Chapter 5
The man, dark haired and bearded, removed his broad-brimmed hat and held it over his heart. Inclining his head, he offered his sincere condolences. He had never met Commandante Teresa, but he knew of her. Who among them had not heard of l'Aguja? A brave woman, and a great loss, both to the cause and obviously, to her husband. Sharpe nodded and turned away from the man's heartfelt words, feeling a prickling behind his eyes and the familiar stab of pain.
Alvaro was the leader of the partisans in the region and on this bright morning, escort to Sharpe, Hewlin and the men as they journeyed toward the village of Benavento. The prescribed circuitous route had taken them high into the surrounding hills, along a narrow and winding track better suited to the nimble-footed goats, which scattered at their approach, than heavily laden infantry.
Alvaro hoped the Senor would excuse his slipping between their two languages, but the appropriate English word did not always present itself. They would normally have been five, he explained, gesturing toward the distant figures of Emilio, Carlos and Juan, who scouted ahead of the main party, but his family had suffered a bereavement of their own. His younger brother had been found murdered six weeks ago.
Felipe had been working with one of Lord Wellington's exploring officers, acting as a guide for the Englishman while he mapped this mountainous region. They had gone to make a preliminary inspection of the pass, but failed to return. Alvaro indicated the green hills behind them. In winter, the snow would render them inhospitable, impassable in places, but for now, the going would be relatively easy.
These were dangerous times, of course, but though Felipe was young, he was more experienced than most. After all, he had been finding his way through the mountains since he was so high. Alvaro's eyes filled with tears as he stooped to indicate a short distance from the ground, hand held out, palm down.
Sharpe nodded his understanding. "What happened to them?"
Alvaro spread his hands in a hopeless gesture. They had searched for days and finally found Felipe's body half-hidden in the undergrowth. As expected, wild animals had found him first, but what remained was still recognisable to those who knew him. There had been no mistaking the single stab wound to the heart. The fate of the exploring officer was unknown. They had only discovered Felipe's body by chance; the Englishman's remains might lie anywhere.
No wonder Hogan had been so quiet on the journey back from Saldana, Sharpe thought. Was the missing exploring officer one of his men?
"This Englishman, do you know his name?" he asked.
Alvaro shook his head. "No, Senor. I never met him."
Sharpe nodded his thanks and in halting Spanish, extended his sympathy to Alvaro for the loss of his brother. The Spaniard bowed and moved off to rejoin his companions.
Sharpe's long strides soon brought him level with the Chosen Men who ambled along the dusty track, their bantering carried to him on the warm breeze. The talk was of the spoils to be had from dead Frenchmen after a battle. Sharpe smiled. It might seem callous to discuss the desirability of an enemy's personal effects, but better that than imagining yourself blown apart by cannon fire and having your own tattered remains similarly plundered.
"I wouldn't say 'no' to a little silver snuffbox myself, " Dobbs was saying, "but I'd want something pretty on the lid, like a shepherdess, in one of those frilly dresses with bows on, showing off a bit of you know…"
Grinning lasciviously, Dobbs demonstrated his preference in rustic ladies' fashions, his sweeping gesture describing a neckline so low that the average shepherdess would have caught her death of cold.
Harper snorted. "I'll send on ahead and order one for you, shall I?"
Put out, Dobbs folded his arms. "I'm just saying I wouldn't want one like Major Hewlin's."
"What's wrong with the Major's snuffbox then?" Sharpe asked as he fell into step beside Dobbs.
"It's got a picture of some miserable looking bloke on the lid. You wouldn't want to have to look at that every time you took a pinch."
"But it's Voltaire!" Harris exclaimed, aggrieved.
"Who?"
"Voltaire. The French writer? The major figure of the Enlightenment?" Harris studied his comrades' faces expectantly, but they remained stubbornly unenlightened.
Seizing the opportunity to educate his fellow men, Harris continued doggedly. "Voltaire was a playwright and poet. He wrote a satirical novel, anti-religious tracts, the Dictionnaire Philosophique. He was imprisoned in the Bastille and then forced into exile." He paused. The others remained singularly unimpressed. "Oh, and he was Royal Historiographer to Frederick the Great." His voice trailed off.
Dobbs sucked his teeth meditatively and squinted toward the horizon.
"So he didn't have what you'd call a proper job, then?"
Harris sighed and was about to utter the word 'Philistine' but then changed his mind. It would only require further explanation. He eyed Dobbs slyly and decided on a different tack.
"It was said that when he died," he began, leaning in conspiratorially, "the city of Paris refused him a Christian burial. His friends were afraid that his remains would be desecrated, so his body was spirited away in the dead of night, propped up in a carriage, under the full moon, looking for all the world as if he were still alive."
