Sharpe's Skirmish s-14 Read online

  They are sleeping."

  And if Soult's picked force could come down from the Sierra de Gredos like a pack of wolves then for a week, no more, they could destroy, capture and kill, before they would need to march away. A ring of retreating British troops would otherwise tighten about them, but that week could save the French in Spain. And it would also make the Emperor very grateful to Nicolas Jean-de Dieu Soult, Duke of Dalmatia.

  So Soult agreed.

  And picked six thousand men, of whom a third were cavalry, and put them under the command of his best cavalry general, Jean Herault.

  Who now led his men north through Toledo, with Ducos by his side, a sleeping enemy ahead and glory in his grasp.

  Major Tubbs insisted that one small room of the fortress, which only had four usable rooms on its three floors, be described as an officer's mess, and there Sharpe, Teresa, Major Tubbs, Lieutenant Price and Ensign Hickey ate. Sharpe, perhaps wanting to unsettle Lucius Tubbs, had insisted on inviting the major's foreman, Mister MacKeon, and so the Scotsman, who was a tall, frowning man with huge hands, sat awkwardly at the table which was far too small for six people.

  Ensign Hickey could not take his eyes from Teresa. He did try once or twice, and even ventured a conversation with MacKeon, but MacKeon just scowled at him and Hickey's watery eyes inevitably strayed back to Teresa who was illuminated by the large candles that the village priest had carried up from the church. The flamelight cast intriguing shadows on Teresa's face and Hickey stared at her mournfully.

  "You've never seen a woman before, Mister Hickey?" Sharpe asked.

  "Yes, sir. Yes, I have. Yes." Hickey nodded vigorously. He was sixteen, new to the battalion and in awe of Captain Sharpe. "Sorry, sir, " he mumbled, reddening.

  "Stare away, Hickey, " Harry Price said, "I do! Damned watchable is Mrs Sharpe, if you'll forgive me saying so, Ma'am."

  "I forgive you, Harry." Teresa said.

  "The first woman who ever has, " Sharpe said.

  "Not fair, Richard, " Price said, "I'm forever being forgiven by women."

  Hickey was again gazing at Teresa and, realising that Sharpe was looking at him, he tried to make conversation. "You really do fight, Ma'am?"

  "When I have to, " Teresa said.

  "Against the French, Ma'am?" Hickey suggested.

  "Who the hell else?" Sharpe growled.

  "Against all men who are rude, " Teresa said, dazzling Hickey with a smile.

  "But I have fought the French, Mister Hickey, since the day they killed my family."

  "Oh, my Lord, " Hickey said. Such things did not happen in Danbury, Essex, where his family farmed three hundred placid acres.

  "And I am at San Miguel to fight them again, " Teresa said.

  "No French here, Ma'am, " Major Tubbs said happily. "Not a frog within hopping distance."

  "And if one does come within hopping distance, " Teresa said, "then my men will see them coming. We are your cavalry scouts."

  "And glad we are to have you, Ma'am, " Tubbs said gallantly.

  John MacKeon, who until now had stayed silent, suddenly looked at Sharpe, and the fierceness of the Scotsman's gaze was so intense that it brought an awkward silence to the cramped table. "You no remember me?" He said to Sharpe.

  Sharpe looked at the craggy face with its thick eyebrows and deep-set eyes. "Should I, Mister MacKeon?"

  "I was with you, Sharpe, when you crossed the wall at Gawilghur."

  "Then I should remember you, " Sharpe said.

  "Ah, no, " MacKeon said dismissively. "I was just another soldier. One of Campbell's men in the 96th, ye remember them?"

  Shape nodded. "I remember them. I remember Captain Campbell too."

  "There's a laddie who's done well for himself, " MacKeon said, "and no more than he's deserved, I dare say. It was a great day's work ye both did."

  "We all did it, " Sharpe said.

  "But you were first across the wall, man. I remember seeing you climb and I thought to myself, there's a dead man if ever I did see one!»

  "What happened?" Teresa asked.

  Sharpe shrugged. "It was in India. A battle. We won."

