Sharpe’s rifles Page 11

  “I can hardly depend on French forbearance, sir.” He smiled. “No, we’re going south, sir. We’d hoped to take the road from Santiago de Compostela, but since the bast — since the French are there, sir, we’ll cut across the hills.” Sharpe slapped one of the muddy wheels of the big coach. “No chance of that thing going with us, sir, so I fear you’ll have to ask French permission to cross their territory.”

  Parker had been shaking his head for a few seconds. “I do assure you, Lieutenant, that my wife and I have no intention of humbling ourselves before the enemy so long as there is a viable escape for us. We shall travel south with you. And I can further assure you that there is a perfectly good southern road from this town. There!” He pointed to the bridge. “Just the other side of the river.”

  Sharpe’s astonishment made him silent for a second. “There’s a road that goes south from here?”

  “Precisely and exactly so? Otherwise I would hardly have dared come here for my testaments.”

  “But I was told…“ Sharpe realized abruptly that there was no point in retelling Vivar’s assertion that no such southern road existed. ”Are you sure, sir?“

  “I travelled it but a month ago.” Parker saw Sharpe’s hesitation. “I have a map, Lieutenant. You wish to see it?”

  Sharpe followed Parker into the bookseller’s house. Mrs Parker, sitting massively by the fire, offered the greenjacket a suspicious glance.

  “All the testaments are safe, my dear,” Parker said meekly, “and I wondered if we might peruse the map?”

  “Louisa?” Mrs Parker demanded of her niece. “The map.”

  The girl obediently crossed to a leather valise and searched among the papers. Sharpe deliberately kept his eyes away from her. Louisa Parker, from the glimpses he had already caught of her, was disturbingly pretty. She had a tall and slender grace, a brightly inquisitive face, and a clear skin unscarred by hardship or disease. A girl, Sharpe thought, to make a soldier twitch in his dreams, even if she was a God-damned Methodist.

  Louisa brought the map to the table. George Parker attempted an introduction. “Louisa, my dear, you have not been named to Lieutenant…“

  “Louisa!” Mrs Parker, evidently well aware of the dangers that soldiers presented to young girls, interrupted. “You will come here and sit!”

  Sharpe unfolded the map in the ensuing silence.

  Tt isn’t a very accurate map,“ Parker said humbly, as if he was personally responsible for its vagaries, ”but I assure you the road exists.“ He traced a thin black line which meant little to Sharpe who was still trying to find just where he was on the ill-printed sheet. ”The road meets the coastal route here, well south of Villagarcia,“ Parker continued, ”and I was hoping we might find a vessel here, at Pontevedra. I believe the Royal Navy patrols this coast and, God willing, perhaps a friendly fisherman can be persuaded to take us to one of their ships?“

  Sharpe was not really listening. He was staring at the map, trying to discover the tortuous route he had followed with Vivar. He could not find the exact course of the journey, but one thing was very clear: in the last days, he and his Riflemen had passed at least two southern roads. Vivar had told Sharpe again and again that there was no southern road, that the Riflemen must go to Santiago de Compostela before they turned towards Lisbon. The Spaniard had lied.

  George Parker mistook Sharpe’s grim expression for pessimism. “I do assure you the road exists.”

  Sharpe was suddenly very aware of the girl’s gaze on him, and all his soldier’s protective instincts were warmed by that examination. “You say you travelled the road a month ago, sir?”

  “Indeed.”

  “And a coach can manage it in winter?”

  “Indeed it can.”

  “Do you intend to fritter away this whole night?” Mrs Parker stood threateningly. “Or do British soldiers no longer care for the fate of British womanhood?”

  Sharpe folded the map and, without permission, thrust it into his pouch. “We can leave very soon, ma’am, but first I have business in the town.”

  “Business!” Mrs Parker was clearly stoking the fires of her awesome wrath. “What possible business can a Lieutenant have, Mr Sharpe, that will take precedence over our safety?”

  Sharpe pulled open the door. “I shall be a quarter of an hour at the most. You will do me the kindness, ma’am, of being ready in ten minutes. I have two wounded men who will need to travel inside your carriage.” He saw another protest boiling up inside her. “And my men’s packs will travel on the roof. Otherwise, ma’am, you can find your way south without me.” He offered a trace of a bow. “Your servant, ma’am.”

