Sharpe's Havoc Part 24

"You want to take some men on patrol? Then do it, but the rest of us stay up here. This place is our one chance of staying alive."

Vicente shivered. "You will not keep going south?"

"We get off this hill," Sharpe said, "and we're going to have dragoons giving us haircuts with their b.l.o.o.d.y swords. We're trapped, Lieutenant, we're trapped."

"You will let me take a patrol down to the village?"

"Three men," Sharpe said. He was reluctant to let even three men go with Vicente, but he could see that the Portuguese lieutenant was desperate to know what was happening to his countrymen. "Stay in cover, Lieutenant," Sharpe advised. "Stay in the trees. Go very carefully!"

Vicente was back three hours later. There were simply too many dragoons and blue-jacketed infantry around Vila Real de Zedes and he had got nowhere near the village. "But I heard screams," he said.

"Aye," Sharpe said, "you would have done."

Beneath him, beyond the Quinta, the remnants of the village church burned out in the dark damp night. It was the only light he could see. There were no stars, no candles, no lamps, just the sullen red glow of the burning church.

And tomorrow, Sharpe knew, the French would come for him again.

In the morning the French officers had breakfast on the terrace of the tavern beneath a vine trellis. The village had proved to be full of food and there was newly baked bread, ham, eggs and coffee for breakfast. The rain had gone to leave a damp feel in the wind, but there were shadows in the fields and the promise of warm sunlight in the air. The smoke of the burned-out church drifted northwards, taking with it the stench of roasted flesh.

Maria, the red-headed girl, served Colonel Christopher his coffee. The Colonel was picking his teeth with a sliver of ivory, but he took it from his mouth to thank her. "Obrigado, Maria," he said in a pleasant tone. Maria shuddered, but nodded a hasty acknowledgment as she backed away.

"She's replaced your servant?" Brigadier Vuillard asked.

"The wretched fellow's missing," Christopher said. "Runaway. Gone."

"A fair exchange," Vuillard said, watching Maria. "That one's much prettier."

"She was pretty," Christopher allowed. Maria's face was badly bruised now and the bruises had swollen to spoil her beauty. "And she'll be pretty again," he went on.

"You hit her hard," Vuillard said with a hint of reproach.

Christopher sipped his coffee. "The English have a saying, Brigadier. A spaniel, a woman and a walnut tree, the more they're beaten the better they be."

"A walnut tree?"

"They say if the trunk is well thrashed it increases the yield of nuts; I have no idea if it's true, but I do know that a woman has to be broken like a dog or a horse."

"Broken," Vuillard repeated the word. He was rather in awe of Christopher's sangfroid.

"The stupid girl resisted me," Christopher explained, "she put up a fight, so I taught her who is master. Every woman needs to be taught that."

"Even a wife?"

"Especially a wife," Christopher said, "though the process might be slower. You don't break a good mare quickly, but take your time. But this one"-he jerked his head toward Maria-"this one needed a d.a.m.ned fast whipping. I don't mind if she resents me, but one doesn't want a wife to be soured by resentment."

Maria was not the only one with a bruised face. Major Dulong had a black mark across the bridge of his nose and a scowl just as dark. He had reached the watchtower before the British and Portuguese troops, but with a smaller group of men and then he had been surprised by the ferocity with which the enemy had attacked him. "Let me go back, mon General," he pleaded with Vuillard.

"Of course, Dulong, of course." Vuillard did not blame the voltigeur officer for the night's only failure. It seemed that the British and Portuguese troops, whom everyone had expected to find in the Quinta's stables, had decided to go south and thus had been halfway to the watch-tower when the attack began. But Major Dulong was not accustomed to failure and the repulse on the hilltop had hurt his pride. "Of course you can go back," the Brigadier rea.s.sured him, "but not straightaway. I think we shall let les belles filles have their wicked way with them first, yes?"

"Les belles filles?" Christopher asked, wondering why on earth Vuillard would send girls up to the watchtower.

