Sharpe's Battle Read online

  "It's at the bottom of the page," Donaju offered.

  " 'The Melancholy Effects of Intemperance'?" Sharpe read a headline aloud.

  "No, Sharpe. Just before that," Donaju said, and Sharpe sighed as he read the words "New Massacres in Ireland". What followed was a more lurid version of the tale Runciman had already told Sharpe: a catalogue of rape and slaughter, of innocent children cut down by English dragoons and of praying women dragged out of houses by drink-crazed grenadiers. The newspaper claimed that the ghosts of Cromwell's troopers had come back to life to turn Ireland into a blood-drenched misery again. Ireland, the English government had announced, would be pacified once and for all, and the newspaper commented that the

  English were choosing to make that pacification when so many Irishmen were fighting against France in the King's army in Portugal. Sharpe read the piece through twice. "What did Lord Kiely say?" he asked Father Sarsfield, not because he cared one fig what Kiely thought, but the question bought him a few seconds while he thought how to respond. He also wanted to encourage Sarsfield to do the delegation's talking, for the Real Companïa Irlandesa's chaplain had struck Sharpe as a friendly, sensible and cool-headed man and if he could get the priest on his side then he reckoned the rest of the company would follow.

  "His Lordship hasn't seen the newspaper," Sarsfield said. "He has gone hunting with the Dona Juanita."

  Sharpe handed the paper back to the priest. "Well, I've seen the newspaper," he said, "and I can tell you it's bloody rubbish." One of the guardsmen stirred indignantly, then stiffened when Sharpe gave him a threatening look.

  "It's a fairy tale for idiots," Sharpe said provocatively, "pure bloody make- believe."

  "How do you know?" Donaju asked resentfully.

  "Because if there was trouble in Ireland, Captain, we'd have heard about it before the Americans. And since when did the Americans have a good word to say about the British?"

  "But we have heard about it," Captain Lacy intervened. Lacy was a stocky young man with a pugnacious demeanour and scarred knuckles. "There've been rumours,"

  Lacy insisted.

  "There have too," Harper added loyally.

  Sharpe looked at his friend. "Oh, Christ," he said as he realized just how hurt Harper was, though he also realized that Harper must have come to him hoping that the stories were not true. If Harper had wanted a fight he would not have chosen Sharpe, but some other representative of the enemy race. "Oh,

  Christ," Sharpe swore again. He was plagued with more than enough problems already. The Real Companïa Irlandesa had been promised pay and given none; every time it rained the old barracks ran with damp; the food in the fort was dreadful and the only well provided nothing but a trickle of bitter water.

  Now, on top of those problems and the added threat of Loup's vengeance, there was this sudden menace of an Irish mutiny. "Give me back the newspaper,

  Father," Sharpe said to the chaplain, then stabbed a dirty fingernail at the date printed at the top of the sheet. "When was this published?" He showed the date to Sarsfield.

  "A month ago," the priest said.

  "So?" Lacy asked belligerently.

  "So how many bloody drafts have arrived from Ireland in the last month?"

  Sharpe asked, his voice as scornful as it was forceful. "Ten? Fifteen? And not one of those men thought to tell us about his sister being raped or his mother being buggered witless by some dragoon? Yet suddenly some bloody American newspaper knows all about it?" Sharpe had addressed his words to Harper more than to the others, for Harper alone could be expected to know how frequently replacement drafts arrived from Ireland. "Come on, Pat! It doesn't make bloody sense, and if you don't believe me then I'll give you a pass and you can go down to the main camps and find some newly arrived Irishmen and ask them for news of home. Maybe you'll believe them if you don't believe me."

  Harper looked at the date on the paper, thought about Sharpe's words, and nodded reluctantly. "It doesn't make sense, sir, you're right. But not everything in this world needs to make sense."

  "Of course it bloody does," Sharpe snapped. "That's how you and I live. We're practical men, Pat, not bloody dreamers! We believe in the Baker rifle, the

  Tower musket and twenty-three inches of bayonet. You can leave superstitions to women and children, and these things"-he slapped the newspaper - "are worse than superstitions. They're downright lies!" He looked at Donaju. "Your job,

  Captain, is to go to your men and tell them that they're lies. And if you don't believe me then you ride down to the camps. Go to the Connaught Rangers and ask their new recruits. Go to the Inniskillings. Go wherever you like, but be back here by dusk. And in the meantime, Captain, tell your men they've got a full day of musket training. Loading and firing till their shoulders are raw meat. Is that clear?"

  The men from the Real Companïa Irlandesa nodded reluctantly. Sharpe had won the argument, at least until the evening when Donaju returned from his reconnaissance. Father Sarsfield took the paper from Sharpe. "Are you saying this is a forgery?" the priest asked.

  "How would I know, Father? I'm just saying it isn't true. Where did you get it?"

  Sarsfield shrugged. "They're scattered throughout the army, Sharpe."

  "And when did you and I ever see a newspaper from America, Pat?" Sharpe asked

  Harper. "And funny, isn't it, that the first one we ever see is all about

  Britain being bloody to Ireland? It smacks of mischief to me."