  Sharpe turned away before Mrs Parker could argue with him, and he could have sworn he heard an amused chuckle from the girl. God damn it! God damn it! God damn it! He had enough to worry about without that perennial soldier’s problem. He went to find Vivar.

  “Good news!” Vivar greeted Sharpe the moment the Rifleman appeared in the alcalde’s house. “My reinforcements are a mere half-day away! Lieutenant Davila has found fresh horses and fresh men! Did I tell you about Davila?”

  “You didn’t tell me about the road, did you?”

  “Road?”

  “You told me we had to go west before we could go south!”

  Sharpe had not meant to speak with such anger, but he could not hide his bitterness. He and his men had crossed a cold country, clambering wet hills and struggling through icy streams, and all for nothing. They could have headed south days ago. By now they could be across the Portuguese border. Instead they were within a few hours’ march of the enemy. “The road!” He slammed George Parker’s map onto the table. “There’s a road, Vivar! A God-damned road! And you marched us past two other God-damned roads! And the God-damned French are just a day’s bloody march away. You bloody lied to me!”

  “Lied to you?” Bias Vivar’s anger flared as fiercely as Sharpe’s. “I saved your miserable lives! You think your men would have lasted a week in Spain without me? If you’re not fighting amongst yourselves, you’re all getting drunk! I’ve brought a pack of useless drunkards across Spain and I get no thanks, none. I spit on your map!” Vivar seized the precious map and, instead of spitting on it, tore it into shreds which he tossed onto the fire.

  The alcalde, together with a priest and half a dozen other elderly and serious men, watched the confrontation in perturbed silence.

  “Damn you!” Sharpe had grabbed at the map a second too late.

  “Damn me?” Vivar shouted. “I’m fighting for Spain, Lieutenant. I’m not running away like a frightened little boy. But that’s the British way, isn’t it? One setback and they run home to their mothers. Very well! Run away! But you won’t find a garrison at Lisbon, Lieutenant. They’ll have run away too!”

  Sharpe ignored the insults to ask the question that boiled indignantly inside him. “Why did you bring us here at all, you bastard?”

  Vivar leaned over the table. “Because for once in your benighted life, Lieutenant, I thought an Englishman could do something for Spain. Something for God. Something useful! You’re a nation of pirates, of barbarians, of heathens! God alone knows why He put the English on this earth, but

  I thought, just once, you might do something of use to His creation!“

  “To protect your precious strongbox?” Sharpe gestured at the mysterious chest which stood against one wall. “You’d have lost the bloody thing without us, wouldn’t you? And why, Major? Because your precious Spanish armies are bloody useless, that’s why!”

  “And your army’s broken, beaten, and gone. It’s less than useless. Now get out! Run away!”

  “I hope the French get your bloody box.” Sharpe twisted away, then heard the rasp of a sword being drawn. He whipped back, scraping his own sword quickly from its mended scabbard as Vivar, blade already flickering in the candlelight, came towards him.

  ‘Bastaf It was the priest who threw himself between the two furious men. He pleaded with Vivar, who stared contemptuou
sly at Sharpe. Understanding none of the conversation, the Rifleman held his ground with his sword still raised.

  Vivar, reluctantly persuaded by the priest, dropped his blade. “You won’t last a day without me, Lieutenant, but get out!”

  Sharpe spat on the floor to show his own contempt, then, his sword still drawn, went back into the night. The French had gained the north, and he must flee.

  Chapter 7

  Progress during the first day of the southward journey proved better than Sharpe had dared to hope. The Parkers’ carriage was cumbersome, but it had broad-rimmed wheels designed to cope with rutted and muddy roads and a patient Spanish coachman who skilfully handled its team of six big draught horses. Only twice in that first day was it necessary for the Riflemen to help pull the carriage out of difficulty; once on a steep incline and the second time when a wheel dropped into a roadside morass. Of Louisa Parker Sharpe saw nothing, for the girl’s aunt made certain that she stayed safely mewed up behind the coach’s drawn leather curtains.