  Teresa raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. "What a wonderful story teller you are, Richard. A battle. In India. We won."

  «Aye,» MacKeon said, shaking his head. "Gawilghur! A rare fight, that one.

  A rare fight. A horde of heathen, there were, a horde! And this wee laddie, " he gestured at Sharpe, "scrambled up a cliff like a monkey. A dead man if ever I did see one. Aye, " he nodded at Sharpe, "I thought it was you."

  "So what did happen?" Tubbs demanded, echoing Teresa's earlier plea.

  "It was a battle, " Sharpe said, getting to his feet. "In India."

  "And you won?" Teresa asked earnestly.

  "We did, " Sharpe said, "we did." He paused, thinking, and it almost seemed he was going to tell the story, but instead he touched a finger to the long scar that ran up one cheek and which gave him such a grim appearance.

  "I fetched this scar in that fight, " he said, then shook his head, "but if you'll forgive me, it's time to check the sentries." He picked up his shako, rifle and sword belt and ducked out the door.

  "It was a battle, " Teresa said, imitating Sharpe, "in India. We won. So what really happened, Mister MacKeon?"

  "He just told you, didn't he? It was a battle in India, and we won it."

  The Scotsman scowled and lapsed into his previous silence.

  Sharpe crossed the bridge, spoke to the two men who stood guard at the southern end, then went back to the picquets at the northern side, and afterwards he climbed the wooden ladders in the fortress, past the room where Hickey still stared forlornly at Teresa, and found Patrick Harper on the southern parapet. Harper nodded a greeting, then passed his canteen to Sharpe.

  "I'm not thirsty, Pat."

  "That's medicine in there, so it is."

  «Ah,» Sharpe tipped the canteen and drank some of the red wine. "So how many bottles did you keep back?"

  "None that I know of, sir, " Harper said in a voice of injured innocence, "but I might have missed a few. It's dark in that store-room, so it is, especially when the door's shut, and it's easy to miss a few dark bottles in a black place." He drank from the canteen. "But the boys got your message, Mister Sharpe, so they did, and if one of them gets drunk I'll kill him myself."

  "And keep Mister Price away from the bottles, " Sharpe said. Lieutenant Price was a good companion, but much too fond of liquor.

  "I'll do my best, so I will, " Harper said, then stared south down the long white road that finally vanished among the distant hills. There was a half moon in the western sky and the olive groves, which filled the landscape to the west, looked silvered and calm. The river slid under the bridge, swirling on its long loop about the plain where Marshal Marmont had been thrashed by Wellington. "Are we expecting trouble here?" Harper asked.

  "No, Pat, " Sharpe said. "Soft duty."

  "Soft duty, eh? Then why give it to you?"

  "I'm still recovering from the wound." Sharpe said, patting his belly where a Frenchman's pistol bullet had injured him.

  "So it's a convalescent, you are, eh?" Harper chuckled. "Good job there's still some medicine about the place."

  Sharpe leaned on the stone parapet. He wondered how old the fortress was.

  Five hundred years? More? It was in dreadful condition, nothing more than a square stone shell of weathered walls that were thick with weeds and so riven with cracks that they looked as if one good kick would bring them down. The fort must have been abandoned years ago, but the present war had revived the its usefulness as a look-out post and so the Spanish, and then the French, had rebuilt its collapsed floors in timber, and put a staircase of wooden ladders up to the western parapet. An original stone stairway still ran down to the courtyard where an archway, missing its gates, opened onto the northern approach to the bridge. The store-room where the muskets had been found occupied the whole western side of the fort and was the only stone ro
om left in San Miguel. It had an elegant curved ceiling and Sharpe guessed the room must have once been the main hall, or perhaps even a chapel. Then, after the rest of the fort's interior collapsed, someone had driven a door through the northern wall and used the store-room as a cattle byre. Now, for a time at least, the ruined fort had been restored to martial duty, though it had precious little value except as an observation post. The place would not last five minutes against a cannonade.

