Sharpe's Havoc Part 45

"Move the guns!" Sir Arthur spurred his horse toward the gunners whose weapons had scorched two wide fans of gra.s.s in front of the barrels. "Move them up!" he shouted. "Move them up! Keep at them!" It was beginning to rain harder, the sky was darkening and forked lightning slithered above the northern hills.

The guns were moved a hundred yards nearer the bridge and then rolled up the southern slope of the valley to a small terrace from where they could slam their round shot into the crowded French. Rain hissed and steamed on the barrels as the first rounds crashed out and the blood flickered its red haze above the broken rearguard. A dragoon's horse screamed, reared and killed a man with its flailing hooves. More round shots slammed home. A few Frenchmen, those at the back who knew they would never reach the bridge alive, turned back, threw down their muskets and held up their hands. The Guards opened ranks to let the prisoners through, closed ranks and loosed a volley that punched into the rear of the French rabble. The fugitives were jostling, pushing and fighting their way onto the bridge and the congestion on the unbal.u.s.traded roadway was so great that men and horses were forced off the edge to fall screaming into the Cavado, and still the two guns kept at them, slamming shots onto the Ponte Nova itself now, b.l.o.o.d.ying the rafters and the felled trunks that were the rearguard's only escape. The round shots drove more men and horses off the span's unprotected edges, so many that the dead and dying made a dam beneath the bridge. The high point of the French invasion of Portugal had been a bridge at Oporto where hundreds of folk had drowned in panic, and now the French were on another broken bridge and the dead of the Douro were being avenged. And still the guns hammered the French, and now and then a musket or rifle would fire despite the rain and the British were a vengeful line converging on the horror that was the Ponte Nova. More French surrendered. Some were weeping with shame, misery, hunger and cold as they staggered back. A captain of the 4th Leger threw down his sword and then, in disgust, picked it up and snapped the thin blade across his knee before letting himself be taken captive.

"Cease fire!" a Coldstreamer officer shouted.

A dying horse whinnied. The smoke of muskets and cannon was lost in the rain and the bed of the river was pitiful with the moans of men and beasts who had broken their bones when they fell from the roadway. The dam of dying and dead, of soldiers and horses, was so high that the Cavado was piling up behind them and drying up downstream of them, though a trickle of blood-reddened water escaped from the human spillway. A wounded Frenchman tried to drag himself up from the river and died just as he reached the top of the bank where the Coldstreamer bandsmen were collecting their wounded enemies. The doctors stropped their scalpels on leather belts and took fortifying slugs of brandy. The Guards took the bayonets from their muskets and the gunners rested beside their three-pound cannon.

For the pursuit was over and Soult was gone from Portugal.

Sharpe went headlong down the bluff's steep escarpment, leaping recklessly between rocks and praying that he would not lose his footing on the soaking gra.s.s. The rain was hammering down and thunder was drowning the distant noise of the guns at the Ponte Nova. It was getting darker and darker, twilight and storm combining to throw a h.e.l.lish gloom across Portugal's wild northern hills, though it was the sheer intensity of the rain that did most to obscure the bridge, but as Sharpe neared the foot of the bluff, where the ground began to level, he saw that the Saltador was suddenly empty. A riderless horse was being led across the narrow span and the beast had held back the men behind, and then Sharpe saw a hussar leading the horse and Christopher, Williamson and Kate were just behind the saddled beast. A group of infantrymen were walking away from the bridge as Sharpe came from the rain with his drawn sword and they stared at him, astonished, and one man moved to intercept him, but Sharpe told him in two short words what to do and the man, even if he did not speak English, had the good sense to obey.

Then Sharpe was on the Saltador and the hussar leading the horse just gaped at him. Christopher saw him and turned to escape, but more men were already climbing the roadway and so there was no way off the bridge's other side. "Kill him!" Christopher shouted at both Williamson and the hussar, and it was the Frenchman who obediently began to draw his saber, but Sharpe's sword hissed in the rain and the man's sword hand was almost cut off at the wrist and then Sharpe rammed the blade at the hussar's chest and there was a scream as the cavalryman fell into the Misarella. The horse, terrified by the lightning and by the uncertain footing on the bridge, gave a great whinny and then bolted past Sharpe, almost knocking him off the roadway. Its horseshoes made sparks from the stones, then it was gone and Sharpe faced Christopher and Williamson on the Saltador's thin crest.

