Читать книгу Sharpe 3-Book Collection 4 - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 13

Strangely, on the morning that the guns began to fire and make the windows, glasses and chandeliers vibrate throughout Coimbra, Ferragus announced that his brother’s household, which had readied itself to go south to Lisbon, was to stay in Coimbra after all. He made the announcement in his brother’s study, a gloomy room lined with unread books, where the family and the servants had gathered on Ferragus’s summons.

Beatriz Ferreira, who was scared of her brother-in-law, crossed herself. ‘Why are we staying?’ she asked.

‘You hear that?’ Ferragus gestured towards the sound of the guns that was like an unending muted thunder. ‘Our army and the English troops are giving battle. My brother says that if there is a battle then the enemy will be stopped. Well, there is a battle, so if my brother is right then the French will not come.’

‘God and the saints be thanked,’ Beatriz Ferreira said, and the servants murmured agreement.

‘But suppose they do come?’ It was Sarah who asked.

Ferragus frowned because he thought the question impertinent, but he supposed that was because Miss Fry was an arrogant English bitch who knew no better. ‘If they are not stopped,’ he said irritably, ‘then we shall know, because our army must retreat through Coimbra. We shall leave then. But for the moment you will assume we are staying.’ He nodded to show that his announcement was done and the household filed from the room.

Ferragus was uncomfortable in his brother’s house. It was too full of their parents’ belongings, too luxurious. His own quarters in Coimbra were above a brothel in the lower town where he kept little more than a bed, table and chair, but Ferragus had promised to keep a watchful eye on his brother’s house and family, and that watchful eye extended past the battle. If it were won, then the French would presumably retreat, yet Ferragus was also plotting what he should do if the battle were lost. If Lord Wellington could not hold the great, gaunt ridge of Bussaco against the French, then how would he defend the lower hills in front of Lisbon? A defeated army would be in no mood to face the victorious French again, and so a loss at Bussaco would surely mean that Lisbon itself would fall inside a month. Os ingleses por mar. His brother had tried to deny that, to persuade Ferragus that the English would stay, but in his heart Ferragus knew that Portugal’s allies would run back to the sea and go home. And why, if that happened, should he be trapped in Lisbon with the conquering French? Better to be caught here, in his own town, and Ferragus was planning how he would survive in that new world in which the French, at last, captured all of Portugal.

He had never discounted such a capture. Ferreira had warned him of the possibility, and the tons of flour that Sharpe had destroyed on the hilltop had been a token offer to the invaders, an offer to let them know that Ferragus was a man with whom negotiations could be conducted. It had been insurance, for Ferragus had no love for the French; he certainly did not want them in Portugal, but he knew it would be better to be a partner of the invaders rather than their victim. He was a wealthy man with much to lose, and if the French offered protection he would stay wealthy. If he resisted, even if he did nothing except flee to Lisbon, the French would strip him bare. He had no doubt that he would lose some of his wealth if the French came, but if he cooperated with them he would retain more than enough. That was just common sense and, as he sat in his brother’s study and listened to the shudder of distant gunfire, he was thinking that it had been a mistake to even consider fleeing to Lisbon. If this battle were won then the French would never come here, and if it were lost, all would be lost. Best therefore to stay near his property and so protect it.

His elder brother was the key. Pedro Ferreira was a respected staff officer and his contacts stretched across the gap between the armies to those Portuguese officers who had allied themselves with the French. Ferragus, through his brother, could reach the French and offer them the one thing they most wanted: food. In his warehouse in the lower town he had hoarded six months’ worth of hard biscuit, two months’ supply of salt beef, a month’s supply of salt cod and a stack of other food and materials. There was lamp oil, boot leather, linen, horseshoes and nails. The French would want to steal it, but Ferragus had to devise a way to make them buy it. That way Ferragus would survive.

He opened the study door, shouted for a servant and sent her to summon Miss Fry to the study. ‘I cannot write,’ he explained to her when she arrived, holding up his bruised right hand to prove the incapacity. In truth he could write, though his knuckles were still sore and to flex his fingers was painful, but he did not want to write. He wanted Sarah. ‘You will write for me,’ he went on, ‘so sit.’

Sarah bridled at his abrupt tone, but obediently sat at the Major’s desk where she pulled paper, inkwell and sand shaker towards her. Ferragus stood close behind her. ‘I am ready,’ she said.

Ferragus said nothing. Sarah looked at the wall opposite that was filled with leather-bound books. The room smelt of cigar smoke. The gunfire was persisting, a grumble from far away like thunder in the next county. ‘The letter,’ Ferragus said, startling her with his gravelly voice, ‘is for my brother.’ He moved even closer so that Sarah was aware of his big presence just behind the chair. ‘Give him my regards,’ Ferragus said, ‘and tell him that all is well in Coimbra.’

Sarah found a steel-nibbed pen, dipped it in ink and began writing. The nib made a scratching noise. ‘Tell him,’ Ferragus went on, ‘that the matter of honour is not settled. The man escaped.’

‘Just that, senhor?’ Sarah asked.

‘Just that,’ Ferragus said in his deep voice. Damn Sharpe, he thought. The wretched rifleman had destroyed the flour, and so Ferragus’s token gift to the French had stayed ungiven, and the French had been expecting the flour and they would now think Ferragus could not be trusted, and that left Ferragus and his brother with a problem. How to reassure the enemy? And would the enemy need reassurance? Would they even come? ‘Tell my brother,’ he went on, ‘that I rely on his judgement whether or not the enemy will be stopped at Bussaco.’

Sarah wrote. As the ink began to thin on the nib she dipped the pen again and then froze because Ferragus’s fingers were touching the nape of her neck. For a heartbeat she did not move, then she slapped the pen down. ‘Senhor, you are touching me.’

‘So?’

‘So stop! Or do you wish me to call Major Ferreira’s wife?’

Ferragus chuckled, but took his fingers away. ‘Pick up your pen, Miss Fry,’ he said, ‘and tell my brother that I pray the enemy will be stopped.’

Sarah added the new sentence. She was blushing, not from embarrassment, but out of rage. How dare Ferragus touch her? She pressed too hard on the pen and the ink spattered in tiny droplets across the words. ‘But tell him,’ the harsh voice persisted behind her, ‘that if the enemy is not stopped, then I have decided to do what we discussed. Tell him he must arrange protection.’