  Sharpe stared at the moonlit fields across the river. There was a farm just two hundred yards down the road, a small place with a white-walled yard and a tower above the entrance gate. Good place for a battery of cannon, he thought, because the artillerymen could knock loopholes in the farmyard wall and so be safe from rifle fire, and the frogs would have the fort reduced to dust and rubble in less time than it would take to soft boil an egg, and then their infantry would come from the olive groves on the other side of the road, and how the hell would he defend San Miguel then? But there would be no attack, he told himself, and even if there were, the partisans in the Sierra de Gredos would send warning of the French approach and Sharpe would have a full day in which to summon reinforcements from Salamanca.

  But that would not happen. He was only supposed to stay here one week, after which a Spanish garrison would arrive. One week for Tubbs to sort through the captured muskets, and that week should be uneventful. A rest.

  "I don't know why they bother to send a full Commissary to do this work,»

  Sharpe said, staring down into the courtyard where Tubbs's ox-wagon waited for the muskets.

  "I don't think 'they' sent him, " Harper said, "he sent himself, sir, if you follow my meaning."

  "Which I don't."

  Harper held out a huge right hand and rocked it to and fro. "There's five thousand muskets, sir, near enough, and who's to say how many Mister Tubbs will condemn? And who's to know when he sells the condemned ones? There's a pretty penny to be made, so there is."

  "He's on the take?"

  "Who isn't?" Harper asked, "and Mister MacKeon reckons Tubbs will condemn at least half of them, and if they only fetched a shilling apiece that'd be a fair profit."

  "I should have known the bastard was on the fiddle, " Sharpe growled.

  "How were you to know?" Harper asked. "I wouldn't have guessed if Mister MacKeon hadn't told me. He's an interesting fellow. You know he was once a swoddy? In the 96th, he was. He reckoned he'd seen you in India."

  "So he says."

  "And he says you took a fortress all by yourself?"

  "He was drunk, " Sharpe said.

  "And he says you should tell me the story."

  Sharpe grimaced. "That's just what you need, Pat, another war story. What time are you being relieved?"

  "Two in the morning, sir." Harper said, then watched as Sharpe turned and went down the ladders. "And good night to you too, sir, " he said, and just then Sharpe came back up again.

  "I don't like it, Pat."

  "Don't like what, sir?"

  "This." Sharpe crossed to the parapet and frowned southwards. "I just don't like it."

  Harper shrugged. "The Crapauds can't come from Salamanca, sir, because it's in our hands, so it is, and they can't come through those big hills, " he pointed south, "because they're full of guerilleros, and that means they can't come at all, sir."

  Sharpe nodded. Everything the big Irish sergeant said made sense, but even Sharpe could not shake his unease. "There was a fellow called Manu Bappoo in India, Pat."

  "Mannie who, sir?"

  "Manu Bappoo, " Sharpe repeated the name, "and he was a good soldier.

  Better than most of them, but we still beat the bugger somewhere or other, can't remember the name of the place, and Bappoo went running back to Gawilghur. It was a fortress, see? Great big place it was, not like this.

  And high up, high in the bloody sky, and Manu Bappoo reckoned he was safe there. He couldn't be beaten up there, Pat, because no one had ever taken that fortress, and no one even reckoned it could be took." Sharpe paused, remembering Gawilghur's dark walls and the sheer cliffs that protected them. Hell in a high place. "He was over-confident, see? Just like us here."

  "So what happened?" Harper asked.

  "Some daft bugger in a red coat climbed a cliff, " Sharpe said, "and that was the end of Manu Bappoo."

  "No cliffs here, sir."

  "But keep your eyes peeled. I just don't like it."

  "Goodnight, Mister Sharpe, " Harper said when Sharpe had disappeared a second time down the makeshift staircase. Then the Irishman turned back to the south where nothing moved, except a falling star that blazed briefly in the sky and then was gone.

  He's got the shakes, Harper thought. He's seeing enemies where there are none. But the Irishman kept his eyes peeled anyway.