Kate screamed at the sight of the long sword. "Get up the hill!" Sharpe shouted at her. "Move, Kate, move! And you, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d, give me my telescope!"

Christopher reached out to stop Kate, but Williamson darted past the Colonel and obstructed his hand, and Kate, seeing safety a few feet away, had the sense to run past Sharpe. Williamson tried to grab her, then saw Sharpe's sword swinging toward him and he managed to parry the cut with his French musket. The clash of sword and gun drove Williamson back a pace and Sharpe was already following, snarling, the sword flickering out like a snake's tongue to force Williamson another pace backward and then Christopher shoved the deserter forward again. "Kill him!" he screamed at Williamson and the deserter did his best, swinging the musket like a great club, but Sharpe stepped back from the wild blow, then came forward and the sword seared through the rain to catch Williamson on the side of his head, half severing his ear. Williamson staggered. The wide-brimmed leather hat had taken some of the blade's sting, but the sheer force of the blow still sent Williamson lurching sideways toward the roadway's ragged edge and Sharpe was still attacking, this time lunging, and the point of the blade pierced the deserter's green jacket, jarred on a rib and sent Williamson over the edge. He screamed, then Christopher was alone with Sharpe on the high arched summit of the Saltador.

Christopher stared at his green-jacketed enemy. He did not believe what he saw. He tried to speak, because words had always been Christopher's best weapon, but now he found he was struck dumb and Sharpe walked toward him and then a surge of Frenchmen came up behind the Colonel and they were going to force him onto Sharpe's sword and Christopher did not have the courage to draw his own and so, in sheer desperation, he followed Williamson into the rainy dark of the Misarella's ravine. He jumped.

Vicente, Harper and Sergeant Macedo had followed Sharpe down the hill and now encountered Kate. "Look after her, sir!" Harper called to Vicente and then, with Sergeant Macedo, he hurried toward the bridge just in time to see Sharpe leap off the roadway. "Sir!" Harper shouted. "Oh, Jesus b.l.o.o.d.y G.o.d," he swore, "the daft b.l.o.o.d.y b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" He led Macedo across the road just as a flood of blue-coated infantrymen spilled off the bridge, but if any of the Frenchmen thought it strange that enemy soldiers were on the Misarella's bank they showed no sign of it. They just wanted to escape and so they hurried north toward Spain as Harper prowled the bank and stared into the ravine for a sight of Sharpe. He could see dead horses among the rocks and half submerged in the white water and he could see the sprawling bodies of a dozen Frenchmen who had fallen from the Saltador's high span, but of Christopher's dark coat and Sharpe's green jacket he could see nothing.

Williamson had fallen straight into the deepest part of the ravine and by chance had landed in a swirling pool of the river that was deep enough to break his fall and he had pitched forward onto the corpse of a horse that had further cushioned him. Christopher was less fortunate. He fell close to Williamson, but his left leg struck rock and his ankle was suddenly a ma.s.s of pain and the river water was cold as ice. He clung to Williamson and looked about desperately and saw no sign of any pursuit and he reasoned that Sharpe could not stay long on the bridge in the face of the retreating French. "Get me to the bank," he told Williamson. "I think my ankle's broken."

"You'll be all right, sir," Williamson said. "I'm here, sir," and he put an arm round the Colonel's waist and helped him toward the neatest bank.

"Where's Kate?" Christopher asked.

"She ran, sir, she ran, but we'll find her, sir. We'll find her. Here we are, sir, we can climb here." Williamson hauled Christopher onto rocks beside the water and looked for an easy way to climb the ravine's side and instead saw Sharpe. He swore.

"What is it?" Christopher was in too much pain to notice much.

