Chapter 28
‘Which way?’
‘God knows!’ Sharpe searched frantically for a main street. The central breach faced a tangle of alleys. He chose an opening at random and started running. ‘This way!’
There were screams ahead, shots, and bodies lying in the alleyway. It was too dark to tell if the corpses were French or Spanish. The alley stank of blood, death, and the night soil thrown earlier from the upper windows, and the two men slipped in their haste. Light came from a cross-alley and Sharpe turned instinctively, still running, with a huge bloodied sword held like a lance.
A door opened ahead and spilt men into the alley, blocking it, and after them came wine barrels, huge tins, that they hammered with their musket-butts until the staves burst and the wine cascaded on to the cobbles. The men dropped, put mouths to the gushing liquid, scooped at it, and Sharpe and Harper kicked them aside, pushed past, and came out into the small plaza. One house burned, throwing the light that had attracted them, and in the blaze they could see a mediaeval depiction of hell. The people of Badajoz suffered the torments of red-jacketed devils. A naked woman wandered, sobbing and bloodied, in the plaza’s centre. She was too hurt to feel any more, too abused to care, and when new men, fresh from the breach, grabbed her and threw her down she made no protest, but sobbed on, and all around it was the same. Some women struggled, some had died, others had watched their children die, and around them the victors capered, half dressed, half drunk, lit by the fire and festooned with their loot.
Some of the devils fought, squabbling over women or wine, and Sharpe saw two Portuguese soldiers bayonet a British Sergeant, seize the woman beneath him, and drag her into a house. Her child, screaming hysterically, toddled after, but the door was slammed and the child left. Harper’s face showed a terrible fury. He kicked the door, bursting it open, and plunged into the house. A shot was fired, splintering the lintel, and then the Portuguese came out, one after the other, thrown with a bone-crunching force and the Irishman picked up the child, handed it in, and shut the door as best he could. He shrugged at Sharpe. ‘Others will get her.’
Which way? Two roads led uphill, the larger to the left, and Sharpe took it, pushing through the riot, the scenes from hell. Once, inexplicably, the pavement seemed to be running with silver coins that no one touched. One by one the doors were shot open, the houses ripped apart, a whole city at an army’s mercy, and the army had little. A few men showed decency, protecting a woman or a family, but the decent men were too often shot down. Officers who tried to stop the carnage were shot, discipline was dead, the mob ruled Badajoz.
Screams deafened the two men, and they were thrown back on to a wall by a horde of women, stark naked, who, slobbering and spitting, had erupted from an unbarred door. A nun screamed at them from the doorway, but more women came from inside and Sharpe knew a madhouse was emptying itself into the streets. There was no point in locking up the mad in Badajoz this night and there were whoops from behind and cheers as the soldiers charged up and into the lunatics. One pulled at the nun, while another leaped on to a huge, naked woman’s back, gripped her wild, grey hair as reins, and all the soldiers tried to ride a lunatic.
‘There, sir!’ Harper pointed. Above them and ahead was the cathedral tower, its square, crenellated outline obvious in the sky, and from its arched openings the bells jangled a cacophony because drunken men were dangling on the ropes, signaling a victory.
They stopped at the street’s end, in front of the cathedral, and to their left was a great plaza, the rape beneath its trees lit by a huge fire, and to their right a dark alley. Sharpe started towards it, but his arm was pulled, and he turned to see a girl, short and weeping, clinging to his sleeve. She had been roused from a house, chased, and her pursuers came after as she held on to the tall man whose face had looked untouched by the madness. ‘Senor! Senor!’
Her tormentors, in the white facings of the 43rd, reached for the girl and Sharpe swept the sword at them, cutting one man’s arm, and he watched their bayonets drop for the attack and the girl was hampering him. He swung again, being forced back by British bayonets, but then Harper came between him and his attackers, the seven-barreled gun whirled as a club, and they went back.
‘This way!’ Sharpe shouted and, with the girl still clinging to him, he pushed into the alley. Harper came behind, threatening the men of the 43rd with the giant gun until they gave up and went for easier spoils, and then the Sergeant turned after Sharpe to find the alley was a dead end. Sharpe swore.