‘Protection for what, senhor?’ Sarah asked in a tight voice.

‘He will know what I mean,’ Ferragus said impatiently. ‘You just write, woman.’ He listened to the pen’s tiny noise and sensed, from the force of the nib on the paper, the extent of the girl’s anger. She was a proud one, he thought. Poor and proud, a dangerous mixture, and Ferragus saw her as a challenge. Most women were frightened of him, terrified even, and he liked that, but Miss Fry seemed to think that because she was English she was safe. He would like to see terror replace that confidence, see her coldness warm into fear. She would fight, he thought, and that would make it even better and he considered taking her right there, on the desk, muffling her screams as he raped her white flesh, but there was still a terrible pain in his groin from the kick Sharpe had given him and he knew he would not be able to finish what he began and, besides, he would rather wait until his brother’s wife was gone from the house. In a day or two, he thought, he would take Miss Fry’s English pride and wipe his arse on it. ‘Read what you have written,’ he ordered her.

Sarah read the words in a small voice. Ferragus, satisfied, ordered her to write his name and seal the letter. ‘Use this.’ He gave her his own seal and, when Sarah pressed it into the wax, she saw the image of a naked woman. She ignored it, rightly suspecting that Ferragus had been trying to embarrass her. ‘You can go now,’ he told her coldly, ‘but send Miguel to me.’

Miguel was one of his most trusted men and he was ordered to carry the letter to where the cannons sounded. ‘Find my brother,’ Ferragus instructed, ‘give this to him and bring me his answer.’

The next few days, Ferragus thought, would be dangerous. Some money and lives would be lost, but if he was clever, and just a little bit lucky, much could be gained.

Including Miss Fry. Who did not matter. In many ways, he knew, she was a distraction and distractions were dangerous, but they also made life interesting. Captain Sharpe was a second distraction, and Ferragus wryly noted the coincidence that he was suddenly obsessed by two English folk. One, he was sure, would live and scream while the other, the one who wore the green jacket, must scream and die.

It would just take luck and a little cleverness.

The French strategy was simple. A column must gain the ridge, turn north and fight its way along the summit. The British and Portuguese, turning to meet that threat, would be hammered by the second attack at the ridge’s northern end and, thus pincered, Wellington’s troops would collapse between the two French forces. Masséna’s cavalry, released to the pursuit, would harry the defeated enemy all the way to Coimbra. Once Coimbra was captured the march on Lisbon could not take long.

Lisbon would then fall. British shipping would be ejected from the Tagus and other French forces would advance north to capture Porto and so deny the British another major harbour. Portugal would belong to the French, and what remained of the British army would be marched into captivity and the forces that had defeated it would be free to capture Cadiz and maul the scattered Spanish armies in the south. Britain would face a decision then, whether to sue for peace or face years of futile war, and France, once Spain and Portugal were pacified, could turn her armies to whatever new lands the Emperor wished to bless with French civilization. It was all so very simple, really, just so long as a column reached the ridge of Bussaco.

And two columns were there. Both were small columns, just seven battalions between them, fewer than four thousand men, but they were there, on top, in the sunlight, staring at the smoky remnants of British campfires, and more Frenchmen were coming up behind, and the only immediate threat was a Portuguese battalion that was marching north on the new road made just behind the ridge’s crest. That unsuspecting battalion was met by the closest French column with a blast of musketry and, because the Portuguese were in column of companies, in march order rather than fighting order, the volley drove into their leading troops, and the French, seeing an opportunity, began to deploy into a ragged line, thus unmasking the files in the centre of the column who could now add their fire. Voltigeurs had advanced across the summit, almost to the newly made road, and they began firing at the flank of the embattled Portuguese. British and Portuguese women fled from the voltigeurs, scrambling away with their children.

The Portuguese edged back. An officer tried to deploy them into line, but a French general, mounted on a big grey stallion, ordered his men to fix bayonets and advance. ‘En avant! En avant!’ The drums beat frantically as the French line lurched forward and the Portuguese, caught as they deployed, panicked as the leading companies, already decimated by the French volleys, broke. The rear companies kept their ranks and tried to shoot past their own comrades at the French.

‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ Lawford had said when he saw the French athwart the ridge. He had seemed stunned by the sight, and no wonder, for he was seeing a battle lost. He was seeing an enemy column occupy the land where his battalion had been posted. He was seeing disaster, even personal disgrace. The French General, Sharpe presumed he was a general for the man’s blue coat had as much gold decoration as the frock of a successful Covent Garden whore, had hoisted his plumed hat on his sword as a signal of victory. ‘Dear God!’ Lawford said.

‘About turn,’ Sharpe said quietly, not looking at the Colonel and sounding almost as though he were talking to himself, ‘then right wheel ’em.’

Lawford gave no sign of having heard the advice. He was staring at the unfolding horror, watching the Portuguese being cut down by bullets. For a change it was the French who outflanked an allied column and they were giving to the blue-coated troops what they themselves usually received. The French were not in proper line, not in their three ranks, it was more like a thick line of seven or eight ranks, but enough of them could use their muskets and the men behind jostled forward to fire at the hapless Portuguese. ‘Call in the skirmishers,’ Lawford said to Forrest, then gave an anxious glance at Sharpe. Sharpe remained expressionless. He had made his suggestion, it was unorthodox, and it was up to the Colonel now. The Portuguese were running now, some streaming down the reverse slope of the ridge, but most hurrying back to where a half-battalion of redcoats had halted. The French had more ground to exploit and, even better, they could attack the exposed left flank of the South Essex. ‘Do it now,’ Sharpe said, maybe not quite loud enough for the Colonel to hear.

‘South Essex!’ Lawford shouted loud above the splintering noise of muskets. ‘South Essex! About turn!’

For a second no one moved. The order was so strange, so unexpected, that the men did not believe their ears, but then the company officers took it up. ‘About turn! Smartly now!’

The battalion’s two ranks about-turned. What had been the rear rank was now the front rank, and both ranks had their backs to the slope and to the big, stalled column that was still exchanging fire with the ridge top. ‘Battalion will right wheel on number nine company!’ Lawford shouted. ‘March!’

