Sharpe's Havoc Part 25

"Three pounds!" Pelletieu audibly sucked in his breath while his sergeant rolled his eyes at the Brigadier's display of ignorance. "She's a Nantes barrel, sir," Pelletieu added in gnomic explanation as he patted the howitzer. "She was made in the dark ages, sir, before the revolution, and she was horribly cast. Her partner blew up three weeks ago, sir, and killed two of the crew. There was an air bubble in the metal, just horrible casting. She's not safe beyond two pounds, sir, just not safe."

Howitzers were usually deployed in pairs, but the explosion three weeks before had left Pelletieu's the sole howitzer in his battery. It was a strange-looking weapon that resembled a toy gun incongruously perched on a full-scale carriage. The barrel, just twenty-eight inches long, was mounted between wheels that were the height of a man, but the small weapon was capable of doing what other field guns could not achieve: it could fire in a high arc. Field guns were rarely elevated more than a degree or two and their round shot flew in a flat trajectory, but the howitzer tossed its sh.e.l.ls up high so that they plunged down onto the enemy. The guns were designed to fire over defensive walls, or above the heads of friendly infantry, and because a lobbed missile came to a swift stop when it landed, the howitzers did not fire solid round shot. An ordinary field gun, firing solid shot, could depend on the missile to bounce and keep on bouncing, and even after the fourth or fifth graze, as the gunners called each bounce, the round shot could still maim or kill, but a round shot tossed into the air was likely to bury itself in the turf and do no subsequent damage. So the howitzers fired sh.e.l.ls that were fused to explode when the missile landed.

"Forty-nine times two, sir, seeing as how we have the caisson for the other howitzer as well," Pelletieu said when Vuillard asked him how many sh.e.l.ls his gun possessed. "Ninety-eight sh.e.l.ls, sir, and twenty-two canister. Twice the usual rations!"

"Forget the canister," Vuillard ordered. Canister, which spread from a gun's barrel like duck shot, was for use against troops in the open, not for infantry concealed amongst rocks. "Drop the sh.e.l.ls on the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and we'll send for more ammunition if you need it. Which you won't," he added malevolently, "because you're going to kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, aren't you?"

"That's what we're here for," Pelletieu said happily, "and with respect, sir, we won't make widows by standing here talking. I'd best find a place to deploy her, sir. Sergeant! Shovels!"

"Shovels?" Vuillard asked.

"We have to level the ground, sir," Pelletieu said, "because G.o.d didn't think of gunners when He made the world. He made too many lumps and not enough smooth spots. But we're very good at improving His handiwork, sir." He led his men toward the hill in search of a place that could be leveled.

Colonel Christopher had been inspecting the howitzer, but now nodded at Pelletieu's receding back. "Sending schoolboys to fight our wars?"

"He seems to know his business," Vuillard admitted grudgingly. "Did your servant turn up?"

"b.l.o.o.d.y man's gone missing. Had to shave myself!"

"Shave yourself, eh?" Vuillard observed with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Life is hard, Colonel, life is sometimes so very hard."

And soon, he thought, it would be murderous for the fugitives on the hill.

At dawn, a wet dawn with clouds scudding away southeast and a wind still gusting about the ragged summit, Dodd had spotted the fugitives halfway down the hill's northern slope. They were crouching in the rocks, evidently hiding from the French picquets who lined the edge of the wood. There were seven, all men. Six had been survivors from Manuel Lopes's band and the seventh was Luis, Christopher's servant.

"It is the Colonel," he had told Sharpe.

"What is?"

"Colonel Christopher. He is down there. He brought them here, he told them you were here!"

Sharpe stared down toward the village where a black smear showed where the church had stood. "He's a b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he said quietly, but he was not surprised. Not now. He only blamed himself for being so slow to see that Christopher was a traitor. He questioned Luis further and the servant told him about the journey south to meet General Cradock, about the dinner party in Oporto where a French general had been the guest of honor, and how Christopher sometimes wore an enemy uniform, but Luis honestly admitted he did not know what webs the Colonel spun. He did know that Christopher possessed Sharpe's good telescope and Luis had managed to steal the Colonel's old telescope, which he presented to Sharpe with a triumphant flourish. "I am sorry it is not your own, senhor, but the Colonel keeps that one in his tail pocket. I fight for you now," Luis said proudly.

"Have you ever fought?" Sharpe asked.

"A man can learn," Luis said, "and there is no one better than a barber for slitting throats. I used to think about that when I shaved my customers. How easy it would be to cut. I never did, of course," he added hastily in case Sharpe thought he was a murderer.

"I think I'll go on shaving myself," Sharpe said with a smile.

So Vicente gave Luis one of the captured French muskets and a cartridge box of ammunition and the barber joined the other soldiers among the redoubts that barricaded the hilltop. Lopes's men were sworn in as loyal Portuguese soldiers and when one said he would rather take his chances on escape and join the partisan groups to the north Sergeant Macedo used his fists to force the oath on him. "He's a good lad, that Sergeant," Harper said approvingly.

