Sharpe's Battle Read online

  "Look at them!" Sharpe snapped. "Look!"

  He forced the guardsmen to look at the three mutilated naked bodies, and especially at the bloody, gut-churning mess dug out of the centre of each corpse and at the rictus of horror and pain on each dead face. Then Sharpe reached past one of the cold, white, stiff shoulders to drag free a steel-grey helmet plumed with coarse grey hair. He set it on one of the uptilted cart shafts. It was the same helmet that Harris had collected as a keepsake from the high settlement where Sharpe had discovered the massacred villagers and where Perkins had met Miranda who now followed the young rifleman with a touching and pathetic devotion. It was the same helmet that Sharpe had given back to Harris in the sack earlier that morning.

  "Look at the bodies!" Sharpe ordered the Real Companïa Irlandesa. "And listen!

  The French believe there are two kinds of people in Spain: those who are for them and those who are against them, and there ain't a man among you who can escape that judgement. Either you fight for the French or you fight against them, and that isn't my decision, that's what the French have decided." He pointed to the three bodies. "That's what the French do. They know you're here now. They're watching you, they're wondering who and what you are, and until they know the answers they'll treat you like an enemy. And that's how the

  Frogs treat their enemies." He pointed to the bloody holes carved into the dead men's crotches.

  "Which leaves you lot with three choices," Sharpe went on. "You can run east and have your manhood sliced off by the Frogs, or you can run west and risk being arrested by my army and shot as a deserter, or else you can stay here and learn to be soldiers. And don't tell me this isn't your war. You swore an oath to serve the King of Spain, and the King of Spain is a prisoner in France and you were supposed to be his guard. By God, this is your war far more than it's my war. I never swore an oath to protect Spain, I never had a woman raped by a Frenchman or a child murdered by a dragoon or a harvest stolen and a house burned by a Crapaud forage party. Your country has suffered all those things, and your country is Spain, and if you'd rather fight for Ireland than for Spain then why in the name of Almighty God did you take the Spanish oath?"

  He paused. He knew that not every man in the company was a would-be deserter.

  Many, like Lord Kiely himself, wanted to fight, but there were enough troublemakers to sap the company's usefulness and Sharpe had decided that this shock treatment was the only way to jar the troublemakers into obedience.

  "Or does the oath mean nothing to you?" Sharpe demanded. "Because I'll tell you what the rest of this army thinks about you, and I mean the rest of this army, including the Connaught Rangers and the Inniskilling Dragoons and the

  Royal Irish Regiment and the Royal County Down Regiment and the Prince of

  Wales's Own Irish Regiment and the Tipperary Regiment and the County of Dublin

  Regiment and the Duke of York's Irish Regiment. They say you lot are soft.

  They say you're powder-puff soldiers, good for guarding a pisspot in a palace, but not good for a fight. They say you ran away from Ireland once and you'll run away again. They say you're about as much use to an army as a pack of singing nuns. They say you're overdressed and over-coddled. But that's going to change, because one day you and I will go into battle together and on that day you're going to have to be good! Bloody good!"

  Sharpe hated making speeches, but he had seized these men's attention or at least the three castrated bodies had gripped their interest and Sharpe's words were making some kind of sense to them. He pointed east. "Over there," Sharpe said, and he plucked the helmet off the cart's shaft, "there's a man called

  Loup, a Frenchman, and he leads a regiment of dragoons called the wolf pack, and they wear these helmets and they leave that mark on the men they kill. So we're going to kill them. We're going to prove that there isn't a French regiment in the world that can stand up to an Irish regiment, and we're going to do that together. And we're going to do it because this is your war, and your only damned choice is whether you want to die like gelded dogs or fight like men. Now you make up your damned minds what you're going to do. Sergeant

  Harper?"

  "Sir!"

  "One half-hour for breakfast. I want a burial party for these three men, then we begin work."

  "Yes, sir!"

