked dozens of boxes of biscuit and barrels of meat as rations for the South Essex.

The battalion arrived two hours later. They were, as Leroy had forecast, irritable, hungry and tired. Their march had been a nightmare, with wagons obstructing the road, clouds across the moon and at least two wrong turnings that had wasted so much time that in the end Lawford had ordered the men to get some sleep in a pasture until dawn gave them some light to find their way. Major Forrest, sliding wearily from his saddle, looked askance at Sharpe. ‘Don’t tell me you and Leroy came straight here?’

‘We did, sir. Had a night’s sleep too.’

‘What a detestable man you are, Sharpe.’

‘Can’t see how you could get lost,’ Sharpe said. ‘The road was pretty well straight. Who was leading?’

‘You know who was leading, Sharpe,’ Forrest said, then turned to gaze at the great piles of food. ‘How do we destroy that lot?’

‘Shoot the rum barrels,’ Sharpe suggested, ‘and sling the flour and grain into the river.’

‘Got it all worked out, haven’t you?’

‘That’s what a good night’s sleep does for a man, sir.’

‘Damn you, too.’

The Colonel would dearly have liked to rest his battalion, but the brown-jacketed Portuguese troops were starting work and it was unthinkable that the South Essex should collapse while others laboured, and so he ordered each company to start on the piles. ‘You can send men to make tea,’ he suggested to his officers, ‘but breakfast must be eaten as we work. Mister Sharpe, good morning.’

‘Good morning, sir.’

‘I hope you have had time to consider your predicament,’ Lawford said, and it took a deal of courage to say it for it stirred up an unhappy situation, and the Colonel would have been much happier if Sharpe had simply volunteered to apologize and so clear the air.

‘I have, sir,’ Sharpe said with a surprising willingness.

‘Good!’ Lawford brightened. ‘And?’

‘It’s the meat that’s the problem, sir.’

Lawford stared incomprehensibly at Sharpe. ‘The meat?’

‘We can shoot the rum barrels, sir,’ Sharpe said cheerfully, ‘throw the grain and flour into the river, but the meat? Can’t burn it.’ He turned and stared at the huge barrels. ‘If you give me a few men, sir, I’ll see if I can find some turpentine. Soak the stuff. Even the Frogs won’t eat meat doused in turpentine. Or souse it in paint, perhaps?’

‘A problem for you,’ Lawford said icily, ‘but I have battalion business to do. You have quarters for me?’

‘The tavern on the corner, sir,’ Sharpe pointed, ‘all marked up.’

‘I shall see to the paperwork,’ Lawford said loftily, meaning he wanted to lie down for an hour, and he nodded curtly at Sharpe and, beckoning his servants, went to find his billet.

Sharpe grinned and walked down the vast piles. Men were slitting grain sacks and levering the tops from the meat barrels. The Portuguese were working more enthusiastically, but they had reached the city late at night and so managed to sleep for a few hours. Other Portuguese soldiers had been sent into the narrow streets to tell the remaining inhabitants to flee, and Sharpe could hear women’s voices raised in protest. It was still early. A small mist clung to the river, but the west wind had gone round to the south and it promised to be another hot day. The sharp crack of rifles sounded, startling birds into the air, and Sharpe saw that the Portuguese were shooting the rum barrels. Closer by, Patrick Harper was stoving in the barrels with an axe he had filched. ‘Why don’t you shoot them, Pat?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Mister Slingsby, sir, he won’t let us.’

‘He won’t let you?’

Harper swung the axe at another barrel, releasing a flood of rum onto the cobbles. ‘He says we’re to save our ammunition, sir.’

‘What for? There’s plenty of cartridges.’

‘That’s what he says, sir, no shooting.’

‘Work, Sergeant!’ Slingsby marched smartly down the row of barrels. ‘You want to keep those stripes, Sergeant, then set an example! Good morning, Sharpe!’

