Sharpe's Fury Part 23

"You'll catch your death, sir," Lord William said with genuine concern.

"Aye, well, if I do, Major Hope knows what to do with my corpse," Sir Thomas said. He was wet through, but grinning broadly. "That water was cold, Willie! d.a.m.ned cold! Make sure those infantrymen get a change of clothes." He laughed suddenly. "When I was a lad, Willie, we chased a fox into the Tay. I was just a boy and the hounds were doing nothing except bark at the thing, so I drove my horse into the river and caught the beast with my bare hands. I thought I was a hero! My uncle gave me a whipping for that. Never do the hounds' work, he told me, but sometimes you have to, sometimes you just have to."

The dragoons had swerved northward, never coming within a mile of the troops crossing the causeway, and when the light cavalry of the King's German Legion trotted toward them the dragoons galloped fast away. The rest of the Spanish infantry crossed, still going with painful slowness, so that it was dusk before Sir Thomas's two brigades came across the causeway, and full dark before the army marched again. The road climbed steadily and undramatically toward the lights of Vejer that flickered and twinkled on the hilltop beneath the stars. The army marched north of the town, following a road that led to a midnight bivouac in a spread of olive groves where Sir Thomas at last rid himself of his damp clothes and crouched over a fire to get warm.

Foraging parties went out the next day, returning with a herd of skinny bullocks and a flock of pregnant ewes and fractious goats. Sir Thomas fretted, eager to be moving, and, for want of other activity, he rode with a squadron of German cavalry to find that the hills north and east were lively with enemy hors.e.m.e.n. A troop of Spanish cavalry cantered down a stream bank to join Sir Thomas's men. Their commander was a captain who wore yellow breeches, a yellow waistcoat, and a blue jacket with red facings. He touched his hat to Sir Thomas. "They're watching us," he spoke in French, a.s.suming that Sir Thomas could not speak Spanish.

"That's their job," Sir Thomas answered in Spanish. He had taken care to learn the language when he was first posted to Cadiz.

"Captain Sarasa." The Spaniard named himself, then took a cigar from his saddlebag. One of his men struck a light with a tinderbox and Sarasa bent over the flame until the cigar was drawing properly. "I have orders," he said, "not to engage the enemy."

Sir Thomas heard the sullen tone and understood that Sarasa was frustrated. He wanted to take his men up to the crests of the low hills and match them against the French vedettes. "You have orders?" Sir Thomas inquired tonelessly.

"General Lapena's orders. We are to protect the forage parties, no more."

"You would rather fight?"

"Is that not why we are here?" Sarasa asked truculently.

Sir Thomas liked Sarasa. He was a young man, probably not yet thirty, and he had a belligerence that encouraged Sir Thomas, who believed that the Spaniards would fight like devils if they were given a chance and, perhaps, some leadership. At Bailen, three years before, a Spanish force had outfought a whole French corps and forced a surrender. They had even taken an eagle so they could fight well enough and, if Captain Sarasa was an example, they wanted to fight, but for once Sir Thomas found himself agreeing with Lapena. "What's across the hill, Captain?" he asked.

Sarasa stared at the nearest crest where two vedettes were visible. A vedette was a sentry post of cavalrymen who were posted to watch an enemy. There were twelve men in the two vedettes while Sir Thomas, reinforced now by Sarasa's swordsmen, had more than sixty. "We don't know, Sir Thomas," he admitted.

"There's probably nothing across the hill," Sir Thomas said, "and we could chase those fellows off, and if we did we'd see them on a farther hill and we'd think there's no harm in chasing them off that, and so it would go on until we're five miles north of here and the forage parties are dead."

Sarasa drew on his cigar. "They offend me," he said vehemently.

"They disgust me," Sir Thomas said, "but we fight them where we choose or where we must, not always when we want."

Sarasa gave a quick smile as if to say he had learned his lesson. He tapped ash from his cigar. "The rest of my regiment, Sir Thomas," he said, "is ordered to reconnoiter the road to Conil." He spoke very flatly.

"Conil?" Sir Thomas asked and Sarasa nodded. The Spaniard was still watching the distant dragoons, but he was very aware as Sir Thomas took a folded map from his saddlebag. It was a bad map, but it did show Gibraltar and Cadiz, and between them it marked Medina Sidonia and Vejer, the town which lay just to the south. Sir Thomas drew a finger westward from Vejer until he reached the Atlantic coast.

"Conil?" he asked again, tapping the map.

"Conil de la Frontera." Sarasa confirmed the location by giving the town its full name. "Conil beside the sea," he added in an angrier voice.