This was a test of a battalion’s ability. They would swing like a giant door, just two ranks thick, swing round across rough country and across the bodies of their wounded comrades and the dying fires, and they must do it holding their ranks and files while under fire, and when they had finished, if they finished at all, they would form a musket line facing the new French columns. Those Frenchmen, seeing the danger, had checked their charge and started firing at the South Essex, allowing the Portuguese to reform on the half-battalion of redcoats who had been marching behind them on the road. ‘Dress on number nine!’ Lawford shouted. ‘Start firing when you’re in position!’ Number nine company, which had been the battalion’s left flank when it had been facing downhill, was now the right flank company and, because it formed the hinge of the door, it had the smallest distance to march. It took only seconds for the company to be reformed and James Hooper, its Captain, ordered the men to load. The light company, which normally paraded outside number nine, was running behind the swinging battalion. ‘Get your fellows in front, Mister Slingsby!’ Lawford shouted. ‘In front! Not behind, for God’s sake!’

‘Number nine company!’ Hooper bellowed. ‘Fire!’

‘Number eight company!’ The next was in line. ‘Fire!’

The outer companies were running, holding on to open cartridge boxes as they scrambled over the uneven turf. A man was hurled backwards, twitching from a bullet’s strike. Lawford was riding up behind the swinging door, the colours following him. Musket balls hissed past him as the voltigeurs, closest to the battalion, shot at its officers. The light company, slightly downhill and on the flank of the battalion, began firing at the French, who suddenly saw that the South Essex would form an outflanking line that would soak them with dreaded British musketry, and the columns’ officers began shouting at men to deploy into three ranks. The General on the white horse was shoving at men to hurry them into place and a ragged procession of French infantry, all of them remnants of the failed first attack, was coming up the hill to join the seven battalions that had breached the British line. The drummers were still beating their instruments and the Eagles had gained the heights.

‘South Essex!’ Lawford was standing in his stirrups. ‘Half-company fire from the centre!’

The Portuguese who had broken in the face of the devastating French musketry were coming back to join the South Essex’s line. Redcoats were also forming on that left flank. More battalions, brought from the peaceful southern end of the ridge, were hurrying towards the gap, but Lawford wanted to seal it himself. ‘Fire!’ he shouted.

The South Essex had lost a score of men as they clumsily wheeled around on the summit’s ridge, but they were in their ranks now and this was what they had been trained to do. To fire and reload. That was the essential skill. To tear off the ends of the thick cartridge paper, prime the gun, close the frizzen, upend the musket, pour the powder, put in the ball, ram the ball and paper, drop the ramrod into the barrel rings, bring the musket to the shoulder, pull the doghead to full cock, aim at the smoke, remember to aim low, wait for the order. ‘Fire!’ The muskets smashed back into bruised shoulders and the men, without thinking, found a new cartridge, tore the end off with their blackened teeth, began again, and all the while the French balls came back and every now and then there would be a sickening thud as a ball found flesh, or a smack as it struck a musket stock, or a hollow pop as it punctured a shako. Then the musket was back up in the shoulder, the doghead was back, the command came, and the flint drove onto the strike plate, flying the frizzen open as the sparks flashed down and there would be a pause, less than the time it took for a sparrow’s heart to beat, before the powder in the gun fired and the redcoat’s cheek would be burning because of the scraps of fiery powder thrown up from the pan, and the brass stock would hammer back into his shoulder, and the corporals were bellowing behind, ‘Close up! Close up!’ Which meant a man was dead or wounded.

All the while the sound of the musketry flared out from the centre, an unending noise like breaking sticks, but louder, much louder, and the French muskets were banging away, but the men could not see those because the powder smoke was thicker than the fog that had wreathed the ridge at dawn. And every man was thirsty because when they bit open the cartridges they got scraps of saltpetre from the gunpowder in their mouths and the saltpetre dried a man’s tongue and throat so that he had no spit at all. ‘Fire!’ and the muskets flamed, making the cloud of powder smoke suddenly lurid with fire, and the hooves of the Colonel’s horse thumped close behind the rearward rank as he tried to see across the smoke, and somewhere else, way behind the ranks, a band was playing ‘The Grenadiers’ March’, but no one was really aware of it, only of the need to pull a new cartridge out and tear off the tip and get the damn musket loaded and get the damn thing done.

They were thieves and murderers and fools and rapists and drunkards. Not one had joined for love of country, and certainly not for love of their King. They had joined because they had been drunk when the recruiting sergeant came to their village, or because a magistrate had offered them a choice between the gallows and the ranks, or because a girl was pregnant and wanted to marry them, or because a girl did not want to marry them, or because they were witless fools who believed the recruiter’s outrageous lies or simply because the army gave them a pint of rum and three meals a day, and most had been hungry ever since. They were flogged on the orders of officers who were mostly gentlemen who would never be flogged. They were cursed as drunken halfwits, and they were hanged without trial if they stole so much as a chicken. At home, in Britain, if they left the barracks respectable people crossed the street to avoid them. Some taverns refused them service. They were paid pitifully, fined for every item they lost, and the few pennies they managed to keep they usually gambled away. They were feckless rogues, as violent as hounds and as coarse as swine, but they had two things.

They had pride.

And they had the precious ability to fire platoon volleys. They could fire those half-company volleys faster than any other army in the world. Stand in front of these redcoats and the balls came thick as hail. It was death to be in their way and seven French battalions were now in death’s forecourt and the South Essex was tearing them to ribbons. One battalion against seven, but the French had never properly deployed into line and now the outside men tried to get back into the column’s protection and so the French formation became tighter and the balls struck it relentlessly, and more men, Portuguese and British, had extended the South Essex line, and then the 88th, the Connaught Rangers, came from the north and the Frenchmen who had gained the ridge were being assailed on two sides by enemies who knew how to fire their muskets. Who had practised musketry until they could do it blindfold, drunk or mad. They were the red-coated killers and they were good.

‘Can you see anything, Richard?’ Lawford shouted over the sound of the volleys.

‘They won’t hold, sir.’ Thanks to a vagary of the wind, a small gust that had moved the sluggish smoke a few yards, he had a better view than the Colonel.

‘Bayonet?’