Sharpe turned slowly and examined Slingsby from top to bottom. The man might have marched all night and slept in a field, yet he was perfectly turned out, every button shining, his leather gleaming, the red coat brushed and boots wiped clean. Slingsby, uncomfortable under Sharpe’s sardonic gaze, snorted. ‘I said good morning, Sharpe.’

‘I hear you got lost,’ Sharpe said.

‘Nonsense. A detour! Avoiding wagons.’ The small man stepped past Sharpe and glared at the light company. ‘Put your backs into it! There’s a war to win!’

‘For Christ’s sake come back,’ Harper said softly.

Slingsby swivelled, eyes wide. ‘Did you say something, Sergeant?’

‘He was talking to me,’ Sharpe said, and he stepped towards the smaller man, towering over him. He forced Slingsby back between two heaps of crates, taking him to where no one from the battalion could overhear. ‘He was talking to me, you piece of shit,’ Sharpe said, ‘and if you interrupt another of my conversations I’ll tear your bloody guts out of your arsehole and wrap them round your bleeding throat. You want to go and tell that to the Colonel?’

Slingsby visibly quivered, but then he seemed to shake off Sharpe’s words as though they had never been spoken. He found a narrow passage between the crates, slipped through it like a terrier pursuing a rat, and clapped his hands. ‘I want to see progress!’ he yapped at the men.

Sharpe followed Slingsby, looking for trouble, but then he saw that the Portuguese troops were from the same battalion that had taken the rocky knoll, for Captain Vicente was commanding the men shooting at the rum barrels and that was diversion enough to save Sharpe from more foolishness with Slingsby. He veered away and Vicente saw him coming and smiled a welcome, but before the two could utter a greeting, Colonel Lawford came striding across the cobbled quay. ‘Sharpe! Mister Sharpe!’

Sharpe offered the Colonel a salute. ‘Sir!’

‘I am not a man given to complaint,’ Lawford complained, ‘you know that, Sharpe. I am as hardened to discomfort as any man, but that tavern is hardly a fit billet. Not in a city like this! There are fleas in the beds!’

‘You want somewhere better, sir?’

‘I do, Sharpe, I do. And quickly.’

Sharpe turned. ‘Sergeant Harper! I need you. Your permission to take Sergeant Harper, sir?’ he asked Lawford who was too bemused to question Sharpe’s need of company, but just nodded. ‘Give me half an hour, sir,’ Sharpe reassured the Colonel, ‘and you’ll have the best billet in the city.’

‘Just something adequate,’ Lawford said pettishly. ‘I’m not asking for a palace, Sharpe, just something that’s barely adequate.’

Sharpe beckoned Harper and walked over to Vicente. ‘You grew up here, yes?’

‘I told you so.’

‘So you know where a man called Ferragus lives?’

‘Luis Ferreira?’ Vicente’s face mingled surprise and alarm. ‘I know where his brother lives, but Luis? He could live anywhere.’

‘Can you show me his brother’s house?’

‘Richard,’ Vicente warned, ‘Ferragus is not a man to…’

‘I know what he is,’ Sharpe interrupted. ‘He did this to me.’ He pointed to his fading black eye. ‘How far is it?’

‘Ten minutes’ walk.’

‘Will you take me there?’

‘Let me ask my Colonel,’ Vicente said, and hurried off towards Colonel Rogers-Jones who was sitting on horseback and holding an open umbrella to shade him from the early sun.

Sharpe saw Rogers-Jones nod to Vicente. ‘You’ll have your billet in twenty minutes, sir,’ he told Lawford, then plucked Harper’s elbow so that they followed Vicente off the quays. ‘That bastard Slingsby,’ Sharpe said as they went. ‘The bastard, bastard, bastard, bastard.’

‘I’m not supposed to hear this,’ Harper said.

‘I’ll skin the bastard alive,’ Sharpe said.

‘Who?’ Vicente asked, leading them up narrow alleys where they were forced to negotiate knots of unhappy folk who were at last readying themselves to leave the city. Men and women were bundling clothes, hoisting infants onto their backs and complaining bitterly to anyone they saw in uniform.

‘A bastard called Slingsby,’ Sharpe said, ‘but we’ll worry about him later. What do you know about Ferragus?’

