It was a warm night, cloudless and windless. A bright moon rose above Vesuvius. At first the moon was misted by the volcano’s smoke, but soon it sailed clear across the sea to show the northern road as a white twisting strip against the darker fields. A thousand thousand stars pricked the sky, while a small white surf fretted at the beaches and broke bright about the tree-shrouded headlands. An owl passed close above the three men and Sharpe saw Patrick Harper cross himself. The owl was the bird of death.
An hour before midnight they left the road and climbed a hundred paces into the shelter of an ilex grove. There, in silence, they undid the bundles they each carried. At long last, after weeks of hiding, they could strip off their civilian clothes and pull on their green jackets. Sharpe had debated whether to make the change now, or to wait till the very eve of his attack, but wearing the green would force them to move as silently as ghosts through this strange countryside. He buckled on his sword, then scraped its blade free of the scabbard’s wooden throat so that the long steel shone in the moonlight.
‘It feels better, does it not?’ Frederickson buckled on his own sword.
‘It feels much better,’ Sharpe said fervently.
Frederickson drew his blade and whipped it back and forth. ‘I suspect I may have been somewhat fretful lately.’
Sharpe was immediately embarrassed. ‘Not at all.’
‘I do apologize. Upon my soul, I apologize.’
Sharpe felt a pulse of pleasure that the awkwardness between them was ending, but the pleasure was immediately followed by a pang of guilt about Lucille. ‘My dear William ...’ Sharpe began, then stopped, because this was certainly not the moment to make the feared confession. He could see the happiness on Harper’s face that the bad blood between the two officers seemed to be drawn, and Sharpe knew he could not spoil the moment. ‘I am certain my own behaviour has been aggravating,’ he said humbly.
Frederickson smiled. ‘But now we can fight. Our proper task in life, I fear. We’re not meant for peace, so to war, my friends!’ He saluted Sharpe by whipping his sword blade upright.
‘To war.’ And the battle-cry put Sharpe into unexpected high spirits. For a moment he could forget Jane, forget Rossendale, forget Lucille, he could forget everything except the work at hand, which was the oldest kind of work; that of punishing an enemy.
They left the ilex grove. They had to skirt a straggling village, though the village dogs must have caught their scent for the barking snapped loud as the three Riflemen flitted through an olive grove. Beyond the olive grove, in fields that went down to the sea, there were white marble pillars that Frederickson said had fallen in the days of the Roman Empire. Sharpe did not believe him, and the friendly argument took them well past midnight. The road ran through open country, but in the small hours, when the waning moon was almost beyond the western horizon, they came to the mouth of a ravine which was shadowed as black as Hades.
They stopped where the rock walls narrowed. ‘A perfect place for an ambush.’ Frederickson stared into the darkness.
Sharpe grunted. He had no idea how long it might take to go round the ravine. Such a detour would mean climbing the hills and scouting forward over rough ground. He was only sure of one thing, that to make the detour would take hours, and that the dawn would then find them stranded far from the villa. ‘I say we should go through.’
‘Me too,’ Harper offered.
‘Why not?’ Frederickson said.
The rock walls closed on them. The ravine’s slopes were not bare, but thickly covered with small tough shrubs. Sharpe tried to climb one flank to get a glimpse ahead, but gave up when the brambles tore at his hands. He could have saved himself the discomfort for, just around the next bend, a long view showed where the ravine ended two miles ahead. The road emerged from its rock walls to run gently downhill into a wide and empty lowland that was edged by the sweeping curve of a long moonlit beach. The sight of that empty landscape and their evident loneliness on the deserted road gave all three Riflemen a sense of safety. This was not Spain where an ambush might wait, but a sleepy southern country where they could walk in peace. Beyond the lowland, and dark on the northern horizon, were jagged peaks touched by the moon. Sharpe was certain that the Villa Lupighi must lie among the foothills of those peaks, and that thought made him point towards the far mountains. ‘Journey’s end,’ he said.
Somehow the two words plunged all three Riflemen into a wistful mood. Harper, thinking of the ultimate destination of his travels, began to sing some sad lament of Ireland. Frederickson smiled privately to Sharpe. ‘You think he’ll be happy out of the army?’
‘I think Patrick has the great gift of being content almost wherever he is.’
The two officers had fallen a few paces behind the tall Irishman. ‘Then he’s a fortunate man,’ Frederickson said, ‘because I sometimes doubt whether I’ll ever find real contentment.’
‘Oh, come! That can’t be true,’ Sharpe protested.
Frederickson grimaced. ‘The pig-woman did, so perhaps there’s hope for me.’ He walked in silence for a few paces. Harper still sang, and his strong voice echoed eerily from the ravine’s bluffs.
Frederickson shrugged the sling of his rifle into greater comfort on his shoulder. ‘Harper’s happily married, is he not?’
Sharpe’s heart plunged as he sensed the imminent conversation. ‘They’re very happy. Isabella’s a tough little creature, despite her pretty face.’