‘Not yet.’ Sharpe could see the French were being hit brutally. The South Essex alone was shooting close to fifteen hundred musket balls every minute and they were now one of four or five battalions who had closed on the two French columns. Smoke thickened above the ridge, ringing the Frenchmen who stubbornly stayed on the summit. As ever, Sharpe was astonished by the amount of punishment a column could endure. It seemed to shudder under the blows, yet it did not retreat, it just shrank as the outer ranks and files died, and die they did under the terrible flail of the British and Portuguese musketry.

A big man, dressed in a shabby black coat, with a stub of dead cigar between yellowed teeth and a grubby tasselled nightcap on his head, rode up behind the South Essex. He was followed by a half-dozen aides, the only sign that the big, dishevelled man in civilian dress might be someone of importance. He watched the French die, watched the South Essex platoon fire, took the cigar from between his teeth, looked at it morosely and spat out a shred of tobacco. ‘You must have Welshmen in your bloody battalion, Lawford,’ he growled.

Lawford, surprised by the man’s voice, turned and threw a hasty salute. ‘Sir!’

‘Well, man? Do you have bloody Welshmen?’

‘I’m sure we have some, sir.’

‘They’re good!’ the man in the nightcap said. He gestured at the ranks with his dead cigar. ‘Too good to be English, Lawford. Maybe there’s a Welsh settlement in Essex?’

‘I’m sure there is, sir.’

‘You’re sure of nothing of the bloody sort,’ the big man said. His name was Sir Thomas Picton and he was the General commanding this portion of the ridge. ‘I saw what you did, Lawford,’ he went on, ‘and I thought you’d lost your bloody mind! About turn and right wheel, eh? In the middle of a bloody battle? Gone soft in the head, I thought, but you did well, man, bloody well. Proud of you. You must have Welsh blood. Do you have any fresh cigars, Lawford?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Not much bloody use, are you?’ Picton nodded curtly and rode off, followed by his aides who were as well uniformed as their master was ill clothed. Lawford preened, looked back to the French and saw they were crumbling.

Major Leroy had listened to the General, now he rode to Sharpe. ‘We’ve pleased Picton,’ he said, drawing his pistol, ‘pleased him so much that he reckons Lawford must have Welsh blood.’ Sharpe laughed. Leroy aimed the pistol and fired into the remnants of the nearest French column. ‘When I was a youngster, Sharpe,’ Leroy said, ‘I used to shoot raccoons.’

Sharpe saw a musket fail to fire in four company. Shattered flint, he suspected, and he pulled a spare one from his pocket and shouted the man’s name. ‘Catch it!’ he bellowed, and tossed the flint over the rear rank before looking at Leroy. ‘What’s a raccoon?’

‘A useless damn animal, Sharpe, that God put on earth to improve a boy’s marksmanship. Why don’t the bastards move?’

‘They will.’

‘Then they might take your company with them,’ Leroy said, and jerked his head towards the slope as if advising Sharpe to go and see for himself.

Sharpe rode to the flank of the line and saw that Slingsby had taken the company down the slope and to the north from where, in skirmish line, they were shooting uphill at the French left flank while a handful of his men were shooting downhill to prevent a scatter of hesitant Frenchmen from reinforcing the column. Did Slingsby want to be a hero? Did he think that the company could cut off the French column by itself? In a moment, Sharpe knew, the French would break and close to six thousand men would spill over the crest and rush down the hill to escape the slaughter and they would sweep the light company away like so much chaff. That moment came even closer when he heard the crack of a cannon from the far side of the fight. It was canister, the tin can that splintered apart at the cannon’s mouth and spread its charge of musket balls like a blast from the devil’s shotgun. Sharpe did not have a moment, he had seconds, and so he kicked the horse down the hill. ‘Back to the line!’ he shouted at his men. ‘Back! Fast!’

Slingsby gave him an indignant look. ‘We’re holding them,’ he protested, ‘can’t go back now!’

Sharpe dropped from the horse and gave its reins to Slingsby. ‘Back to battalion, Slingsby, that’s an order! Now!’

‘But…’

‘Do it!’ Sharpe bellowed like a sergeant.

Slingsby reluctantly mounted and Sharpe shouted at his men. ‘Form on the battalion!’

And just then the French broke.

They had lasted longer than any general could ask. They had gained the hilltop and for a splendid moment it seemed as if victory had to be theirs, but they had not received the massive reinforcement they needed and the British and Portuguese battalions had reformed, outflanked them and then dosed them with rolling volleys. No army in the world could have stood against those volleys, but the French had endured them until bravery alone would not suffice and their only impulse left was to survive and Sharpe saw the blue uniforms come like a breaking wave across the skyline. He and his men ran. Slingsby was well clear, kicking his horse up towards James Hooper’s company, and the men who had been on the left of the skirmish line were safe enough, but most of the skirmishers could not escape the rush.

‘Form on me!’ Sharpe bellowed. ‘Rally square!’

It was a desperate manoeuvre, one that broken infantry used in their dying moments against rampaging cavalry, but it served. Thirty or forty men ran to Sharpe, faced outwards and fixed bayonets. ‘Edge south lads,’ Sharpe said calmly, ‘away from them.’

Harper had unslung his volley gun. The tide of Frenchmen parted to avoid the clump of redcoats and riflemen, streaming to either side, but Sharpe kept the men moving, a yard at a time, trying to escape the torrent. One Frenchman did not see Sharpe’s men and ran onto Perkins’s sword bayonet and stayed there until the boy pulled the trigger to blow the man off the long blade with a gout of blood. ‘Go slow,’ Sharpe said quietly, ‘go slow,’ and just then the General on the white horse, his sword drawn and gold braid bright, came straight at the rally square and he seemed astonished to find an enemy in front of him and he instinctively lowered his sword to make the straight-armed lunge and Harper pulled his trigger, as did four or five other men, and the horse’s head and the man behind vanished in a cockade of blood. Both went down, the horse sliding down the hill, hooves flailing, and Sharpe bellowed at his men to hurry leftwards and so just avoided the dying beast. The rider, a bullet hole in his forehead, slid to a halt at the men’s feet. ‘He’s a bloody general, sir,’ Perkins said in amazement.