  General Herault was just thirty years old. He was a cavalryman, an hussar, and he wore the cadenettes of the hussars; the twin pigtails that hung beside his face. His jacket was a dolman, a Hungarian fashion because the first hussars had all been from Hungary, and Herault's dolman was brown with pale blue cuffs and thick white loops of lace sewn across its breast.

  His breeches were pale blue and had more lace twisting and looping down the thighs towards the tasselled tops of his black leather boots. The general had once been the captain of an elite company, and he still wore their mark; the thick fur colback hat with its tall red plume. The colback was hot in summer, but it stopped a sabre better than any metal helmet.

  From his left shoulder hung a fur-trimmed pelisse that was even more thickly decorated with white lace than his coat, while a blue and white sash crossed his chest and a white leather belt held the silver chains from which his sabre scabbard hung. A sabretache, decorated with the eagle of France, hung by the scabbard.

  A very handsome man, Jean Herault, and made even more handsome by his gorgeous uniform. There were girls across Europe who sighed at the memory of Herault, the slim cavalryman who had ridden into town, broken their hearts and ridden out, but Herault was much more than a handsome young hero on a horse. He was also clever. And he was lucky. And he was brave.

  Herault had led a charge at Albuhera that had destroyed a British battalion, and even though that battle had been lost, Herault had emerged covered in glory. It was a glory that had been enhanced in the battles against Ballesteros's Spaniards, and Soult had promoted the young cavalry officer to command all the Army of the South's horsemen, and Herault had led them brilliantly. He had done the dull work well, and that was an even more impressive achievement than doing the brave work gloriously. Any fool could be a hero if he had daring enough, but it took a clever man to do war's day-to-day chores well, and Herault's cavalry patrolled and scouted and manned an outpost line that was forever under assault by partisans, and Herault had made sure they did it aggressively and efficiently. He had even persuaded his men not to treat every Spanish peasant as an enemy, for doing so only made them into enemies, and for the first time in Spain Soult was beginning to receive information from civilians, information that was freely given instead of extracted by torture. Herault had achieved that.

  Now Herault had to capture the bridge at San Miguel de Tormes, and even before he left Toledo he had given the problem a deal of thought. He had even managed to impress Pierre Ducos, and that was quite an achievement, for Ducos believed most soldiers were pig-headed fools. "The danger,»

  Herault explained to the Major who was not really a Major, "is going through the mountains."

  "Because of the guerilleros?" Ducos asked, "so travel at night."

  "But however fast we travel, Major, they will still outrun us and so give warning to this fortlet at San Miguel, " Herault tapped the map, "and the fort's garrison will send to Salamanca for reinforcements, and we shall arrive and find a small army waiting for us." He frowned, staring at the map and tapping his teeth with a pencil. «Avila,» he said after a while, prodding the town with the pencil. It lay well to the east of San Miguel, high in the hills.

  "Avi
la?" Ducos asked.

  "If I march towards Avila it will draw the guerilleros like flies to a corpse. And I shall send a vanguard, say three hundred infantry? We give the bastards a victory, Major, by sacrificing those three hundred men on the Avila road, and when the guerilleros are busy destroying them, the rest of us will go straight across the hills." He slashed the pencil over the map. "My two thousand cavalrymen will go first, and we shall ride like demons, Major. Any horse that falls will be left, its rider abandoned. We will ride straight for San Miguel, and you will follow with the infantry.

  It will take the footsoldiers two days, less if General Michaud forces them hard, and we shall hold the bridge at San Miguel until you come."

  Michaud would force the infantry hard. Ducos would see to that, using all the Emperor's surrogate authority to make Michaud crack the whip. "But what about the British reinforcements from Salamanca?" Ducos asked.

  "Suppose they arrive before Michaud?"

  "They won't know where to go, Major, " Herault said, "because I won't just wait for Michaud to catch up. I shall send cavalry all across the plain, right to the gates of Ciudad Rodrigo. We shall burn supplies, ambush convoys, kill every small garrison. We shall set southern Castile afire, Major, and the British will march in circles trying to find us." He let the map roll up.