"That b.l.o.o.d.y jacked-up jack pudding," Williamson said and drew the saber that he had taken from a dead French officer on the road near the seminary. "b.l.o.o.d.y Sharpe," he explained.

Sharpe had escaped the rush of oncoming Frenchmen by jumping for the side of the ravine where a gorse sapling clung to a ledge. Its stem bent under his weight, but it held and he had managed to find a foothold on the wet rock beneath and then jump down to another boulder where his feet had shot out from beneath him so that he slid down the big stone's rounded side to crash into the river, but the sword was still in his hand and in front of him was Williamson and beside the deserter was a wet and terrified Christopher. Rain hissed about them as the dark ravine was garishly lit by a stab of lightning.

"My telescope," Sharpe said to Christopher.

"Of course, Sharpe, of course." Christopher pulled his sopping wet coat-tails up, groped in one of his pockets and took out the gla.s.s. "Not damaged!" he said brightly. "I only borrowed it."

"Put it on that boulder," Sharpe ordered.

"Not damaged at all!" Christopher said, putting the precious gla.s.s on the boulder. "And well done, Lieutenant!" Christopher nudged Williamson, who was just watching Sharpe.

Sharpe took a step nearer the two men, who both backed away. Christopher pushed Williamson again, trying to make him attack Sharpe, but the deserter was wary. The longest blade he had ever used in a fight was a sword bayonet, but that experience had not trained him to fight with a saber and especially not against a butcher's blade like the heavy cavalry sword that Sharpe held. He stepped back, waiting for an opportunity.

"I'm glad you're here, Sharpe," Christopher said. "I was wondering how to get away from the French. They were keeping a pretty close eye on me, as you can imagine. I have lots to tell Sir Arthur. He's done well, hasn't he?"

"He's done well," Sharpe agreed, "and he wants you dead."

"Don't be ridiculous, Sharpe! We're English!" Christopher had lost his hat when he jumped and the rain was flattening his hair. "We don't a.s.sa.s.sinate people."

"I do," Sharpe said, and he took a step nearer again, and Christopher and Williamson edged away.

Christopher watched Sharpe pick up the gla.s.s. "Not damaged, you see? I took good care of it." He had to shout to make himself heard over the seething rain and the crash of the river thrusting through the rocks. He pushed Williamson forward again, but the man obstinately refused to attack and Christopher now found himself trapped on a slippery ledge between cliff and river, and the Colonel, in this last extremity, finally abandoned trying to talk himself out of trouble and simply shoved the deserter toward Sharpe. "Kill him!" he shouted at Williamson. "Kill him!"

The hard shove in his back seemed to startle Williamson, who nevertheless raised the saber and slashed it at Sharpe's head. There was a great clang as the two blades met, then Sharpe kicked the deserter's left knee, a kick that made Williamson's leg buckle, and Sharpe, who looked as though he was not making any particular effort, sliced the sword across Williamson's neck so that the deserter was knocked back to the right and then the sword lunged through the rifleman's green jacket and into his belly. Sharpe twisted the blade to stop it being trapped by the suction of flesh, ripped it free and watched the dying Williamson topple into the river. "I hate deserters," Sharpe said, "I do so hate b.l.o.o.d.y deserters."

Christopher had watched his man defeated and seen that Sharpe had not had to fight hard at all to do it. "No, Sharpe," he said, "you don't understand!" He tried to think of the words that would make Sharpe think, make him step back, but the Colonel's mind was in panic and the words would not come.

Sharpe watched Williamson. For a moment the dying man tried to struggle out of the river, but the blood ran red from his neck and his belly and he suddenly flopped back and his ugly face sank under the water. "I do so hate deserters," Sharpe said again, then he looked at Christopher. "Is that sword good for anything except picking your teeth, Colonel?"

Christopher numbly drew his slender blade. He had trained with a sword. He used to spend good money that he could scarce afford at Horace Jackson's Hall of Arms on Jermyn Street where he had learned the finer graces of fencing and where he had even earned grudging praise from the great Jackson himself, but fighting on the French-chalked boards of Jermyn Street was one thing and facing Richard Sharpe in the Misarella's ravine was altogether another. "No, Sharpe," he said as the rifleman stepped toward him, then raised his blade in a panicked riposte as the big sword flickered toward him.

