Sharpe's Battle Part 22

Britain being b.l.o.o.d.y to Ireland? It smacks of mischief to me."

Father Sarsfield folded the paper. "I think you're probably right, Sharpe, and praise be to G.o.d for it. But you won't mind, will you, if I ride with Captain

Donaju today?"

"It isn't up to me what you do, Father," Sharpe said. "But for the rest of you, let's get to work!"

Sharpe waited while the delegation left. He motioned Harper to stay behind, but Father Sarsfield also lingered for Sharpe's attention. "I'm sorry,

Sharpe," the priest said.

"Why?"

Sarsfield flinched at Sharpe's harsh tone. "I imagine you do not need Irish problems intruding on your life."

"I don't need any d.a.m.n problems, Father. I've got a job to do, and the job is to turn your boys into soldiers, good soldiers."

Sarsfield smiled. "I think you are a rare thing, Captain Sharpe: an honest man."

"Of course I'm not," Sharpe said, almost blushing as he remembered the horrors done to the three men caught by El Castrador at Sharpe's request. "I'm not a b.l.o.o.d.y saint, Father, but I do like to get things done. If I spent my d.a.m.n life dreaming dreams I'd still be in the ranks. You can only afford dreams if you're rich and privileged." He added the last words viciously.

"You speak of Kiely," Sarsfield said and started walking slowly back along the ramparts beside Sharpe. The skirts of the priest's soutane were wet with the dew from the ragweed and gra.s.s that grew inside the fort. "Lord Kiely is a very weak man, Captain,"

Sarsfield went on. "He had a very strong mother"-the priest grimaced at the memory-"and you would not know, Captain, what a trial to the church strong women can be, but I think they can be even more of a trial to their sons. Lady

Kiely wanted her son to be a great Catholic warrior, an Irish warrior! The

Catholic warlord who would succeed where the Protestant lawyer Wolfe Tone failed, but instead she drove him into drink, pettiness and whoring. I buried her last year"-he made a quick sign of the cross - "and I fear her son did not mourn her as a son should mourn his mother nor, alas, will he ever be the

Christian she wanted him to be. He told me last night that he intends to marry the Lady Juanita and his mother, I think, will be weeping in purgatory at the thought of such a match." The priest sighed. "Still, I didn't want to talk to you about Kiely. Instead, Captain, I beg you to be a little patient with us."

"I thought I was being patient with you," Sharpe said defensively.

"With us Irish," Father Sarsfield explained. "You are a man with a country,

Captain, and you don't know what it's like to be an exile. You cannot know what it is like to be listening to the harps beside the waters of Babylon."

Sarsfield smiled at the phrase, then shrugged. "It's like a wound, Captain

Sharpe, that never heals, and I pray to G.o.d that you never have to feel that wound for yourself

Sharpe felt a stab of embarra.s.sed pity as he looked into the priest's kindly face. "Were you never in Ireland, Father?"

"Once, my son, years ago. Long years ago, but if I live a thousand years that one brief stay will always seem like yesterday." He smiled ruefully, then hitched up his damp soutane. "I must join Donaju for our expedition! Think about my words, Captain!" The priest hurried away, his white hair lifting in the breeze.

Harper joined Sharpe. "A nice man, that," Harper said, nodding at the priest's receding back. "He was telling me how he was in Donegal once. Up in Lough

Sw.i.l.l.y. I had an aunt who lived that way, G.o.d rest her poor soul. She was in

Rathmullen."

"I never was in Donegal," Sharpe said, "and I'll probably never get there, and frankly, Sergeant, right at this moment I don't care. I've got enough b.l.o.o.d.y troubles without the b.l.o.o.d.y Irish going moody on me. We need blankets, food and money which means I'm going to have to get Runciman to write another of his magic orders, but it won't be easy because the fat b.u.g.g.e.r's scared s.h.i.tless of being court-martialled. Lord b.l.o.o.d.y Kiely's no b.l.o.o.d.y help. All he does is suck brandy, dream about b.l.o.o.d.y glory and trail around behind that black-haired wh.o.r.e like a mooncalf." Sharpe, despite Sarsfield's advice about patience, was losing his temper. "The priest is telling me to feel sorry for you all, Hogan wants me to kick these lads in the teeth and there's a fat

Spaniard with a castrating knife who thinks I'm going to hold Loup down while he cuts off his b.l.o.o.d.y b.a.l.l.s. Everyone expects me to solve all their b.l.o.o.d.y problems, so for G.o.d's sake give me some b.l.o.o.d.y help."

