Chapter 12
Sharpe tugged at his earlobe, rubbing it between finger and thumb.
"You're being talked about, so you are," Harper remarked, glancing over his shoulder to where the Major sat, his back against a convenient boulder. "Left for your lover, right for your mother."
Sharpe grunted and let his hand drop. He watched as Harper's attention was suddenly drawn to a tiny finch that darted to and fro among the rocks a few feet away. "What sort's that one then?"
Harper leaned in closer. "Don't know, sir. I've never seen one like it before. Pretty little thing, isn't it?" The finch cocked its head and turned a beady eye on the Sergeant. "What do you suppose it's thinking?"
Sharpe eyed the bird dubiously. With a brain the size of a pea, he seriously doubted its capacity for profound deliberation. "Probably hoping we'll clear off its patch and leave it to look for worms in peace," he offered.
Harper accepted the suggestion with a grin, and then jerked his head toward the Castillo. "What did your man have to say?"
Sharpe shrugged. "What I'd expected him to say. They're staying put."
Earlier in the day, Sharpe had been selected to negotiate with a representative of the French occupying forces. He had stalked purposefully across the boggy ground with as much dignity as the glue like substance would allow, his gaze fixed on the iron-studded main gate. After some ten minutes during which time he could feel his boot heels sinking further into the mud, a similarly grim-faced emissary had emerged.
They had conducted their stilted dialogue in world-weary tones some six feet apart, watched, if not heard, by the French on the ramparts and the British on the surrounding hills. No, Bonaparte's men would not give up the Castillo. Then Wellington's men would be obliged to attack. So be it.
"Use what's to hand, Richard." That had been Hogan's parting comment as they went their separate ways two nights ago, and so Sharpe now stood beneath the trees on the low hill that overlooked the Castillo's southern gatehouse, and wondered what precisely he might employ.
Off to his left, the siege guns, set up shortly before Wellington's arrival, boomed and spat flame at regular intervals until the surrounding area was wreathed in smoke; the gun crews, red-faced and sweating, labouring to find their cannons' range. He heard a dull thud, followed by a faint click, and knew without looking that the shot had fallen short, the ball bouncing the last few yards and rolling gently to a halt at the base of the castle wall.
On Major Hogan's recommendation, the cannon fire was being directed toward those sections of the wall deemed most likely to crumble under constant bombardment, although the Engineer remarked privately to Sharpe that the guns provided for the task were 'little better than peashooters.' A ragged cheer went up from the watching infantry as another handful of ancient mortar was eventually dislodged, at the cost of several pounds of gunpowder.
To a rifleman, the gatehouse presented a reasonable target. The contours of the rocky outcrop had obviously dictated its location, in a slight depression, which would allow a sharpshooter, hidden up here among the trees, an unobstructed view of its defenders. Sergeant Harper maintained that Hagman, the crack shot of the Chosen Men, could shoot a pimple off a man's nose without breaking the skin, which was all well and good, but they could hardly expect to recapture the Castillo by picking off the defenders at a distance, one by one.
Frowning, Sharpe surveyed the unpromising landscape. The ridge was lined with trees that had dug themselves determinedly into the poor topsoil, but the scrubland that lay between the hill and the gatehouse supported only patches of yellowed grass and low bushes; nothing which might afford cover for advancing troops. Or at least, not in daylight.
"Suggestions?" Sharpe eyed the group of Riflemen who had settled themselves in the shade of the trees and the handful of Redcoats who hovered uncertainly on the fringes of the gathering.
"We could all cut down a branch and use it to disguise ourselves," Harris offered cheerfully. "Like Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane."
"It's sensible suggestions the Major wants," Harper put in mildly, seeing Sharpe's expression darken.
Harris shrugged. "Well, it worked for Malcolm. Frightened the living daylights out of…"
"We are not dressing up as bloody trees," Sharpe snapped. "What're you grinning at?" he barked, rounding on a young Redcoat.
Private Slade gulped as the grim-faced Rifleman advanced on him. Thus far, he had successfully avoided attracting the attention of the fearsome Rifleman, but an unguarded facial expression had now brought him within Sharpe's orbit.
"Name?"
"Slade, sir," the boy replied, shrinking under Sharpe's unwavering eye.
