Sharpe's Havoc Part 28

The howitzer fired twice more during the night. The first shot rattled the lower slope with canister and the second, a sh.e.l.l, cracked the night with flame and smoke just to the east of the watchtower. No one got much sleep, but Sharpe would have been surprised if anyone had slept well after the day's ordeal. And just before dawn, when the eastern edge of the world was a gray glow, he went round to make sure everyone was awake. Harper was laying a fire beside the watchtower wall. Sharpe had forbidden any fires during the night, for the flames would have given the French gunners an excellent aiming mark, but now that the daylight was coming it would be safe to brew up some tea. "We can stay here forever," Harper had said, "so long as we can stew some tea, sir. But run out of tea and we'll have to surrender."

The gray streak in the east spread, lightening at its base. Vicente shivered beside Sharpe for the night had turned surprisingly cold. "You think they're coming?" Vicente asked.

"They're coming," Sharpe said. He knew that the howitzer's ammunition supply was not endless, and there could only have been one reason to keep the gun working through the night and that was to fray his men's nerves so that they would be easy meat for a morning attack.

And that meant the French would come at dawn.

And the light grew, wan and gray and pale as death, and the tops of the highest clouds were already golden red as the light changed from gray to white and white to gold and gold to red.

And then the killing began.

"Sir! mister Sharpe!"

"I see them!" Dark shapes melding into the dark shadows of the northern slope. It was French infantry or, perhaps, dismounted dragoons, coming to attack. "Rifles! Make ready!" There were clicks as Baker rifles were c.o.c.ked. "Your men don't fire, understand?" Sharpe said to Vicente. "Of course," Vicente said. The muskets would be hopelessly inaccurate at anything more than sixty paces so Sharpe would keep the Portuguese volley as a final defense and let his riflemen teach the French the advantages of the seven lands and seven grooves twisting the quarter turn in the rifle barrels. Vicente was bouncing up and down on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, betraying the nervousness he felt. He fingered one end of his small mustache and licked his lips. "We wait till they reach that white rock, yes?" "Yes," Sharpe said, "and why don't you shave that mustache off?" Vicente stared at him. "Why don't I shave my mustache?" He could scarcely believe his ears.

"Shave it off," Sharpe said. "You'd look older. Less like a lawyer. Luis would do it for you." He had successfully taken Vicente's mind off his worries, and now he looked east where a mist hung over the low ground. No threat from there, he reckoned, and he had four of his riflemen watching the southern path, but only four because he was fairly certain that the French would concentrate their troops on one side of the hill and, once he was absolutely certain of that, he would bring those four back across to the northern side and let a couple of Vicente's men guard the southern path. "When you're ready, lads!" Sharpe called. "But don't fire high!"

Sharpe did not know it, but the French were late. Dulong had wanted his men closed up on the summit approach before the horizon turned gray, but it had taken longer than he antic.i.p.ated to climb the dark slope and, besides, his men were befuddled and tired after a night of chasing phantoms. Except the phantoms were real and had killed one gunner, wounded three more and put the fear of G.o.d into the rest of the artillery crew. Dulong, ordered to take no prisoners, felt some respect for the men he faced.

And then the ma.s.sacre began.

It was a ma.s.sacre. The French had muskets, the British had rifles, and the French had to converge on the narrow ridge that climbed to the small summit plateau and once on the ridge they were easy meat for the rifles. Six men went down in the first few seconds and Dulong's response was to lead the others on, to overwhelm the fort with manpower, but more rifles cracked, more smoke drifted from the hilltop, more bullets thumped home and Dulong understood what he had only appreciated before through lectures: the menace of a rifled barrel. At a range where a full battalion musket volley was unlikely to kill a single man, the British rifles were deadly. The bullets, he noticed, made a different sound. There was a barely detectable shriek in their whiplike menace. The guns themselves did not cough like a musket, but had a snap to their report, and a man struck by a rifle bullet was thrown back further than he would have been by a musket ball. Dulong could see the riflemen now, for they stood up in their rock pits to reload their d.a.m.ned guns, ignoring the threat of the howitzer's sh.e.l.ls that sporadically arced over the French infantry's heads to explode on the crest. Dulong shouted at his men to fire at the green-jacketed enemy, but the musket shots sounded feeble and the b.a.l.l.s went wide and still the rifle shots slashed home and his men were reluctant to climb onto the narrow part of the ridge so Dulong, knowing that example was all, and reckoning that a lucky man might possibly survive the rifle fire and reach the redoubts, decided to set an example. He shouted at his men to follow, drew his saber and charged. "For France," he cried, "for the Emperor!"

"Cease fire!" Sharpe shouted.

Not one man had followed Dulong, not one. He came alone and Sharpe recognized the Frenchman's bravery and, to show it, he stepped forward and raised his sword in a formal salute.