The damp lifted. The sodden flanks of the hill steamed in the morning sun, but that haze vanished as the morning became hotter. There were dragoons all about the hog-backed hill now. They patrolled the valleys on either side, had another strong picquet to the south and dismounted men watching from the wood's edge. Sharpe, seeing the dragoons tighten their noose, knew that if he and his men tried to escape they would become meat for the hors.e.m.e.n. Harper, his broad face glistening with sweat, gazed down at the cavalry. "There's something I've noticed, sir," he said, "ever since we joined up with you in Spain."

"What's that?"

"That we're always outnumbered and surrounded."

Sharpe had been listening, not to Harper, but to the day itself. "Notice anything?" he asked.

"That we're surrounded and outnumbered, sir?"

"No." Sharpe paused to listen again, then frowned. "Wind's in the east, isn't it?"

"More or less."

"No sound of gunfire, Pat."

Harper listened. "Good G.o.d and you're right, sir."

Vicente had noticed the same thing and came to the watchtower where Sharpe had set up his command post. "There's no noise from Amarante," the Portuguese Lieutenant said unhappily.

"So they've finished fighting there," Harper commented.

Vicente made the sign of the cross which was admission enough that he suspected the Portuguese army that had been holding the bridge over the Tamega had been defeated.

"We don't know what's happening," Sharpe said, trying to cheer Vicente up, but in truth that admission was almost as depressing as the thought that Amarante had fallen. So long as the distant thunder of the guns had sounded from the east then so long had they known there were still forces fighting the French, had known that the war itself was continuing and that there was hope that one day they could rejoin some friendly forces, but the morning's silence was ominous. And if the Portuguese were gone from Amarante, then what of the British in Coimbra and Lisbon? Were they boarding ships in the broad mouth of the Tagus, ready to be convoyed home? Sir John Moore's army had been chased out of Spain, so was the smaller British force in Lisbon now scuttling away? Sharpe felt a sudden and horrid fear that he was the last British officer in northern Portugal and the last morsel to be devoured by an insatiable enemy. "It doesn't mean anything," he lied, seeing the same fear of being stranded on his companions' faces. "Sir Arthur Wellesley's coming."

"We hope," Harper said.

"Is he good?" Vicente asked.

"The very b.l.o.o.d.y best," Sharpe said fervently and then, seeing that his words had not really encouraged hope, he made Harper busy. All the food that had been brought up to the watchtower had been stored in one corner of the ruin where Sharpe could keep an eye on it, but the men had taken no breakfast so he had Harper supervise the distribution. "Give them hunger rations, Sergeant," he ordered, "for G.o.d alone knows how long we'll be up here."

Vicente followed Sharpe onto the small terrace outside the watch-tower entrance from where he stared at the distant dragoons. He looked distracted and began fiddling with a sc.r.a.p of the white piping that decorated his dark-blue uniform and the more he fidgeted, the more piping was stripped away from his jacket. "Yesterday," he suddenly blurted out. "Yesterday was the first time that I killed a man with a sword." He frowned as he pulled another inch or two of the piping from his jacket's hem. "A hard thing to do."

"Especially with a sword like that," Sharpe said, nodding at Vicente's scabbard. The Portuguese officer's sword was slim, straight and not particularly robust. It was a sword for parades, for show, not for gutter fights in the rain. "Now a sword like this"-Sharpe patted the heavy cavalry sword that hung from his belt-"batters the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds down. It don't cut them to death so much as it bludgeons them. You could batter an ox to death with this blade. Get yourself a cavalry sword, Jorge. They're made for killing. Infantry officers' swords are for dance floors."

"I mean it was difficult to look in his eyes," Vicente explained, "and still use the blade."

"I know what you mean," Sharpe said, "but it's still the best thing to do. What you want to do is to watch the sword or bayonet, isn't it? But if you keep watching their eyes you can tell what they're going to do next by where they look. Never look at the place you're going to hit them, though. Keep looking at their eyes and just hit."

Vicente realized he was stripping the piping from his jacket and tucked the errant length into a b.u.t.tonhole. "When I shot my own sergeant," he said, "it seemed unreal. Like theater even. But he was not trying to kill me. That man last night? It was frightening."

"b.l.o.o.d.y well ought to be frightening," Sharpe responded. "A fight like that? In the rain and dark? Anything can happen. You just go in fast and dirty, Jorge, do the damage and keep on doing it."

"You have done so much fighting," Vicente said sadly, as though he pitied Sharpe.

"I've been a soldier for a long time," Sharpe said, "and our army does a lot of fighting. India, Flanders, here, Denmark."

"Denmark! Why were you fighting in Denmark?"

"G.o.d knows," Sharpe said. "Something about their fleet. We wanted it, they didn't want us to have it, so we went and took it." He was gazing down the northern slope at a group of a dozen Frenchmen who had stripped to the waist and now began to shovel at a patch of ferns a hundred yards from the edge of the wood. He took out the replacement telescope Luis had brought him. It was little more than a toy and the outer lens was loose which meant it kept blurring, and it was only half as powerful as his own gla.s.s, but he supposed it was better than nothing. He focused the gla.s.s, steadied the outer lens with a fingertip and stared at the French work party. "s.h.i.t," he said.

"What?"

"b.a.s.t.a.r.ds have got a cannon," Sharpe said. "Just pray it isn't a b.l.o.o.d.y mortar."

Vicente, looking bewildered, was trying and failing to see a gun. "What happens if it's a mortar?"