He stared fixedly past the Major's left shoulder and noticed the equally fearsome Irish sergeant ambling over to join them. He swallowed painfully.
"Private Poulter was a friend of yours, wasn't he?" Harper asked. "The lad who caught the first French bayonet back at the Castillo," he murmured, turning to Sharpe, who nodded, recalling the flash of red that had presaged the attack.
"So a recruiting officer persuaded you to sign up then. You came with the draft from Lisbon. I suppose you were told what exciting lives we lead out here, and you wanted to see for yourself," Sharpe said, returning his attention to the boy.
"I read about your taking the eagle at Talavera, sir," Slade offered, encouraged by the Major's conversational tone. "And Simon… that is, Private Poulter was very keen to leave England behind. But he had good reason," he added, earnestly.
"Really?" Sharpe enquired dutifully. Over the years, he had encountered a multitude of reasons for enlisting, quite a few of which might be termed 'good'; theft and murder included.
Slade had accepted without question the melancholic Poulter's assertion that he had been rejected by the only woman he would ever love, and assured his new friend that it was her loss. Poulter had neglected to mention that the 'woman' in question was the village blacksmith's fifteen-year-old daughter, who, since they had never spoken, remained entirely ignorant of his adoration, and consequently, his recent demise.
"He was disappointed in love," Slade said, his expression sombre.
"Weren't we all," Harper intoned, gazing skyward.
Sharpe coughed to disguise a smile. "And was that your reason, too, Private Slade?"
"Good Lord, no, sir," Slade replied, flushing pink. "It would be foolish to risk death or injury for the sake of a woman, don't you think?"
"Undoubtedly," Sharpe replied, vaguely wondering if he were close enough to kick Harper on the shin, should the need arise, but his Sergeant, perhaps sensing impending death or injury to himself, wisely remained silent.
"I joined up because I wanted to see the world," Slade said earnestly.
"Did you now." Sharpe turned to survey the parched hillside and uncompromising cliff face that formed the outer defences of the Castillo. "Well you're seeing Spain. I suppose it's a start." He offered the briefest of smiles and walked away.
Private Slade regarded Sharpe's retreating back for a moment and then turned to the smiling Irishman. "Why did Major Sharpe join the army, Sergeant Harper?"
"Ah, well you see he killed a man back home," Harper began.
"And he signed up to escape gaol," Slade suggested knowingly. As the son of a magistrate he was familiar with the practice of commuting a convict's sentence to service in His Majesty's Army. One volunteer might be worth ten pressed men, but this voracious Spanish war would accept sustenance from any source.
"Not exactly," Harper replied, thinking of the cutthroats of St Giles' rookery who had been after Sharpe's blood for the murder of a master criminal, their self-proclaimed king. He shrugged. "Anyway, the Major took the King's shilling, and kills men all the time, only now he's paid to do it." He grinned wolfishly. "It's a funny old world."
Slade watched as Harper sauntered off to rejoin Sharpe, still reeling from the bone-jarring thump between the shoulders that the Sergeant had administered by way of encouragement.
It was quiet and dark. The siege guns had ceased their bombardment some hours ago. Sharpe looked up. The stars were beginning to fade. It wouldn't be dark for much longer. Or quiet.
How many times had he crouched on a cold hillside in the small hours of the morning, waiting for the word to advance? Too many. Portugal, Spain, India. And Flanders, long years ago. One of the ensigns had asked him if it got any easier. He'd lied and said 'yes'.
He looked around at the two dozen riflemen who crouched in the shelter of the rocky outcrop and noticed Hagman drawing contentedly on his pipe and staring off into the distance. Sharpe smiled at the sight. He had yet to witness any sign of nerves from the old poacher. Hagman accepted whatever came to him, good or bad, with equanimity.
Sharpe never ceased to wonder at time's elasticity. These last hours before an attack seemed always to fly by. And yet, in the thick of battle, when he was hacking his way through a heaving mass of bodies, choked by gun smoke, and deafened by the constant barrage of musket fire that charred the very air around him, every sword stroke seemed to last forever, and he saw all with a hideous clarity.
On one occasion, he had found himself standing among the fallen, breathless, bruised and bloody, convinced that he had fought for centuries, and been amazed to hear an officer pronounce, on consulting his watch, that it still wanted a few minutes to ten. He had dragged enemy officers from their horses, dodged a score of sword cuts and bayonet thrusts and delivered a score of his own; all this before what his Colonel would term 'luncheon.'