‘Just keep calm,’ Sharpe said, ‘edge left.’ They were out of the stream of Frenchmen now that was running desperately downhill, leaping over corpses, intent on nothing except escaping the musket balls. The British and Portuguese battalions were following them, not in pursuit, but to make a line on the crest from where they harried the fugitives, and some balls whistled over Sharpe’s head. ‘Break now!’ he told his men and they ran away from the square and up towards the battalion.

‘That was close,’ Harper said.

‘You were in the wrong bloody place.’

‘It wasn’t healthy,’ Harper said, then looked to see if any man had been left behind. ‘Perkins! What the hell is that you’ve got?’

‘It’s a French general, Sergeant,’ Perkins said. He had dragged the corpse all the way up the hill and now knelt by the body and began searching the pockets.

‘Leave that body alone!’ It was Slingsby, back again, on foot now, striding towards the company. ‘Form on number nine company, look sharp now! I told you to leave that alone!’ he snapped at Perkins who had ignored the order. ‘Take that man’s name, Sergeant!’ he ordered Huckfield.

‘Perkins!’ Sharpe said. ‘Search that body properly. Lieutenant!’

Slingsby looked wide-eyed at Sharpe. ‘Sir?’

‘Come with me.’ Sharpe stalked off to the left, well out of earshot of the company, then turned on Slingsby and all his pent-up rage exploded. ‘Listen, you goddamn bastard, you bloody well nearly lost the company there. Lost them! Every damned man of them! And they know it. So shut your damned mouth until you’ve learned how to fight.’

‘You’re being offensive, Sharpe!’ Slingsby protested.

‘I mean to be.’

‘I take exception,’ Slingsby said stiffly. ‘I will not be insulted by your kind, Sharpe.’

Sharpe smiled and it was not a pretty smile. ‘My kind, Slingsby? I’ll tell you what I am, you snivelling little bastard, I’m a killer. I’ve been killing men for damn near thirty years. You want a duel? I don’t mind. Sword, pistol, knives, anything you bloody well like, Slingsby. Just let me know when and where. But till then, shut your damned mouth and bugger off.’ He walked back to Perkins who had virtually stripped the French officer naked. ‘What did you find?’

‘Cash, sir.’ Perkins glanced at an outraged Slingsby, then back to Sharpe. ‘And his scabbard, sir.’ He showed Sharpe the scabbard that was sheathed in blue velvet studded with small golden N’s.

‘They’re probably brass,’ Sharpe said, ‘but you never know. Keep half the cash and share the other half.’

All the Frenchmen had retreated now, except those who were dead or wounded. The voltigeurs who had held the rocky knoll had stayed, though, and those men had been reinforced by some of the survivors from the defeated columns, the rest of whom had stopped halfway down the ridge from where they just stared upwards. None had gone all the way back to the valley that was now clear of fog so that the French gunners could aim their shells which came up the hill, trailing wisps of smoke, to bang among the scatter of dead bodies. British and Portuguese skirmish companies were going down among the shell bursts to form a picquet line, but Sharpe, without any orders from Lawford or anyone else, took his own men to where the hill jutted out towards the boulder-strewn promontory held by the French. ‘Rifles,’ he ordered, ‘keep their heads down.’

He let his riflemen shoot at the French who, armed with muskets, could not reply. Meanwhile Sharpe searched the lower slopes with his telescope, looking for a green-jacketed body among the drifts of dead French, but he could see no sign of Corporal Dodd.

Sharpe’s riflemen kept up their desultory target practice. He sent the redcoats back a few paces so they would not be an inviting target for the French gunners at the foot of the slope. The rest of the British troops had also marched back, denying the enemy artillery a plain target, but the presence of the skirmish chain on the forward slope told the defeated enemy infantry that the volleys were still waiting just out of sight. None tried to advance and then, one by one, the French cannon fell silent and the smoke slowly drifted off the hill.

Then the guns started a mile to the north. For a few seconds it was just one or two guns, and then whole batteries opened and the thunder started again. The next French attack was coming.

Lieutenant Slingsby did not rejoin the company, going back to the battalion instead. Sharpe did not care.

He rested on the hillside, watched the French, and waited.

‘The letter,’ Ferragus instructed Sarah, ‘is to a Senhor Verzi.’ He paced up and down behind her, the floorboards creaking beneath his weight. The sound of the guns reverberated softly on the big window through which, at the end of a street that ran downhill, Sarah could just see the River Mondego. ‘Tell Senhor Verzi that he is in my debt,’ Ferragus ordered her.

The pen scratched. Sarah, summoned to write a second letter, had wrapped a scarf about her neck so that no skin was exposed between her hair and the blue dress’s high embroidered collar.

‘Tell him he may discharge all his debts to me with a favour. I require accommodation on one of his boats. I want a cabin for my brother’s wife, children and household.’

‘Not too fast, senhor,’ Sarah said. She dipped the nib and wrote. ‘For your brother’s wife, children and household,’ she said as she finished.

‘I am sending the family and their servants to Lisbon,’ Ferragus went on, ‘and I ask, no, I require Senhor Verzi to give them shelter on a suitable vessel.’

‘On a suitable vessel,’ Sarah repeated.

‘If the French come to Lisbon,’ Ferragus continued, ‘the vessel may carry them to the Azores and wait there until it is safe to return. Tell him to expect my brother’s wife within three days of receipt of this letter.’ He waited. ‘And say, finally, that I know he will treat my brother’s people as though they were his own.’ Verzi had better treat them well, Ferragus thought, if he did not want his guts punched into a liquid mess in some Lisbon alley. He stopped and stared down at Sarah’s back. He could see her spine against the thin blue material. He knew she was aware of his gaze and could sense her indignation. It amused him. ‘Read me the letter.’

Sarah read and Ferragus gazed out of the window. Verzi would oblige him, he knew that, and so Major Ferreira’s wife and family would be far away if the French came. They would escape the rape and slaughter that would doubtless occur, and when the French had settled, when they had slaked their appetites, it would be safe for the family to return.

‘You sound certain the French will come, senhor,’ Sarah said when she had finished reading.

‘I don’t know whether they will or not,’ Ferragus said, ‘but I know preparations must be made. If they come, then my brother’s family is safe; if they do not, then Senhor Verzi’s services will not be needed.’

Sarah sprinkled sand on the paper. ‘How long would we wait in the Azores?’ she asked.