Harper seized the girl, who shrank away, but his touch was gentle and his voice urgent. ‘Donde esta la Casa Moreno?’ It was the limit of his Spanish, and the girl shook her head. He tried again, letting his voice reassure her. ‘Listen, Miss. Casa Moreno. Comprendo? Donde esta la Casa Moreno?’
She spoke in fast, excited Spanish, and pointed to the cathedral. Sharpe swore again in exasperation. ‘She doesn’t know. We’ll go back.’ He started forward, but Harper put out a hand.
‘No, look!’ There were steps leading to a side-door and the Irishman pushed Sharpe towards it. ‘She means through the cathedral. It’s a short cut!’
The girl stumbled on her dress, but Harper caught her and she clung to his hand as he pushed open the huge, studded door. Sharpe heard the Irishman draw in a breath.
The cathedral had been a refuge, a sanctuary, but no longer. Troops had invaded it, had chased the women, caught them, and now, under the myriad votive candles, the women were being raped. A nun, her habit ripped apart, was spread-eagled on the high altar while an Irishman of the 88th, down from the casde assault, tried vainly to climb up to her. He was too drunk. The girl gasped, began to scream, but Harper held her firm. ‘Casa Moreno? Si?’
She nodded, too appalled to speak, and led them across the great floor of the transept, between the altar and the transcoro, and round the huge chandelier that had been cut from its moorings and had crashed down on to the flagstones, crushing a Corporal from the 7th who still twitched under its weight. Dead lay on the floor while the wounded, sobbing in their misery, crawled towards the obscuring shadows of the nave. Be with us now and in the hour of our need.
A priest, who had tried to stop the soldiers, lay by the north door and Sharpe and Harper stepped over the body, into the great plaza, and the girl pointed again, to her right, and they ran until she pulled Harper right again, into a dark alleyway seething with troops who beat at shut doors and, in their frustration, fired shots at upper, barred windows. Harper protected the girl, held her close, as they pushed through the men, Sharpe’s sword their passport, and then the girl shouted at them, pointed, and Sharpe saw the dark shapes of two trees and knew he had arrived.
There were cheers from the doorway, a creaking, a great crash, and a mass of men in front of them melted away as they streamed into Moreno’s courtyard. Barrels waited for them, thick barrels, full barrels, and the men fell on the wine, forgetting everything else, and in his counting house, praying next to his wife who had returned home at midnight, Rafael Moreno prayed and hoped he had provided enough wine for the soldiers and thick enough bolts for his counting house door.
Hakeswill cursed. He heard the commotion below, the crashing of the great doors, and he spat at Teresa. ‘Hurry!’
A bullet splintered the shutter and buried itself in the ceiling and he turned, fearing Sharpe, but it was only a stray shot from the street. The baby was awkward in his arm, but it was his best threat and he did not want to kill it yet. The bayonet was still at Antonia’s throat, her crying reduced to heaving, breathless sobs, and Hakeswill twitched the blade, ground his teeth as the twitching caught him, and bellowed again. ‘Hurry!’
She was still dressed, damn her, and he wanted this business done! Two shoes off, that was all, and he twitched the bayonet again, drawing a trickle of blood, and he saw her arms go up to the fastening of her dress. ‘That’s right, missy, don’t want baby to die, do we?’ He cackled, and the cackling became a racking cough, and Teresa watched the blade at her
child’s throat. She dared not attack him, dared not, and then the coughing stopped and the eyes opened again. ‘Get on with it, missy. We’ve got time to make up, remember?’
Teresa slowly undid the knot at her throat, pretending to fumble with the material, and she saw the excitement in his face and then he began to swallow rapidly so that his Adam’s apple pulled at the scar. ‘Hurry, missy, hurry!’ Hakeswill could feel the excitement. She had humiliated him, this bitch, and now it was her turn. She would die, and so would her bastard, but he would have his enjoyment first and he began to work out in his head the problem of holding the baby while he took her, and then he knew she was taking her time. ‘I’ll slit its throat, missy, then yours. But if you want this little bastard to live, you’d better take them clothes off, and fast!’
The door bulged under Harper’s boot, the crash spinning Hakeswill round, and then the bolt sheared, the door shook on its hinges, and Hakeswill held the bayonet vertically above Antonia’s throat. ‘Stop!’
