Chapter 9

The rock face was pitted, its surface powdery in places, slick in others. Sharpe felt as if his body had been bent into this awkward half-crouch for hours. It could have been hours for all he knew. His back ached and his thigh muscles protested as he shuffled along.

He was following Hewlin through a tunnel, never more than five feet high, that wound to left and right, rising and falling without warning. For most of their route, the walls of the narrow passageway just grazed his shoulders, but in some places, he had been forced to twist sideways and squeeze past outcrops of rock that seemed set on crushing the life out of him. Once or twice, he had stretched out a hand and found empty air, an unexpected absence that had him struggling to keep his balance.

Throughout the journey, Hewlin had offered neither advice nor caution, opting instead for a relentlessly cheerful commentary, prattling happily about the weather, his family and the wonders of Paris with the ease of a man strolling in open countryside.

"Are you good at your job, Major?" Hewlin asked suddenly. They had stopped to rest after a particularly steep and cramped ascent. Sharpe rubbed his bruised elbow and glanced at Hewlin, noting that the shadow cast by the candle flame lent the other's features an appropriately diabolic appearance.

"I survive," he replied sourly.

"Oh, lots of men survive, dear boy, but I suspect, more by luck than judgment," Hewlin said with a smile.  "You seem always to emerge unscathed from even the trickiest of situations, and that's a talent in itself. Perhaps that's why I was ordered to bring you in alive, your methods to be studied by our tacticians."

Sharpe looked away. Hewlin obviously hoped he would be intrigued and beg for details. He would not give him the satisfaction. Hewlin eyed the scowling Rifleman for a moment longer and then shrugged. "Or it could be they just wanted you removed from the field."

Hewlin waited expectantly, but since Sharpe continued to ignore him, he leant back against the wall with a sigh. "In my line of work, you're only as good as your last piece of intelligence. You don't know how lucky you are. No one asks you how many Frenchmen you've killed. Likely your Colonel Blake sees you hobbling back into camp and thinks "Damn that Major Sharpe, still in one piece. Now he's owed another day's pay!"

Struck by a thought, Hewlin brightened.  "Perhaps you should just count coup, as do the warriors of the Rappahannock."

"Who're they when they're at home?" Sharpe asked, and then silently cursed himself for having betrayed an interest in Hewlin's nonsense.

"The indigenous people of Virginia, in your erstwhile colonies, "Hewlin replied. "For them, there is no honour in killing a member of a rival tribe at long range, or winning by overwhelming numbers. Honour is achieved by the solitary warrior in a headlong battle charge, which ends in the harmless touching of an enemy. I imagine the Rappahannock would consider the European custom of wholesale slaughter to be somewhat extravagant. After all, how will your people survive a hard winter if there are no young men left to hunt game?" Hewlin paused before adding reflectively "But perhaps they lack Napoleon's ambition."

"Did you spy for the rebels as well?" Sharpe asked, his curiosity piqued.

Hewlin scowled, seeming affronted by Sharpe's describing his activities in such bald terms. "Men will always require certain… information. I merely provide it."

"For a price."

Hewlin shrugged. "I could just as well ask why you chose soldiering over some worthwhile occupation, Major Sharpe. Don't tell me you fight only because King George commands? Or maybe you do it for the money?" He got to his feet and leaned in, hands on knees, to study Sharpe as a benevolent uncle might regard a perplexing nephew. "Or perhaps," he continued, "it's the only thing you're fit for."

Sharpe snarled and swung at him, but Hewlin sidestepped neatly in a whirl of coattails. Laughing, he continued along the passageway without a backward glance, leaving Sharpe with little choice but to follow.

The height of the tunnel increased from this point, but narrowed considerably; the relief from bending almost double offset by the crab-like shuffle required to move along its length. Sharpe winced as he scraped between jagged rocks, grazing his cheek. His knuckles were raw and fingernails ragged from grappling with unyielding stone. Beside the physical discomfort, Sharpe also had the nagging doubt that Hewlin had lied about the difficulty of his finding a way through the tunnel system unaided, since thus far, their route had been punishing and yet uncomplicated.

At which point, the tunnel forked.

Sharpe watched as Hewlin peered first into one gloomy recess and then the other. Completely absorbed in his task, he stood, arms outstretched, breathing deeply, a slight smile on his face, as a man might pause to admire the rolling acres of his estate from the threshold of an ancestral home. Suddenly, Hewlin snapped his fingers and gestured toward the right hand tunnel. "This way, Major."

