Sharpe's Battle Part 23

There was nothing but gra.s.s and weed-strewn waste land for a hundred yards, then the red stone barracks buildings began. There were eight long buildings and the Real Compania Irlandesa bivouacked in the two that had been kept in best repair while Sharpe's riflemen camped in one of the magazines close to the gate tower. That tower, Sharpe decided, was the key to the defence, for whoever held the tower would dominate the fight. "All we need is three or four minutes' warning," Sharpe said, "and we can make the b.u.g.g.e.r wish he'd stayed in bed."

"You can beat him?" Harper asked.

"He thinks he can surprise us. He thinks he can break into the barracks and slaughter us in our beds, Pat, but if we just have some warning we can turn that gate tower into a fortress and without artillery Loup can't do a d.a.m.n thing about it." Sharpe was suddenly enthusiastic. "Don't you always say that a good fight is a tonic to an Irishman?" he asked.

"Only when I'm drunk," Harper said.

"Let's pray for a fight anyway," Sharpe said eagerly, "and a victory. My G.o.d, that'll put some confidence into these guards!"

But then, at dusk, just as the last red-gold rays were shrinking behind the western hills, everything changed.

The Portuguese battalion arrived unannounced. They were cacadores, skirmishers like the greenjackets, only these troops were outfitted in blood-brown jackets and grey British trousers. They carried Baker rifles and looked as if they knew how to use them. They marched into the fort with the easy, lazy step of veteran troops, while behind them came a convoy of three ox-drawn wagons loaded with rations, firewood and spare ammunition. The battalion was a little over half strength, mustering just four hundred rank and file, but the men still made a brave show as they paraded on the fort's old plaza.

Their Colonel was a thin-faced man called Oliveira. "For a few days every year," he explained off-handedly to Lord Kiely, "we occupy the San Isidro.

Just as a way of reminding ourselves that the fort exists and to discourage anyone else from setting up house here. No, don't move your men out of the barracks. My men don't need roofs. And we won't be in your way, Colonel. I'll exercise my rogues across the frontier for the next few days."

Behind the last supply wagons the fort's great gates creaked shut. They crashed together, then one of Kiely's men lifted the locking bar into position. Colonel Runciman hurried out of the gatehouse to offer his greeting to Colonel Oliveira and to invite the Portuguese officer to supper, but

Oliveira declined. "I share my men's supper, Colonel. No offence." Oliveira spoke good English and nearly half his officers were British, the result of a policy to integrate the Portuguese army into Wellington's forces. To Sharpe's delight one of the cacador officers was Thomas Garrard, a man who had served with Sharpe in the ranks of the 33rd and who had taken advantage of the promotion prospects offered to British sergeants willing to join the

Portuguese army. The two men had last met at Almeida when the great fortress had exploded in a horror that had led to the garrison's surrender. Garrard had been among the men forced to lay down his arms.

"b.l.o.o.d.y c.r.a.paud b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," he said feelingly. "Kept us in Burgos with hardly enough food to feed a rat, and what food there was was all rotted. Christ,

d.i.c.k, you and I have eaten some bad meals in our time, but this was really bad. And all because that d.a.m.ned cathedral exploded. I'd like to meet the

French gunner who did that and wring his b.l.o.o.d.y neck."

In truth it had been Sharpe who had caused the magazine in the cathedral's crypt to explode, but it did not seem a politic admission to make. "It was a bad business," Sharpe agreed mildly.

"You got out next morning, didn't you?" Garrard asked. "c.o.x wouldn't let us go. We wanted to fight our way out, but he said we had to do the decent thing and surrender." He shook his head in disgust. "Not that it matters now," he went on. "The c.r.a.pauds exchanged me and Oliveira asked me to join his regiment and now I'm a captain like you."

"Well done."

"They're good lads," Garrard said fondly of his company which was bivouacking in the open s.p.a.ce inside the northern ramparts where the Portuguese campfires burned bright in the dusk. Oliveira's picquets were on every rampart save the gate tower. Such efficient sentries meant that Sharpe no longer needed to deploy his own riflemen on picquet duty, but he was still apprehensive and told Garrard his fears as the two men strolled round the darkening ramparts.

