Sharpe's Havoc Part 41

And in the rain the wounded men's muskets would not fire.

And so the screaming began.

Sharpe would have liked to take Hagman on his pursuit of Christopher, but the old poacher was not fully recovered from his chest wound, and so Sharpe was forced to leave him behind. He took twelve men, his fittest and cleverest, and all complained vehemently when they were rousted out into Oporto's rain before dawn because their bellies were sour with wine, their heads sore and their tempers short. "But not as short as mine," Sharpe warned them, "so don't make such a d.a.m.ned fuss."

Hogan came with them, as did Lieutenant Vicente and three of his men. Vicente had learned that three mail carriages were going to Braga at first light and told Hogan that the vehicles were notoriously fast and would be traveling on a good road. The drivers, carrying sacks of mail that had been waiting for the French to leave before they could be delivered to Braga, happily made room for the soldiers who collapsed on the mail sacks and fell asleep.

They pa.s.sed through the remnants of the city's northern defenses in the wet halflight of dawn. The road was good, but the mail coaches were slowed because partisans had felled trees across the highway and each barricade took a half-hour or more to clear. "If the French had known Amarante had fallen," Hogan told Sharpe, "they'd have retreated on this road and we'd never have caught them! Mind you, we don't know that their Braga garrison has left with the rest."

It had, and the mail arrived along with a troop of British cavalry who were welcomed by cheering inhabitants whose joy could not be dampened by the rain. Hogan, in his engineer's blue coat, was mistaken for a French prisoner and some horse dung was thrown at him before Vicente managed to persuade the crowd that Hogan was English.

"Irish," Hogan protested, "please."

"Same thing," Vicente said absentmindedly.

"Good G.o.d in his heaven," Harper said, disgusted, then laughed because the crowd insisted on carrying Hogan on their shoulders.

The main road from Braga went north across the frontier to Ponte-vedra, but to the east a dozen tracks climbed into the hills and one of them, Vicente promised, would take them all the way to Ponte Nova, but it was the same road that the French would be trying to reach and so he warned Sharpe that they might have to take to the trackless hills. "If we are lucky," Vicente said, "we shall be at the bridge in two days."

"And how long to the Saltador?" Hogan asked.

"Another half-day."

"And how long will it take the French?"

"Three days," Vicente said, "it must take them three days." He made the sign of the cross. "I pray it takes them three days."

They spent the night in Braga. A cobbler repaired their boots, insisting he would take no money, and he used his best leather to make new soles that were studded with nails to give some grip in the wet high ground. He must have worked all night for in the morning he shyly presented Sharpe with leather covers for the rifles and muskets. The weapons had been protected from the rain by corks shoved into their muzzles and by ragged clouts wrapped about the locks, but the leather sheaths were far better. The cobbler had greased the seams with sheep fat to make the covers waterproof and Sharpe, like his men, was absurdly pleased with the gift. They were given so much food that they ended up giving most of it to a priest who promised to distribute it among the poor, and then, in the rain-lashed dawn, they marched. Hogan rode because the mayor of Braga had presented him with a mule, a sure-footed beast with a vile temper and a wall eye, which Hogan saddled with a blanket and then rode with his feet almost touching the ground. He suggested using the mule to carry their weapons, but of all the party he was the oldest and the least spry, and so Sharpe insisted he ride. "I've no idea what we'll find," Hogan told Sharpe as they climbed into the rock-strewn hills. "If the bridge at Ponte Nova has been blown, as it should have been by now, then the French will scatter. They'll just be running for their lives and we'll be hard put to find Mister Christopher in all that chaos. Still, we must try."

"And if it hasn't been blown?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Hogan said, and laughed. "Ah, Jesus, I do hate this rain. Have you ever tried taking snuff in the rain, Richard? It's like sniffing up cat vomit."

They walked eastward through a wide valley edged by high, pale hills that were crowned with gray boulders. The road lay to the south of the River Cavado which ran clear and deep through rich pastureland that had been plundered by the French so that no cattle or sheep grazed the spring gra.s.s. The villages had once been prosperous, but were now almost deserted and the few folk who remained were wary. Hogan, like Vicente and his men, wore blue and that was also the color of the enemy's coats, while the riflemen's green jackets could be mistaken for the uniforms of dismounted French dragoons. Most people, if they expected anything, thought the British wore red and so Sergeant Macedo, antic.i.p.ating the confusion, had found a Portuguese flag in Braga that he carried on a pole hacked from an ash tree. The flag showed a wreathed crest of Portugal surmounted by a great golden crown and it rea.s.sured those folk who recognized the emblem. Not all did, but once the villagers had spoken with Vicente they could not do enough for the soldiers. "For G.o.d's sake," Sharpe told Vicente, "tell them to hide their wine."