‘I know most folk are frightened of him,’ Vicente said, leading them across a small square where a church door stood open. A dozen black-shawled women were kneeling in the porch and they looked round in fear as a sudden rumble, jangle and clatter sounded from a nearby street. It was the noise of an artillery battery heading downhill towards the bridge. The army must have marched long before dawn and now the leading troops had reached Coimbra. ‘He is a criminal,’ Vicente went on, ‘but he wasn’t raised in a poor family. His father was a colleague of my father, and even he admitted his son was a monster. The bad one of the litter. They tried to beat the evil from him. His father tried, the priests tried, but Luis is a child of Satan.’ Vicente made the sign of the cross. ‘And few dare oppose him. This is a university town!’

‘Your father teaches here, yes?’

‘He teaches law,’ Vicente said, ‘but he is not here now. He and my mother went north to Porto to stay with Kate. But people like my father don’t know how to deal with a man like Ferragus.’

‘That’s because your father’s a lawyer,’ Sharpe said. ‘Bastards like Ferragus need someone like me.’

‘He gave you a black eye,’ Vicente said.

‘I gave him worse,’ Sharpe said, remembering the pleasure of kicking Ferragus in the crotch. ‘And the Colonel wants a house, so we’ll find the Ferreira house and give it to him.’

‘It is not wise, I think,’ Vicente said, ‘to mix private revenge with war.’

‘Of course it’s not wise,’ Sharpe said, ‘but it’s bloody enjoyable. Enjoying yourself, Sergeant?’

‘Never been happier, sir,’ Harper said gloomily.

They had climbed to the upper town where they emerged into a small, sunlit square and on its far side was a pale stone house with a grand front door, a side entrance that evidently led into a stable yard and three high floors of shuttered windows. The house was old, its stonework carved with heraldic birds. ‘That is Pedro Ferreira’s house,’ Vicente said and watched as Sharpe climbed the front steps. ‘Ferragus is thought to have murdered many people,’ Vicente said unhappily, making one last effort to dissuade Sharpe.

‘So have I,’ Sharpe said, and hammered on the door, keeping up the din until the door was opened by an alarmed woman wearing an apron. She chided Sharpe in a burst of indignant Portuguese. A younger man was behind her, but he backed into the shadows when he saw Sharpe while the woman, who was grey-haired and hefty, tried to push the rifleman down the steps. Sharpe stayed where he was. ‘Ask her where Luis Ferreira lives,’ he told Vicente.

There was a brief conversation. ‘She says Senhor Luis is staying here for the moment,’ Vicente said, ‘but he is not here now.’

‘He’s living here?’ Sharpe asked, then grinned and took a piece of chalk from a pocket and scrawled SE CO on the polished blue door. ‘Tell her an important English officer will be using the house tonight and he wants a bed and a meal.’ Sharpe listened to the conversation between Vicente and the grey-haired woman. ‘And ask her if there’s stabling.’ There was. ‘Sergeant Harper?’

‘Sir?’

‘Can you find your way back to the quay?’

‘Down the hill, sir.’

‘Bring the Colonel here. Tell him he’s got the best billet in town and that there’s stabling for his horses.’ Sharpe pushed past the woman to get into the hallway and glared at the man who backed still further away. The man had a pistol in his belt, but he showed no sign of wanting to use it as Sharpe pushed open a door and saw a dark room with a desk, a portrait over the mantel and shelves of books. Another door opened into a comfortable parlour with spindly chairs, gilt tables and a sofa upholstered in rose-coloured silk. The servant was arguing with Vicente who was trying to calm her.

‘She is Major Ferreira’s cook,’ Vicente explained, ‘and she says her master and his brother will not be happy.’

‘That’s why we’re here.’

‘The Major’s wife and children have gone,’ Vicente went on translating.

‘Never did like killing men in front of their family,’ Sharpe said.

‘Richard!’ Vicente said, shocked.