Beside the sea. Sir Thomas stared at the map. Conil was indeed on the sh.o.r.e. Ten miles north of it was a village called Barrosa, and from there a road led east to Chiclana, which was the base of the French siege lines, but Sir Thomas already knew that General Lapena had no intention of using that road, because, just a couple of miles north of Barrosa was the Rio Sancti Petri where, supposedly, the Spanish garrison was making a pontoon bridge. Cross that bridge and the army would be back on the Isla de Leon, and another two hours' marching would have Lapena's men back in Cadiz and safe from the French. "No," Sir Thomas said angrily and his horse stirred nervously.

The road north from Vejer was the one to take. Break through the French cordon of vedettes and march hard. Victor would be defending Chiclana, of course, but by skirting east of the city the allied army could maneuver the French marshal out of his prepared position and force him to fight on ground of their own choosing. But instead the Spanish general was thinking of a stroll by the sea? He was thinking of retreating to Cadiz? Sir Thomas could hardly believe it, but he knew that an attack on Chiclana from Barrosa was untenable. It would be an advance over poor country tracks against an army in prepared positions and Lapena would never contemplate such a risk. Dona Manolito just wanted to go home, but to get home he would march his army along a coastal road and all the French needed to do was advance on that road to trap the allies against the sea. "No!" Sir Thomas said again, then turned his horse toward the distant encampment. He spurred away, then abruptly curbed the stallion and turned back to Sarasa. "You're not to engage, those are your orders?"

"Yes, Sir Thomas."

"But of course, if those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds threaten you, then your duty is to kill them, isn't it?"

"Is it, Sir Thomas?"

"a.s.suredly yes! And I am sure you will do your duty, Captain, but don't pursue them! Don't abandon the foragers! No further than the skyline, you hear me?" Sir Thomas spurred on and reckoned that if one Frenchman of the vedette even raised a hand, then Sarasa would attack. So at least some enemy would die, even if Dona Manolito apparently wanted the rest to live forever. "b.l.o.o.d.y man," Sir Thomas growled to himself, "b.l.o.o.d.y, b.l.o.o.d.y man," and rode to save the campaign.

"I SAW SAW your friend last night," Captain Galiana said to Sharpe. your friend last night," Captain Galiana said to Sharpe.

"My friend?"

"Dancing at Bachica's."

"Oh, Caterina?" Sharpe said. Caterina had returned to Cadiz, traveling there in a hired carriage and with a valise filled with money.

"You didn't tell me she was a widow," Galiana said reprovingly. "You called her senorita!"

Sharpe gaped at Galiana. "A widow!"

"She was dressed in black, with a veil," Galiana said. "She didn't actually dance, of course, but she watched the dancing." He and Sharpe were on a patch of shingle at the edge of the bay. The north wind brought the stench of the prison hulks moored off the salt flats. Two guard boats rowed slowly down the hulks.

"She didn't dance?" Sharpe asked.

"She's a widow. How could she? It is too soon. She told me her husband has only been dead for three months." Galiana paused, evidently remembering Caterina riding on the beach where her dress and demeanor had been anything but bereaved. He decided to say nothing of that. "She was most gracious to me," he said instead. "I like her."

"She's very likable," Sharpe said.

"Your brigadier was also there," Galiana said.

"Moon? He's not my brigadier," Sharpe said, "and I don't suppose he was dancing either."

"He was on crutches," Galiana said, "and he gave me orders."

"You! He can't give you orders!" Sharpe spun a stone into the water, hoping it would skip across the small waves, but it sank instantly. "I hope you told him to go to h.e.l.l and stay there."

"These orders," Galiana said, taking a piece of paper from his uniform pocket and handing it to Sharpe to whom, surprisingly, the orders were addressed. The paper was a dance card and the words had been carelessly scrawled in pencil. Captain Sharpe and the men under his command were to post themselves at the Rio Sancti Petri until further orders or until the forces presently under the command of Lieutenant General Graham were safely returned to the Isla de Leon. Sharpe read the scrawled note a second time. "I'm not sure Brigadier Moon can give me orders," he said.

"He did, though," Captain Galiana said, "and I, of course, will come with you."

Sharpe returned the dance card. He said nothing, just skimmed another stone that managed one bounce before vanishing. Grazing, it was called. A good artilleryman knew how to skip cannon b.a.l.l.s along the ground to increase their effective range. The b.a.l.l.s grazed, kicking up dust, coming flat and hard and b.l.o.o.d.y.

"It is a precaution," Galiana said, folding the card.

"Against what?"

Galiana selected a stone, threw it fast and low, and watched as it skipped a dozen times. "General Zayas is at the bridge across the Sancti Petri," he said, "with four battalions. He has orders to stop anyone from the city crossing the river."

"You told me," Sharpe said, "but why stop you?"

"Because there are folk in the city," Galiana explained, "who are anfrancesado. anfrancesado. You know what that is?" You know what that is?"