  Harris caught Sharpe's eye as the officer turned away. "Not one word, Harris,"

  Sharpe said, thrusting the helmet into the rifleman's belly, "not one bloody word."

  Captain Donaju stopped Sharpe as he walked away from the ramparts. "How do we fight without muskets?"

  "I'll get you muskets, Donaju."

  "How?"

  "The same way a soldier gets everything that isn't issued to him," Sharpe said, "by theft."

  That night not a single man deserted.

  And next morning, though Sharpe did not recognize it at first, the trouble began.

  "It's a bad business, Sharpe," Colonel Runciman said. "My God, man, but it's a bad business."

  "What is, General?"

  "You haven't heard?" Runciman asked.

  "About the muskets, you mean?" Sharpe asked, assuming that Runciman must be referring to his visit to the army headquarters, a visit that had ended in predictable failure. Runciman and Kiely had returned with no muskets, no ammunition, no blankets, no pipe clay, no boots, no knapsacks and not even a promise of money for the unit's back pay. Wellington's parsimony was doubtless intended to draw the fangs of the Real Companïa Irlandesa, but it gave Sharpe horrid problems. He was struggling to raise the guardsmen's morale, but without weapons and equipment that morale was doomed. Worse still Sharpe knew he was close to enemy lines and if the French did attack then it would be no consolation to know that the Real Companïa Irlandesa's defeat had been a part of Hogan's plans, not if Sharpe was himself involved in the debacle. Hogan might want the Real Companïa Irlandesa destroyed, but Sharpe needed it armed and dangerous in case Brigadier Loup came calling.

  "I wasn't talking about muskets, Sharpe," Runciman said, "but about the news from Ireland. You really haven't heard?"

  "No, sir."

  Runciman shook his head, making his jowls wobble. "It seems there are new problems in Ireland, Sharpe. Damned bad business. Bloody rebels making trouble, troops fighting back, women and children dead. River Erne blocked with bodies at Belleek. Talk of rape. Dear me. I really thought that '98 had settled the Irish business once and for all, but it seems not. The damned papists are making trouble again. Dear me, dear me. Why did God allow the papists to flourish? They try us Christians so sorely. Ah, well." Runciman sighed. "We'll have to break some skulls over there, just as we did when Tone rebelled in '98."

  Sharpe reflected that if the remedy had failed in 1798 then it was just as likely to be ineffective in 1811, but he thought it tactful not to say as much. "It might mean trouble here, General," he said instead, "when the Irish troops hear about it?"

  "That's why we have the lash, Sharpe."

  "We might have the lash, General, but we don't have muskets. And I was just wondering, sir, exactly how a Wagon Master General orders his convoys about."

  Runciman goggled at Sharpe, amazed at the apparently inappropriate question.

  "Paper, of course, paper! Orders!"

  Sharpe smiled. "And you're still Wagon Master General, sir, isn't that so?

  Because they haven't replaced you. I doubt they can find a man to fill your shoes, sir."

  "Kind of you to say so, Sharpe, most kind." Runciman looked slightly surprised at receiving a compliment, but tried not to show too much unfamiliarity with the experience. "And it's probably true," he added.

  "And I was wondering, General, how we might divert a wagon or two of weapons up to the fort here?"

  Runciman gaped at Sharpe. "Steal them, you mean?"

  "I wouldn't call it theft, General," Sharpe said reproachfully, "not when they're being employed against the enemy. We're just re-allocating the guns, sir, if you see what I mean. Eventually, sir,
the army will have to equip us, so why don't we anticipate the order now? We can always catch up with the paperwork later."

  Runciman shook his head wildly, dislodging the careful strands of long hair that he obsessively brushed over his balding pate. "It can't be done, Sharpe, it can't be done! It's against all precedence. Against all arrangements! Damn it, man, it's against regulations! I could be court-martialled! Think of the disgrace!" Runciman shuddered at the thought. "I'm astonished, Sharpe," he went on, "even disappointed, that you should make such a suggestion. I know you were denied a gentleman's breeding or even an education, but I had still expected better from you! A gentleman does not steal, he does not lie, he does not demean a woman, he honours God and the King. These attributes are not beyond you, Sharpe!"