Teresa had reached for the rifle. She froze. Harper was through the door and his momentum drove him on to the cot and then he, too, was utterly motionless as he sprawled, on all fours, and stared at the seventeen inch bayonet. Sharpe, the girl behind him, stopped in the doorway and his sword, which had been reaching towards Hakeswill, was suspended in mid lunge so that its blood-thickened tip quivered in the room’s centre.
Hakeswill laughed. ‘Bit late, aren’t you, Sharpy. They called you that, didn’t they, Sharpy? Or Dick. Lucky Sharpe. I remember. Clever little Sharpy, but it didn’t stop you being flogged, did it?’
Sharpe looked to Harper, Teresa, then back to Hakeswill. He gestured slowly at Knowles’s body. ‘Did you do this?’
Hakeswill cackled and his shoulders heaved. ‘Clever little bastard, aren’t you, Sharpy? Of course I bloody did it. The little bastard came to protect your lady.’ He sneered at Teresa. ‘My lady, now.’ Her dress was open at the neck and Hakeswill could see a slim gold cross against her brown skin. He wanted her, he wanted that skin beneath his hands, and he would have her! And kill her! And Sharpe could watch, because none of them would dare touch him while he still threatened the baby.
The girl behind Sharpe moaned and Hakeswill’s head twitched towards the door. ‘You got a whore there, Sharpy? You have! Bring her in!’ The girl stepped over Knowles’s body and into the room. She moved slowly, terrified of the yellow-skinned, belly-paunched man who held the heaving, sob-racked baby. She went to stand by Harper, her foot kicking Hakeswill’s shako mat had fallen from the upset cot. The hat rolled to a stop, upended, by Harper’s hand. Hakeswill watched her. ‘Very nice. Pretty little missy.’ He cackled. ‘You like the Irishman, do you, dearie?’ She was shaking at the sight of him, and Hakeswill laughed. ‘He’s a pig. They all are, the bloody Irish, dirty great pigs. You’re better off with me, missy.’ The blue eyes went back to Sharpe. ‘Shut the door, Sharpy. Gently now.’
Sharpe shut the door, careful not to alarm the twitching man who held his baby. He could not see Antonia’s face, just the great saw-backed bayonet that was above the bundle of bed-clothes. Hakeswill laughed at him. ‘Very good. You can watch now, Sharpy.’ He looked at Harper, frozen grotesquely where he had tripped. ‘And you, pig. You can watch. Stand up.’
Hakeswill was not sure how he would do this, but he would work something out because he knew that, as long as the child was in his power, then all these people were in it, too. He liked the new girl, Harper’s girl by the look of it, and he could take her with him, out into the city, but he would have to kill Sharpe and Harper first because they knew he had killed
Knowles. He shook his head. He would kill them because he hated them! He laughed, then saw that Harper had not moved. ‘I told you to stand up, you Irish bastard! Stand!’
Harper stood up, his heart beating at the risk, and in his hands he held the shako. He had seen the picture in the crown and he had no real idea who it was, but he stood up, one hand holding the hat, the other reaching inside it. He saw Hakeswill’s face show alarm. The bayonet quivered. ‘Give it to me. ‘ The voice had become whining. ‘Give it to me!’
‘Put the baby down.’
No one else moved. Teresa did not understand, nor did Sharpe, and Harper had only the vaguest idea; a hunch, a straw that was the only thing to clutch in this whirling madness. Hakeswill shook, his face jerking spasmodically. ‘Give it to me!’ He was sobbing. ‘My Mammy! My Mammy! Give her to me!’
The Ulster voice was soft, growling deep from the massive chest. ‘I have my nails on her eyes, Hakeswill, soft eyes, soft eyes, and I will claw them out, Hakeswill, claw them out, and your Mammy will scream.’
‘No! No! No!’ Hakeswill was swaying, crying, cringing. The baby was crying with him. The yellow face looked at Harper, the voice was pleading. ‘Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Not to my Mammy.’
‘I will, so I will, and I will, unless you put the baby down, you put the baby down.’ He spoke in a rhythm, as to a child, and Hakeswill swayed with the rhythm. The head went into violent twitches and, suddenly, the fear was gone and he looked at Harper.
‘You think I’m a fool?’
‘Mother’s hurting.’
‘No!’ The madness was back, instantly, and Sharpe watched, appalled, as the great shambling man retreated into the insanity that had always seemed close. He was crouching now, knees below the baby, and rocking himself as he wept, though the bayonet was still above the child and Sharpe still dared not move.