"I always do," Harper said resentfully.

"Yes, you do, Pat, and I'm sorry."

"And if the stories were true-" Harper began.

"They're not!" Sharpe shouted.

"All right! All right! G.o.d save Ireland." Harper blew out a long breath, then there was an awkward silence between the two men. Sharpe just glowered to the north while Harper clambered down into a nearby gun embrasure and kicked at a loosened stone. "G.o.d knows why they built a fort up here," he said at last.

"There used to be a main road down there." Sharpe nodded to the pa.s.s which lay to the north. "It was a way to avoid Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, but half the road got washed away and what's left of it can't take modern guns so it's no use these days. But the road eastwards is still all there, Pat, and Loup's b.l.o.o.d.y brigade can use it. Down there"-he pointed to the route as he spoke-"up this slope, over these walls and straight down on us and there's b.u.g.g.e.r all here to stop them."

"Why would Loup do that?" Harper asked.

"Because he's a mad, brave, ruthless b.u.g.g.e.r, that's why. And because he hates me and because kicking the lights out of us would be a cheap victory for the b.a.s.t.a.r.d." Sharpe had become preoccupied by the threat of a night raid by

Loup's brigade. He had first thought of the raid merely as a means of frightening Colonel Runciman into signing his fraudulent wagon orders, but the more Sharpe had thought about it, the more likely such a raid seemed. And the

San Isidro Fort was hopelessly ill prepared for such an attack. A thousand men might have been able to hold its degraded ramparts, but the Real Compania

Irlandesa was far too small a unit to offer any real resistance. They would be trapped within the vast, crumbling walls like rats in a terrier's fighting ring. "Which is just what Hogan and Wellington want," Sharpe said aloud.

"What's that, sir?"

"They don't b.l.o.o.d.y trust your Irishmen, see? They want them out of the way and

I'm supposed to help get rid of the b.u.g.g.e.rs, but the trouble is I like them.

d.a.m.n it, Pat. If Loup comes we'll all be dead."

"You think he's coming?"

"I b.l.o.o.d.y well know he's coming," Sharpe said fervently, and suddenly the vague suspicions hardened into an utter certainty. He might have just made a vigorous proclamation of his practicality, but in truth he relied on instinct most of the time. Sometimes, Sharpe knew, the wise soldier listened to his superst.i.tions and fears because they were a better guide than mere practicality. Good flat hard sense dictated that Loup would not waste valuable effort by raiding the San Isidro Fort, but Sharpe rejected that good sense because his every instinct told him there was trouble coming. "I don't know when or how he'll come," he told Harper, "but I'm not trusting a palace guard to serve picquet. I want our boys up here." He meant he wanted riflemen guarding the fort's northern extremity. "And I want a night picquet too, so make sure a couple of the lads get some sleep today."

Harper gazed down the long northern slope. "You think they'll come this way?"

"It's the easiest. West and east are too steep, the southern end is too strong, but a cripple could waltz across this wall. Jesus." This last imprecation was torn from Sharpe as he realized just how vulnerable the fort was. He stared eastwards. "I'll bet that b.a.s.t.a.r.d is watching us right now."

From the far peaks a Frenchman armed with a good telescope could probably count the b.u.t.tons on Sharpe's jacket.

"You really think he'll come?" Harper asked.

"I think we're d.a.m.n lucky he hasn't come already. I think we're d.a.m.n lucky to be alive." Sharpe jumped off the ramparts onto the gra.s.s inside the fort.