Exchanging the intellectual for the ghoulish had the desired effect. A gaping Dobbs raised an astonished eyebrow, Simpson let out a low whistle and Harper crossed himself murmuring "God save Ireland!"
Sharpe, long inured to the peculiarities of foreigners, merely wondered, not for the first time, if there were any limit to Harris's fund of useless information. He checked, suddenly remembering his conversation with Hewlin outside the infirmary. Rummaging in his pack, he rediscovered the book pressed on him by the Major. "Harris!"
Harris turned. "Yes, sir?"
"Major Hewlin asked me to give you this."
Harris took the dog-eared cloth-bound volume that Sharpe held out to him, exclaiming delightedly "Ah! La Nouvelle Hėloise," as he traced the title, picked out in gold leaf, with a reverent finger.
"He said sorry for keeping you waiting or not passing it on to you sooner. Something like that," Sharpe said, unable to recall Hewlin's exact words.
Harris nodded, vaguely wondering why Major Hewlin felt the need to apologise. The loan of the book had only been suggested a day or so earlier. Forty-eight hours' delay hardly warranted pardon.
Dobbs looked over. "Don't you ever read anything in English, Harris?"
Harris frowned. "Well, yes. But the only book doing the rounds at the moment is Lieutenant Cole's copy of Robinson Crusoe, and I've read it three times."
"Oh," Dobbs said, having yet to read it once.
"The French have a long-standing tradition of literary excellence," Harris said, desperate to fight Rousseau's corner.
"When they're not trying to blow your head off with grapeshot," Sharpe countered.
"Is there any fighting in it?" Simpson asked, nodding toward the well-thumbed volume.
"Er… no. It's a series of letters. A young girl and her tutor engage in some fascinating philosophical debate…" Harris began.
"You need to have fighting," Simpson cut in, frowning. "Women are all very well, but a good story needs a good fight."
Harris sighed and began to leaf through his prize.
"Harris," Sharpe growled.
"Yes, sir?"
"Later."
"Yes, sir." Reluctantly, Harris tucked the book inside his jacket.
Looking along the track, Sharpe noticed Hewlin's men crowding around a large outcrop of rock. He quickened his pace and went to investigate.
He found the men filling their water bottles from a shallow stream, hardly more than two feet wide, which ran beside the road. Hewlin acknowledged Sharpe's arrival with a rueful smile. "Thought we might as well take advantage of the facilities. Saves issuing a dozen separate tickets." Sharpe shrugged, but agreed with Hewlin's reasoning. They would lose more time if every man requested permission to fall out individually.
Shading his eyes against the sun, Sharpe followed the path of the stream, observing that it ran beside the track for some forty yards before disappearing into a culvert formed by a fall of rock. Sharpe nodded to Sergeant Harper to allow the Riflemen to fill their water bottles, and then wandered over to inspect a niche in the rock formation that had caught his eye.
Sheltered by the overhanging rock, a crudely drawn image, no doubt contributed by some ancient inhabitant of the region, peeked from behind a more delicately fashioned statuette of the Virgin. Almost featureless from long exposure to the elements, the statuette's robes hung in narrow folds of palest pink and green. Spring water bubbled from the rock just beneath the niche and splashed into a stone trough a few feet below.
"It's an old tradition. Fresh flowers are left here for Our Lady, every day, without fail."
Sharpe turned to find Alvaro standing a few paces behind. "A young girl is chosen for the task by the women of our village, but her identity is kept secret," the Spaniard continued with an embarrassed smile. "The women won't tell, and we men don't ask."
Sharpe stared at Alvaro, then turned back to look again at the shrine. Silently, he moved aside to allow the other man a clear view.
The flowers that covered the Virgin's feet had obviously been there for some time; a bundle of stems lay bleached and baked to the ledge; wilted blooms drooped toward the trough where a sodden flower head bobbed forlornly, battered by the fall of water.
Sharpe reached out to pluck at a leaf. It crumbled to dust in his fingers. Alvaro turned a horrified gaze to Sharpe, struggling to convey the enormity of this neglect.
"This has never happened before," he whispered. "Never."
Some years ago, as a newly promoted captain, Sharpe had been openly sceptical of the folklore surrounding the gonfalon of Santiago, and had berated its keeper, Don Blas Vivar, for deflecting him from his official mission. But having witnessed the effect on the morale of the Spanish people as the ragged pennant fluttered above the church in the town's main square, he had grown to respect local tradition. Consequently, Sharpe recognized Alvaro's fears as genuine and wasted no time in urging his men to a quick march.
