Sharpe's Siege Page 12

The surgeon shrugged. ‘A heated skin, uncontrolled shivering, a looseness of the bowels. I can’t say you have any pyretic symptoms yourself, Major.’

  Sharpe felt a horrid dread. For a second he felt a temptation to claim that his wound was incapacitating and to demand that he was returned to St Jean de Luz by the first ship.

  ‘Well, Sharpe?’ Bampfylde was offended that Sharpe had ignored his questions. ‘You will be marching inland?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Sharpe stood. Anything rather than endure this bumptious naval captain. Sharpe would march inland, ambush the road, then return and refuse to have any further part of Bampfylde’s madness. He knew he should dry his sword if it was not to have rust spots by morning, but he was too tired. He had not slept last night, he had marched all day, and he had taken a fortress. Now he would sleep.

  He pushed past Bampfylde and went to find a cot in an empty room of the barracks. There, surrounded by the small belongings of a gunner evicted by his Green Jackets, he lay down and slept.

  It was night now, a cold night. Sentries shivered on the ramparts and the flooded ditch had a skin of thin ice. The wind dropped, the rain had died, and the clouds thinned to leave a sky pricked by cold, white, winter-bright stars above the shimmering, glittering, ice-edged marshes.

  Across those silent marshes, and from the silvered, steel-flat waters of Arcachon, a glimmer of mist was born. The mist skeined slow in a still night, a night of frost and white vapour beyond a fort where the blood spilt in a skirmish froze hard in the darkness.

  Torches flared in the courtyard of the Teste de Buch. Breath smoked to vapour. Frost touched the cobbles white and rimed the gun barrels on the ramparts.

  Bampfylde had ordered the Green Jackets to rest and replaced them with Marines whose scarlet coats and white crossbelts seemed bright in the starlit night.

  Nine French prisoners, one of them the sergeant who had fired at Sharpe from the barrack roof, were locked in an empty ready magazine. They would be taken by Bampfylde’s ships to the rotting prison hulks in the Thames or else to the new stone jail built by French prisoners in the wilds of Dartmoor.

  The other prisoners were locked in the spirit store that Bampfylde had ordered emptied of its brandy and wine. Thirty men were crammed into a space fit for no more than a dozen. They were the Americans.

  ‘At least they claim they’re Americans!’ Bampfylde, his bootless feet propped on an ammunition box, sat in front of a fire that had been lit in Lassan’s old quarters. ‘But I’ll warrant half of them are our deserters!’

  ‘Indeed, sir.’ Lieutenant Ford knew that American ships, both Navy and civilian, were heavily crewed by seamen who had run from the harsh discipline of the Royal Navy.

  ‘So have the bastards out one at a time.’ Bampfylde paused to bite into a chicken leg that should have been a part of Henri Lassan’s dinner. He sucked the bone clean then tossed it at the fire. ‘And talk to them, Lieutenant. Use two reliable bo’sun’s mates, understand me?‘

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’ Ford understood very well.

  ‘Any man you believe is a deserter, put in a separate room. The real Americans can go back to the store.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Bampfylde poured more of the wine. It might be a young vintage, but it was very, very hopeful. He made a mental note to have all the crates shipped to the Vengeance. He had also found some fine crystal glasses, incised with a coat of arms, that would look very fine in his Hampshire house. ‘You think I’m being too particular with the American prisoners, Ford?’

  Ford did. ‘They’re all going to hang, sir.’

  ‘True, but it is important that they hang in the proper manner! We can’t have a pirate flogged, can we? That would be most uncivil!’ Bampfylde laughed at his small jest. Those crewmen of the Thuella who were suspected of being British seamen and deserters would face the worst fate. They would be placed in a ship’s boat and rowed past all the ships of Bampfylde’s command. In front of each ship, under the gaze of the crews, they would be lashed with the cat o’ nine tails as a visible, bloody warning of the price a deserter must pay. The knotted thongs would flay their skin and flesh to the bone, but they would be restored to consciousness before they were hanged from the Vengeance’s yardarm. The others, the Americans, would be hanged ashore, without a flogging, as common pirates.

  Lieutenant Ford hesitated. ‘Captain Frederickson, sir ...’ he began nervously.

  ‘Frederickson,’ Bampfylde frowned. ‘That’s the fellow with the beggar’s face, yes?’

  ‘Indeed, sir. He did say they were his prisoners. That he’d guaranteed them honourable treatment.’