Now Sharpe leaned across and touched Harper lightly on the shoulder. The Sergeant in his turn relayed the same signal to his neighbour and he to the next man until eventually the group dispersed; one half, including Hagman, scrambling upward to the stand of trees, and the other, led by Sharpe, toward the gatehouse on the Castillo's southern approach.
Success depended on Hagman's ability to hit a target set at the outer limits of the Baker rifle's range and in poor light. In his mind's eye, Sharpe could see the action unfolding; knew what was supposed to happen, had rehearsed his part endlessly in his head. All he had to do was carry it out. Harper had declared the plan to be 'a parcel of ifs, buts and maybes,' which was perfectly true. Harris thought it 'classical in its simplicity'. Sharpe had forborne to request an explanation.
The gatehouse loomed before them. He could see a detachment of Redcoats, some carrying ladders, off to his left.
"Don't look down here," Harper muttered. "Nothing to see. Just keep walking, there's good lads."
Sharpe followed the Sergeant's gaze and saw two sentries patrolling the ramparts. He feared that some sixth sense would alert the men to their presence, barely twenty feet below, but the pair sauntered past, deep in conversation. Pale strands of tobacco smoke curled lazily on the slight breeze.
"This way, Pat," Sharpe whispered, pointing to where the ground rose steadily beneath the curving wall, before disappearing into darkness. He signalled to the men to flatten themselves against the stonework. They must wait. And listen.
The eastern sky was beginning to lighten, a ribbon of dull mauve outlining the far off hills. A rifle cracked high up on the ridge. Sharpe heard a shout from the gatehouse and the clatter of muskets as a second bullet hit home. The sentries raced past overhead, boots thudding on stone.
Sharpe looked up. This was the Castillo's weak point; a disobliging lump of rock that, had the castle's original architects possessed explosives, would have been blasted to kingdom come, but instead was providing a determined Rifleman with a way in.
"Harper," Sharpe hissed. "Give me a leg up." Harper bent and made a stirrup for Sharpe's boot, and boosted him upward. Sharpe scrabbled for a handhold, cursing as the jagged rock tore at his palm.
The thought that flitted across his mind as he finally rolled over the parapet and thumped onto the fire step was that some laggard of a sentry would trip over him and then kill him. But there was no one. The French, observing the relentless shelling of the Castillo's northern face, and fully expecting an assault from that direction, had left the southern side undermanned.
Winded, Sharpe leant against the wall. "Christ! I'm getting too old for this."
Harper appeared beside him. "Thought you enjoyed this sort of thing, sir."
"Doesn't mean I want to do it forever."
The Irishman grinned and hefted his volley gun. "No, sir. 'Course not."
Sharpe could see the faces of his riflemen emerging from the gloom as they waited in the shadows beneath the ramparts. What he could not see was the assault he dearly hoped was taking place on the far side of the Castillo. He didn't envy those who would be first into the breach, though he had done it himself. Insisted upon it, in fact, as far as a lowly quartermaster could insist upon anything. Leading a Forlorn Hope into a breach was to tempt fate, but surviving it guaranteed promotion.
Sharpe could see again the rubble, slick with blood, tumbling from the gaping hole in the wall that was meant to protect Badajoz from attack. He had trampled the dead underfoot, clawing at shredded uniforms and gaping wounds, oblivious to the screams of the dying as they fell away on either side. His only thought had been to reach the top of the wall, beat off his attackers and go in search of Teresa.
He shook himself, dispelling the image and found Harper eyeing him quizzically.
"Which way now, sir?"
Squaring his shoulders, Sharpe grinned. "The quickest way, Sergeant Harper. Through the middle."
The narrow passageway lay deep in shadow, the grey light of dawn having yet to reach these dark recesses. A shaft of yellow lamplight from a half open door slanted across the flagstones. Sharpe, watching and waiting in an alcove, drew back as the door was suddenly wrenched wide. A French officer staggered out, groping for the doorframe as if steadying himself on the rolling deck of a ship, then leant forward, gulping down fresh air and retching by turns.
Sharpe could hear the baying of the man's fellow officers as they roared encouragement and hammered their fists on the tabletops. No doubt one of their number was engaging in the French equivalent of drinking a yard of ale.
