Sharpe 3-Book Collection 6: Sharpe’s Honour, Sharpe’s Regiment, Sharpe’s Siege. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      He listened to the loud laughter of the officers, saw their eyes fastened on La Marquesa, watched her coquettish gestures as she played to her audience. She pouted at him once, raising more laughter, and he hid his despair beneath a wan smile.

      General Verigny had said that Sharpe could be exchanged, but Sharpe knew it would not happen. Even if the British had a captive French Major to exchange, they would not recognise the name Vaughn on the French proposal. Every few weeks the two sides exchanged lists of prisoners, but Wellington’s headquarters would query Major Vaughn. The French would presume that the British did not want ‘Vaughn’ back and he would be sent to the fortress town of Verdun where officer prisoners were kept.

      Nor could Sharpe reveal his real name. To do that would be to prompt a dozen questions, each nastier than the last. He must stay Vaughn, and as Vaughn he would go to Verdun, and as Vaughn he would sit out the war, rotting behind Verdun’s walls, wondering what kind of bleak future peace would bring.

      Or he could escape, yet not till Verigny had safely escorted him from these mountains with their vengeful Partisans. Even as he thought it, Verigny turned and smiled at him. ‘Helene she tells me you break into the convent, yes?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘You are brave man, Major Vaughn!’ Verigny lifted a glass to him. ‘I owe you my thank you.’

      Sharpe shrugged. ‘You can let me go, sir.’

      Verigny laughed, then translated the exchange into French to provoke more friendly laughter from his officers. He shook his head. ‘I cannot let you go, Major Vaughn, but you do not cause yourself to worry, no? You will be changed at Burgos.’

      Sharpe smiled. ‘I hope so, sir.’

      ‘You hope! It is certain! But however! You must give me your parole not to escape before then, yes?’

      Sharpe hesitated. By giving his parole he promised to make no effort to escape. He would keep his sword, he would be free to ride with the Lancers without guard, and he would be treated with the respect due to his rank. If he did not give it, then he would be able to make an attempt to escape, but he knew that he would be well guarded. He would be disarmed, he would be locked up at night, and if there was nowhere to lock him he could even be tied to his guard.

      Verigny shrugged. ‘Well?’

      ‘I cannot give you my parole, sir.’

      Verigny frowned. The table was silent. The General shrugged. ‘You are a brave man, Major, I do not want to treat you bad.’

      ‘I cannot accept, sir.’

      ‘But I want to help, yes? Helene say you treat her with honour, so I do the similar for you! You will be changed! Why do you not let me do this?’

      Sharpe stood. The whole table watched him. He stepped over the bench. In his head he could hear Hogan’s insistent words that he must not be captured. He cursed himself. He had sought a warm bed last night when he should have insisted on sleeping in the open air, hidden by woods and night mists.

      La Marquesa watched him. She shook her head, as if to tell him that he must not do what he planned. At least, Sharpe thought, she had kept her word. So far the French did not know that they had captured Richard Sharpe.

      Verigny smiled. ‘Come, Major! You will be changed!’

      In answer Sharpe unbuckled his sword belt. The slings jangled harshly. He leaned forward and put the great sword on the table. The dull metal scabbard scraped on the wood as he looked at the General and pronounced his own failure. ‘I am your prisoner, sir. No parole.’

      Beyond the inn door the town burned. A woman screamed. A child sobbed. The lancers searched the houses before torching them, and Richard Sharpe was led under guard and locked into a stable. He had failed.

CHAPTER 15

      There was nothing in the cell, no blanket, no cot, not even a bucket. The floor was thick with slime. Each breath made Sharpe want to gag on the stench that was thicker than musket smoke. There was no window. He knew he was deep inside the rock on which Burgos’s castle was built.

      He had been brought through the outer courtyard, past walls still scorched from the explosions of British howitzer shells fired in last year’s siege, through the packed, loaded wagons of treasure that crammed the yard, past the roofless, burned-out buildings, to the massively walled keep.

      He had been pushed down stairs, down a dank, cold corridor, and into this small, square room with its slimy floor and the incessant drip of water onto stone outside. The only light was a faint glow that come through a small hole carved in the thick door.

      He shouted that he was a British officer, that he wished to be treated accordingly, but there was no reply. He shouted it in Spanish and English, but his voice faded in the cold echoing corridor to silence.

      He touched his temple and winced with the pain. It was swollen where the infantry Sergeant had struck him with a musket butt. The blood was drying to a crust.

      Rats moved in the corridor. The water dripped outside. Once he heard voices far away, and he shouted again, but there was no reply.

      He had been given no chance to escape on the journey south. The lancers had ridden fast, and Sharpe was put in the centre of a whole squadron, the men behind him with their lances ready to thrust. At night he had been locked up, twice in churches, once in a village jail, and guarded by men who stayed wide awake with loaded muskets on their knees. La Marquesa had travelled in a coach that General Verigny had confiscated in the town where he had found her. Once or twice she would catch Sharpe’s eye and shrug. At night she sent him wine, and food cooked for the lancer officers.

      His telescope, his pack, all his belongings except the clothes he wore, had been taken from him. Verigny, who could not understand why Major ‘Vaughn’ was so stubborn, had promised that the belongings would be returned to him. Verigny had kept the promise. When Sharpe was taken up the steep road and into Burgos Castle, his property was given back.

      He had been handed over to the fortress troops. Verigny’s men left him in the courtyard, standing under the guard of two infantrymen as the sun climbed higher.

      Sharpe had stared at the wagons in the yard, trying to see beneath the roped tarpaulins a clue to confirm La Marquesa’s tale that the treasure of the Spanish empire was here. He waited. Men of the garrison passed him, staring curiously at the prisoner, and still no administrative officer arrived to arrange his future. Once, at one of the high windows in the keep, Sharpe saw a man with a telescope. The glass seemed to be aimed directly at himself.

      It had been shortly after he had seen the man with the spyglass that the four infantrymen, led by a Sergeant, had run towards him. He had thought that they were going past him, had stepped back, but one of the men had bellowed at him, swung a fist, and Sharpe had hit back, one punch, two, and then the Sergeant had cracked him on the temple with the musket butt and he had been unceremoniously brought to this cell where he could pace three steps in each direction and where there was no light, no stool, no bed, no hope.

      He was thirsty. His head throbbed. He leaned on the wall for a time, fighting pain, darkness and despair. The hours passed, but what time it was he did not know. No bells penetrated to this room hacked in the rock beneath the old castle.

      He СКАЧАТЬ