  Bampfylde laughed. ‘Perhaps he thinks they should be hanged with a silken rope? They are privateers, Ford, pirates! That makes them the Navy’s business, and you will oblige Captain Frederickson to keep his opinions to himself.’ Bampfylde smiled reassurance at his lieutenant. ‘I shall talk to the American officers myself. Send me my bargemen, will you?’

  The capture of Cornelius Killick had given Captain Bampfylde a particular and keen pleasure. American seamen had twisted the Royal Navy’s tail, winning single-ship battles with contemptible ease, and men like Killick had become popular heroes to their countrymen. The news of his capture and ignominious death would teach the Republic that Britain could lash back when it so wished. Their Lordships of the Admiralty, Bampfylde knew, would be well pleased with this news. Not many enemies still defied Britain on the waves, and the downfall of even one, even though he be a common pirate, would be a rare victory these days.

  ‘I am not,’ Cornelius Killick said when he was brought into Bampfylde’s presence, ‘a pirate.’

  Bampfylde’s fleshy face showed ironic amusement. ‘You’re a common and vulgar pirate, Killick, a criminal, and you’ll hang as such.’

  ‘I carry Letters of Marque from my government, and well you know it!’ Killick, like Lieutenant Docherty, had been stripped of his sword and his hands were bound behind his back. The American was chilled to the bone, furious and helpless.

  ‘Where,’ Bampfylde looked innocently at Killick, ‘are your Letters of Marque?’

  ‘I got ’em, sir.‘ Bampfylde’s bo’sun produced a thick fold of papers that Killick had carried in a waterproof pouch on his belt. Bampfylde took, opened, and read the papers with scant interest. The Government of the United States, in accordance with the customary laws, gave permission to Captain Cornelius Killick to wage warfare on the enemies of the Republic wherever on the High Seas those enemies might be found, and extended to Captain Killick the full protection of the said Government of the United States.

  ‘I see no Letters of Marque.’ Bampfylde threw the document on to the fire.

  ‘Bastard.’ Killick, like every privateer, knew that such letters offered small protection, but no captain liked to lose his papers.

  Bampfylde laughed. He was scanning the other papers that were certificates of American citizenship for the Thuella’s crew. ‘A fanciful name for a pirate ship, Thuella?’

  ‘It’s Greek,’ Killick said scornfully, ‘and means storm-cloud.’

  ‘An American educated in the classics!’ Bampfylde mocked the fine looking man. ‘What miracles this young century brings!’

  Bampfylde’s bo‘sun, the man who governed the captain’s private barge, elbowed Lieutenant Docherty in the ribs. ’This one’s no Jonathon, sir, he’s a bloody Mick.‘

  ‘An Irishman!’ Bampfylde smiled. ‘Rebelling against your lawful King, are you?’

  ‘I’m an American citizen,’ Docherty said.

  ‘Not any longer.’ Bampfylde threw all the certificates on to the fire where they flared bright, then shrivelled. ‘I smell the whiff of the Irish bogs on you.’ Bampfylde looked back to Killick. ‘So where’s the Thuella?’

  ‘I told you.’

  Bampfylde was not sure he believed Killick’s story that the Thuella was stranded, stripped, and useless, but tomorrow the brigs could search the Bassin d‘Arcachon and make certain. Bampfylde also hoped that
the rest of the privateer crew could be hunted down and brought to his justice. ’How many of your crew are British subjects?‘ he asked Killick.

  ‘None.’ Killick’s face glared defiance. Fully one-third of his men had once served in the Royal Navy and Killick well knew what ghastly fate awaited them if they were discovered. ‘Not one.’

  Bampfylde took a cigar from his case, cut it, then held a twisted paper spill made of a page torn from Lassan’s copy of Montaigne’s Essays in the fire. ‘You’re all going to hang, Killick, all of you. I could claim that you’re all deserters, even you!’ He lit his cigar, then dropped the flaming spill. ‘You fancy a thrashing, Killick? Or would you prefer to tell me the truth?’

  Killick, whose cigars had been stolen from him by a Marine, watched enviously as the British captain drew on the glowing tobacco. ‘Piss on you, mister.’

  Bampfylde shrugged, then nodded to the bo‘sun.

  There were seven bargemen, all favourites of their captain, and all strengthened by their time at the oars. They were also veterans of countless brawls in dockside taverns and of the fights they had won when part of a press gang, and two bound men, however strong, were no match for them.