Dawdling at the back of the line, Private Poulter sighed deeply and Private Slade shook his head at the brisk pace being set by their comrades. The pair had become firm friends during the voyage from England, finding themselves among the few not stricken by seasickness, and so passed the time in amiable conversation, surrounded by the prostrate forms of the less robust.
Poulter and Slade had been anxious to complete their basic training, finding the endless drills and forced marches across the dormant countryside dull in the extreme, but discovered to their dismay that active duty seemed to involve the same tedious routine, only in hotter weather.
Sweating profusely, Poulter made a half-hearted attempt to keep up with the others, red-faced and panting with the effort. "All I'm saying is, there's something funny about the place. One minute they were there, next minute… gone."
Sergeant Harper, striding down the line, intent on bucking up the stragglers, overhead this last and guessed immediately the topic of conversation. The disappearance of the French troops from the Castillo had somehow achieved the status of myth and legend among the more impressionable members of the battalion.
Oblivious of Sergeant Harper's menacing bulk, Poulter continued to bend the ear of his companion. "How do they move around without being seen, that's what I want to know."
Harper leaned in close to Poulter's ear. "They go up in a puff of smoke, same as we do." Poulter startled. The Sergeant regarded him straight-faced. "If I were you, lad, I'd keep quiet about vanishing Frogs, particularly when you're around Major Sharpe, or you'll be wishing you could pull the same trick yourself."
Poulter gulped and nodded. Slade straightened his shoulders, looking around nervously as if the Major might materialise beside them at any moment. Sharpe had acquired a fearsome reputation among the new recruits, his exploits at Talavera and Badajoz recounted frequently with suitable awe. Even so, keeping a respectful distance was thought far safer than falling under the dour Rifleman's gimlet eye.
Marching at the head of the column, Sharpe looked to his left and saw a tumble of pan-tiled roofs nestling in the hollow of the surrounding hills. Smoke from kitchen fires curled lazily from a scattering of chimneys. Despite the presence of the British troops billeted there, life in the hamlet would be continuing as usual. Nevertheless, Sharpe was finding Alvaro's unease to be infectious; the partisans' anxious glances and muttered conversation making him distrust the apparently tranquil scene below. He unslung his rifle, checking and rechecking the firing mechanism before returning it to his shoulder.
Two sentries guarded the main road into the village of Benavento where an ancient hump-backed bridge spanned the river Esla at its narrowest point. The younger of the two men took a deep breath and nudged his companion. They both looked toward the column of Redcoats and their green-jacketed escort which now rounded a bend in the road.
The older sentry gave a contemptuous snort. An escort of Portuguese. Whoever heard of such a thing? His comrade, better informed, assured him that the green jackets belonged not to Portuguese but to Riflemen. A different kettle of fish altogether. They were a danger to them, then? No, not if they kept their heads.
Sharpe approached the men on the bridge. "My name is Major Sharpe of the Ninety-fifth Rifles. I've orders from Colonel Blake for Lieutenant-Colonel…"
"Evers. Lieutenant-Colonel Evers," Hewlin supplied quickly.
"Evers," Sharpe said, ignoring the interruption. "We're to relieve the garrison."
He eyed the sentries dubiously. Both men seemed uncomfortable in the extreme, the younger one shuffling his feet and gulping for air like a landed trout. "What's the matter, soldier?" Sharpe demanded. "Cat got your tongue? Where will I find headquarters?"
Swallowing painfully, the guard eventually stammered. "… Place…" His fellow sentry shot him a look. The boy cleared his throat and made another attempt at speech. "The market place," he breathed, his voice barely above a whisper.
Sharpe caught Harper's eye as he turned away. The Sergeant offered a wry smile. Sharpe shrugged and then walked on a few paces, scanning the empty roadway. Colonel Evers had doubtless sequestrated one of the larger buildings in the village square, if this hamlet possessed such a thing.
Fortunately, it did, although the short walk to what turned out to be little more than a courtyard was to Sharpe's mind somewhat unsettling. The narrow streets were deserted. There were no children, no dogs, not even the customary black-clad grandmother ensconced on a doorstep. Sharpe and his men had left the Castillo before dawn and it was not yet nine o'clock, yet there was not a soul around. No one running errands, or tackling household chores before the rising temperature made inactivity an inviting prospect.
Sharpe noted chalk marks on one or two doors as they passed, which meant that troops had been billeted there, but where were they now?
As if on cue, half a dozen Redcoats marched across the road some way ahead, but none glanced in their direction. Sharpe looked toward Major Hewlin, who appeared equally puzzled by their strange reception at the guard post, and their now seeming invisibility.