"The Emperor's name for his cannon," Vuillard explained. "Les belles filles. There's a battery at Valengo and they must have a brace of howitzers. I'm sure the gunners will be pleased to lend us their toys, aren't you? A day of target practice and those idiots on the hill will be as broken as your redhead." The Brigadier watched as the girls brought out the food. "I shall look at their target after we've eaten. Perhaps you will do me the honor of lending me your telescope?"

"Of course," Christopher pushed the gla.s.s across the table. "But take care of it, my dear Vuillard. It's rather precious to me."

Vuillard examined the bra.s.s plate and knew just enough English to decipher its meaning. "Who is this AW?"

"Sir Arthur Wellesley, of course."

"And why would he be grateful to you?"

"You couldn't possibly expect a gentleman to answer a question like that, my dear Vuillard. It would be boasting. Suffice it to say that I did not merely black his boots." Christopher smiled modestly, then helped himself to eggs and bread.

Two hundred dragoons rode the short journey back to Valengo. They escorted an officer who carried a request for a pair of howitzers, and the officer and the dragoons returned that same morning.

With one howitzer only. But that, Vuillard was certain, would be enough. The riflemen were doomed.

Chapter 6.

"What you really wanted," Lieutenant Pelletieu said, "was a mortar."

"A mortar?" Brigadier General Vuillard was astonished at the Lieutenant's self-confidence. "You are telling me what I want?"

"What you want," Pelletieu said confidently, "is a mortar. It's a question of elevation, sir."

"It is a question, Lieutenant"-Vuillard put a deal of stress on Pelletieu's lowly rank-"of pouring death, s.h.i.t, horror and d.a.m.nation on those impudent b.a.s.t.a.r.ds on that G.o.dd.a.m.ned hilltop." He pointed to the watchtower. He was standing at the edge of the wood where he had invited Lieutenant Pelletieu to unlimber his howitzer and start slaughtering. "Don't talk to me of elevation! Talk to me of killing."

"Killing is our business, sir," the Lieutenant said, quite unmoved by the Brigadier's anger, "but I do have to get closer to the impudent b.a.s.t.a.r.ds." He was a very young man, so young that Vuillard wondered whether Pelletieu had even begun to shave. He was also thin as a whip, so thin that his white breeches, white waistcoat and dark-blue cutaway coat hung on him like discarded garments draped on a scarecrow. A long skinny neck jutted from the stiff blue collar, and his long nose supported a pair of thick-lensed spectacles that gave him the unfortunate appearance of a half-starved fish, but he was a remarkablv self-possessed fish who now turned to his sergeant. "Two pounds at twelve degrees, don't you think? But only if we can get to within three hundred and fifty toise?"

"Toise?" The Brigadier knew gunners used the old unit of measurement, but it meant nothing to him. "Why the h.e.l.l don't you speak French, man?"

"Three hundred and fifty toise? Call that... " Pelletieu paused and frowned as he did the mathematics.

"Six hundred and eighty meters," his Sergeant, as thin, pale and young as Pelletieu, broke in.

"Six hundred and eighty-two," Pelletieu said cheerfully.

"Three fifty toise?" the Sergeant mused aloud. "Two-pound charge? Twelve degrees? I think that will serve, sir."

"Only just though," Pelletieu said, then turned back to the Brigadier. "The target's high, sir," he explained.

"I know it's high," Vuillard said in a dangerous tone, "it is what we call a hill."

"And everyone believes howitzers can work miracles on elevated targets," Pelletieu went on, disregarding Vuillard's sarcasm, "but they're not really designed to be angled at much more than twelve degrees from the horizontal. Now a mortar, of course, can achieve a much higher angle, but I suspect the nearest mortar is at Oporto."

"I just want the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds dead!" Vuillard growled, then turned back as a memory occurred to him. "And why not a three-pound charge? The gunners were using three-pound charges at Austerlitz." He was tempted to add "before you were born," but restrained himself.