"I've heard of Loup," Garrard said. "He's a right b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Nasty as h.e.l.l."

"And you think he's coming here?"

"Just an instinct, Tom."

"h.e.l.l, ignore those and you might as well dig your own grave, eh? Let's go and see the Colonel."

But Oliveira was not so easily convinced of Sharpe's fears, nor did Juanita de

Elia help Sharpe's cause. Juanita and Lord Kiely had returned from a day's hunting and, with Father Sarsfield, Colonel Runciman and a half-dozen of the

Real Compania Irlandesa's officers, were guests at the Portuguese supper.

Juanita scorned Sharpe's warning. "You think a French brigadier would bother himself with an English captain?" she asked mockingly.

Sharpe suppressed a stab of evil temper. He had been speaking to Oliveira, not to Kiely's wh.o.r.e, but this was not the time or the place to pick a quarrel.

Besides, he recognized that in some obscure way his and Juanita's dislike of each other was bred into the bone and probably unavoidable. She would talk to any other officer in the fort, even to Runciman, but at Sharpe's very appearance she would turn and walk away rather than offer a polite greeting.

"I think he'll bother with me, ma'am, yes," Sharpe said mildly.

"Why?" Oliveira demanded.

"Go on, man, answer!" Kiely said when Sharpe hesitated.

"Well, Captain?" Juanita mocked Sharpe. "Lost your tongue?"

"I think he'll bother with me, ma'am," Sharpe said, stung into an answer,

"because I killed two of his men."

"Oh, my G.o.d!" Juanita pretended to be shocked. "Anyone would think there was a war happening!"

Kiely and some of the Portuguese officers smiled, but Colonel Oliveira just stared at Sharpe as though weighing the warning carefully. Finally he shrugged. "Why would he worry that you killed two of his men?" he asked.

Sharpe hesitated to confess to what he knew was a crime against military justice, but he could hardly withdraw now. The safety of the fort and all the men inside depended on him convincing Oliveira of the genuine danger and so, very reluctantly, he described the raped and ma.s.sacred village and how he had captured two of Loup's men and stood them up against a wall.

"You had orders to shoot them?" Oliveira asked presciently.

"No, sir," Sharpe said, aware of the eyes staring at him. He knew it might prove a horrid mistake to have admitted the executions, but he desperately needed to persuade Oliveira of the danger and so he described how Loup had ridden to the small upland village to plead for his men's lives and how, despite that appeal, Sharpe had ordered them shot. Colonel Runciman, hearing the tale for the first time, shook his head in disbelief.

"You shot the men in front of Loup?" Oliveira asked, surprised.

"Yes, sir."

"So this rivalry between you and Loup is a personal vendetta, Captain Sharpe?" the Portuguese Colonel asked.

"In a way, sir."

"Either yes or no!" Oliveira snapped. He was a forceful, quicktempered man who reminded Sharpe of General Craufurd, the Light Division's commander. Oliveira had the same impatience with evasive answers.

"I believe Brigadier Loup will attack very soon, sir," Sharpe insisted.

"Proof?"

"Our vulnerability," Sharpe said, "and because he's put a price on my head, sir." He knew it sounded feeble and he blushed when Juanita laughed aloud. She was wearing her Real Compania Irlandesa uniform, though she had unb.u.t.toned the coat and shirt so that the flamelight glowed on her long neck. Every officer around the fire seemed fascinated by her, and no wonder, for she was a flamboyantly exotic creature in this place of guns and powder and stone. She sat close to Kiely, an arm resting on his knee and Sharpe wondered if perhaps they had announced their betrothal. Something seemed to have put the supper guests into a holiday mood. "How much is the price, Captain?" she asked mockingly.

Sharpe bit back a retort that the reward would prove more than enough to hire her services for a night. "I don't know," he lied instead.