Dulong saw the salute, checked and turned and saw he was alone. He looked back to Sharpe, raised his own saber, then sheathed it with a violent thrust that betrayed the disgust he felt at his men's reluctance to die for the Emperor. He nodded at Sharpe, then walked away, and twenty minutes later the rest of the French were gone from the hill. Vicente's men had been formed in two ranks on the tower's open terrace, ready to fire a volley that had not been needed, and two of them had been killed by a howitzer sh.e.l.l, and another sh.e.l.l had slammed a piece of its casing into Gataker's leg, gouging a b.l.o.o.d.y path down his right thigh, but leaving the bone unbroken. Sharpe had not even registered that the howitzer had been firing during the attack, but it had stopped now, the sun was fully risen and the valleys were flooded by light and Sergeant Harper, his rifle barrel fouled by powder deposits and hot from firing, had made the day's first pot of tea.

Chapter 7

it was just before midday when a French soldier climbed the hill carrying a white flag of truce tied to the muzzle of his musket. Two officers accompanied him, one in French infantry blue and the other, Colonel Christopher, in his red British uniform jacket with its black facings and cuffs.

Sharpe and Vicente went to meet the two officers who had advanced a dozen paces ahead of the glum-looking man with the white flag and Vicente was forcibly struck by the resemblance between Sharpe and the French infantry officer, who was a tall, black-haired man with a scar on his right cheek and a bruise across the bridge of his nose. His ragged blue uniform bore the green-fringed epaulettes that showed he was a light infantryman and his flared shako was fronted with a white metal plate stamped with the French eagle and the number 31. The badge was surmounted by a plume of red and white feathers which looked new and fresh compared to the Frenchman's stained and threadbare uniform.

"We'll kill the Frog first," Sharpe said to Vicente, "because he's the dangerous b.u.g.g.e.r, and then we'll fillet Christopher slowly."

"Sharpe!" the lawyer in Vicente was shocked. "They're under a flag of truce!"

They stopped a few paces from Colonel Christopher, who took a toothpick from his lips and chucked it away. "How are you, Sharpe?" he asked genially, then held up a hand to stay any answer. "Give me a moment, will you?" the Colonel said and one-handedly clicked open a tinderbox, struck a light and drew on a cigar. When it was burning satisfactorily he closed the tinderbox's lid on the small flames and smiled. "Fellow with me is called Major Dulong. He don't speak a word of English, but he wanted to have a look at you."

Sharpe looked at Dulong, recognized him as the officer who had led so bravely up the hill, and then felt sorry that a good man had climbed back up the hill alongside a traitor. A traitor and a thief. "Where's my telescope?" he demanded of Christopher.

"Back down the hill," Christopher said carelessly. "You can have it later." He drew on the cigar and looked at the French bodies among the rocks. "Brigadier Vuillard has been a mite over eager, wouldn't you say? Cigar?"

"Please yourself." The Colonel sucked deep. "You've done well, Sharpe, proud of you. The 31st Leger"-he jerked his head toward Dulong-"ain't used to losing. You showed the d.a.m.n Frogs how an Englishman fights, eh?"

"And how Irishmen fight," Sharpe said, "and Scots, Welsh and Portuguese."

"Decent of you to remember the uglier breeds," Christopher said, "but it's over now, Sharpe, all over. Time to pack up and go. Frogs are offering you honors of war and all that. March out with your guns shouldered, your colors flying and let bygones be bygones. They ain't happy, Sharpe, but I persuaded them."

Sharpe looked at Dulong again and he wondered if there was a look of warning in the Frenchman's eyes. Dulong had said nothing, but just stood a pace behind Christopher and two paces to the side and Sharpe suspected the Major was distancing himself from Christopher's errand. Sharpe looked back to Christopher. "You think I'm a d.a.m.ned fool, don't you?" he retorted.

Christopher ignored the comment. "I don't think you've time to reach Lisbon. Cradock will be gone in a day or two and his army with him. They're going home, Sharpe. Back to England, so probably the best thing for you to do is wait in Oporto. The French have agreed to repatriate all British citizens and a ship will probably be sailing from there within a week or two and you and your fellows can be aboard."

"Will you be aboard?" Sharpe asked.

"I very well might, Sharpe, thank you for asking. And if you'll forgive me for sounding immodest I rather fancy I shall sail home to a hero's welcome. The man who brought peace to Portugal! There has to be a knighthood in that, don't you think? Not that I care, of course, but I'm sure Kate will enjoy being Lady Christopher."

"If you weren't under a flag of truce," Sharpe said, "I'd disembowel you here and now. I know what you've been doing. Dinner parties with French generals? Bringing them here so they could snap us up? You're a b.l.o.o.d.y traitor, Christopher, nothing but a b.l.o.o.d.y traitor." The vehemence of his tone brought a small smile to Major Dulong's grim face.

