Sharpe's Sword

  Curtis smiled gently. "I’m eminent, dreadfully eminent, and I’m asking you to do me a kindness."

  Sharpe did not move, still unwilling to walk into the circle of elegant officers. "Who needs reassurance?"

  "An acquaintance. I don’t think you’ll regret the experience. Are you married?"

  Sharpe nodded, not understanding. "Yes."

  "By Mother Church, I hope?"

  "As it happens, yes."

  "You surprise me, and please me." Sharpe was not sure whether Curtis was teasing him. The priest’s bushy eyebrows went up. "It does help, you see."

  "Help?"

  "Temptations of the flesh, Captain. I am sometimes very grateful to God that he has allowed me to grow old and immune to them. Please come."

  Sharpe followed him, curious, and Curtis stopped suddenly. "I don’t have the pleasure of your name, Captain."

  "Sharpe. Richard Sharpe."

  Curtis smiled. "Really? Sharpe? Well, well!" He did not give Sharpe any time to react to his apparent recognition. "Come on then, Sharpe! And don’t go all jellified!"

  With that mysterious injunction Curtis found a way through the horses and Sharpe followed him. There must have been two dozen officers, at least, but they were not, as Sharpe had first thought, crowded around Wellington. They were looking at an open carriage, pointing away from Sharpe, and it was to the side of the carriage that Curtis led him.

  Someone, Sharpe thought, was indecently rich. Four white horses stood patiently in the carriage traces, a powdered-wigged driver sat on the bench, a footman, in the same livery, on a platform behind. The horses’ traces were of silver chain. The carriage itself was polished to a sheen that would have satisfied the most meticulous Sergeant Major. The lines of the carriage, which Sharpe supposed was a new-fangled barouche, were picked out in silver paint on dark blue. A coat of arms decorated the door, a shield so often quartered that the small devices contained in its many compartments were indistinguishable except at very close inspection. The occupant, though, would have stunned at full rifle range.

  She was fair haired, unusual in Spain, and fair skinned, and she wore a dress of dazzling whiteness so that she seemed to be the brightest, most luminous object in the whole of Salamanca’s golden square. She was leaning back on the cushions, one white arm negligently laid on the carriage side, and her eyes seemed languid and amused, bored even, as though she were used to such daily and lavish adulation. She held a small parasol against the evening sun, a parasol of white lace that threw a filmy shadow on her face, but the shadow did nothing to hide the rich, full mouth, the big, intelligent eyes, or the slim, long neck that seemed, after the tanned, brown skin of the army and its followers, to be made of a substance that was of heavenly origin. Sharpe had seen many beautiful women. Teresa was beautiful, Jane Gibbons, whose brother had tried to kill him at Talavera, was beautiful, but this woman was in another realm. Curtis rapped the carriage door. Sharpe was hardly aware of any other person, not even of Wellington himself, and he watched the eyes come to him as she listened to Curtis’ introduction. "Captain Richard Sharpe, I have the honour to name you La Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba."

  She looked at him. He half expected her to offer him a white-gloved hand, but she just smiled. "People never remember it."

  "La Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba." Sharpe marvelled that he had got the words out without stammering. He understood exactly what Curtis meant by jellification. She raised an eyebrow in mock surprise. Curtis was telling her, in Spanish, about Leroux. Sharpe heard the name mentioned, and saw her glance at him. Each glance was stupefying. Her beauty was like a physical force. Other women, Sharpe guessed, would hate her. Men would follow her like lap dogs. She had been born beautiful and every artifice that money could buy was enhancing that beauty. She was glorious, tantalising, and, he supposed, untouchable to anyone less than a full-blooded lord and, as he always did when he saw something that he wanted, but could not hope to have, he began to dislike it. Curtis stopped and she looked at Sharpe. Her voice sounded bored. "Leroux is in the forts?"

  He wondered where she had learned English. "Yes, Ma’am."

  "You’re certain?"

  "Yes, Ma’am."

  She nodded, dismissing him, and it seemed to Sharpe that his reassurances had not been wanted, nor welcomed. Then she turned back to him and raised her voice. "You do seem so much more soldierlike, Captain, than these pretty men on their horses."