Sharpe followed, scanning the stone arch as he passed beneath it, in the hope of discovering some distinguishing feature that had led Hewlin to choose this path, but saw nothing.

For the next few hundred yards, the tunnel divided with dizzying frequency. In vain, Sharpe tried to form some mental map of their route, but the stale air sapped his concentration as well as his physical strength. The tunnel eventually widened to form a small grotto, its centre filled with a cluster of stone spikes that looked to Sharpe like crude bayonets.

"I shall be eternally grateful to the dear boy who revealed the wonders of this fascinating cave system to me. He was so knowledgeable and enthusiastic. Knew the place like the back of his hand. Of course, he thought he was working for one of your exploring officers."

Sharpe, stumbling behind Hewlin in semi-darkness was suddenly alert. The penny dropped. "Felipe," he said.

Hewlin nodded absently. "We spent hours down here exploring every nook and cranny."

"And then you killed him," Sharpe spat.

Hewlin shrugged. "Needs must."

In three strides Sharpe caught up with Hewlin, spun him around and slammed him against the wall. "I ought to kill you right now," he hissed, his hands tight around Hewlin's throat.

Although fighting for breath, Hewlin still managed to eye Sharpe with contempt. "I don't think you will, Major. Look around you."  

Sharpe held Hewlin's gaze for a long moment. "I'll kill you later, then." 

Hewlin swallowed hard, struggling to retain his dignity. Finally, Sharpe released him and stepped away. Hewlin coughed and made a show of straightening his collar before striding off into the darkness.

"He volunteered." Hewlin tossed the remark carelessly over his shoulder. "His was just one of many offers of help. The villagers were eager to divulge the secret of Benavento to a British officer. 'Anything for the Lord Wellington,' they said. Quite touching, really."

With a yell, Sharpe threw himself at Hewlin's back, knocking him to the ground. The candle flew through the air, bounced off the wall and rolled away, still burning. Sharpe grabbed Hewlin's shirtfront with his left hand and cracked him across the jaw with his right, spitting curses. "You had the whole bloody lot killed!"

Hewlin struggled to land a punch of his own, but Sharpe caught his wrist and smacked it hard against the wall. Hewlin gasped and wrenched his hand free, kneeing Sharpe in the stomach as he did so.

Winded, Sharpe released his hold and Hewlin scuttled backward out of reach.

Sharpe struggled to his feet. Hewlin was standing a few feet away; the clump of protruding rocks now a barrier between them. He touched his jaw gingerly, regarding Sharpe pityingly. "You weren't listening to me, Major. I told you, I merely provide my masters with information. How that information is acted upon is not my concern."

Furious, Sharpe charged again. Hewlin stepped back in alarm – and vanished.

Instantly, the rope around Sharpe's waist pulled taut and he found himself being dragged across the rough ground and crushed against the stone barricade.

Breathless and sweating, Sharpe twisted his body to ease the pressure on his chest. Peering between the stone spikes, he could see the rope, stretching away from him to disappear into a fissure about two feet wide. The rope twitched and creaked. Sharpe called out to Hewlin and heard muted scuffling and cursing. The bastard was still alive then.

Sharpe squeezed a hand through a narrow gap between two of the stone columns, straining to grasp the rope. Grunting with the effort, he stretched further, his cheek pressed hard against the rock, but the rope remained tantalisingly out of reach. He withdrew briefly, steeling himself for another attempt.

"Hold still!" Sharpe yelled, seeing the rope begin to roll back and forth on the edge of the fissure. He swore at the unyielding stone barbs and tried again. His fingers closed on the rope. Triumphantly, he thrust his other arm through the gap and grasped it with both hands and began to pull.

After what seemed an eternity, a hand appeared, clawing at the air. Sharpe heaved on the rope once more and was rewarded by the sight of a dishevelled Hewlin, lurching forward and collapsing in a heap like Jonah regurgitated by the whale.

Sharpe hauled himself up, clutching at the spear-like rocks, utterly exhausted. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, and regarded Hewlin impassively.

Hewlin offered a weak smile. "That was an act of…"

"Self-preservation," Sharpe cut in.