"They're friendly, sure enough," Harper said as they left another small settlement where the dungheaps were bigger than the cottages. "Not like the Spanish. They could be cold. Not all of them, but some were b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

"The Spanish don't like the English," Hogan told him.

"They don't like the English?" Harper asked, surprised. "So they're not b.a.s.t.a.r.ds after all then, just wary, eh? But are you saying, sir, that the Portuguese do like the English?"

"The Portuguese," Hogan said, "hate the Spanish and when you have a bigger neighbor whom you detest then you look for a big friend to help you."

"So who's Ireland's big friend, sir?"

"G.o.d, Sergeant," Hogan said, "G.o.d."

"Dear Lord above," Harper said piously, staring into the rainy sky, "for Christ's sake, wake up."

"Why don't you fight for the b.l.o.o.d.y French," Harris snarled.

"Enough!" Sharpe snapped.

They marched in silence for a while, then Vicente could not contain his curiosity. "If the Irish hate the English," he asked, "why do they fight for them?" Harper chuckled at the question, Hogan raised his eyes to the gray heavens and Sharpe just scowled.

The road, now that they were far from Braga, was less well maintained. Gra.s.s grew down its center between ruts made by ox carts. The French had not scavenged this far and there were a few flocks of bedraggled sheep and some small herds of cattle, but as soon as a herdsman or shepherd saw the soldiers he hustled his beasts away. Vicente was still puzzled and, having failed to elicit an answer from his companions, tried again. "I really do not understand," he said in a very earnest voice, "why the Irish would fight for the English King." Harris drew a breath as if to reply, but one savage look from Sharpe made him change his mind. Harper began to whistle "Over the Hills and Far Away," then could not help laughing at the strained silence that was at last broken by Hogan.

"It's hunger," the engineer explained to Vicente, "hunger and poverty and desperation, and because there's precious little work for a good man at home, and because we've always been a people that enjoy a good fight."

Vicente was intrigued by the answer. "And that is true for you, Captain?" he asked.

"Not for me," Hogan allowed. "My family's always had some money. Not much, but we never had to scratch in thin soil to raise our daily bread. No, I joined the army because I like being an engineer. I like practical things and this was the best way to do what I liked. But someone like Sergeant Harper?" He glanced at Harper. "I dare say he's here because he'd be starving otherwise."

"True," Harper said.

"And you hate the English?" Vicente asked Harper.

"Careful," Sharpe growled.

"I hate the b.l.o.o.d.y ground the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds walk on, sir," Harper said cheerfully, then saw Vicente cast a bewildered glance at Sharpe. "I didn't say I hated them all," Harper added.

"Life is complicated," Hogan said vaguely. "I mean there's a Portuguese Legion in the French army, I hear?"

Vicente looked embarra.s.sed. "They believe in French ideas, sir."

"Ah! Ideas," Hogan said, "they're much more dangerous than big or little neighbors. I don't believe in fighting for ideas"-he shook his head ruefully-"and nor does Sergeant Harper."

"I don't?" Harper asked.

"No, you b.l.o.o.d.y don't," Sharpe snarled.

"So what do you believe in?" Vicente wanted to know.

"The trinity, sir," Harper said sententiously.

"The trinity?" Vicente was surprised.

"The Baker rifle," Sharpe said, "the sword bayonet, and me."

"Those too," Harper acknowledged, and laughed.

"What it is," Hogan tried to help Vicente, "is that it's like being in a house where there's an unhappy marriage and you ask a question about fidelity. You cause embarra.s.sment. No one wants to talk about it."

"Harris!" Sharpe warned, seeing the red-headed rifleman open his mouth.

"I was only going to say, sir," Harris said, "that there's a dozen hors.e.m.e.n on that hill over there."

Sharpe turned just in time to see the hors.e.m.e.n vanish across the crest. The rain was too thick and the light too poor to see if they were in uniform, but Hogan suggested the French might well have sent cavalry patrols far ahead of their retreat. "They'll be wanting to know whether we've taken Braga," he explained, "because if we hadn't then they'd turn this way and try to escape up to Pontevedra."