Ferragus smiled at her misapprehension. He had no intention of letting Sarah go to the Azores, but this was not the time to tell her. ‘As long as necessary,’ he said.

‘Perhaps the French will not come,’ Sarah suggested just as a renewed bout of gunfire sounded louder than ever.

‘The French,’ Ferragus said, giving her the seal, ‘have conquered every place in Europe. No one fights them now, except us. Over a hundred thousand Frenchmen have reinforced the armies in Spain. They have how many soldiers south of the Pyrenees? Three hundred thousand? Do you really believe, Miss Fry, that we can win against so many? If we win today then they will come back, even more of them.’

He sent three men with the letter. The road to Lisbon was safe enough, but he had heard there was trouble in the city itself. The people there believed the British planned to abandon Portugal and so leave them to the French and there had been riots in the streets, so the letter had to be guarded. And no sooner was the letter gone than two others of his men came with more news of trouble. A feitor had arrived at the warehouse and was insisting the stores be destroyed.

Ferragus buckled on a knife belt, thrust a pistol into a pocket, and stalked across town. Many folk were in the streets, listening to the far-off gunfire as though they could tell from the rise and fall of the sound how the battle went. They made way for Ferragus, the men pulling off their hats as he passed. Two priests, loading the treasures of their church onto a handcart, made the sign of the cross when they saw him and Ferragus retaliated by giving them the devil’s horns with his left hand, then spitting on the cobbles. ‘I gave thirty thousand vinténs to that church a year ago,’ Ferragus said to his men. That was a small fortune, close to a hundred pounds of English money. He laughed. ‘Priests,’ he sneered, ‘are like women. Give and they hate you.’

‘So don’t give,’ one of his men said.

‘You give to the church,’ Ferragus said, ‘because that is the way to heaven. But with a woman you take. That too is the way to heaven.’ He turned down a narrow alley and pushed through a door into a vast warehouse that was dimly lit by dusty skylights. Cats hissed at him, then scampered away. There were dozens of the beasts, kept to protect the warehouse’s contents from rats. At night, Ferragus knew, the warehouse was a bloody battlefield as the rats fought against the hungry cats, but the cats always won and so protected the barrels of hard-baked biscuit, the sacks of wheat, barley and maize, the tin containers filled with rice, the jars of olive oil, the boxes of salt cod and the vats of salt meat. There was enough food here to feed Masséna’s army all the way to Lisbon and enough hogsheads of tobacco to keep it coughing all the way back to Paris. He stooped to tickle the throat of a great one-eyed tom cat, scarred from a hundred fights. The cat bared its teeth at Ferragus, but submitted to the caress, then Ferragus turned to two of his men who were standing with the feitor who wore a green sash to show he was on duty. ‘What is the trouble?’ Ferragus demanded.

A feitor was an official storekeeper, appointed by the government to make certain there were sufficient rations for the Portuguese army. Every sizable town in Portugal had a feitor, answerable to the Junta of Provisions in Lisbon, and Coimbra’s storekeeper was a middle-aged, corpulent man called Rafael Pires who snatched off his hat when he saw Ferragus and seemed about to drop to one knee.

‘Senhor Pires,’ Ferragus greeted him affably enough. ‘Your wife and family are well?’

‘God be praised, senhor, they are.’

‘They are still here? You have not sent them south?’

‘They left yesterday. I have a sister in Bemposta.’ Bemposta was a small place nearer to Lisbon, the kind of town the French might ignore in their advance.

‘Then you are fortunate. They won’t starve on the streets of Lisbon, eh? So what brings you here?’

Pires fidgeted with his hat. ‘I have orders, senhor.’

‘Orders?’

Pires gestured with his hat at the great heaps of food. ‘It is all to be destroyed, senhor. All of it.’

‘Who says so?’

‘The Captain-Major.’

‘And you take orders from him?’

‘I am directed to do so, senhor.’

The Captain-Major was the military commander of Coimbra and its surrounding districts. He was in charge of recruiting and training the ordenança, the ‘armed inhabitants’, who could reinforce the army if the enemy came, but the Captain-Major was also expected to enforce the government’s decrees.

‘So what will you do?’ Ferragus asked Pires. ‘Eat it all?’

‘The Captain-Major is sending men here,’ Pires said.

‘Here?’ Ferragus’s voice was dangerous now.

Pires took a breath. ‘They have my files, senhor,’ he explained. ‘They know you have been buying food. How can they not know? You have spent much money, senhor. I am ordered to find it.’

‘And?’ Ferragus asked.

‘It is to be destroyed,’ Pires insisted and then, as if to show that he was helpless in this situation, he invoked a higher power. ‘The English insist.’

‘The English,’ Ferragus snarled. ‘Os ingleses por mar,’ he shouted at Pires, then calmed down. The English were not the problem. Pires was. ‘You say the Captain-Major took your papers?’

‘Indeed.’

‘But he does not know where the food is stored?’

‘The papers only say how much food is in the town,’ Pires said, ‘and who owns it.’

‘So he has my name,’ Ferragus asked, ‘and a list of my stores?’

‘Not a complete list, senhor.’ Pires glanced at the massive stacks of food and marvelled that Ferragus had accumulated so much. ‘He merely knows you have some supplies stored and he says I must guarantee their destruction.’

‘So guarantee it,’ Ferragus said airily.

‘He will send men to make sure of it, senhor,’ Pires said. ‘I am to bring them here.’

‘So you don’t know where the stores are,’ Ferragus said.

‘I am to make a search this afternoon, senhor, every warehouse in the city!’ Pires shrugged. ‘I came to warn you,’ he said in helpless appeal.

‘I pay you, Pires,’ Ferragus said, ‘to keep my food from being taken at a thief’s price to feed the army. Now you will lead men here to destroy it?’

‘You can move it, perhaps?’ Pires suggested.

‘Move it!’ Ferragus shouted. ‘How, in God’s name, do I move it? It would take a hundred men and twenty wagons.’

Pires just shrugged.

Ferragus stared down at the feitor. ‘You came to warn me,’ he said in a low voice, ‘because you will bring the soldiers here, yes? And you do not want me to blame you, is that it?’

‘They insist, senhor, they insist!’ Pires was pleading now. ‘And if our own troops don’t come, the British will.’