"Oh dear." Christopher looked pained. "Oh dear me, dear me." He stared at a nearby French corpse for a few seconds, then shook his head. "I'll overlook your impertinence, Sharpe. I suppose that d.a.m.ned servant of mine found his way to you? He did? Thought as much. Luis has an unrivaled talent for misunderstanding circ.u.mstances." He drew on his cigar, then blew a plume of smoke that was whirled away on the wind. "I was sent here, Sharpe, by His Majesty's government with instructions to discover whether Portugal was worth fighting for, whether it was worth an effusion of British blood and I concluded, and I've no doubt you will disagree with me, that it was not. So I obeyed the second part of my remit, which was to secure terms from the French. Not terms of surrender, Sharpe, but of settlement. We shall withdraw our forces and they will withdraw theirs, though for form's sake they will be allowed to march a token division through the streets of Lisbon. Then they're going: bonsoir, adieu and au revoir. By the end of July there will not be one foreign soldier remaining on Portugal's soil. That is my achievement, Sharpe, and it was necessary to dine with French generals, French marshals and French officials to secure it." He paused, as if expecting some reaction, but Sharpe just looked skeptical and Christopher sighed. "That is the truth, Sharpe, however hard you may find it to believe, but remember 'there are more things in... ' "

"I know," Sharpe interrupted. "More things in heaven and earth than I b.l.o.o.d.y know about, but what the h.e.l.l were you doing here?" His voice was angry now. "And you've been wearing a French uniform. Luis told me."

"Can't usually wear this red coat behind French lines, Sharpe," Christopher said, "and civilian clothes don't exactly command respect these days, so yes, I do sometimes wear a French uniform. It's a ruse de guerre, Sharpe, a ruse de guerre."

"A ruse of b.l.o.o.d.y nothing," Sharpe snarled. "Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds have been trying to kill my men, and you brought them here!"

"Oh, Sharpe," Christopher said sadly. "We needed somewhere quiet to sign the memorandum of agreement, some place where the mob could not express its crude opinions and so I offered the Quinta. I confess I did not consider your predicament as thoroughly as I should and that is my fault. I am sorry." He even offered Sharpe the hint of a bow. "The French came here, they deemed your presence a trap and, against my advice, attempted to attack you. I apologize again, Sharpe, most profusely, but it's over now. You are free to leave, you do not offer a surrender, you do not yield your weapons, you march out with your head held high and you will go with my sincerest congratulations and, naturally, I shall make quite certain that your Colonel learns of your achievement here." He waited for Sharpe's answer and, when none came, smiled. "And, of course," he went on, "I shall be honored to return your telescope. I clean forgot to bring it with me just now."

"You forgot nothing, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Sharpe growled.

"Sharpe," Christopher said reprovingly, "try not to be brutish. Try to understand that diplomacy employs subtlety, intelligence and, yes, deceit. And try to understand that I have negotiated your freedom. You may leave the hill in triumph."

Shame stared into Christopher's face which seemed so guileless, so pleased to be the bearer of this news. "And what happens if we stay?" he asked.

"I have not the foggiest idea," Christopher said, "but of course I shall try to find out if that is, indeed, your wish. But my guess, Sharpe, is that the French will construe such stubbornness as a hostile gesture. There are, sadly, folk in this country who will oppose our settlement. They are misguided people who would prefer to fight rather than accept a negotiated peace, and if you stay here then that encourages their foolishness. My own suspicion is that if you insist upon staying, and thus break the terms of our agreement, the French will bring mortars from Oporto and do their best to persuade you to leave." He drew on the cigar, then flinched as a raven pecked at the eyes of a nearby corpse. "Major Dulong would like to collect these men." He gestured with the cigar toward the bodies left by Sharpe's riflemen.

"He's got one hour," Sharpe said, "and he can bring ten men, none of them armed. And tell him some of my men will be on the hill, and they won't be armed either."

Christopher frowned. "Why would your men need to be on the open hillside?" he asked.

"Because we've got to bury our dead," Sharpe said, "and it's all rock up there."

Christopher drew on the cigar. "I think it would be much better, Sharpe," he said gently, "if you brought your men down now."

Sharpe shook his head. "I'll think about it," he said.

"You'll think about it?" Christopher repeated, looking irritated now. "And how long, might I ask, will it take you to think about it?"

"As long as it takes," Sharpe said, "and I can be a very slow thinker."

"You have one hour, Lieutenant," Christopher said, "precisely one hour." He spoke in French to Dulong who nodded at Sharpe, who nodded back, then Christopher threw away the half-smoked cigar, turned on his heel and went.

"He's lying," Sharpe said.

Vicente was less certain. "You can be sure of that?"