  Sharpe went to the door of Runciman's quarters. The Colonel's day parlour was the old guard room in one of the gatehouse towers and, with the fortress's ancient gates propped open, the doorway offered a stunning view south. Sharpe leaned on a doorpost. "What happened, General," he asked when Runciman's sermon had petered out, "when a wagon went missing? You must have lost some wagons to thieves?"

  "A few, very few. Hardly one. Two, maybe. A handful, possibly."

  "So then-" Sharpe began.

  Colonel Runciman held up a hand to interrupt him. "Don't suggest it, Sharpe! I am an honest man, a God-fearing man, and I won't contrive to cheat His

  Majesty's exchequer of a wagonload of muskets. No, I won't. I have never dealt in untruths and I shall not start now. Indeed, I expressly forbid you to continue talking of the matter, and that is a direct order, Sharpe!"

  "Two wagonloads of muskets," Sharpe offered the correction, "and three ammunition carts."

  "No! I have already forbidden you to speak of the matter, and that is an end of it. You will say no more!"

  Sharpe took out the penknife he used to clean the fouling off his rifle's lock. He unfolded the blade and ran his thumb along the edge. "Brigadier Loup knows we're here now, General, and he's going to be upset about that young fellow that Kiely's whore killed. It wouldn't surprise me if he tried to take revenge. Let's see now? A night assault? Probably. And he's got two full battalions of infantry and each and every one of those bastards will be trying to earn the reward Loup's put on my head. If I was Loup I'd attack from the north because the walls have virtually disappeared there, and I'd have the dragoons waiting down there to cut off the survivors." Sharpe nodded down the steep approach road, then chuckled. "Just imagine it, can't you? Being hunted down in the dawn by a pack of grey dragoons, each of them with a newly sharpened castrating knife in his sabretache. Loup doesn't give quarter, you see. He's not known for taking prisoners, General. He just pulls out the knife, yanks down your breeches and slices off your-"

  "Sharpe! Please! Please!" A wan Runciman stared at Sharpe's penknife. "Do you have to be so graphic?"

  "General! I'm raising a serious matter! I can't hold off a brigade of

  Frenchmen with my handful of riflemen. I might do some damage if the Irish boys had muskets, but without muskets, bayonets and ammunition?" Sharpe shook his head, then snapped the blade shut. "It's your choice, General, but if I was the senior British officer in this fort then I'd find a way to get some decent weapons up here as fast as possible. Unless, of course, I wanted to be singing the high notes in the church choir when I got back to Hampshire."

  Runciman gaped at Sharpe. The Colonel was sweating now, overwhelmed by a vision of castrating Frenchmen running wild inside the crumbling fort. "But they won't give us muskets, Sharpe. We tried! Kiely and I tried together! And that awkward man General Valverde pleaded for us as well, but the

  Quartermaster General says there's a temporary shortage of spare weapons. He hoped General Valverde might persuade Cadiz to send us some Spanish muskets."

  Sharpe shook his head at Runciman's despair. "So we have to borrow some muskets, General, till the Spanish ones arrive. We just need to divert a wagon or two with the help of those seals you've still got."

  "But I can't issue orders to the wagon train, Sharpe! Not any longer! I have new duties, new responsibilities."

  "You've got too many responsibilities, General," Sharpe said, "because you're too valuable a man, but really, sir, you shouldn't be worrying yourself over details. Your job is to look after the big decisions and let me look after the small." Sharpe tossed the penknife in the air and caught it. "And let me look after the Crapauds if they come, sir. You've got better things to do."

  Runciman leaned back in his folding chair, making it creak dangerously. "You have a point, Sharpe, you do indeed have a point." Runciman shuddered as he contemplated the enormity of the crime. "But you think I am merely anticipating an order rather than breaking one?"

