Sharpe's Battle Part 13

"And were they all Frog officers, Sergeant Harper?" Sharpe asked, and Harper, surprised by the question, did not answer, so Sharpe provided the answer himself. "Of course they were not. We've killed officers in blue coats, officers in white coats and even officers in red coats, because I don't care what army an officer fights for, or what colour coat he wears or what king he serves, a bad officer is better off dead and a good soldier had better learn how to kill him. Ain't that right, Sergeant Harper?"

"Right as rain, sir."

"My name is Captain Sharpe." Sharpe stood in the centre front of the Real

Compania Irlandesa. The faces watching him showed a mixture of astonishment and surprise, but he had their attention now and neither Kiely nor Valverde had dared to interfere. "My name is Captain Sharpe," he said again, "and I began where you are. In the ranks, and I'm going to end up where he is, in the saddle." He pointed at Lord Kiely. "But in the meantime my job is to teach you to be soldiers. I dare say there are some good killers among you and some fine fighters too, but soon you're going to be good soldiers as well. But for tonight we've all got a fair step to go before dark and once we're there you'll get food, shelter and we'll find out when you were last paid. Sergeant

Harper! We'll finish the inspection later. Get them moving!"

"Sir!" Harper shouted. "Talion will turn to the right. Right turn! By the left! March!"

Sharpe did not even look at Lord Kiely, let alone seek his Lordship's permission to march the Real Compania Irlandesa away. Instead he just watched as Harper led the guard off the waste ground towards the main road. He heard footsteps behind, but still he did not turn. "By G.o.d, Sharpe, but you push your luck." It was Major Hogan who spoke.

"It's all I've got to push, sir," Sharpe said bitterly. "I wasn't born to rank, sir, I don't have a purse to buy it and I don't have the privileges to attract it, so I need to push what bit of luck I've got."

"By giving lectures on a.s.sa.s.sinating officers?" Hogan's voice was frigid with disapproval. "The Peer won't like that, Richard. It smacks of republicanism."

"b.u.g.g.e.r republicanism," Sharpe said savagely. "But you were the one who told me the Real Compania Irlandesa can't be trusted. But I tell you, sir, that if there's any mischief there, it isn't coming from the ranks. Those soldiers weren't trusted with French mischief. They don't have enough power. Those men are what soldiers always are: victims of their officers, and if you want to find where the French have sown their mischief, sir, then you look among those d.a.m.ned, overpaid, overdressed, overfed b.l.o.o.d.y officers," and Sharpe threw a scornful glance towards the Real Compania Irlandesa's officers who seemed unsure whether or not they were supposed to follow their men northwards.

"That's where your rotten apples are, sir," Sharpe went on, "not in the ranks.

I'd as happily fight alongside those guardsmen as alongside any other soldier in the world, but I wouldn't trust my life to that rabble of perfumed fools."

Hogan made a calming gesture with his hand, as if he feared Sharpe's voice might reach the worried officers. "You make your point, Richard."

"My point, sir, is that you told me to make them miserable. So that's what I'm doing."

"I just wasn't sure I wanted you to start a revolution in the process,

Richard," Hogan said, "and certainly not in front of Valverde. You have to be nice to Valverde. One day, with any luck, you can kill him for me, but until that happy day arrives you have to b.u.t.ter the b.a.s.t.a.r.d up. If we're ever going to get proper command of the Spanish armies, Richard, then b.a.s.t.a.r.ds like Don

Luis Valverde have to be well b.u.t.tered, so please don't preach revolution in front of him. He's just a simple-minded aristocrat who isn't capable of thinking much beyond his next meal or his last mistress, but if we're going to beat the French we need his support. And he expects us to treat the Real

Compania Irlandesa well, so when he's nearby, Richard, be diplomatic, will you?" Hogan turned as the group of Real Compania Irlandesa's officers led by

Lord Kiely and General Valverde came close. Riding between the two aristocrats was a tall, plump, white-haired priest mounted on a bony roan mare.

"This is Father Sarsfield"'-Kiely introduced the priest to Hogan, conspicuously ignoring Sharpe - "who is our chaplain. Father Sarsfield and

Captain Donaju will travel with the company tonight, the rest of the company's officers will attend General Valverde's reception."

"Where you'll meet Colonel Runciman," Hogan promised. "I think you'll find him much to your Lordship's taste."

"You mean he knows how to treat royal troops?" General Valverde asked, looking pointedly at Sharpe as he spoke.

"I know how to treat royal guards, sir," Sharpe intervened. "This isn't the first royal bodyguard I've met."