‘Your Mother’s talking to me, Obadiah.’ The Ulster voice turned Hakeswill’s head back to Harper. He was holding the hat by his ear. ‘She wants you to put the baby down, put the baby down, she wants you to help her, help her, because she likes her eyes. They’re nice eyes, Obadiah, Mother’s eyes.’
The Sergeant was breathing in short, fast gasps, and he nodded his head. ‘I will, I will. Give me my Mother!’
‘She’s coming to you, so she is, but put the baby down, down, down. ‘ Harper took one gentle step towards the Sergeant and held the hat out, not far enough, and Hakeswill’s face was the face of a child who will do anything not to be whipped. He nodded eagerly, the tears coursing down his cheeks.
‘I’m putting baby down, Mother, putting baby down. Obadiah never wanted to hurt baby.’ And the great blade came up from the throat, the hat was inched nearer, and then Hakeswill, still crying and twitching, put the baby on the bed’s coverlet and turned, bullet fast, to snatch at the hat.
‘You bastard!’ Harper pulled the hat back and threw a huge punch. Teresa snatched the child to safety, at the head of the bed, and then turned, the rifle in her hands and she was clawing at the flint. Sharpe lunged with the sword, but Hakeswill was going back from the punch and the blade missed. Hakeswill had fallen, still without the hat, and he reached for it again. The rifle fired, the range less than a yard, but he was still going for the hat and Harper kicked him, sending him backwards, and Sharpe’s second blow missed again.
‘Stop him!’ Harper threw the hat behind him and grabbed at Hakeswill. Teresa, not believing that she could have missed with the rifle bullet, swung the empty gun at the Sergeant and the barrel, scything through the air, knocked Harper’s arm so that his snatch missed and all he could touch was Hakeswill’s haversack. He gripped it, pulled at it, and Hakeswill bellowed at them, swung his own fist, pulled away so that the haversack straps broke and it was left in Harper’s hand. Hakeswill looked for the hat. It was gone, beyond Sharpe and his sword, and Hakeswill gave a long, low moan because he had only found his Mother a few days before, and now she was gone. His Mother, the only person who had loved him, who had sent her brother to rescue him from the scaffold, and now he had lost her. He moaned again, slashing with the bayonet, and then jumped for the shattered window, splintered the remains of the shutter, and threw a leg over the balcony. Three people reached for him, but he swung the bayonet, raised his other leg, and jumped.
‘Stop!’ Harper’s bellow was not at Hakeswill, but at Sharpe and Teresa who w
ere blocking him. He pushed them aside, unslung the seven-barreled gun that he had not fired in the breach, and put it to his shoulder. Hakeswill was sprawling in the roadway, scrambling to his feet, and it was a shot Harper could not miss. He felt his lips curl into a smile, he pulled the trigger, the gun smacked into his shoulder like a mule’s kick, and the window was blotted by smoke. ‘Got the bastard!’
The cackle came from the road, the jeering cackle, and Harper fanned at the smoke, leaned from the balcony, and there, in the shadows, the lumpen figure was moving away, hatless and gross, the footsteps lost in the city’s screaming. He was alive. Harper shook his head. ‘You can’t kill that bastard!’
“That’s what he always says.’ Sharpe dropped the sword, turned away, and Teresa was smiling at him, offering him the bundle, and he began crying, he did not know why, and he took his daughter into his arms and held her, kissed her, tasting the blood on her throat. She was his. A baby, a daughter, Antonia; crying, alive, and his.
Epilogue
They were married the next day by a priest who shook with fear because the city was still being sacked and there were flames over the rooftops and screams in the streets. Sharpe’s men, those who had come to the house, tidied up the courtyard and threw out the drunks. It seemed a strange place to be getting married. Clayton, Peters and Gutteridge guarded the main gate with loaded muskets, acrid smoke drifted into the court, and Sharpe did not understand a word of the ceremony. Harper and Hogan, their faces, in Sharpe’s opinion, stupidly happy, looked on. The Sergeant had whooped with joy when Sharpe told him that he and Teresa would marry; Harper had thumped Sharpe’s back as if they were the same rank, and claimed that he and Isabella were very happy for them.