Frederickson found the opening he wanted. ‘Do you think Madame Castineau is strong?’
‘Very.’
‘My thoughts, too. It can’t have been an easy life for her.’
‘Lots have it harder,’ Sharpe said sourly.
‘True, but she’s preserved that château despite all the deaths in her family. A very strong woman, I’d say.’
Sharpe desperately tried to change the subject. ‘How far do you reckon till we’re in open country? A mile?’
Frederickson glanced casually at the road ahead. ‘Just under a mile, I’d say,’ then, with much greater enthusiasm, he spoke of his plans for further journeys. ‘I shall go to London to straighten my career, then, just as soon as I can, I’ll return to Normandy. You don’t abandon a siege just because the first assault fails, do you? I’ve been thinking about that a great deal.’ He gave a short embarrassed laugh. ‘Indeed I confess that is why my temper has not been of the best lately, but I cannot believe that I should fail a second time with Madame. She surely needs some proof of my seriousness? My first proposal was a mere statement of intent, but now I shall reinforce it with an assiduous devotion which must persuade her. Good women, like bad, do yield to siege warfare, do they not?’
‘Some do,’ Sharpe said drily.
‘Then I shall renew my siege. Indeed, I confess that it is only my anticipation of success in that siege which offers me some prospect of future happiness. Perhaps I deceive myself. Lovers are very prone to that failing.’
The moment was inescapable. Sharpe stopped. ‘William.’
‘My dear friend?’ Frederickson, euphoric with hope, was in an expansive mood.
‘I have to tell you something.’ Sharpe paused, overcome with horror at what he was doing. For a second he was tempted to forget his own attachment to Madame Castineau; just to abandon her and to let Frederickson ride to Normandy like Don Quixote trotting towards the windmills, but he could not do it.
‘What is it?’ Frederickson prompted.
‘Women destroy friendships.’ Sharpe sought a tactful way into a confession that could never be tactful, not against the high hopes that Frederickson was nurturing.
Frederickson laughed. ‘You fear we will see less of each other if I am successful? My dear Sharpe, you will always be a welcome guest wherever I-’ he paused - ‘I hope wherever I and Lucille are living.’
‘William!’ Sharpe blurted out the name. ‘You must understand that I ...’
The gunshot startled them, blasting the night’s peace with an appalling and sudden vio
lence. Sharpe had a glimpse of a muzzle flash high on the ravine’s right flank, then he was rolling to the right of the road. Frederickson had gone left. Harper, his singing so brutally interrupted, had unslung his volley gun and was peering upwards. The bullet had missed all of them.
A man, hidden from the Riflemen, laughed.
‘Who’s there?’ Sharpe called in English. No one answered. ‘Can you see the bugger, Patrick?’
‘Not a bloody thing, sir.’
The hidden man began to whistle a jaunty tune, then, very carelessly, as though he knew he had nothing to fear from the three crouching soldiers, he stepped out from the shadows thirty yards ahead of Harper. The man wore a long cloak and carried a musket in his right hand. Harper immediately aimed the seven-barrelled gun at the stranger, but as he did, so a whole slew of dark shapes moved on the ravine slopes. Sharpe heard the clicks as their musket locks were armed.
‘Bandits?’ Frederickson suggested to Sharpe. Both officers had their rifles cocked, but each knew that a single shot would provoke an instant and destructive volley. Sharpe could not see exactly how many men opposed them, but there seemed to be at least a dozen.
‘Bugger.’ Sharpe had forgotten the threat of robbery. He stood upright as if to show that he was not frightened. ‘Can you talk us out of this one, William?’
‘I can try, but at best they’ll still steal our weapons.’ Frederickson looked at the single man barring the road and called out in Italian, ‘Who are you?’
The cloaked man chuckled, then walked slowly towards the three Riflemen. He carried his musket loosely. He walked past Harper, ignoring the threat of the huge gun, and instead approached Sharpe. ‘Do you remember me, Major?’ He spoke in French.
Sharpe could not even see the approaching man properly and, besides, he was too startled by the odd greeting to think coherently, but then the cloaked man suddenly shrugged the swathing cape away to reveal an old blue uniform with shreds of tattered gold lace. ‘Bonsoir, Major Sharpe.’ The man was short, barrel-squat, with a face as scarred as the backside of a cannon.
‘General Calvet,’ Sharpe said in astonishment.
‘That’s very good! Well done! I am indeed General Calvet, and you are the so-called soldiers who stroll through ravines as casually as whores looking for business. A troop of baboons could have ambushed you!’
Sharpe did not reply, though he knew Calvet was right. He had been careless, and now he must pay the price for that carelessness.