Kiely and Valverde both stared down at Sharpe with looks little short of loathing, but Kiely could not resist the bait of Sharpe's comment. "You refer,

I suppose, to the Hanoverian's lackeys?" he said in his half-drunken voice.

"No, my Lord," Sharpe said. "This was in India. They were royal guards protecting a fat little royal b.u.g.g.e.r called the Sultan Tippoo."

"And you trained them too, no doubt?" Valverde inquired.

"I killed them," Sharpe said, "and the fat little b.u.g.g.e.r too." His words wiped the supercilious look off both men's thin faces, while Sharpe himself was suddenly overwhelmed with a memory of the Tippoo's water-tunnel filled with the shouting bodyguard armed with jewelled muskets and broad-bladed sabres.

Sharpe had been thigh-deep in sc.u.mmy water, fighting in the shadows, digging out the bodyguard one by one to reach that fat, glittering-eyed, b.u.t.tery- skinned b.a.s.t.a.r.d who had tortured some of Sharpe's companions to death. He remembered the echoing shouts, the musket flashes reflecting from the broken water and the glint of the gems draped over the Tippoo's silk clothes. He remembered the Tippoo's death too, one of the few killings that had ever lodged in Sharpe's memory as a thing of comfort. "He was a right royal b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Sharpe said feelingly, "but he died like a man."

"Captain Sharpe," Hogan put in hastily, "has something of a reputation in our army. Indeed, you may have heard of him yourself, my Lord? It was Captain

Sharpe who took the Talavera eagle."

"With Sergeant Harper," Sharpe put in, and Kiely's officers stared at Sharpe with a new curiosity. Any soldier who had taken an enemy standard was a man of renown and the faces of most of the guards' officers showed that respect, but it was the chaplain, Father Sarsfield, who reacted most fulsomely.

"My G.o.d and don't I remember it!" he said enthusiastically. "And didn't it just excite all the Spanish patriots in Madrid?" He climbed clumsily down from his horse and held a plump hand out to Sharpe. "It's an honour, Captain, an honour! Even though you are a heathen Protestant!" This last was said with a broad and friendly grin. "Are you a heathen, Sharpe?" the priest asked more earnestly.

"I'm nothing, Father."

"We're all something in G.o.d's eyes, my son, and loved for it. You and I shall talk, Sharpe. I shall tell you of G.o.d and you shall tell me how to strip the d.a.m.ned French of their eagles." The chaplain turned a smiling face on Hogan.

"By G.o.d, Major, but you do us proud by giving us a man like Sharpe!" The priest's approval of the rifleman had made the other officers of the Real

Compania Irlandesa relax, though Kiely's face was still dark with distaste.

"Have you finished, Father?" Kiely asked sarcastically.

"I shall be on my way with Captain Sharpe, my Lord, and we shall see you in the morning?"

Kiely nodded, then turned his horse away. His other officers followed, leaving

Sharpe, the priest and Captain Donaju to follow the straggling column formed by the Real Compania Irlandesa's baggage, wives and servants.

By nightfall the Real Compania Irlandesa was safe inside the remote San Isidro

Fort that Wellington had chosen to be their new barracks. The fort was old, outdated and had long been abandoned by the Portuguese so that the tired, newly arrived men first had to clean out the filthy stone barracks rooms that were to be their new home. The fort's towering gatehouse was reserved for the officers, and Father Sarsfield and Donaju made themselves comfortable there while Sharpe and his riflemen took possession of one of the magazines for their own lodgings. Sarsfield had brought a royal banner of Spain in his baggage that was proudly hoisted on the old fort's ramparts next to the union flag of Britain. "I'm sixty years old," the chaplain told Sharpe as he stood beneath Britain's flag, "and I never thought the day would come when I'd serve under that banner."

Sharpe looked up at the British flag. "Does it worry you, Father?"

"Napoleon worries me more, my son. Defeat Napoleon, then we can start on the lesser enemies like yourself!" The comment was made in a friendly tone. "What also worries me, my son," Father Sarsfield went on, "is that I've eight bottles of decent red wine and a handful of good cigars and only Captain

Donaju to share them with. Will you do me the honour of joining us for supper now? And tell me, do you play an instrument, perhaps? No? Sad. I used to have a violin, but it was lost somewhere, but Sergeant Connors is a rare man on the flute and the men in his section sing most beautifully. They sing of home,

Captain."

"Of Madrid?" Sharpe asked mischievously.

Sarsfield smiled. "Of Ireland, Captain, of our home across the water where few of us have ever set foot and most of us never shall. Come, let's have supper."