"Dear me," Harper murmured. "The hours these boys keep."
"Can't hold their drink, either," Sharpe whispered back.
The inebriated officer coughed and drew a hand across his lacquered jet mustachios. Sharpe scowled. The Frogs were obsessed with their precious whiskers.
At the sound of hurrying footsteps, the Frenchman straightened hastily. A younger man, a new recruit, Sharpe guessed, came racing around the corner and skidded to a halt in front of the senior officer. Gasping for breath, he blurted out a garbled message, which the older man, fuddled with alcohol, struggled to comprehend. To Sharpe and his men, stone cold sober, it was obvious that the boy was reporting the British attack.
Sharpe glanced at Harper. The space was too narrow to risk bayonets. The Sergeant drew a knife from his belt, and, still in shadow, edged closer to the men. Sharpe jerked his head toward the officer and then tapped his chest with the point of his own knife. Harper nodded.
The first that the French officer knew of Sharpe's presence was when a ton weight landed on his back. He crumpled immediately, knees cracking on the stone flags, the sound like a gunshot. In one swift movement, Sharpe hooked his left arm under the man's chin forcing his head back and slashed his throat. In the room behind, the shouting and thudding of fists was reaching a crescendo. He stood, letting the body drop, and looked over to see Harper already dragging his victim out of sight.
He followed the Sergeant's example and bent to grasp the Frenchman's expertly fashioned top boots, subconsciously measuring them against his own. Maybe afterward, he thought, when it was all over.
A burst of cheering and applause from the officers' mess suggested that the unseen drinker had achieved his aim. Bundling the bodies into a dank corner, Sharpe beckoned to the rest of the men to follow him. They had only minutes to reach the gate.
Sharpe's gaze raked the long wall. Gun smoke hung so thickly upon the air that for a moment, he could discern only a confusion of uniform breeches, smeared with dirt and blood as French and English soldiers fought for possession of the battlements. He saw a Redcoat clawing his way determinedly over the parapet only to be thrown back by a musket fired directly into his face. Further along, a handful of Redcoats had managed to get inside the Castillo and were lunging at the French defenders with their bayonets, but they were still desperately outnumbered.
Sharpe narrowed his eyes, measuring the distance between himself and the Castillo's massive main gate. He glanced behind him to where the rest of the Rifles waited, hidden from view.
"No point in sneaking up on them, eh lads?" he said with a grin. He drew the heavy cavalry sword from its scabbard. "Better let them know we're here."
"Aye, give 'em a sporting chance," Harper said.
The Irishman's Gaelic battle cry was known to put the fear of God into the enemy, and when Harper laid about him with bayonet and rifle butt, Sharpe thought, it would sound as though the hounds of hell were loose among them.
Sharpe and his men erupted from a behind a pile of crumbling masonry and went hurtling toward the soldiers who crowded around the main gate. At first, their presence went unnoticed, their maniacal yelling indistinguishable amid the musket fire and frantic commands, but as they drew nearer, a French sergeant caught sight of them and bawled the alarm.
Harper levelled the volley gun, a seven barrelled monster of a weapon, designed for use by sailors, and managed only by the strongest of men. A tongue of flame leapt from the clustered muzzle. Illuminated for an instant, the knot of men at the gate were thrown backward by the blast and then obscured by a thick pall of smoke.
Sharpe was moving forward even before the air cleared, Sergeant Harper half a step behind him. The cavalry sword swung in a murderous arc, felling the only Frenchman left standing after the carnage wrought by the volley gun. Sharpe twisted the blade free and looked around for his sergeant.
Harper had reached the gateway and with the help of Dobbs and Harris, was struggling to lift the thick iron bar that secured the heavy doors. Sharpe slashed at a French captain who had thought to corner him by the wall, and risked a backward glance. "Quickly, man, quickly." The Irishman grimaced in response and proceeded to wedge his shoulder underneath the massive bar.
Sharpe joined his men in beating back those Frenchmen who had come pounding down the stone steps from the ramparts in response to the minor explosion beneath their feet. Sharpe swore. This deep embrasure was the worst of all possible places to defend. They were caught like rats in a trap where they could be skewered to these smoke-blackened gates by a well-aimed bayonet.