Sharpe approached the house, which he supposed Evers had chosen as his headquarters and was about to push open the heavy door when a musket ball thudded into the stone lintel above his head. Instantly the rifle was off his shoulder and in his hand. He slammed back into the shallow porch, searching for the source of the attack.
Harper was pressed against the wall on the opposite side of the porch. Sharpe saw the Sergeant reloading his rifle, shaking his head in disbelief. The sun, rising behind the buildings on the other side of the square favoured the sniper. Sharpe squinted into the glare and sighted his gun on the figure that scrambled across the rooftops. Incredibly, it appeared to be a Redcoat.
Orders crackled in the air as sergeants pulled their men into line to return fire. Sharpe saw the square filling with the more familiar blue uniforms and white cross-belts of Napoleon's troops as his own men dispersed, running for whatever cover they could find.
Harper aimed and brought down the sniper on the roof, then turned to dispatch another Frenchman before the first had crashed onto the cobblestones. Sharpe measured the distance between their position and a low wall that enclosed one side of the courtyard. Harper reloaded his rifle, nodding to Sharpe that he should make a break for it.
A French soldier saw Sharpe burst from the shelter of the porch and veered to cut off his escape. Sharpe swung his rifle like a club and battered the gun from the man's hand. He staggered and tried to aim again, but Sharpe shoved him aside.
The wall was just a few feet away now. Sharpe glanced behind him. A second Frenchman was taking aim. He leapt and grasped the top of the wall, hauling himself over it as a musket ball thudded harmlessly into the stonework.
Sharpe landed with a bone-jarring thump on a patch of rough ground and slithered down a steep slope, clawing at tufts of grass until his progress was finally halted by the marble wall of a substantial memorial to one of Benavento's departed citizens. Winded, Sharpe staggered to his feet and found himself hemmed in by rows of gravestones.
Keeping low, Sharpe dodged between the weathered slabs, heading toward the sound of gunfire. The fight was obviously continuing in the surrounding streets. He paused to reload his rifle in the shade of a tree, and then crept forward again.
By noon, Benavento's main street was littered with bodies. Sergeant Harper picked his way over the tangle of limbs, looking to left and right for any sign of French troops. Every time he thought he'd seen the last of them another snarling face appeared from around a corner. He turned at the sound of running feet and saw Harris, Dobbs and Simpson racing down the street. "Have you seen Major Sharpe?" Harper asked as they slowed to a trot.
Harris bent forward, hands on his knees, sucking in air. He shook his head. "Thought he was with you."
"It's all quiet in the village square now," Dobbs offered. "The Major might have gone back to look for survivors."
Sergeant Harper doubted that Sharpe would have any luck there. Judging by the scenes that greeted him inside many of the houses, the garrison had been taken by surprise. Several men had been killed where they sat, at tables set for breakfast, their weapons racked and out of reach. Ordering the others to return to the square, Harper hastily reloaded his rifle and went in search of the villagers. Where would frightened people go when it seemed that all hell had been let loose? He thought the church would be a likely place to start.
Sharpe moved carefully along a deserted alleyway, noting the bodies of a Redcoat and a Frenchman slumped against the wall. The sound of his boots crunching on gravel was all that broke the silence.
He turned to survey the empty backstreet. Since leaving the churchyard and beating off attackers seemingly at every step, Sharpe had lost his bearings. Was he moving toward the village square, or away from it? He checked at the faint sound of a footstep, and glanced over his shoulder. Nothing. He must have imagined it. He took another step and then gasped as a musket ball struck him in the shoulder and sent him sprawling in the dirt.
Sharpe scrambled to his feet and looked around for his rifle, which lay a few feet away. Reaching for it should have been simple, but he found himself staring stupidly at a right arm that hung limply at his side, refusing to obey the order to pick up the gun.
A second musket ball grazed his cheek. Sharpe fell back, clutching his shoulder. Blood was already soaking through his jacket and pulsing steadily between his fingers. His knees buckled and he pitched forward onto the ground.
Someone was trying to heave him over onto his back. Sharpe, barely breathing, smiled. If this was some Frog hoping to find something of value sewn into his jacket, he was going to be disappointed. This tattered and patched uniform ought to tell him that it wasn't worth the effort. A hand grasped Sharpe's chin roughly and turned his head this way and that.
"Sergeant Harper! Over here!"
Sharpe frowned, trying to identify the speaker.
"God save Ireland! Major Sharpe, sir!"
That was Sergeant Harper, obviously. But the other?
He strained to comprehend the terse exchange that seemed to come from some far off place.
Ah, yes. Of course. Major Hewlin.
Sharpe nodded, pleased to have solved the puzzle and lapsed into unconsciousness.