Sharpe's lunge had been a tease, a probe to see whether Christopher would fight, but Sharpe was staring into his enemy's eyes and he knew this man would die like a lamb. "Fight, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he said, and lunged again, and again Christopher made a feeble riposte, but then the Colonel saw a boulder in the river's center and he thought that he might just leap to it and from there he could reach the opposite bank and so climb to safety. He slashed his sword in a wild blow to give himself the s.p.a.ce to make the jump and then he turned and sprang, but his broken ankle crumpled, the rock was wet under his boots and he slipped and would have fallen into the river except that Sharpe seized his jacket and so Christopher fell on the ledge, the sword useless in his hand and with his enemy above him. "No!" he begged. "No." He stared up at Sharpe. "You saved me, Sharpe," he said, realizing what had just happened and with a sudden hope surging through him. "You saved me."

"Can't pick your pockets, Colonel, if you're under water," Sharpe said and then his face twisted in rage as he rammed the sword down.

Christopher died on the ledge just above the pool where Williamson had drowned. The eddy above the deserter's body ran with new red blood, then the red spilled out into the main stream where it was diluted first to pink and then to nothing. Christopher twitched and gargled because Sharpe's sword had taken out his windpipe and that was a mercy for it was a quicker death than he deserved. Sharpe watched the Colonel's body jerk and then go still, and he dipped his blade in the water to clean it, dried it as best he could on Christopher's coat and then gave the Colonel's pockets a quick search and came up with three gold coins, a broken watch with a silver case and a leather folder crammed with papers that would probably interest Hogan. "b.l.o.o.d.y fool," Sharpe said to the body, then he looked up into the gathering night and saw a great shadow at the ravine's edge above him. For a second he thought it must be a Frenchman, then he heard Harper's voice.

"Is he dead?"

"Didn't even put up a fight. Williamson too."

Sharpe climbed up the ravine's side until he was near Harper and the Sergeant lowered his rifle to haul Sharpe the rest of the way. Sergeant Macedo was there and the three could not return to the bluff because the French were on the road and so they took shelter from the rain in a gully formed where one of the great round boulders had been split by a frost. Sharpe told Harper what had happened, then asked if the Irishman had seen Kate.

"The Lieutenant's got her, sir," Harper answered. "The last I saw of her she was having a good cry and he was holding hard onto her and giving her a nice pat on the back. Women like a good cry, have you noticed that, sir?"

"I have," Sharpe said, "I have."

"Makes them feel better," Harper said. "Funny how it doesn't work for us."

Sharpe gave one of the gold coins to Harper, the second to Macedo and kept the third. Darkness had fallen. It promised to be a long, cold and hungry night, but Sharpe did not mind. "Got my telescope back," he told Harper.

"I thought you would."

"Wasn't even broken. At least I don't think so." The gla.s.s had not rattled when he shook it, so he a.s.sumed it was fine.

The rain eased and Sharpe listened and heard nothing but the sc.r.a.pe of French feet on the Saltador's stones, the gusting of the wind, the sound of the river and the fall of the rain. He heard no gunfire. So that faraway fight at the Ponte Nova was over and he did not doubt that it was a victory. The French were going. They had met Sir Arthur Wellesley and he had licked them, licked them good and proper, and Sharpe smiled at that, for though Wellesley was a cold beast, unfriendly and haughty, he was a b.l.o.o.d.y good soldier. And he had made havoc for King Nicolas. And Sharpe had helped. He had done his bit.

HISTORICAL NOTE.