"I was going to say 'folly'," Hewlin said with a trace of his former ebullience. "As I'd already surmised, Major Sharpe, you are a born survivor." 

Sharpe continued to regard him balefully. "Get moving." Hewlin stared at him in surprise, and then staggered to his feet, scrabbling feebly at the wall behind him for support. Pressing a hand against his ribs he drew a careful breath.

"What's the matter?"

Hewlin straightened and waved away Sharpe's gruff enquiry. "It's nothing. I am quite well." He dug in his pocket and produced another candle, then crossed to retrieve the one that still flickered in a corner.

Lighting one candle from the other, Hewlin moved toward a low archway, glancing at Sharpe nervously as he brushed passed. Sharpe regarded his retreating back, noting that Hewlin limped a little. He also seemed short of breath. Good. Perhaps they would complete their journey in silence.    

Sharpe staggered through the narrow opening, gasping for breath. He straightened gingerly, discovering with relief that he could at last stand upright after being bent double for so long.

He watched as Hewlin picked his way across the sloping floor, holding the candle aloft, the better to examine a trio of tunnel entrances that opened onto blackness. The tiny flame illuminated a large circular cavern, the walls of which seemed to advance and retreat before Sharpe's eyes, just as their twin shadows rose and fell, forming grotesque shapes while Hewlin made his careful exploration.

Sharpe stared up at the clusters of stalactites; bizarre, petrified icicles, which hung from the curiously domed ceiling. He dropped his gaze to the dense forest of stalagmites that rose from the floor to meet them.

He moved further into the cavern, attracted by an immense overhang of rock off to his right, approaching the massive formation hesitantly. Ducking beneath it, Sharpe found himself in a smaller chamber, the walls of which glittered faintly like so many tiny diamonds. He moved closer to inspect what he thought at first to be a black pit, some twenty feet across, surrounded by a rough stone ledge.

The candlelight behind him grew brighter as Hewlin appeared beside him and leaned in to touch what Sharpe now recognised as a body of water. Both men stared at the myriad pinpoints of light, which danced across the skin of the water until the ripples died away and the pool regained its glassy immobility. Sharpe finally overcame the hypnotic effect and turned away.

"How do you suppose you would die, if you were to fall in?" Hewlin asked casually, as if enquiring about the likelihood of rain.

"Drown," Sharpe replied flatly.

"And there you'd be wrong, my friend." Hewlin wagged a sententious finger, his eyes still fixed on the black expanse. "You would, in fact, freeze to death before ever you drowned. The water is ice cold, d'you see? Even a strong swimmer would succumb in perhaps a quarter of an hour." Sharpe glanced at Hewlin, noting that the man seemed to have a worryingly feverish look about him.

"They say it can be quite a peaceful way to go, if you don't fight against it and just let it happen," Hewlin continued without expression. "It's only painful if you struggle."

Sharpe spared the dark water a cursory glance, silently disagreeing with Hewlin's morbid opinion, certain that he, Richard Sharpe, would fight Death for possession of his body every step of the way. But even from a distance, the pool still exerted a strange attraction, dragging his attention back toward its treacherous depths, ensnaring him again by reviving a memory of the carnage at Oporto.

Some years ago, Sharpe had watched helplessly as a bridge spanning the Douro collapsed under the weight of the hundreds of refugees fleeing the city. Dozens of men, women and children had fallen to their deaths. Every one of them had fought against their fate, Sharpe was sure, even as saturated clothing and failing strength had dragged them beneath the tumbling rush of water.

A sudden tug on the rope around his waist jerked Sharpe out of his trance and almost off his feet. He turned to protest and found Hewlin crumpled in a heap some distance away. Sharpe strode across, intending to haul him to his feet, but Hewlin shook his head, batting feebly at the helping hand.

"I'm sorry, old chap, but I just have to rest for a moment."

Sharpe eyed Hewlin suspiciously, but the laboured breathing and awkward movement seemed genuine enough. He watched as Hewlin tilted the candle clumsily to drip wax onto a large rock that overhung the pool.

Hewlin twisted the candle stub into the cooling puddle. "There," he sighed, settling back to gaze at the cavern's gently curving ceiling. "We may as well use the last of our light, if only to appreciate the savage beauty of what is to become our tomb."

Sharpe's head jerked up. "What!"