Sharpe grinned at him and climbed the stairs, followed by Vicente and the cook. He found the big bedroom and threw open the shutters. ‘Perfect,’ he said, looking at the four-poster bed hung with tapestry curtains. ‘The Colonel can get a lot of work done in that. Well done, Jorge! Tell that woman Colonel Law-ford likes his food plain and well cooked. He’ll provide his own rations, all it needs is to be cooked, but there are to be no damned foreign spices mucking it up. Who’s the man downstairs?’

‘A servant,’ Vicente translated.

‘Who else is in the house?’

‘Stable boys,’ Vicente interpreted the cook’s answer, ‘kitchen staff, and Miss Fry.’

Sharpe thought he had misheard. ‘Miss who?’

The cook looked frightened now. She spoke fast, glancing up to the top floor. ‘She says,’ Vicente interpreted, ‘that the children’s governess is locked upstairs. An Englishwoman.’

‘Bloody hell. Locked up? What’s her name?’

‘Fry.’

Sharpe climbed up to the attics. The stairs here were uncarpeted and the walls drab. ‘Miss Fry!’ he shouted. ‘Miss Fry!’ He was rewarded by an incoherent cry and the sound of a fist beating on a door. He pushed the door to find it was indeed locked. ‘Stand back!’ he called.

He kicked the door hard, thumping his heel close to the lock. The whole attic seemed to shake, but the door held. He kicked again and heard a splintering sound, drew back his leg and gave the door one last almighty blow and it flew open and there, hunched under the window, her arms wrapped about her knees, was a woman with hair the colour of pale gold. She stared at Sharpe, who stared back, then he looked hastily away as he remembered his manners because the woman, who had struck him as undoubtedly beautiful, was as naked as a new-laid egg. ‘Your servant, ma’am,’ he said, staring at the wall.

‘You’re English?’ she asked.

‘I am, ma’am.’

‘Then fetch me some clothes!’ she demanded. And Sharpe obeyed.

Ferragus had sent his brother’s wife, children and six servants away at dawn, but had ordered Miss Fry up to her room. Sarah had protested, insisting she must travel with the children and that her trunk was already on the baggage wagon, but Ferragus had ordered her to wait in her room. ‘You will go with the British,’ he told her.

Major Ferreira’s wife had also protested. ‘The children need her!’

‘She will go with her own kind,’ Ferragus snapped at his sister-in-law, ‘so get in the coach!’

‘I will go with the British?’ Sarah had asked.

‘Os ingleses por mar,’ he had snarled, ‘and you can run away with them. Your time is done here. You have paper, a pen?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then write yourself a character. I will sign it on my brother’s behalf. But you can take refuge with your own people. So wait in your room.’

‘But my clothes, my books!’ Sarah pointed to the baggage cart. Her small savings, all in coin, were also in the trunk.

‘I’ll have them taken off,’ Ferragus said. ‘Now go.’

Sarah had gone upstairs and written a letter of recommendation in which she described herself as being efficient, hard-working, and good at instilling discipline in her charges. She said nothing about the children being fond of her, for she was not sure that they were, not did she believe it part of her job that they should be. She had paused once in writing the letter to lean from the window when she had heard the stable-yard gates being opened, and she saw the coach and baggage wagon, escorted by four mounted men armed with pistols, swords and malevolence, clatter into the street. She sat again, and added a sentence which truthfully said she was honest, sober and assiduous, and she had just been writing the last word when she had heard the heavy steps climbing the stairs to the servants’ rooms. She had instantly known it was Ferragus and an instinct told her to lock her door, but before she could even get up from behind her small table Ferragus had thrust the door open and loomed in the entrance. ‘I am staying here,’ he had announced.

‘If you think that’s wise, senhor,’ she said in a tone which suggested she did not care what he did.

‘And you will stay with me,’ he went on.

For a heartbeat Sarah thought she had misheard, then she shook her head dismissively. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘I will travel with the British troops.’ She stopped abruptly, distracted by gunshots coming from the lower town. The sound came from the rifles puncturing the first of the rum barrels, but Sarah could not know that and she wondered if the noise presaged the arrival of the French. Everything was so confusing. First had come news of the battle, then an announcement that the French had been defeated, and now everyone was ordered to leave Coimbra because the enemy was coming.

