Sharpe's Battle Part 31

The smell of the dead was already rank in the fort. Carrion birds wheeled overhead or perched on the crumbling ramparts. There were a few entrenching tools in the fort already and Sharpe ordered the Real Compania Irlandesa to start digging a long trench for a grave. He made his own riflemen join the diggers. The greenjackets grumbled that such labouring was beneath their dignity as elite troops, but Sharpe insisted. "We do it because they're doing it," he told his unhappy men, jerking his thumb towards the Irish guardsmen.

Sharpe even took a hand himself, stripping to the waist and wielding a pickaxe as though it was an instrument of vengeance. He slammed the point repeatedly into the hard, rocky soil, wrenched it loose and swung again until the sweat poured off him.

"Sharpe?" A sad Colonel Runciman, mounted on his big horse, peered down at the sweating, bare-backed rifleman. "Is that really you, Sharpe?"

Sharpe straightened and pushed the hair out of his eyes. "Yes, General. It's me."

"You were flogged?" Runciman was staring aghast at the thick scars on Sharpe's back.

"In India, General, for something I didn't do."

"You shouldn't be digging now! It's beneath an officer's dignity to dig,

Sharpe. You must learn to behave as an officer."

Sharpe wiped the sweat off his face. "I like digging, General. It's honest work. I always fancied that one day I might have a farm. Just a small one, but with nothing but honest work to do from sun-up to lights-out. Are you here to say goodbye?"

Runciman nodded. "You know there's going to be a court of inquiry?"

"I heard, sir."

"They need someone to blame, I suppose," Runciman said. "General Valverde says someone should hang for this." Runciman fidgeted with his reins, then turned in his saddle to stare at the Spanish General who was a hundred paces away and deep in conversation with Lord Kiely. Kiely seemed to be doing most of the talking, gesticulating wildly, but also pointing towards Sharpe every few seconds. "You don't think they'll hang me, do you, Sharpe?" Runciman asked. He seemed very close to tears.

"They won't hang you, General," Sharpe said.

"But it'll mean disgrace all the same," Runciman said, sounding broken- hearted.

"So fight back," Sharpe said.

"How?"

"Tell them you ordered me to warn Oliveira. Which I did."

Runciman frowned. "But I didn't order you to do that, Sharpe."

"So? They won't know that, sir."

"I can't tell a lie!" Runciman said, shocked at the thought.

"It's your honour that's at stake, sir, and there'll be enough b.a.s.t.a.r.ds telling lies about you."

"I won't tell lies," Runciman insisted.

"Then bend the truth, for G.o.d's sake, sir. Tell them how you had to play tricks to get some decent muskets, and if it hadn't been for those muskets then no one would have lived last night! Play the hero, sir, make the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds wriggle!"

Runciman shook his head slowly. "I'm not a hero, Sharpe. I'd like to think there's a valued contribution I can make to the army, as my dear father made to the church, but I'm not sure I've found my real calling yet. But I can't pretend to be what I'm not." He took off his c.o.c.ked hat to wipe his brow. "I just came to say goodbye."

"Good luck, sir."

Runciman smiled ruefully. "I never had that, Sharpe, never. Except in my parents. I was lucky in my dear parents and in being blessed with a healthy appet.i.te. But otherwise... ?" He shrugged as though the question was unanswerable, put his hat on again and then, with a forlorn wave, turned and rode to join Hogan. Two ox-drawn wagons had come to the fort with spades and picks and as soon as the tools were unloaded Father Sarsfield commandeered the two vehicles so that the wounded could be carried to doctors and hospitals.

Hogan waved goodbye to Sharpe and led the wagons out of the fort. The surviving cacadores followed, marching beneath their flags. Lord Kiely said nothing to his men, but just rode southwards. Juanita, who had not shown her face outside the gatehouse all morning, rode beside him with her dogs running behind. General Valverde touched his hat to greet Juanita, then pulled his reins sharply around and spurred his horse across the fire-blackened gra.s.s of the fort's yard until he came to where Sharpe was digging. "Captain Sharpe?" he said.

"General?" Sharpe had to shade his eyes to look up at the tall, thin, yellow- uniformed man in his high saddle.

"What reason did General Loup have for his attack last night?"

"You must ask him, General," Sharpe said.

Valverde smiled. "Maybe I shall. Now back to your digging, Captain. Or should it be Lieutenant?" Valverde waited for an answer, but when none came he turned his horse and rammed his spurs hard back.

"What was all that about?" Harper asked.

"G.o.d knows," Sharpe said, watching the elegant Spaniard gallop to catch up with the wagons and the other hors.e.m.e.n. Except he did know, and he knew it meant trouble. He swore, then plucked the pick out of the soil and rammed it hard down again. A spark flew from a sc.r.a.p of flint as the pick's spike slashed deep. Sharpe let go of the handle. "But I'll tell you what I do know,

Pat. Everyone loses out of last night's business except G.o.dd.a.m.ned Loup, and

Loup's still out there and that gives me the gripe."

"So what can you do about it, sir?"

"At this moment, Pat, nothing. I don't even know where to find the b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Then El Castrador arrived.

"El Lobo is in San Cristobal, senor," El Castrador said. The partisan had come with five of his men to collect the muskets Sharpe had promised him. The

Spaniard claimed he needed a hundred weapons, though Sharpe doubted whether the man had even a dozen followers any more, yet doubtless any extra guns would be sold for a healthy profit. Sharpe gave El Castrador thirty of the muskets he had stored overnight in Runciman's quarters.

"I cannot spare more," he had told El Castrador, who had shrugged acceptance in the manner of a man accustomed to disappointments.

Now El Castrador was poking among the Portuguese dead, searching for plunder.

He picked up a rifle horn, turned it over and saw it had been holed by a bullet. He nevertheless wrenched off the horn's metal spout and shoved it into a capacious pocket of his bloodstained ap.r.o.n. "El Lobo is in San Cristobal," he said again.

"How do you know?" Sharpe asked.

"I am El Castrador!" the gross man said boastfully, then squatted beside a blackening corpse. He prised open the dead man's jaws with his big fingers.

"Is it true, senor, that you can sell the teeth of the dead?"

"In London, yes."

"For gold?"

"They pay gold, yes. Or silver," Sharpe said. The plundered teeth were made into sets of dentures for rich clients who wanted something better than replacement teeth made from bone or ivory.

El Castrador peeled the corpse's lips back to reveal a handsome set of incisors. "If I take the teeth out, senor, will you buy them from me? Then you can send them to London for a profit. You and me, eh? We can do business."