  The size and cost of the carriage impressed Sharpe. The Parkers’ self-imposed mission to enlighten the Papist heathens of Spain clearly lacked for little and George Parker, who seemed to prefer walking with Sharpe to the company of his wife, explained that it was the bequest of the Admiral’s prize money that had made such comforts possible.

  “Was the Admiral a religious man, sir?” Sharpe asked.

  “Alas, no. Far from it. But a wealthy one, Lieutenant. Nor do I see,” Parker was clearly piqued by Sharpe’s questions about the carriage’s cost, “why the Lord’s work should be constrained by a paucity of funds, do you?”

  “Indeed not,” Sharpe cheerfully agreed. “But why Spain, sir? I’d have thought there were enough heathens in England without bothering the Spanish.”

  “Because the Spanish labour under the darkness of Rome, Lieutenant. Do you have any idea what that means? The horror of it? I can tell you tales of priestly behaviour that would make you shudder! Do you know what superstitions these people harbour?”

  “I’ve an idea, sir.” Sharpe turned to check on the carriage’s progress. His two wounded men were travelling on the roof, banished there on Mrs Parker’s insistence. “But the Dons don’t seem quite ready for Methodism, sir, if you’ll forgive me saying as much.”

  “It is stony ground,” Parker agreed glumly.

  “Mind you, I knew an officer in India who converted the heathen to Christianity,” Sharpe said helpfully, “and he was most successful.”

  “Truly?” Mr Parker was pleased to hear of this evidence of God’s grace. “A godly man?”

  “Mad as a hatter, sir. One of the Royal Irish, and they’ve all got wormscrew wits.”

  “But you say he was successful?”

  “He threatened to blow their heads off with a musket unless they were baptized, sir. That queue went twice round the armoury and clear back to the guardhouse.”

  Mr Parker fell silent, plunged into a gloom that was matched only by the rebellious mood of the trudging Riflemen. Sharpe’s own cheerfulness was forced, for he was unwilling to admit that the small progress he had so far made in gaining the Riflemen’s confidence had been shattered by his decision to strike off south alone. He told himself that the men’s sullenness was due to lack of sleep, while in truth he knew it was because they had been forced to leave Major Vivar. They trusted Vivar, while his own authority over them was still on trial, and that knowledge fretted at Sharpe’s fragile dignity.

  Confirmation of the Riflemen’s unhappiness came from Sergeant Williams, who fell into step with Sharpe as the small column marched between wide apple orchards. “The lads really wanted to stay with the Major, sir.”

  “For Christ’s sake why?”

  “Because of his jewels, sir! He was going to give us gold when we got to Santy-aggy.”

  “You’re a bloody fool, Sergeant. There was never going to be any gold. There may have been jewels in that damned box, but the only reason he wanted our company was to give him protection.” Sharpe was certain he was right. Vivar’s encounter with the Riflemen had almost doubled the Major’s small force, and Sharpe’s duty was not to some damned strongbox but to the British army. “We’d never have reached Santiago anyway. It’s full of the damned Frogs.”

  “Yes, sir,” Williams said dutifully, but with regret.

  They stopped that night in a small town where George Parker’s command of Spanish secured space in an inn. The Parkers hired themselves one of the rooms off the tavern’s large chamber, while the Riflemen were given the use of a stable.

  The remains of the monastery’s gift of bread was the only food the men carried, and Sharpe knew they needed more. The innkeeper had meat and wine, but would not part with either unless Sharpe paid. He had no money, so approached George Parker who confessed, sadly, that his wife controlled the family purse.

  Mrs Parker, divesting herself of cloaks and scarves, seemed to swell with indignation at his request. “Money, Mr Sharpe?”

  “The men need meat, ma’am.”

  “We are to make a subvention to the army?”

  “It will be repaid, ma’am.” Sharpe felt Louisa’s gaze on him but, in the interests of his men’s appetites, he resisted looking at the niece for rear of offending the aunt.

  Mrs Parker jangled her leather purse. “This is Christ’s money, Lieutenant.”

  “We’re only borrowing it, ma’am. And my men can offer you no protection if they’re starving.”

  That argument, put so humbly, seemed to convince Mrs Parker. She demanded the presence of the innkeeper with whom she negotiated the purchase of a pot of goat-bones which, she told Sharpe, could be seethed into a nourishing broth.