‘You will stay with me,’ Ferragus repeated flatly.

‘I most certainly will not!’

‘Shut your bloody mouth,’ Ferragus said, and saw the shock on her face.

‘I think you had better leave,’ Sarah said. She still spoke firmly, but her fear was obvious now and it excited Ferragus who leaned on her table, making its spindly legs creak.

‘Is that the letter?’ he asked.

‘Which you promised to sign,’ Sarah said.

Instead he had torn it into shreds. ‘Bugger you,’ he said, ‘damn you,’ and he added some other words he had learned in the Royal Navy, and the effect of each was as though he had slapped her around the head. It might well come to that, he thought. Indeed, it almost certainly would and that was the pleasure of teaching the arrogant English bitch a lesson. ‘Your duties now, woman,’ he had finished, ‘are to please me.’

‘You have lost your wits,’ Sarah said.

Ferragus smiled. ‘Do you know what I can do with you?’ he had asked. ‘I can send you with Miguel to Lisbon and he can have you shipped to Morocco or to Algiers. I can sell you there. You know what a man will pay for white flesh in Africa?’ He paused, enjoying the horror on her face. ‘You wouldn’t be the first girl I’ve sold.’

‘You will go!’ Sarah said, clinging to her last shreds of defiance. She was looking for a weapon, any weapon, but there was nothing within reach except the inkpot and she was on the point of snatching it up and hurling it into his eyes when Ferragus tipped the table on its side and she had backed to the window. She had an idea that a good woman should rather die than be dishonoured and she wondered if she ought to throw herself from the window and fall to her death in the stable yard, but the notion was one thing and the reality an impossibility.

‘Take your dress off,’ Ferragus said.

‘You will go!’ Sarah had managed to say, and so sooner had she spoken than Ferragus punched her in the belly. It was a hard, fast blow and it drove the breath from her, and Ferragus, as she bent over, simply tore the blue frock down her back. She had tried to clutch to its remnants, but he was so massively strong, and when she did hold fast to her undergarments he just slapped her round the head so that her skull rang and she fell against the wall and could only watch as he threw her torn clothes out into the yard. Then, blessedly, Miguel had shouted up the stairs saying that the Major, Ferragus’s brother, had arrived.

Sarah opened her mouth to scream to her employer for help, but Ferragus had given her another punch in the belly, leaving her incapable of making a sound. Then he had thrown her bedclothes out of the window. ‘I shall be back, Miss Fry,’ he said, and he had forced her thin arms apart to stare at her. She was weeping with anger, but just then Major Ferreira had shouted up the stairs and Ferragus had let go of her, walked from the room and locked the door.

Sarah shivered with fear. She heard the brothers leave the house and she thought of trying to escape out of the window, but the wall outside offered no handholds, no ledges, just a long drop into the stable yard where Miguel smiled up at her and patted the pistol at his belt. So, naked and ashamed, she had sat on the rope webbing of the bed and had been almost overcome with despair.

Then there had been footsteps on the stairs and she had hunched under the window, clutching her arms about her knees, and heard an English voice. The door had been hammered open and a tall man with a scarred face, a black eye, a green coat and a long sword was staring at her. ‘Your servant, ma’am,’ he had said, and Sarah was safe.

Major Ferreira, having arranged to sell the food to the French, wanted to reassure himself that the quantities he had promised to the enemy truly existed. They did. There was food enough in Ferragus’s big warehouse to feed Masséna’s army for weeks. Major Ferreira followed his brother down the dark alleys between the stacks of boxes and barrels, and again marvelled that his brother had managed to amass so much. ‘They have agreed to pay for it,’ Ferreira said.

‘Good,’ Ferragus said.

‘The Marshal himself assured me.’

‘Good.’

‘And protection will be given when the French arrive.’

‘Good.’