"They're on the French side."

Galiana nodded. "And some, alas, are officers in the garrison. General Zayas has orders to stop such men offering their services to the enemy."

"Let the b.u.g.g.e.rs go," Sharpe said. "Have fewer mouths to feed."

"But he won't stop British troops."

"You told me that, too, and I said I'd help you. So why the h.e.l.l do you need orders from b.l.o.o.d.y Moon?"

"In my army, Captain," Galiana said, "a man cannot just take it upon himself to do whatever he wants. He requires orders. You now have orders. So, you can take me over the river and I shall find our army."

"And you?" Sharpe asked. "Do you have orders?"

"Me?" Galiana seemed surprised at the question, then paused because one of the great French mortars had fired from the forts on the Trocadero. The sound came flat and dull across the bay and Sharpe waited to see where the sh.e.l.l would fall, but he heard no explosion. The missile must have plunged into the sea. "I have no orders," Galiana admitted.

"Then why are you going?"

"Because the French have to be beaten," Galiana said with a sudden vehemence. "Spain must free herself! We must fight! But I am like your brigadier, like the widow-I cannot join the dance. General Lapena hated my father and he detests me and he does not want me to distinguish myself, so I am left behind. But I will not be left behind. I will fight for Spain." The grandiosity of his last words were touched by pa.s.sion.

Sharpe watched the cloud of smoke left by the mortar's firing drift and dissipate across the distant marshes. He tried to imagine himself saying he would fight for Britain in that same heartfelt tone, and could not. He fought because it was all he was good for, and because he was good at it, and because he had a duty to his men. Then he thought of those riflemen. They would be unhappy at being ordered away from the taverns of San Fernando, and so they should be. But they would follow orders. "I"-he began and immediately fell silent.

"What?"

"Nothing," Sharpe said. He had been about to say that he could not order his riflemen into a battle that was none of their business. Sharpe would fight if he saw Vandal, but that was personal, but his riflemen had no ax to grind and their battalion was miles away, and it was all too complicated to explain to Galiana. Besides, it was unlikely that Sharpe would travel to the army with Galiana. He might take the Spaniard across the river, but unless the allied army was within sight Sharpe would have to bring his men back. The Spaniard could ride across country to find Lapena, but Sharpe and his men would not have the luxury of horses. "Did you tell Moon all that?" he asked. "About you wanting to fight?"

"I told him I wanted to join General Lapena's army and that if I traveled with British troops then Zayas would not stop me."

"And he just wrote the orders?"

"He was reluctant to," Galiana admitted, "but he wanted something from me, so he agreed to my request."

"He wanted something from you," Sharpe said, then smiled as he realized just what that something must have been. "So you introduced him to the widow?"

"Exactly."

"And he's a rich man," Sharpe said, "very rich." He skimmed another stone and thought that Caterina would skin the brigadier alive.

SIR T THOMAS Graham discovered General Lapena in an uncharacteristically cheerful mood. The Spanish commander had taken a farmhouse for his headquarters and, because the winter's day was sunny and because the house sheltered the yard from the north wind, Lapena was taking lunch at a table outside. He shared the table with three of his aides and with the French captain who had been captured on the way to Vejer. The five men had been served dishes of bread and beans, cheese and dark ham, and had a stone jug of red wine. "Sir Thomas!" Lapena seemed pleased to see him. "You will join us, perhaps?" He spoke in French. He knew Sir Thomas could speak Spanish, but he preferred to use French. It was, after all, the language with which European gentlemen communicated. Graham discovered General Lapena in an uncharacteristically cheerful mood. The Spanish commander had taken a farmhouse for his headquarters and, because the winter's day was sunny and because the house sheltered the yard from the north wind, Lapena was taking lunch at a table outside. He shared the table with three of his aides and with the French captain who had been captured on the way to Vejer. The five men had been served dishes of bread and beans, cheese and dark ham, and had a stone jug of red wine. "Sir Thomas!" Lapena seemed pleased to see him. "You will join us, perhaps?" He spoke in French. He knew Sir Thomas could speak Spanish, but he preferred to use French. It was, after all, the language with which European gentlemen communicated.

"Conil!" Sir Thomas was so angry that he did not bother to show courtesy. He slid from his saddle and tossed the reins to an orderly. "You want to march to Conil?" he said accusingly.

"Ah, Conil!" Lapena clicked his fingers at a servant and indicated that he wanted another chair brought from the farmhouse. "I had a sergeant from Conil," he said. "He used to talk of the sardine catch. Such bounty!"

"Why Conil? You're hungry for sardines?"