A heavyset French sergeant rushed at him screaming and brandishing just such a weapon, but Sharpe's solid cavalry sword sliced the air and the man fell sideways, still screaming but now in agony from a shattered forearm. Sharpe cuffed sweat from his forehead. The handle of his sword was slick with blood. He swore again and tightened his grip.
Behind him, Harper yelled and with one final heave the iron bar was dislodged. "Got the bastard!" he gasped, staggering clear as it crashed to the ground. Sharpe looked over and grinned, but his elation was short-lived. The Castillo's enemy garrison had at last been roused. Sharpe heard the roar of approaching troops and watched as the familiar blue uniforms filled the courtyard.
"Get the bloody gates open!"
Harper and Dobbs rushed to haul on iron rings the size of dinner plates. Sharpe ran to help, but his hands were sticky with blood and he struggled to keep hold of the ring as they dug their heels in and began to pull.
With the British hammering on one side of the gate, and the advancing French on the other, there was a very real danger that when the way was finally clear, the riflemen would be caught in the middle. Ponderously, the gate swung wide, and for a second, Sharpe faced the prospect of being shot in the back by the enemy, trampled by his own side, or crushed against the wall by indifferent Spanish woodwork.
He threw himself clear as the ring was torn from his hand and the gate crashed back with a force fit to splinter rock. Harper bellowed in triumph and Sharpe, with new-found strength, hefted his sword and led the British charge into the heart of the enemy ranks.
Sharpe sheathed his sword and looked about him, dazed. He had found his way once more to the herb garden, though he had no memory of negotiating the labyrinth of passageways that led here. The tangled shrubbery had been trampled flat during the battle recently waged within its high walls, the pathways strewn with small branches, torn loose and shredded by musket fire. A dead Frenchman lay crumpled beneath a ruined gateway, his head in a pool of blood. The sight of the scarlet puddle reminded Sharpe that he must attend to his sword. The crusted blood would damage the blade if it were not wiped clean.
He stared at the broken stems of a dense clump of fennel. Only now would he allow himself to consider what might have become of Helen. Where had she been when the French overran the Castillo, and where would she have gone once she realised that he and the rest of Wellington's troops had been driven out?
He could not imagine her shrieking in terror and running away. She would have faced the situation calmly. Better that she had been far away in the turret room, but while there were wounded in the infirmary, the Helen he knew would have been at their side.
Sharpe wrenched open the door of the infirmary and saw a dark-haired woman gathering up blood-soaked bandages. He ran over and grabbed the woman by the shoulder, pulling her around to face him. "Helen!"
The woman gaped at him in amazement and struggled to free herself from the wild-eyed English officer.
Sharpe gazed back stupefied. "Josefina?"
The last time he'd seen her, at the Colonel's dinner party, she'd been luminous, sparkling with jewels. But now, with her hair scraped back, fingernails ragged, she might have been a peasant girl from any one of the villages the army had passed through.
"Richard!"
Sharpe turned.
Helen abandoned the pile of blankets she had fetched from the storeroom and came racing across the room. She flung herself into Sharpe's arms, knocking the breath out of him.
He staggered back against the doorframe. "Good thing I'm not mortally wounded."
Helen apologised and promptly released him. Frowning, she assessed the cuts and bruises to his face and hands. Dismissing them as being worse than they looked she began to unbutton Sharpe's jacket purposefully.
"Yours?" she asked, indicating a bloodstain on the sleeve.
Sharpe glanced at it and shook his head. "Someone else's," he said, though in truth he could not remember.
For the most part, sword cuts and bone jarring blows had seemed barely to register. He had carved his way through the battle, dealing with each threat as it presented itself, only dimly aware of his own injuries. It had always been that way for him; time enough afterward to consider the damage done.
He sank gratefully onto a chair, suddenly overcome with fatigue. From the open window he could hear the scrape of boots on gravel. The clearing up operation would be underway. He could trust Sergeant Harper to see to things; a burial detail, a guard for the prisoners. He must go out to the men, tell them he was proud of them; that they had fought well. Not right now, though. Later. Perhaps when he had slept for a month.
Helen was tugging at his shirt. Sharpe pulled it off over his head, wincing, and then leant back in his seat, regarding her with half-closed eyes as she went in search of clean water and salves.