Sharpe’s Company: The Siege of Badajoz, January to April 1812. Bernard Cornwell

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      It had begun to snow again, a thin sprinkling that flecked the greatcoats of the collapsed drunks in the street. It was cold. Sharpe knew he should find somewhere warm, somewhere to clean the big sword properly before the rust pits began, somewhere to sleep, but he wanted a drink first.

      The city was quieter. There were still shouts echoing down empty alleyways, an odd musket shot, and once, inexplicably, a muffled explosion. Sharpe did not care. He wanted drink to drive away the self-pity, the nagging thought that, without Lawford, he could be a Lieutenant again under the orders of a Captain ten years younger than himself, without experience, and his mood turned savage as he made his way towards the flickering lights of the plaza where the French spirit store had been broken open.

      The French prisoners were still in the square’s centre, though without their officers who had given their parole and gone off to bed or to drink with their captors. The French soldiers sat shivering and weaponless. Their guards watched them with curious eyes, their hands thrust into pockets, their loaded and bayoneted muskets slung on cold shoulders. Other sentries guarded the houses, stopping the last looters who still staggered, drunk, in the light of the burning buildings. Sharpe was stopped at the liquor store by a nervous sentry. ‘Can’t go in there, sir.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘General’s orders, sir. Orders.’

      Sharpe snarled at him. ‘The General sent me. He’s thirsty.’

      The sentry grinned, but still brought his musket down across the doorway. ‘I’m sorry, sir. It’s orders, sir.’

      ‘What’s going on?’ A Sergeant appeared, a big man, walking slowly. ‘Trouble?’

      Sharpe faced the Sergeant. ‘I’m going in there for drink. Do you want to stop me?’

      The Sergeant shrugged. ‘Up to you, sir, but I’d advise against it. Bloody raw alcohol, that is, sir. It’s killed a couple of lads.’ He looked Sharpe up and down, saw the blood on the uniform. ‘In the breach, were you, sir?’

      ‘Yes.’

      The Sergeant nodded and unslung a canteen from his neck. ‘Here you are, sir. Brandy. Took it off a prisoner. Compliments of the 83rd.’

      Sharpe took it, made his thanks, and the Sergeant let out a long, slow breath as he watched the Rifleman walk away. ‘You know who that was, lad?’

      ‘No, Sarge.’

      ‘Sharpe. That’s who that was. Lucky I was here.’

      ‘Lucky, Sarge?’

      ‘Yes, lad. Otherwise you might have had to shoot a bleedin’ hero.’ The Sergeant shook his head. ‘Well, well, well, so he likes a drop, does he?’

      Sharpe walked close to one of the burning houses where the heat of the fire had melted the snow into a glistening sheen on the cobbles. A broken table was tipped on its side and he perched on it, watching the prisoners in the snow, and wished he could get drunk. He knew he would not. As soon as the first, fierce brandy was in his throat he knew that he was being indulgent. He must find the Company, clean the sword, think of tomorrow, but not yet. It was warm by the burning house, the first warmth he had known in days, and he wanted to be alone for a while. Damn Lawford for walking into a breach where he had no business!

      Hooves clattered on stones and a group of horsemen entered the plaza. They wore long, dark cloaks, broad-brimmed hats, and Sharpe could see the outlines of muskets and swords. Partisans. He felt an obscure, unfair anger. The Guerrilleros were the men and women of Spain who fought the ‘Guerrilla’, the ‘little war’, and they were achieving what the Spanish armies had failed to achieve; they were pinning down thousands and thousands of Napoleon’s troops, troops the British would not have to face, but somehow the presence of the Spanish horsemen in the plaza of Ciudad Rodrigo annoyed Sharpe. These partisans had not fought through a breach, had not faced the cannon, yet here they were, come to pick like vultures at a carcass they had done nothing to kill. The horsemen stopped. They stared at the French prisoners with a silent menace.

      Sharpe turned away. He drank again and stared into the white-heat where the house had collapsed into a furnace-like intensity. He thought of Badajoz, waiting to the south, Badajoz the impregnable. Perhaps the pox-scarred Whitehall clerk could write the garrison a letter, telling them their presence was ‘irregular’, and Sharpe laughed at the thought. Damn the bloody clerk.

      There was a shout behind him that made him turn round. A single rider had left the group of horsemen and was walking his horse along the front row of prisoners. The French squirmed back, fearing the revenge of the Spanish, and the British sentries tried ineffectually to force the horse away. The rider spurred into a trot, into a canter, and the snow spurted from the hooves that crashed on the cobbles beneath. The rider’s face turned towards Sharpe, the heels slammed down, and the horse came towards the lone Rifleman in the light of the burning house.

      Sharpe watched the man come. If he wanted drink, then he could find his own. There were sparks from the cobbles as the horse was reined in and Sharpe found himself wishing grimly that the beast would slip and tip its rider into an ignominious heap. So the man was a brilliant horseman, but that did not give him the right to disturb a man who had deserved a quiet drink. Sharpe turned away, ignoring the dismounting Spaniard.

      ‘You’ve forgotten me?’ Sharpe heard the voice and the drink was forgotten. He spun round, standing up, and the rider took off the broad-brimmed hat, shook her head, and the long dark hair fell either side of a face that was like a hawk. Slim, cruel, and very, very beautiful. She smiled at him. ‘I came here to find you.’

      ‘Teresa?’ The wind snatched snow from a rooftop, whirled it crazily above the sparks of the burning house. ‘Teresa?’ He reached out for her and she came to him and he held her as he had held her that first time, two years ago, beneath the blades of the French lancers. ‘Teresa? It’s you?’

      She looked up at him, mocking him. ‘You forgot me.’

      ‘Christ in heaven! Where have you been?’ He began to laugh, his misery banished, and touched her face as if he wanted to prove it was her. ‘Teresa?’

      She laughed, too, with real pleasure and put a finger to his scarred cheek. ‘I thought you might forget me.’

      ‘Forget you? No.’ He shook his head, suddenly tongue-tied, though there was so much to say. He had hoped to find her the year before when the army had marched to Fuentes de Oñoro just a few miles from Ciudad Rodrigo. This was Teresa’s country. He had thought she might look for him last year, but there had been no sign of her, and then he had gone to England and met Jane Gibbons. He pushed that thought away and looked instead at Teresa and wondered СКАЧАТЬ