Lapena looked sadly at Sir Thomas. "You have not met Captain Brouard? He has, of course, given us his parole." The captain, wearing his French blue and with a sword at his side, was a thin, tall man with an intelligent face. He had watery eyes, half hidden behind thick spectacles. He stood on being introduced and offered Sir Thomas a bow.

Sir Thomas ignored him. "What is the purpose," he asked, resting his hands on the table so that he leaned toward Lapena, "in marching on Conil?"

"Ah, the chicken!" Lapena smiled as a woman brought a roasted chicken from the farmhouse and placed it on the table. "Garay, you will carve?"

"Allow me the honor, Excellency," Brouard offered.

"The honor is all ours, Captain," Lapena said, and ceremoniously handed the Frenchman the carving knife and a long fork.

"We hired ships," Sir Thomas growled, ignoring the chair that had been placed next to Lapena's place at the table, "and we waited for the fleet to a.s.semble. We waited for the wind to be in our favor. We sailed south. We landed at Tarifa because that gave us the ability to reach the rear of the French positions. Now we march to Conil? For G.o.d's sake, why did we bother with the fleet at all? Why didn't we just cross the Rio Sancti Petri and march straight to Conil? It would have taken a short day and we wouldn't have needed a single ship!"

Lapena's aides stared resentfully at Sir Thomas. Brouard pretended to ignore the conversation, concentrating instead on carving the fowl, which he did with an admirable dexterity. He had jointed the carca.s.s and now cut perfect slice after perfect slice.

"Things change," Lapena said vaguely.

"What has changed?" Sir Thomas demanded.

Lapena sighed. He hooked a finger at an aide who at last understood that his master wished to see a map. Dishes were put aside as the map was unfolded onto the table and Sir Thomas noted that the map was a good deal better than the ones the Spanish had supplied to him.

"We are here," Lapena said, placing a bean just north of Vejer, "and the enemy are here," he put another bean on Chiclana, "and we have three roads by which we may approach the enemy. The first, and longest, is to the east, through Medina Sidonia." Another bean served to mark the town. "But we know the French have a garrison there. Is that not right, monsieur?" he appealed to Brouard.

"A formidable garrison," Brouard said, separating the drumstick from the carca.s.s with a surgeon's skill.

"So we shall find ourselves between Marshal Victor's army here"-Lapena touched the bean marking Chiclana-"and the garrison here." He indicated Medina Sidonia. "We can avoid the garrison, Sir Thomas, by taking the second road. That goes north from here and will approach Chiclana from the south. It is a bad road. It is not direct. It climbs into these hills"-his forefinger tapped some hatch marks-"and the French will have picquets there. Is that not so, monsieur?"

"Many picquets," Brouard said, easing out the wishbone. "You should inform your chef, mon general, mon general, that if he removes the wishbone before cooking the bird, the carving will be made easier." that if he removes the wishbone before cooking the bird, the carving will be made easier."

"How good to know that," Lapena said, then looked back to Sir Thomas. "The picquets will apprise Marshal Victor of our approach so he will be ready for us. He will confront us with numbers superior to our own. In all conscience, Sir Thomas, I cannot use that road, not if we are to gain the victory we both pray for. But fortunately there is a third road, a road that goes along the sea. Here"-Lapena paused, putting a fourth bean on the sh.o.r.eline-"is a place called..." He hesitated, unsure what place the bean marked and finding no help from the map.

"Barrosa," an aide said.

"Barrosa! It is called Barrosa. From there, Sir Thomas, there are tracks across the heath to Chiclana."

"And the French will know we're using them," Sir Thomas said, "and they'll be ready for us."

"True!" Lapena seemed pleased that Sir Thomas had understood such an elementary point. "But here, Sir Thomas"-his finger moved to the mouth of the Sancti Petri-"is General Zayas with a whole corps of men. If we march to..." He paused again.

"Barrosa," the aide said.

"Barrosa," Lapena said energetically, "then we can combine with General Zayas. Together we shall outnumber the French! At Chiclana they have, what? Two divisions?" He put the question to Brouard.

"Three divisions," the Frenchman confirmed, "the last I heard."

"Three!" Lapena sounded alarmed, then waved a hand as if dismissing the news. "Two? Three? What does it matter? We shall a.s.sail them from the flank!" Lapena said. "We shall come at them from the west, we shall destroy them, and we shall gain a great victory. Forgive my enthusiasm, Captain," he added to Brouard.

"You trust him?" Sir Thomas asked Lapena, jerking his head at the Frenchman.

"He is a gentleman!"

"So was Pontius Pilate," Sir Thomas said. He thrust a big finger down onto the sh.o.r.eline. "Use that road," he said, "and you place our army between the French and the sea. Marshal Victor is not going to wait at Chiclana. He's going to come for us. You want to see your men drowning in the surf?"