  Father Sarsfield folded the paper. "I think you're probably right, Sharpe, and praise be to God for it. But you won't mind, will you, if I ride with Captain

  Donaju today?"

  "It isn't up to me what you do, Father," Sharpe said. "But for the rest of you, let's get to work!"

  Sharpe waited while the delegation left. He motioned Harper to stay behind, but Father Sarsfield also lingered for Sharpe's attention. "I'm sorry,

  Sharpe," the priest said.

  "Why?"

  Sarsfield flinched at Sharpe's harsh tone. "I imagine you do not need Irish problems intruding on your life."

  "I don't need any damn problems, Father. I've got a job to do, and the job is to turn your boys into soldiers, good soldiers."

  Sarsfield smiled. "I think you are a rare thing, Captain Sharpe: an honest man."

  "Of course I'm not," Sharpe said, almost blushing as he remembered the horrors done to the three men caught by El Castrador at Sharpe's request. "I'm not a bloody saint, Father, but I do like to get things done. If I spent my damn life dreaming dreams I'd still be in the ranks. You can only afford dreams if you're rich and privileged." He added the last words viciously.

  "You speak of Kiely," Sarsfield said and started walking slowly back along the ramparts beside Sharpe. The skirts of the priest's soutane were wet with the dew from the ragweed and grass that grew inside the fort. "Lord Kiely is a very weak man, Captain,"

  Sarsfield went on. "He had a very strong mother"-the priest grimaced at the memory-"and you would not know, Captain, what a trial to the church strong women can be, but I think they can be even more of a trial to their sons. Lady

  Kiely wanted her son to be a great Catholic warrior, an Irish warrior! The

  Catholic warlord who would succeed where the Protestant lawyer Wolfe Tone failed, but instead she drove him into drink, pettiness and whoring. I buried her last year"-he made a quick sign of the cross - "and I fear her son did not mourn her as a son should mourn his mother nor, alas, will he ever be the

  Christian she wanted him to be. He told me last night that he intends to marry the Lady Juanita and his mother, I think, will be weeping in purgatory at the thought of such a match." The priest sighed. "Still, I didn't want to talk to you about Kiely. Instead, Captain, I beg you to be a little patient with us."

  "I thought I was being patient with you," Sharpe said defensively.

  "With us Irish," Father Sarsfield explained. "You are a man with a country,

  Captain, and you don't know what it's like to
be an exile. You cannot know what it is like to be listening to the harps beside the waters of Babylon."

  Sarsfield smiled at the phrase, then shrugged. "It's like a wound, Captain

  Sharpe, that never heals, and I pray to God that you never have to feel that wound for yourself

  Sharpe felt a stab of embarrassed pity as he looked into the priest's kindly face. "Were you never in Ireland, Father?"

  "Once, my son, years ago. Long years ago, but if I live a thousand years that one brief stay will always seem like yesterday." He smiled ruefully, then hitched up his damp soutane. "I must join Donaju for our expedition! Think about my words, Captain!" The priest hurried away, his white hair lifting in the breeze.

  Harper joined Sharpe. "A nice man, that," Harper said, nodding at the priest's receding back. "He was telling me how he was in Donegal once. Up in Lough

  Swilly. I had an aunt who lived that way, God rest her poor soul. She was in

  Rathmullen."

  "I never was in Donegal," Sharpe said, "and I'll probably never get there, and frankly, Sergeant, right at this moment I don't care. I've got enough bloody troubles without the bloody Irish going moody on me. We need blankets, food and money which means I'm going to have to get Runciman to write another of his magic orders, but it won't be easy because the fat bugger's scared shitless of being court-martialled. Lord bloody Kiely's no bloody help. All he does is suck brandy, dream about bloody glory and trail around behind that black-haired whore like a mooncalf." Sharpe, despite Sarsfield's advice about patience, was losing his temper. "The priest is telling me to feel sorry for you all, Hogan wants me to kick these lads in the teeth and there's a fat

  Spaniard with a castrating knife who thinks I'm going to hold Loup down while he cuts off his bloody balls. Everyone expects me to solve all their bloody problems, so for God's sake give me some bloody help."

  "I always do," Harper said resentfully.

  "Yes, you do, Pat, and I'm sorry."

  "And if the stories were true-" Harper began.

  "They're not!" Sharpe shouted.

  "All right! All right! God save Ireland." Harper blew out a long breath, then there was an awkward silence between the two men. Sharpe just glowered to the north while Harper clambered down into a nearby gun embrasure and kicked at a loosened stone. "God knows why they built a fort up here," he said at last.

  "There used to be a main road down there." Sharpe nodded to the pass which lay to the north. "It was a way to avoid Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, but half the road got washed away and what's left of it can't take modern guns so it's no use these days. But the road eastwards is still all there, Pat, and Loup's bloody brigade can use it. Down there"-he pointed to the route as he spoke-"up this slope, over these walls and straight down on us and there's bugger all here to stop them."

  "Why would Loup do that?" Harper asked.