Hewlin propped himself up with one hand and pressed the other tightly to his ribs as he leaned earnestly toward Sharpe.

"I do believe I broke a rib when I fell back there. I can feel something piercing me just here," Hewlin said with a wan smile, his fingertips brushing the gold braid on his coat. "Were it not for this cursed shortness of breath, I'm certain we would have made faster progress."

Sharpe eyed him without expression. It would be just like Hewlin to pretend an injury.

"As it is, when this candle burns out, that's it, I'm afraid. We'll likely die of starvation. Or cold," Hewlin went on, shrugging apologetically.

Sharpe looked away, disgusted by this passive and probably false acceptance of their fate. The temptation to cut himself loose and try to find his own way out was very strong, but common sense prevailed. He sank down as far from Hewlin as possible, folded his arms across his knees and glared at the rope that snaked across the rough ground, tethering him to this Job's comforter.

Hewlin's musing continued. "I was told that anyone caught here during the spring thaw would be dashed to pieces against these walls. Apparently, a torrent of melt water comes crashing through the passageways in a matter of minutes and turns this chamber into a veritable Charybdis." He broke off to glance at Sharpe. "That's a whirlpool to you, old chap."

"I know what it is."

Hewlin's eyes widened in surprise. "Really? I must say, I never had you pegged as a man who'd read Classics."

"I didn't, "Sharpe grunted. "But I know a man who did."

"Ah, yes. Rifleman Harris." Hewlin nodded slowly, wincing as he shifted his position. "You believed him to be the rotten apple for a time, didn't you, Sharpe? Go on, admit it." He smiled to see Sharpe's jaw clench and his hand curl into a fist.

Abruptly Hewlin lost interest in baiting Sharpe and returned to his contemplation of the cavern's architecture. "Then again, a damn good thunderstorm would have the same effect. That's how this chamber gained its singular form, you know. Centuries of flash floods, all occurring unseen, hundreds of feet below ground. Awe inspiring, isn't it?" he finished, tilting his head back further       

Sharpe ignored him, focusing his attention instead on the discovery of possible escape routes. These shadowy recesses might harbour any number of passageways to the surface, or any number of dead ends. Though he had watched Hewlin's every move as he navigated the bewildering network of tunnels, Sharpe was no closer to discovering the man's method for doing so.

"Then again, we might be rescued by my men."

"Or mine," Sharpe countered.

"Or both. Let them decide among themselves who is prisoner of the other." Hewlin's feeble chuckle disintegrated into a fit of coughing.

Sharpe found it impossible to judge Hewlin's colouring in such poor light, but the sheen of perspiration on his forehead suggested an accompanying pallor.

Hewlin exhaled carefully. "Renouf will find us. He has a nose like a bloodhound."

Sharpe looked over. "So you answer to Renouf." Bonaparte's 'new favourite' as Wellington had called him.

"Oh, yes. I answer to Renouf, and he answers to Ducos, and Ducos…"

"Ducos answers to Bonaparte," Sharpe finished for him.

Hewlin smiled at Sharpe's naivety. "Pierre Ducos answers to no one, whatever the Emperor might think."

So the order had come from Ducos. Sharpe nodded. That made sense. He had rid himself of one enemy in Hakeswill, only to gain another, more dangerous one, in Ducos.

Sharpe had become entranced by the candle flame, its flickering light now the centre of their world; a tiny sun keeping the darkness at bay.

"I don't suppose you've met Napoleon, have you, Major?" he heard Hewlin ask.

"No."

"Probably just as well. You'd be disappointed. He is only a man, after all. And a short one at that."

Sharpe dragged his attention away from the faint glow to stare at Hewlin. "What!" Napoleon Bonaparte had turned half of Europe on its head and meant to rule over everyone from here to God knew where. He'd raised an army thousands strong to run them all into the ground, and Hewlin insisted he was 'only a man?'

"His goals are tangible, and he may yet be outmanoeuvred by your Lord Wellington," Hewlin said. "Ducos' ambition, on the other hand, is occult. Hidden," he added, in case Sharpe misunderstood. "And that makes him far more dangerous."

The candle sputtered and burned low, then recovered itself. Sharpe and Hewlin regarded it intently, as if their combined concentration could prevent the inevitable. Even so, both were disappointed. The flame sank, then winked out, plunging them into utter blackness.