  Sharpe stared at the Colonel with feigned admiration. "I wish I had your mind,

  General, I really do. That's a brilliant way of putting it. "Anticipating an order." I wish I'd thought of that."

  Runciman preened at the compliment. "My dear mother always maintained I could have been a lawyer," he said proudly, "maybe even Lord Chancellor! But my father preferred me to take an honest career." He pulled some empty papers across his makeshift desk and began writing orders. From time to time the horror of his conduct made him pause, but each time Sharpe snapped the small blade open and shut and the noise prompted the Colonel to dip his quill's tip into the inkwell.

  And next day four ox-drawn wagons with puzzled drivers and beds loaded with weapons, ammunition and supplies arrived at the San Isidro Fort.

  And the Real Companïa Irlandesa was armed at last.

  And thinking of mutiny.

  CHAPTER 4

  Next morning, just after dawn, a delegation discovered Sharpe at the deserted northern end of the fort. The sun was slicing across the valley to gild the small mist that sifted above the stream where Sharpe was watching a harrier float effortlessly in the light wind with its gaze trained down on the hillside. The eight men of the delegation halted awkwardly behind Sharpe who, after one sour glance at their serious faces, looked back to the valley.

  "There's some rabbits down there," Sharpe said to no one in particular, "and that daft bird keeps losing them in the mist."

  "He won't go hungry for long though," Harper said, "I've never seen a hawk dafter than a rabbit." The greenjacket Sergeant was the only delegate from

  Sharpe's company: the other men were all from the Real Companïa Irlandesa.

  "It's a nice morning," Harper said, sounding uncharacteristically nervous. He plainly believed that either Father Sarsfield, Captain Donaju or Captain Lacy should broach the delicate subject that had caused this delegation to seek

  Sharpe out, but the chaplain and the two embarrassed officers were silent. "A grand morning," Harper said, breaking the silence again.

  "Is it?" Sharpe responded. He had been standing on a merlon beside a gun embrasure, but now he jumped down to the firing platform and from there into the bed of the dry ditch. Years of rainfall had eroded the glacis and filled the ditch, just as frost had degraded and crumbled the stonework of the ramparts. "I've seen hovels built better than this," Sharpe said. He kicked at the wall's base and one of the larger stones shifted perceptibly. "There's no bloody mortar there!" he said.

  "There wasn't enough water in the mix," Harper explained. He took a deep breath, then, realizing that his companions would not speak up, took the plunge himself. "We wanted to see you, sir. It's important, sir."

  Sharpe clambered back up to the ramparts and brushed his hands together. "Is it about the new muskets?"

  "No, sir. The muskets are just grand, sir."

  "The training?"

  "No, sir."

  "Then the man you want to see is Colonel Runciman," Sharpe said curtly. "Call him "General" and he'll give you anything." Sharpe was deliberately dissembling. He knew exactly why the delegation was here, but he had small appetite for their worries. "Talk to Runciman after breakfast and he'll be in a good enough mood," he said.

  "We've spoken to
the Colonel," Captain Donaju spoke at last, "and the Colonel said we should speak with you."

  Father Sarsfield smiled. "I think we knew he would say that, Captain, when we approached him. I don't think Colonel Runciman is particularly sympathetic to the problems of Ireland."

  Sharpe looked from Sarsfield to Donaju, from Donaju to Lacy, then from Lacy to the sullen faces of the four rank and file guardsmen. "So it's about Ireland, is it?" Sharpe said. "Well, go on. I haven't got any other problems to solve today."

  The chaplain ignored the sarcasm, offering Sharpe a folded newspaper instead.

  "It is about that, Captain Sharpe," Sarsfield said respectfully.

  Sharpe took the paper which, to his surprise, came from Philadelphia. The front page was a dense mass of black type: lists of ships arriving or departing from the city wharves; news from Europe; reports of Congress and tales of Indian atrocities suffered by settlers in the western territories.