  "Because he's a mad, brave, ruthless bugger, that's why. And because he hates me and because kicking the lights out of us would be a cheap victory for the bastard." Sharpe had become preoccupied by the threat of a night raid by

  Loup's brigade. He had first thought of the raid merely as a means of frightening Colonel Runciman into signing his fraudulent wagon orders, but the more Sharpe had thought about it, the more likely such a raid seemed. And the

  San Isidro Fort was hopelessly ill prepared for such an attack. A thousand men might have been able to hold its degraded ramparts, but the Real Companïa

  Irlandesa was far too small a unit to offer any real resistance. They would be trapped within the vast, crumbling walls like rats in a terrier's fighting ring. "Which is just what Hogan and Wellington want," Sharpe said aloud.

  "What's that, sir?"

  "They don't bloody trust your Irishmen, see? They want them out of the way and

  I'm supposed to help get rid of the buggers, but the trouble is I like them.

  Damn it, Pat. If Loup comes we'll all be dead."

  "You think he's coming?"

  "I bloody well know he's coming," Sharpe said fervently, and suddenly the vague suspicions hardened into an utter certainty. He might have just made a vigorous proclamation of his practicality, but in truth he relied on instinct most of the time. Sometimes, Sharpe knew, the wise soldier listened to his superstitions and fears because they were a better guide than mere practicality. Good flat hard sense dictated that Loup would not waste valuable effort by raiding the San Isidro Fort, but Sharpe rejected that good sense because his every instinct told him there was trouble coming. "I don't know when or how he'll come," he told Harper, "but I'm not trusting a palace guard to serve picquet. I want our boys up here." He meant he wanted riflemen guarding the fort's northern extremity. "And I want a night picquet too, so make sure a couple of the lads get some sleep today."

  Harper gazed down the long northern slope. "You think they'll come this way?"

  "It's the easiest. West and east are too steep, the southern end is too strong, but a cripple could waltz across this wall. Jesus." This last imprecation was torn from Sharpe as he realized just how vulnerable the fort was. He stared eastwards. "I'll bet that bastard is watching us right now."

  From the far peaks a Frenchman armed with a good telescope could probably count the buttons on Sharpe's jacket.

  "You really think he'll come?" Harper asked.

  "I think we're damn lucky he hasn't come already. I think we're damn lucky to be alive." Sharpe jumped off the ramparts onto the grass inside the fort.

  There was nothing but grass and weed-strewn waste land for a hundred yards, then the red stone barracks buildings began. There were eight long buildings and the Real Companïa Irlandesa bivouacked in the two that had been kept in best repair while Sharpe's riflemen camped in one of the magazines close to the gate tower. That tower, Sharpe decided, was the key to the defence, for whoever held the tower would dominate the fight. "All we need is three or four minutes' warning," Sharpe said, "and we can make the bugger wish he'd stayed in bed."

  "You can beat him?" Harper asked.

  "He thinks he can surprise us. He thinks he can break into the barracks and slaughter us in our beds, Pat, but if we just have some warning we can turn that gate tower into a fortress and without artillery Loup can't do a damn thing about it." Sharpe was suddenly enthusiastic. "Don't you always say that a good fight is a tonic to an Irishman?" he asked.

  "Only when I'm drunk," Harper said.

  "Let's pray for a fight anyway," Sharpe said eagerly, "and a victory. My God, that'll put some confidence into these guards!"

  But then, at dusk, just as the last red-gold rays were shrinking behind the western hills, everything changed.

  The Portuguese battalion arrived unannounced. They were caçadores, skirmishers like the greenjackets, only these troops were outfitted in blood-brown jackets and grey British trousers. They carried Baker rifles and looked as if they knew how to use them. They marched into the fort with the easy, lazy step of veteran troops, while behind them came a convoy of three ox-drawn wagons loaded with rations, firewood and spare ammunition. The battalion was a little over half strength, mustering just four hundred rank and file, but the men still made a brave show as they paraded on the fort's old plaza.

  Their Colonel was a thin-faced man called Oliveira. "For a few days every year," he explained off-handedly to Lord Kiely, "we occupy the San Isidro.

  Just as a way of reminding ourselves that the fort exists and to discourage anyone else from setting up house here. No, don't move your men out of the barracks. My men don't need roofs. And we won't be in your way, Colonel. I'll exercise my rogues across the frontier for the next few days."

  Behind the last supply wagons the fort's great gates creaked shut. They crashed together, then one of Kiely's men lifted the locking bar into position. Colonel Runciman hurried out of the gatehouse to offer his greeting to Colonel Oliveira and to invite the Portuguese officer to supper, but

  Oliveira declined. "I share my men's supper, Colonel. No offence." Oliveira spoke good English a
nd nearly half his officers were British, the result of a policy to integrate the Portuguese army into Wellington's forces. To Sharpe's delight one of the caçador officers was Thomas Garrard, a man who had served with Sharpe in the ranks of the 33rd and who had taken advantage of the promotion prospects offered to British sergeants willing to join the

  Portuguese army. The two men had last met at Almeida when the great fortress had exploded in a horror that had led to the garrison's surrender. Garrard had been among the men forced to lay down his arms.

  "Bloody Crapaud bastards," he said feelingly. "Kept us in Burgos with hardly enough food to feed a rat, and what food there was was all rotted. Christ,