  He was not supposed to reply. The remark had been made, he suspected, purely to annoy her gallant admirers. She did not even bother to see what effect it had on them, but merely drew a silver-tipped pencil from a small bag and began writing on a piece of paper. One man rose to the bait, a foppish cavalry officer whose English drawl spoke of aristocratic birth.

  "Any brute can be brave, Ma’am, but a curry-comb always improves it."

  There was a moment’s silence. La Marquesa looked up at Sharpe and smiled. "Sir Robin Callard thinks you’re an uncombed brute."

  "Rather that than a lap dog, Ma’am."

  She had succeeded. She looked at Callard and raised an eyebrow. He was forced to be brave. He stared at Sharpe, his face furious. "You’re insolent, Sharpe."

  "Yes he is." The voice was crisp. Wellington leaned forward. "He always has been." The General knew what La Marquesa was doing, and he would stop it. He hated duelling among his officers. "It’s his strength. And weakness." He touched his hat. "Good day, Captain Sharpe."

  "Sir." He backed away from the carriage, ignored by La Marquesa who was folding her piece of paper. He had been dismissed, contemptuously even, and he knew that a tattered Captain with an old sword had no place among these scented, elegant people. Sharpe felt the resentment rise sour and thick within him. Wellington needed Sharpe when there was a breach to be taken at Badajoz, but not now! Not among his Lordship’s own kind. They thought Sharpe was a mere brute who needed a curry-comb, yet he was a brute who kicked, clawed and scratched to preserve their privileged, lavish world. Well damn them. Damn them to a stinking hell. Tonight he would drink with his men, not one of whom would dream of owning as much money as the worth of a single silver trace chain from La Marquesa’s coach. Yet they were his men. Damn the bitch and the men who sniffed about her. Sharpe would prove he did not care a damn for them.

  "Sharpe?"

  He turned. A handsome cavalry officer, hair as gold as La Marquesa’s, uniform as elegant as Sir Robin Callard’s, stood smiling at him. The man’s left arm was in a sling that covered the blue and silver of his jacket, and for a second Sharpe thought this man must be Callard’s second come to offer a duel. Yet the cavalry officer’s smile was open and friendly, his voice warm. "I’m honoured to meet you, Sharpe! Jack Spears, Captain." He grinned broadly. "I’m glad you twisted Robin’s nose. He’s a pompous little bastard. Here." He held a folded piece of paper to Sharpe.

  Sharpe took it reluctantly, not wanting anything to do with the glittering circle about the blue and silver barouche. He unfolded the pencil written note. "I am giving a small reception this evening at 10 o’clock. Lord Spears will direct you." It was signed, simply, "H".

  Sharpe looked at the startlingly handsome cavalryman. "H?"

  Spears laughed. "Helena, La Marquesade tiddly-tum and tummly-tid, and the object of an army’s combined lust. Shall I tell her you’ll come?" His voice was relaxed and friendly.

  "You’re Lord Spears?"

  "Yes!" Spears unleashed all his charm on Sharpe. "By the Grace of God and the timely bloody death of my elder brother. But you can call me Jack, everyone else does."

  Sharpe looked again at the note. Her handwriting was childishly round, like his own. "I have other business tonight."

  "Other business!" Spears’ cry of mock amazement made some of the promenading Salamantines look curiously at the young, handsome cavalry officer. "Other business! My dear Sharpe! What other business could possibly be more important than attempting to breach the fair Helena?"

  Sharpe was
embarrassed. He knew Lord Spears was being friendly, but Sharpe’s encounter with the Marquesa had made him feel shabby and inadequate. "I have to see Major Hogan. Do you know him?"

  "Know him?" Spears grinned. "He’s my lord and master. Of course I know Michael, but you won’t see him tonight, not unless you go south a couple of hundred miles."

  "You work for him?"

  "He’s kind enough to call it work." Spears grinned. "I’m one of his Exploring Officers."

  Sharpe looked at the young Lord with a new respect. The Exploring Officers rode far behind enemy lines, wearing full uniform so they could not be accused of spying, and relying on their swift, corn-fed horses to ride them out of trouble. They sent back a stream of information about enemy movements, entrusting their messages and maps to Spanish messengers. It was a lonely, brave life. Spears laughed. "I’ve impressed the great Sharpe, how wonderful! Was it important to see Michael?"