  Bampfylde watched impassively. To him these two Americans were pirates, pure and simple, who wore no recognized uniform and their fate did not disturb him any more than he might worry about the rats in the Vengeance’s bilge. He let his men hit them, he watched the blood smear from split lips and noses, and not until both men were on the floor with bloodied faces and bruised ribs did he raise a hand to stop the violence. ‘How many of your men, Killick, are deserters?’

  Before Killick could make any reply the door opened. Standing there, and with taut fury on his face, was Captain William Frederickson. ‘Sir!’

  Bampfylde twisted in his chair and frowned at the interruption. He was not concerned that the Rifleman should witness this beating, but it offended Bampfylde that the man had not had the simple courtesy to knock first. ‘It’s Frederickson, isn’t it? Can’t it wait, man?’

  It was evident that Frederickson was struggling to control his temper. He swallowed, drew himself to attention, and forced civility into his face. ‘I gave Captain Killick my word, as a gentleman, that he would be treated with respect and honour. I demand that my word is kept.’

  Bampfylde was truly astonished at the protest. ‘They’re pirates, Captain!’

  ‘I gave my word.’ Frederickson stood his ground stubbornly.

  ‘Then I, as your superior, have rescinded it.’ Bampfylde’s voice was suddenly infused with anger at this soldier’s impertinence. ‘They are pirates and in the morning they will hang from a gallows. That is my decision, Captain Frederickson, mine, and if you say one more word on it, just one, then by God I will have you put under arrest like them! Now get out!’

  Frederickson stared at Bampfylde. For a second he was tempted to dare Bampfylde to make good his threat, then, without a word, he turned and stalked from the room.

  Bampfylde smiled. ‘Shut the door, Bo’sun. Now, where were we, gentlemen?‘

  In the fort’s yard, carpenters from the Scylla hammered six inch nails into beams that, when all the work was done, would be raised to make a gallows for the morning where Cornelius Killick, instead of dancing scorn about the Navy, would dance attendance on a rope.

  Thomas Taylor, the Rifleman from Tennessee who had so far done his duty without murmur or protest, stopped Captain Frederickson close to the busy hammers. ‘Sir?’

  ‘It’ll stop, Taylor, I promise you.’

  Taylor, satisfied because of the fury on his captain’s face, stepped back. The air about the fort was ghostly with a mist that blurred the stars and touched frigid on Fredericks.on’s scarred skin. He saw his own anger mirrored in Taylor’s eyes and knew that loyalties were being stretched in this cold night. ‘It will stop,’ he promised again, then went to wake Sharpe.

  Sharpe struggled out of a dream in which he saw his wife as a flesh-rotted skeleton presiding at a tea-party. He groped for his sword, flinched from a stab of pain that seared in his bandaged head, then recognized the eye-patched face in the light of the horn-lantern that Frederickson carried. ‘Dawn already?’ Sharpe asked.

  ‘No, sir. But they’re beating the hell out of them, sir.’

  Sharpe sat up. It was piercingly cold in the room. ‘They’re doing what?’

  ‘The Americans.’ Frederickson told how the seamen were being dragged before Ford, while the officers were being entertained by Captain Bampfylde. Rifleman Taylor had woken Frederickson with the news, now Frederickson woke Sharpe. ‘They’ve found two deserters already.’

  Sharpe groaned as his head split with pain. ‘The deserters will have to hang.’ His tone conveyed that such men deserved nothing else.

  Frederickson nodded agreement. ‘But I gave my word to Killick that he would be treated like a gentleman. They’re half killing the poor bastard. And they’re all to hang, Bampfylde says, deserters or no.’

  ‘Oh, Christ.’ Sharpe pulled his boots on, not bothering to tuck his overall trousers into the leather. He put his arms into his jacket, then stood. ‘Bugger Bampfylde.’

  ‘Page nine, paragraph one of the King’s Regulations might be more appropriate, sir.’

  Sharpe frowned. ‘What?’

  “‘Post Captains,”’ Frederickson quoted, “‘commanding Ships or Vessels that do not give Post, rank only as Majors during their commanding such Vessels.”’

  Sharpe buttoned his jacket then buckled the snake hasp of his sword belt. ‘How the hell do you know that?’

  ‘I took care to look up the respective pages before we left, sir.’