Sharpe is once again guilty of stealing another man's thunder. It was, indeed, a Portuguese barber who rowed a skiff across the Douro and alerted Colonel Waters to the existence of three stranded barges on the river's northern bank, but he did it on his own initiative and there were no British troops on the northern bank at the time and no riflemen from the 95th helped in the defense of the seminary. The French believed they had either destroyed or removed every boat on the river, but they missed those three barges which then began a c.u.mbersome ferry service that fed redcoats into the seminary, which, inexplicably, had been left unguarded. The tale of the spherical case shot destroying the leading French gun team is taken from Oman's A History of the Peninsular War, Vol II. General Sir Edward Paget was wounded in the arm in that fight. He lost his arm, returned to England to recuperate and then came back to the Peninsula as General of the First Division, but his bad luck continued when he was captured by the French. The British lost seventy-seven men killed or wounded in the fight at the seminary while French casualties were at least three or four times as many. The French also failed to destroy the ferry at Barca d'Avintas which was refloated on the morning of the attack and carried two King's German Legion infantry battalions and the 14th Light Dragoons across the river, a force that could have given the French serious problems as they fled Oporto, but the Genera' m charge of the units, George Murray, though he advanced north to the Amarante road, supinely watched the enemy pa.s.s. Later that day General Charles Stewart led the 14th Light Dragoons in a magnificent charge that broke the French rearguard, but Murray still refused to advance his infantry and so it was all too little too late. I have probably tradiced Marshal Soult by suggesting he was talking to his cook when the British crossed the river, but he did sleep in till nearly eleven o'clock that morning, and whatever his cook provided for supper was indeed eaten by Sir Arthur Wellesley.

The seminary still stands, though it has now been swallowed by Oporto's suburbs, but a plaque records its defense on 12 May 1809. Another plaque, on the quay close to where Eiffel's magnificent iron bridge now spans the gorge, records the horrors of 29 March when the Portuguese refugees crowded onto the broken pontoon bridge. There are two explanations for the drownings. One claims that retreating Portuguese troops pulled the drawbridge up to prevent the French from ???? the bridge, while the second explanation, which I prefer, is that the sheer weight of refugees sank the central pontoons which then broke under me pressure of the river. Whichever is true the result was horror as hundreds of people, most of them civilians, were forced off the shattered end to drown in the Douro.

With his capture of Oporto Marshal Soult had conquered northern Portugal and, as he gathered his strength for the onward march to Lissabon, he did indeed flirt with the idea of making himself king. More than once he canva.s.sed his general officers, tried to gain support among me Portuguese and doubtless encouraged the Diario do Porto, a newspaper established during the French occupation of the city and edited by a priest who supported the egregious idea. Quite what Napoleon would have made of such a self-promotion is not difficult to guess and it was probably the prospect of the Emperor's displeasure, as much as anything else, which persuaded Soult against the idea.

But the idea was real and it gave Soult the nickname "King Nicolas" and very nearly provoked a mutiny which was to be led by Colonel Donadieu and Colonel Lafitte, plus several other now unknown officers, and Captain Argenton did make two trips through the lines to consult with the British. Argenton wanted the British to use their influence on the Portuguese to persuade them to encourage Soult to declare himself king, for when Soult did so the mutiny would break out, at which point Donadieu and the others would supposedly lead the army back to France. The British were asked to encourage this nonsense by blocking the roads east into Spain, but leaving the northern roads unthreatened. Sir Arthur Wellesley, arriving at Lisbon to take over from Cradock, met Argenton and dismissed the plot out of hand. Argenton then returned to Soult, was betrayed and arrested, but was promised his life if he revealed all that he knew and among those revelations was the fact that the British army, far from readying itself to withdraw from Portugal, was preparing to attack northwards. The warning gave Soult a chance to withdraw his advance forces from south of the Douro who otherwise might have been trapped by an ambitious encircling move that Wellesley had initiated. Argenton's career was not over. He managed to escape his captors, reached the British army and was given a safe pa.s.sage to England. For some reason he then decided to return to France where he was again captured and this time shot. It is also worth noting, while we are discussing sinister plots, that the aspirations Christopher attributes to Napoleon, aspirations for "a European system, a European code of laws, a European judiciary and one nation alone in Europe, Europeans," were indeed articulated by Bonaparte.