‘Os ingleses por mar,’ Ferragus snarled, and he used his left hand to punch Pires in the face. The blow was swift and extraordinarily powerful, a straight jab that broke the feitor’s nose and sent him staggering back with blood pouring from his nostrils. Ferragus followed fast, using his wounded right hand to thump Pires in the belly. The blow hurt Ferragus, but he ignored the pain because that was what a man must do. Pain must be endured. If a man could not take pain then he should not fight, and Ferragus backed Pires against the warehouse wall and systematically punched him, left and right, each blow travelling a short distance, but landing with hammer force. The fists drove into the feitor’s body, cracking his ribs and breaking his cheekbones, and blood spattered on Ferragus’s hands and sleeves, but he was oblivious of the blood just as he was oblivious of the pain in his hand and groin. He was doing what he loved to do and he hit even harder, silencing the feitor’s pathetic screams and yelps, seeing the man’s breath come bubbling and pink as his huge fists crunched the broken ribs into the lungs. It took awesome strength to do this. To kill a man with bare hands without strangling him.

Pires slumped against the wall. He no longer resembled a man, though he lived. His visible flesh was swollen, bloody, pulpy. His eyes had closed, his nose was destroyed, his face was a mask of blood, his teeth were broken, his lips were split to ribbons, his chest was crushed, his belly was pounded, yet still he managed to stay upright against the warehouse wall. His ruined face looked blindly from side to side, then a fist caught him on the jaw and the bone broke with an audible crack and Pires tottered, groaned and fell at last.

‘Hold him up,’ Ferragus said, stripping off his coat and shirt.

Two men seized Pires under his arms and hauled him upright and Ferragus stepped in close and punched with a vicious intensity. His fists did not travel far, these were not wild swinging clouts, but short, precise blows that landed with sickening force. He worked on the man’s belly, then moved up to his chest, pounding it so that Pires’s head flopped with every strike and his bloody mouth sprayed drops of reddened spittle onto Ferragus’s chest. He went on punching until the man’s head jerked back and then flopped sideways like a puppet whose crown-string had snapped. There was a rattling noise from the battered throat, Ferragus hit him one last time and then stepped back. ‘Put him in the cellar,’ Ferragus ordered, ‘and slit his belly.’

‘Slit his belly?’ one of the men asked, thinking he had misheard.

‘Give the rats something to work on,’ Ferragus said, ‘because the sooner they’re done with him, the sooner he’s gone.’ He crossed to Miguel who gave him a rag with which he wiped the blood and spittle from his chest and arms that were covered in tattoos. There were anchors wrapped in chains on both his forearms, three mermaids on his chest, and snakes encircling his vast upper arms. On his back was a warship under full sail, its sky-scrapers aloft, studding sails spread, and at its stern a British flag. He pulled on his shirt, then a coat, and watched the corpse being dragged to the back of the warehouse where a trapdoor opened into a cellar. There was already one belly-slitted corpse rotting in that darkness, the remnants of a man who had tried to betray Ferragus’s hoard to the authorities. Now another had tried, failed and died.

Ferragus locked the warehouse. If the French did not come, he thought, then this food could be sold legally and at a profit, and if they did come, then it might mean a greater profit. The next few hours would reveal all. He made the sign of the cross, then went to find a tavern because he had killed a man and was thirsty.

No one came from battalion to give Sharpe orders, which suited him just fine. He was standing guard on the rocky knoll where, he reckoned, a hundred French infantry were keeping their heads well down because of his desultory rifle fire. He wished he had enough men to shift the voltigeurs off the hill, for their presence was an invitation to the enemy to try for the summit again. They could throw a couple of battalions up to the knoll and use them to attack along the spur, and such a move might be encouraged by the new French attack that was heating up a mile to the north. Sharpe went a small way along the spur, too far probably because a couple of musket shots whirred past him as he crouched and took out his telescope. He ignored the voltigeurs, knowing they were shooting far beyond a musket’s accurate range, and he stared at the vast French columns climbing the better road that twisted up to the village just beneath the ridge’s northern crest. A stone windmill, its sails and vanes taken away and machinery dismantled like every other mill in central Portugal, stood near the crest itself and there was a knot of horsemen beside the stumpy tower, but Sharpe could not see any troops except for the two French columns that were halfway up the road and a third, smaller column, some way behind. The huge French formations looked dark against the slope. British and Portuguese guns were blasting shot from the crest, blurring his view with their grey-white smoke.

‘Sir! Mister Sharpe, sir!’ It was Patrick Harper who called.

Sharpe collapsed the telescope and walked back, seeing as he went what had prompted Harper’s call. Two companies of brown-coated cazadores were approaching the spur and Sharpe supposed the Portuguese troops had orders to clear the rocky knoll of the enemy. A pair of nine-pounders were being repositioned to support their attack, but Sharpe did not hold out much chance for it. The cazadores numbered about the same as the voltigeurs, but the French had cover and it would be a nasty fight if they decided to make a stand.

‘I didn’t want you in the way when those gunners started firing,’ Harper explained, jerking his head towards the pair of nine-pounders.

‘Decent of you, Pat.’

‘If you died, sir, then Slingsby would take over,’ Harper said without a trace of insubordination.

‘You wouldn’t want that?’ Sharpe asked.

‘I’m from Donegal, sir, and I put up with whatever the good Lord sends to trouble me.’

‘He sent me, Pat, he sent me.’

‘Mysterious are the ways of the Lord,’ Harris put in.

The cazadores were waiting fifty paces behind Sharpe. He ignored them, instead asking again if any of the men had seen Dodd. Mister Iliffe, who had not heard Sharpe ask before, nodded nervously. ‘He was running, sir.’

‘Where?’

‘When we were almost cut off, sir? Down the hill. Going like a hare.’ Which matched what Carter, Dodd’s partner, had thought. The two men had very nearly been trapped by the voltigeurs and Dodd had elected the fast way out, downhill, while Carter had been lucky to escape uphill with nothing more serious than a musket ball in his pack, which he claimed had only helped him along. Sharpe reckoned Dodd would rejoin later. He was a countryman, could read ground, and doubtless he would avoid the French and climb up the southern part of the ridge. Whatever, there was nothing Sharpe could do about him now.

‘So are we going to help the Portuguese boys?’ Harper asked.