  ‘Jesus. I should have done that!’ Sharpe snatched up his shako and led the way downstairs. ‘But he’s commanding the Vengeance! That gives Post and makes him a full Colonel!’

  ‘He’s not on board,’ Frederickson said persuasively, ‘and the Vengeance is a half mile offshore. If he commands anything, it’s the Scylla, and frigates aren’t Post.’

  Sharpe shrugged. The quibble seemed dubious grounds for taking command from Bampfylde.

  Frederickson clattered down the stairs behind Sharpe. ‘And may I remind you of the next paragraph?’

  ‘You’re going to anyway.’ Sharpe pushed open a door and went into the pitiless cold of the courtyard. The air stung his cheeks and brought tears to his eyes.

  “‘Nothing in these regulations is to authorize any Land Officer to command any of His Majesty’s Squadrons or Ships, nor any Sea Officer to command on Land.”’ Frederickson paused, raised his heel, and slammed it down on the iced cobbles. ‘Land, sir.’

  Sharpe stared at Frederickson. The carpenter’s mauls sounded like small cannons thumping to increase the throbbing agony of his skull. ‘I don’t give a damn, William, if they hang Killick. The bloody Americans shouldn’t be butting into this bloody war anyway, and I don’t give a tuppenny damn if we hang every mother’s son of them. But you gave your word?’

  ‘I did, sir.’

  ‘So I give a damn that your word’s kept.’

  Sharpe did not bother to knock on Bampfylde’s door, instead he kicked it in and the crack of the swinging wood slamming against the wall made Captain Bampfylde jump in alarm.

  This time there were two Rifle officers, both scarred, both with faces harder than rifle butts, and both displaying an anger that was chilling in the fire-heated room.

  Sharpe ignored Bampfylde. He crossed the room and stooped to the fallen men who had been further punched and kicked since Frederickson had left. Sharpe straightened and looked at the bo‘sun. ’Untie them.‘

  ‘Major Sharpe ...’ Bampfylde began, but Sharpe turned on him.

  ‘You will oblige me, Captain Bampfylde, by not interfering with my exercise of command on land.’

  Bampfylde understood instantly. He knew a quotation from the Regulations and he knew a lost battle. But a battle was not a campaign. ‘These men are the Navy’s prisoners.’

  ‘These men were
captured by the Army, on land, where they were fighting as auxiliaries to the Imperial French Army.’ Sharpe was making it up as he went along. ‘They are my prisoners, my responsibility, and I order them untied!’ This last was to the captain’s barge crew who, startled by the sudden shout, stooped to the bound men.

  Captain Bampfylde wanted these Americans, but he wanted to preserve his dignity more. He knew that in a struggle over precedence, a struggle fuelled by legalistic interpretations of the Regulations, he would barely survive. He also felt the disarming touch of fear in the presence of these men. Bampfylde well knew what reputations came with Sharpe and Frederickson, and their ruffianly looks and scarred faces suggested that this was a battle Bampfylde could not win by force. Instead he would have to use subtlety, and in that knowledge he smiled. ‘We shall discuss their fate in the morning, Major.’

  ‘Indeed we will.’ Sharpe, somewhat surprised by the ease of his victory, turned to Frederickson. ‘Order the other Americans into proper confinement, Mr Frederickson. Use our men as guards. Then clear the kitchen and ask Sergeant Harper to join me there. Bring them.’ He nodded at the American officers.

  In the kitchens, Sharpe offered an awkward apology.

  Cornelius Killick, who was tearing a loaf of bread apart, cocked a bloodied eyebrow. ‘Apologize?’

  ‘You were given an officer’s word, and it was broken. I apologize.’

  Patrick Harper pushed open the kitchen door. ‘Captain Frederickson said you wanted me, sir?’

  ‘To be a cook, Sergeant. There’s some Frog soup on the stove.’

  ‘Pleasure, sir.’ Harper, whose face was almost back to its normal size and who seemed remarkably well recovered from his self-inflicted surgery, opened the stove’s fire-box and threw in driftwood. The kitchens were blessedly warm.

  ‘You’re Irish?’ Lieutenant Docherty suddenly asked Harper.

  ‘That I am. From Tangaveane in Donegal and a finer piece of God’s country doesn’t exist. It’s fish soup, sir,’ Harper said to Sharpe.

  ‘Tangaveane?’ The thin-faced lieutenant stared at Harper. ‘Then you’d be knowing Cashelnavean?’