  Sharpe shrugged. In truth he had used Hogan’s name as an excuse for avoiding La Marquesa’s invitation. "I wanted to ask him about Colonel Leroux."

  "That prize little bastard." For the first time there was something other than gaiety in Spears’ voice. "You should have killed him." Spears had evidently overheard the priest’s brief conversation with La Marquesa.

  "You know him?"

  Spears touched the sling. "Who do you think did this? He nearly caught me one dark night last week. I tumbled out of a window to escape him." He smiled again. "Not very gallant, but I didn’t fancy the noble line of Spears coming to an end in a Spanish fleapit." He clapped Sharpe’s shoulder with his free hand. "Michael will want to talk to you about Leroux, but in the meantime, my dear Sharpe, you are coming to the Palacio Casares tonight to drink La Marquesa’s champagne."

  Sharpe shook his head. "No, my lord."

  "My lord! My lord! Call me Jack! Now tell me you’re coming!"

  Sharpe screwed the paper into a ball. He was thinking of Teresa and feeling noble that he was rejecting the invitation. "I’m not coming, my lord."

  Lord Spears watched Sharpe walk away, cutting across the circling walkers in the Plaza Mayor, and the cavalryman smiled to himself. "Ten to one you do, my friend, ten to one you do."

  Chapter 4

  Sharpe had wanted to go to La Marquesa’s; the temptation was on him all night, but he stayed away. He told himself that he did so because he did not care to go, but the truth was, and he knew it, that he was frightened of the mockery of La Marquesa’s witty, elegant friends. He would be out of place.

  He drank instead, listening to the stories of his men and chasing away the one Provost who tried to challenge their presence in the city. He watched them betting on cockfights, watched them losing their money because the prize birds had been fed rum-soaked raisins, and he pretended that he would rather be with them than with anyone else. They were pleased, he knew, and he felt ashamed because it was a pretence. He watched yet another dead cockerel being taken from the blood-soaked ring, and he thought of the luminous woman with the gold hair and white skin.

  Nothing kept the small group of Riflemen in Salamanca and so, the next morning, they marched early to the San Christobal Ridge where the main army waited for the French. They marched with sore heads and sour throats, leaving the city behind and going to the place they belonged.

  They all expected a battle. The French had been manoeuvred out of Salamanca, but Marmont had left the garrisons behind in the three fortresses, and it was obvious to even the least soldier that once the French Marshal had been reinforced from the north then he would come back to rescue his men trapped in the city. The British waited for him, hoping he would attack the great ridge that barred the road to the city, the ridge behind which Sharpe reunited his men with the South Essex.

  McDonald was dead, buried already, killed by a thrust of Leroux’s sword between his ribs. Major Forrest, in temporary command after the death of Windham, shook his head sorrowfully. "I’m truly sorry about the boy, Richard."

  "I know, sir." Sharpe had hardly had time to know the Ensign. "You’ll want me to write to his parents?"

  "Would you? I’ve written to Windham’s wife." Forrest was shaving from a canvas bucket. "A letter seems so inadequate. Oh dear." Forrest was a kind man, even a meek man, and he was ill-suited to the trade of warfare. He smiled at Sharpe. "I’m glad you’re back, Richard."

  "Thank you, sir." Sharpe grinned. "Look at that."

  Isabella, small and plump, was brushing at Harper’s jacket even as she welcomed him tearfully. The whole Battalion was bivouacked on the grassland, their wives and children in attendance, and as far as Sharpe could see, east and west, other Battalions waited behind the ridge. He walked up to the crest and stared north at the great plain that was bright with poppies and cornflowers. It was over those flowers, over the sun-bleached grass, that the enemy would come. They would come to crush the one army that Britain had in Spain, one army against five French, and Sharpe stared at the heat-blurred horizon and watched for the tell-tale spark of light reflected from sword or helmet that would say the enemy was coming to do battle.

  They did not come that day, nor the next, and as the hours passed so Sharpe began to forget the events of Salamanca. Colonel Leroux lost his importance, even the golden haired Marquesa became a remote dream. Sharpe did his job as Company Commander and he filled his time with the day to day rhythm of soldiering. The books had to be kept up to date, there were punishments to mete out, rewards to be given, quarrels to ease, and always the business of keeping bored men up to their highest standard. He forgot Leroux, he forgot La Marquesa, and on the third day on the San Christobal Ridge he had good reason to forget.