‘Not on your bloody life,’ Sharpe said, ‘not unless they bring a whole bloody battalion.’

‘He’s coming to ask you,’ Harper said in warning, nodding towards a slim Portuguese officer who approached the light company. His brown uniform had black facings and his high-fronted shako had a long black plume. Sharpe noted that the officer wore a heavy cavalry sword and, unusually, carried a rifle. Sharpe could think of only one officer who was so armed, himself, and he felt irritated that there should be another officer with the same weapons, but then the approaching man took off his black-plumed barretina and smiled broadly.

‘Good God,’ Sharpe said.

‘No, no, it’s only me.’ Jorge Vicente, whom Sharpe had last seen in the wild country north east of Oporto, held out his hand. ‘Mister Sharpe,’ he said.

‘Jorge!’

‘Capitão Vicente now.’ Vicente clasped Sharpe and then, to the rifleman’s embarrassment, gave his friend a kiss on both cheeks. ‘And you, Richard, a major by now, I expect?’

‘Bloody hell, no, Jorge. They don’t promote the likes of me. It might spoil the army’s reputation. How are you?’

‘I am–how do you say?–flourishing. But you?’

Vicente frowned at Sharpe’s bruised face. ‘You are wounded?’

‘Fell down some steps,’ Sharpe said.

‘You must be careful,’ Vicente said solemnly, then smiled. ‘Sergeant Harper! It is good to see you.’

‘No kissing, sir, I’m Irish.’

Vicente greeted the other men he had known in the wild pursuit of Soult’s army across the northern frontier, then turned back to Sharpe. ‘I’ve orders to knock those things out of the rocks.’ He gestured towards the French.

‘It’s a good idea,’ Sharpe said, ‘but there aren’t enough of you.’

‘Two Portuguese are equal to one Frenchman,’ Vicente said airily, ‘and you might do the honour of helping us?’

‘Bloody hell,’ Sharpe said, then evaded an answer by nodding at the Baker rifle on Vicente’s shoulder. ‘And what are you doing carrying a rifle?’

‘Imitating you,’ Vicente said frankly, ‘and besides, I am now the captain of a atirador company, the how do you say? marksmen. We carry rifles, the other companies have muskets. I transferred from the 18th when we raised the cazador battalions. So, shall we attack?’

‘What do you think?’ Sharpe countered.

Vicente smiled uncertainly. He had been a soldier for less than two years; before that he had been a lawyer and when Sharpe first met him the young Portuguese had been a stickler for the supposed rules of warfare. That might or might not have changed, but Sharpe suspected Vicente was a natural soldier, brave and decisive, no fool, yet he was still nervous of showing his skills to Sharpe who had taught him most of what he knew about fighting. He glanced at Sharpe, then shadowed his eyes to stare at the French. ‘They won’t stand,’ he suggested.

‘They might,’ Sharpe said, ‘and there are at least a hundred of the bastards. How many are we? A hundred and thirty? If it was up to me, Jorge, I’d send in your whole battalion.’

‘My Colonel ordered me to do it.’

‘Does he know what he’s doing?’

‘He’s English,’ Vicente said drily. The Portuguese army had been reorganized and trained in the last eighteen months and huge numbers of British officers had volunteered into its ranks for the reward of a promotion.

‘I’d still send in more men,’ Sharpe said.

Vicente had no chance to answer because there was the sudden thump of hooves on the springy turf and a stentorian voice shouting at him. ‘Don’t hang about, Vicente! There are Frogs to kill! Get on with it, Captain, get on with it! Who the devil are you?’ This last question was directed at Sharpe and came from a horseman who had trouble curbing his gelding as he tried to rein in beside the two officers. The rider’s voice betrayed he was English, though he was wearing Portuguese brown to which he had added a black cocked hat that sported a pair of golden tassels. One tassel shadowed his face that looked to be red and glistening.

‘Sharpe, sir,’ Sharpe answered the man’s bad-tempered question.

‘95th?’

‘South Essex, sir.’

‘That bloody mob of yokels,’ the officer said. ‘Lost a colour a couple of years back, didn’t you?’

‘We took one back at Talavera,’ Sharpe said harshly.

‘Did you now?’ The horseman did not seem particularly interested. He took out a small telescope and stared at the rocky knoll, ignoring some musket balls which, fired at extreme range, fluttered impotently by.

‘Allow me to name Colonel Rogers-Jones,’ Vicente said, ‘my Colonel.’

‘And the man, Vicente,’ Rogers-Jones said, ‘who ordered you to turf those buggers out of the rocks. I didn’t tell you to stand here and chatter, did I?’

‘I was seeking Captain Sharpe’s advice, sir,’ Vicente said.

‘Reckon he’s got any to offer?’ The Colonel sounded amused.

‘He took a French Eagle,’ Vicente pointed out.

‘Not by standing around talking, he didn’t,’ Rogers-Jones said. He collapsed his telescope. ‘I’ll tell the gunners to open fire,’ he went on, ‘and you advance, Vicente. You’ll help him, Sharpe.’ He added the order carelessly. ‘Winkle them out, Vicente, then stay there to make sure the bastards don’t come back.’ He turned his horse and spurred away.

‘Jesus bloody wept,’ Sharpe said. ‘Does he know how many of them there are?’

‘I still have my orders,’ Vicente said bleakly.

Sharpe took the rifle off his shoulder and loaded it. ‘You want advice?’

‘Of course.’

‘Send our rifles up the middle,’ Sharpe said, ‘in skirmish order. They’re to keep firing, hard and fast, no patches, just keeping the bastards’ heads down. The rest of our lads will come up behind in line. Bayonets fixed. Straightforward battalion attack, Jorge, with three companies, and hope your bastard Colonel is satisfied.’

‘Our lads?’ Vicente picked those two words out of Sharpe’s advice.

‘Not going to let you die alone, Jorge,’ Sharpe said.

‘You’d probably get lost trying to find the pearly gates.’ He glanced northwards and saw the cannon smoke thickening as the French attack closed on the village beneath the ridge’s summit, then the first of the guns close to the knoll fired and a shell banged smoke and casing scraps just beyond the rocky knoll. ‘So let’s do it,’ Sharpe said.

It was not wise, he thought, but it was war. He cocked the rifle and shouted at his men to close up. Time to fight.