‘The arrangement,’ Ferreira said, stepping over a cat, ‘is that we are to meet Colonel Barreto at the shrine of Saint Vincent south of Mealhada.’ That was less than an hour’s ride north of Coimbra. ‘And he will bring dragoons straight to the warehouse.’

‘When?’

Ferreira thought for a few seconds. ‘Today,’ he said, ‘is Saturday. The British could leave tomorrow and the French arrive on Monday. Possibly not until Tuesday? But they could come Monday, so we should be at Mealhada by tomorrow night.’

Ferragus nodded. His brother, he thought, had done well, and so long as the rendezvous with the French went smoothly then Ferragus’s future was safe. The British would flee back home, the French would capture Lisbon, and Ferragus would have established himself as a man with whom the invaders could do business. ‘So tomorrow,’ he said, ‘you and I ride to Mealhada. What about today?’

‘I must report to the army,’ Ferreira said, ‘but tomorrow I shall find an excuse.’

‘Then I will guard the house,’ Ferragus said, thinking of the pale pleasures waiting on the top floor.

Ferreira examined a pair of wagons parked at the side of the warehouse. They were piled with useful goods, linen and horseshoes, lamp oil and nails, all things the French would value. Then, going further back in the huge building, he grimaced. ‘That smell,’ he said, remembering a man whose death he had witnessed in the warehouse, ‘the body?’

‘Two bodies now,’ Ferragus said proudly, then turned because a wash of light flooded into the warehouse as the outer door was dragged open. A man called his name and he recognized Miguel’s voice. ‘I’m here!’ he shouted. ‘At the back!’

Miguel hurried to the back where he bobbed his head respectfully. ‘The Englishman,’ he said.

‘What Englishman?’

‘The one on the hilltop, senhor. The one you attacked at the monastery.’

Ferragus’s good mood evaporated like the mist from the river. ‘What of him?’

‘He is at the Major’s house.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ Ferragus’s hand instinctively went to his pistol.

‘No!’ Ferreira said, earning a malevolent look from his brother. The Major looked at Miguel. ‘Is he alone?’

‘No, senhor.’

‘How many?’

‘Three of them, senhor, and one is a Portuguese officer. They say others are coming because a colonel will use the house.’

‘Billeting,’ Ferreira explained. ‘There will be a dozen men in the house when you get back, and you can’t start a war with the English. Not here, not now.’

It was good advice, and Ferragus knew it, then he thought of Sarah. ‘Did they find the girl?’

‘Yes, senhor.’

‘What girl?’ Ferreira asked.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Ferragus said curtly, and that was true. Sarah Fry was not important. She would have been an amusement, but finishing Captain Sharpe would be a good deal more amusing. He thought for a few seconds. ‘The English,’ he said to his brother, ‘why are they staying here? Why do they not march straight to their ships?’

‘Because they will probably offer battle again north of Lisbon,’ Ferreira said.

‘But why wait here?’ Ferragus insisted. ‘Why do they billet men here? Will they fight for Coimbra?’ It seemed an unlikely prospect, for the city’s walls had mostly been pulled down. It was a place for learning and trading, not for fighting.

‘They’re staying here,’ Ferreira said, ‘just long enough to destroy the supplies on the quays.’

An idea occurred to Ferragus then, a risky idea, but one that might yield the amusement he craved. ‘What if they knew these supplies were here?’ He gestured at the stacks in the warehouse.

‘They would destroy them, of course,’ Ferreira said.

Ferragus thought again, trying to put himself into the Englishman’s place. How would Captain Sharpe react? What would he do? There was a risk, Ferragus thought, a real risk, but Sharpe had declared war on Ferragus, that much was obvious. Why else would the Englishman have gone to his brother’s house? And Ferragus was not a man to back down from a challenge, so the risk must be taken. ‘You say there was a Portuguese officer with them?’

‘Yes, senhor. I think I recognized him. Professor Vicente’s son.’

‘That piece of shit,’ Ferragus snarled, then thought again and saw the way clear to finishing the feud. ‘This,’ he said to Miguel, ‘is what we will do.’

And laid his trap.