  When the haggling was done, Sharpe hesitated before writing out the receipt that Mrs Parker demanded. “And some money for wine, ma’am?”

  George Parker raised eyes to the ceiling, Louisa busied herself with candle-wicks, and Mrs Parker turned to stare with horror at Sharpe. “Wine?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Your men are bibbers of strong drink?”

  “They’re entitled to wine, ma’am.”

  “Entitled?” The rising inflection presaged trouble.

  “British army regulations, ma’am. One third of a pint of spirits a day, ma’am, or a pint of wine.”

  “Each?”

  “Of course, ma’am.”

  “Not, Lieutenant Sharpe, while they are escorting Christian folk to safety.” Mrs Parker thrust the purse into a pocket of her skirt. “Our Lord and Saviour’s money, Lieutenant, will not be frittered away on liquor. Your men may drink water. My husband and I drink nothing but water.”

  “Or small beer,” George hastened to correct her.

  Mrs Parker ignored him. “The receipt, Lieutenant, if you please.”

  Sharpe dutifully signed the piece of paper, then followed the innkeeper into the large room where, for lack of any other currency, he sliced off four of the silver buttons sewn on the outside seams of his uniform trousers. The buttons purchased enough wineskins to give each man a cupful. The issue, like the pot of gristly bones, was received in sullen silence that was only broken by a mutinous muttering when Sharpe announced a reveille for four o’clock in the morning. Stung by this new evidence of the Riflemen’s most uncooperative behaviour, he snapped that if any man preferred to be a French prisoner, then that man could leave now. He gestured to the stable door, beyond which the frost was already forming on the stableyard.

  No one spoke or moved. Sharpe could see Harper’s eyes glittering from the back of the stable, and he saw again how the Riflemen had instinctively grouped themselves about the big Irishman. But there was no point in looking to Harper for help. He, more than any man, seemed to resent leaving Major Vivar, though what purpose any of them imagined would be served by staying at the Major’s side was beyond Sharpe’s imagination. Tour o’clock!“ he said. ”And we’ll be marching at five!“

  Mrs Parker was no happier at the news than the Riflemen. “Rising at
four? You think a body can survive without sleep, Lieutenant?”

  “I think, ma’am, that it’s best to be travelling before the French.” Sharpe hesitated, not willing to make another request of this disobliging woman, but knowing he could not trust himself to judge the hours in the night’s blackness. “I was wondering, ma’am, if you had a clock, or a watch?”

  “A timepiece, Lieutenant?” Mrs Parker asked the question to gain time in which to marshal her forces of rejection.

  “Please, ma’am.”

  Louisa smiled at Sharpe from her seat on the shelf in the alcove which formed the bed. Her aunt, seeing the smile, snatched the alcove’s curtain closed. “You, of course, will sleep outside this door. Lieutenant?”

  Sharpe, thinking of timepieces, was taken aback by the peremptory demand. “I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

  “There are defenceless females in this room, Lieutenant! British females!”

  “I’m certain you will be safe, ma’am.” Sharpe pointed at the heavy bolt inside the door.

  “Have you no conception of your responsibilities, Lieutenant?” Mrs Parker advanced in wrath. “Is it any wonder that you have never secured promotion beyond your lowly rank?”

  “Ma’am, I…“

  “Do not interrupt me! I will have none of your barrack manners here, Lieutenant. Have you seen the Papist creatures who are drinking like animals in this tavern? Do you know what horrors strong drink provokes? And let me remind you that Mr Parker paid his taxes in England, which entitles us to your protection.”

  George Parker, trying to read his scriptures by the light of a tallow dip, looked beseechingly at Sharpe. “Please, Lieutenant?”

  “I shall sleep outside, ma’am, but I need a timepiece/

  Mrs Parker, pleased with her small victory, smiled.

  “If you are to guard us, Lieutenant, then you will want to be wakeful. Turning an hourglass will keep you from slumbering. George?”

  George Parker rooted about in his valise to produce an hourglass that he handed, with an apologetic grimace, to Sharpe. Mrs Parker nodded satisfaction. “It lacks twenty-five minutes of ten o’clock, Lieutenant, and the glass takes one hour to evacuate itself.” She waved an imperious hand in dismissal.