Sharpe’s Enemy: The Defence of Portugal, Christmas 1812. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ man here will die except those of you who give yourselves up!’ They began jeering him, shouting him down, but Sharpe’s voice had been trained on a parade ground. He forced the words through their noise. ‘You must present yourselves to our outposts before New Year’s Day. Remember that! Before the New Year! Otherwise!’ He pulled the trigger.

      The shot was a fluke, yet he knew it would work because he had willed it to work, because he would not leave without one small measure of revenge on the scum of this place. It was a shot from the hip, but the range was short and the target big, and the spinning bullet shattered the cooking pot and Pot-au-Feu screamed in pain as the hot sauce and meat exploded over his thighs. The fat man wrenched himself sideways, lost his balance and fell onto the tiles. The soldiers were silent. Sharpe looked round. ‘New Year’s Day.’

      He slammed the butt of the rifle down, felt in his pouch for a cartridge and then, before their eyes, reloaded the rifle with quick professional movements. He bit the bullet out of the paper cartridge, primed the pan, closed it, then poured the rest of the powder into the barrel, followed it with the wadding, and then he spat the bullet into the greased leather patch that gripped the rifling of the barrel and made the Baker Rifle into the most accurate weapon on the battlefield. He did it fast, his eyes not on his work, but on the men who watched him, and he rammed the bullet down the seven spiralling grooves, slotted the ramrod into its brass tubes, and the gun was loaded. ‘Sergeant!’

      ‘Sir!’

      ‘What will you do to these bastards in the New Year?’

      ‘Kill them, sir!’ Harper sounded confident, happy.

      Dubreton grinned, spoke softly, his eyes on Pot-au-Feu who was struggling to his feet helped by two of the girls. ‘That was dangerous, my friend. They might have fired back.’

      ‘They’re scared of the Sergeants.’ Anyone would be scared of those two.

      ‘Shall we go, Major?’

      A crowd had gathered outside the Convent, men, women and children, and they shouted insults at the two officers, insults that died as the two vast Sergeants appeared with their weapons held ready. The two big men walked down the steps and pushed the crowd back by their sheer presence. They seemed to like each other, Harper and Bigeard, each one amused, perhaps, by meeting another man as strong. Sharpe hoped they never met on a battlefield.

      ‘Major?’ Dubreton was standing on the top step, pulling on thin leather gloves.

      ‘Sir?’

      ‘Are you planning to rescue the hostages?’ His voice was low, though no enemy was in earshot.

      ‘If it can be done, sir. You?’

      Dubreton shrugged. ‘This place is much further from our lines than yours. You move through the country a good deal easier than us.’ He half smiled. He was referring to the Partisans who ambushed the French in the northern hills. ‘We needed a full Regiment of cavalry to bring us within two miles of this place.’ He tugged the gloves comfortable. ‘If you do, Major, may I make a request of you?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘I know, of course, that you would return our hostages. I would be grateful if you could also return our deserters.’ He held up an elegant hand. ‘Not, I assure you, to fight again. I would like them to pay their penalty. I assume yours will meet the same fate.’ He walked down the steps, looked back at Sharpe. ‘On the other hand, Major, the difficulties of rescue may be too great?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘Unless you know where the women are kept?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      Dubreton smiled. Bigeard was waiting with the horses. The Colonel looked up at the sky as if checking the weather. ‘My wife has great dignity, Major, as you saw. She did not give those bastards the satisfaction of knowing I was her husband. On the other hand she sounded a little hysterical at the end, yes?’

      Sharpe nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

      Dubreton smiled happily. ‘Strange she should be overwrought in rhyme, Major? Unless she’s a poet, of course, but can you think of a woman poet?’ He looked pleased with himself. ‘They cook, they make love, they play music, they can talk, but they are not poets. My wife, though, reads a lot of poetry.’ He shrugged. ‘Withering in my bloom, lost in solitary gloom? Will you remember the words?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      Dubreton peeled off a newly donned glove and held out his hand. ‘It has been my privilege, Major.’

      ‘Mine too, sir. Perhaps we’ll meet again.’

      ‘It would be a pleasure. Would you give my warmest regards to Sir Arthur Wellesley? Or Lord Wellington as we must now call him.’

      Sharpe’s surprise showed on his face, to Dubreton’s delight. ‘You know him, sir?’

      ‘Of course. We were at the Royal Academy of Equitation together, at Angers. It’s strange, Major, how your greatest soldier was taught to fight in France.’ Dubreton was pleased with the remark.

      Sharpe laughed, straightened to attention, and saluted the French Colonel. He liked this man. ‘I wish you a safe journey home, sir.’

      ‘And you, Major.’ Dubreton raised a hand to Harper. ‘Sergeant! Take care!’

      The French went east, skirting the village, and Sharpe and Harper went west, dropping over the crest of the pass, trotting down the winding road towards Portugal. The air suddenly seemed clean here, the madness left behind, though Sharpe knew they would be going back. A Scottish Sergeant-Major, an old and wise soldier, had once talked to Sharpe through the dark night before battle. He had been embarrassed to tell Sharpe an idea, but he said it finally and Sharpe remembered it now. A soldier, the Scotsman had said, is a man who fights for people who cannot fight for themselves. Behind Sharpe, in the Gateway of God, were women who could not fight for themselves. Sharpe would go back.

      CHAPTER SIX

      ‘So you didn’t see her?’

      ‘No, sir.’ Sharpe stood awkwardly. Sir Augustus Farthingdale had not seen fit to invite him to take a chair. Through the half open door of Farthingdale’s sitting room, part of his expensive lodgings in the best part of town, Sharpe could see a dinner party. Silverware caught the light, scraped on china, and two servants stood deferentially beside a heavy sideboard.

      ‘So you didn’t see her.’ Farthingdale grunted. He managed to convey that Sharpe had failed. Sir Augustus was not in uniform. He wore a dark red velvet jacket, its cuffs trimmed with lace, and his thin legs were tight cased in buckskin breeches above his tall polished boots. Above his waistcoat was draped a sash, washed blue silk, decorated with a heavy golden star. It was presumably some Portuguese order.

      He sat down at a writing desk, lit by five candles in an elegant silver candelabra, and he toyed with a long handled paper knife. He had hair that could only be described as silver, silver cascading away from his high forehead to be gathered at the back by an old fashioned ribbon, black against the hair. His face was long and thin, with a touch of petulance about the СКАЧАТЬ