  It was a perfect day, the kind of summer’s day that a child might remember for ever, a day when the sun shone from a burnished sky and spilt light on the poppies and cornflowers that were spread so lavishly in the ripening wheat. A small breeze stole the venom of the sun and rippled the crops, and onto that perfect stage, that setting of gold, red and blue, came the army of the enemy.

  It seemed almost a miracle. An army marched on dozens of roads, its flanks far from each other, and in a summer’s campaign it was usual for a man never to see more than a half dozen other Regiments. Yet suddenly, at the order of a general, the scattered units were drawn together, brought into one great array ready for battle and Sharpe, high on the wind-cooled ridge, watched Marmont perform the miracle.

  The cavalry came first, their breastplates and sword blades reflecting the sun in savage flashes at the watching British. Their horses left trampled paths in the flower-strewn wheat.

  The infantry were behind, snakes of blue-jacketed men who seemed to fill the plain, spreading east and west, and among them were the guns. The French artillery, Napoleon’s own trade, who made their batteries in full view of the ridge and lifted the burning barrels from the travelling position to the fighting position. Major Forrest, watching with his officers, grinned. "There’s enough of them."

  There usually are, sir," Sharpe said.

  Hussars, Dragoons, Lancers, Cuiraisseurs, Chasseurs, Guardsmen, Grenadiers, Voltigeurs, Tirailleurs, Infantry, Artillery, Bandsmen, Engineers, Ambulance men, Drivers, Staff, all of them pulled by the beat of the drum to this place where they became an army. Fifty thousand men brought to this patch of land half the size of a country parish, a patch of land that might become well-manured with their blood. The Spanish farmers said the crops grew twice as well the year after a battle.

  The French could not see the British. They saw a few officers on the hilltop, saw the flash of light from an occasional telescope aimed at them, but Marmont had to guess where Wellington’s troops were hidden behind the ridge. He would have to guess where to make his attack, knowing all the while that his fine troops might climb the ridge’s scarp only to be suddenly faced with the red-jacketed infantry that could fire their Brown Bess muskets faster than any army in the world. Marmont would have to guess where to attack, and Generals do not like guessing.

  He did not guess that
first day, nor the next, and it seemed as if the two armies had come together only to be paralysed. Each night men from British Light Companies would go down the hill towards the French to act as picquets against a night attack, but Marmont did not risk his army in the darkness. Sharpe went one night. The noise of the French army was like the noise of a city, its lights were a sprawl of fires scattered as lavishly as the poppies and cornflowers. It was cold at night, the upland not holding the day’s heat, and Sharpe shivered, Leroux and La Marquesa forgotten, waiting for the battle to erupt on the long ridge.

  On Monday, after early breakfasts, the road from Salamanca was crowded with people coming to stare at the two armies. Some walked, some rode, some came in carriages, and most made themselves comfortable on a hill beside the village of San Christobal and were irked that the armies were not fighting. Perhaps because the spectators had arrived, there seemed a greater sense of urgency in the British lines, and Sharpe watched as his men once more prepared for battle. Flints were reseated in the leather patch that was gripped in the screw-tightened jaws of the rifle cocks, hot water was swilled into barrels that were already cleaned, and Sharpe sensed the fear that all men have before battle.

  Some feared the cavalry and in their minds they rehearsed the thunder of a thousand hooves, the dust rolling like a sea fog from the charge and shot through with the bright blades that could slice a man’s life away or, worse, hook out his eyes and leave him in darkness for life. Others feared musket fire, the lottery of an unaimed bullet coming in the relentless volleys that would fire the dry grass with burning wads and roast the wounded where they fell. All feared the artillery, coughing its death in fan-like swathes. It was best not to think about that.

  A hundred thousand men, before and behind the ridge, feared on that perfect day of heat, poppies and cornflowers. The smoke from the French cooking fires of the night drifted in a haze to westward while the gunners prepared their instruments of slaughter. Surely today they would fight. Some men in both armies hoped for the battle, seeking in combat the death that would release them from the pains of diseased bodies. The spectators wanted to see a fight. Why else had they come the long six hot miles from Salamanca?