Calvet stepped close to Sharpe. The Frenchman slowly reached out, daring Sharpe to move, and pushed Sharpe’s rifle muzzle to one side. Then, with an extraordinary quickness, Calvet slapped the Rifleman’s face. Sharpe was so stunned by the sudden blow that he did nothing. Calvet sneered. ‘That, Englishmen, was for the powdered lime.’ Calvet was recalling the powdered lime that Sharpe had broadcast from the ramparts of the Teste de Buch fort. The powder had burned the eyes of the attacking Frenchmen, and turned their attack into a panicked retreat. The memory of it evidently still rankled with Calvet. ‘Only an Englishman would use a bastard trick like that on a pack of soft-arsed lilywhite conscripts. If I’d had my veterans, Englishman, I’d have filleted you.’
Sharpe said nothing. He was still trying to work out how a French General he had last seen on a battlefield in southern France had turned up on this remote Italian road. He looked left and right, trying to count the General’s companions.
Calvet laughed. ‘You think I need help to kill you, Sharpe? I needed some help to find you, but not to kill you.’
‘To find me?’ Sharpe found his tongue.
‘I was sent to find you. By the Emperor. I stayed loyal, you see. Not like all those other damned Frenchmen who are licking fat King Louis’s bum. But it wasn’t hard to find you, Major. A man in Paris wrote to the Emperor, who sent me to Naples, where a fat Cardinal wants me to arrest you. They’re very clever, these Neapolitans. I told them you were coming and they followed you from the day you landed. And now,’ Calvet spread his arms as though he was a host welcoming treasured guests, ‘here we are!’
‘Why did you want to find us?’ Frederickson asked.
‘The one-eyed monster has a tongue!’ Calvet jeered. ‘I have orders to kill you, that’s why. They are the Emperor’s orders. He wants you dead because you stole his gold.’
‘We didn’t steal it,’ Sharpe said angrily.
‘But you’re going to!’ Calvet suddenly laughed. ‘You haven’t stolen it yet, Major, but as soon as you find Pierre Ducos you will!’ Calvet turned scornfully away from Sharpe and shouted for his men to come out of their hiding places.
The French soldiers pushed their way through the brambles and stamped the cramp out of their legs on the road. They surrounded the three Riflemen, and Sharpe could see, despite the darkness, that all of these grinning men wore the moustaches of the Emperor’s beloved veterans.
Calvet raised his musket so that the barrel was under Sharpe’s chin. ‘Put your rifle down, Major, and tell your two men to do the same.’ He saw Sharpe’s hesitation. ‘You’d prefer my men to disarm you? It’s all one to me, but if you wish to keep your swords like gentlemen, then I suggest you put down your guns.’
There was perhaps a shade more pride in grounding their own arms than having them forcibly taken away, and so the three Riflemen slowly stooped and ignominiously abandoned their guns on the white roadway. Calvet waited till Sharpe was standing again, then once more put his musket to the Rifleman’s throat. ‘Do you know where Pierre Ducos is, Major?’
‘Yes,’ Sharpe said defiantly.
‘But I don’t,’ Calvet disarmingly confessed. ‘So tell me.’
‘Go to hell, General.’
‘You’re determined to die like a cornered rat, aren’t you? You’ll die snarling, full of defiance. Except I’m under the orders of a fat Cardinal to return you to Naples. Have you seen the prison in Naples? You might survive it, Major, but so crippled with disease and hunger and filth that you’ll wish you’d never been born. But if you tell me what I wish to know, Englishman, then I’ll consider letting you walk away from this miserable kingdom.’ Calvet twitched the musket so that the cold barrel knocked against Sharpe’s jawbone. ‘Where is Pierre Ducos, Major?’
‘I should have killed you at Toulouse,’ Sharpe said.
‘So that was you?’ Calvet laughed. ‘The Englishman who can kill me has not been born, Major, but I will shoot you down like a rabid dog if you don’t tell me where Pierre Ducos is hiding.’ He twitched the musket again to jar its foresight against Sharpe’s chin. ‘Tell me, Englishman.’
Sharpe stared into the Frenchman’s eyes, then, with a speed that equalled Calvet’s earlier quickness, he slapped the General’s face. The blow sounded like a pistol shot.
Calvet’s head was jerked to one side. He stepped back, brought the musket into his shoulder and aimed it between Sharpe’s eyes. ‘Bastard,’ he snarled.
‘Bugger off,’ Sharpe said in English.
Calvet pulled the trigger.
Sharpe twisted away, reached for his sword hilt, and he had drawn a clear foot of the steel clear of the scabbard before he realized that the musket had not been loaded. Calvet laughed. ‘You can stop pissing your breeches, Major, the gun wasn’t loaded. So pick up your bloody rifles and take me to Ducos.’ He turned away from Sharpe and ordered his men to fall in. The moustached veterans obediently made two ragged ranks, but the three Riflemen did not move. Calvet turned on them with feigned astonishment. ‘Don’t just stand there! Move!’
Still none of the three Riflemen shifted. ‘You expect us to take you to Ducos?’ Sharpe asked.
‘Listen, you Goddamn fool.’ Calvet, who was plainly enjoying himself, walked back and planted himself squarely in front of Sharpe. ‘Why should I send you to the Cardinal? All he wants to do is steal the gold for himself. And the Emperor wants it back, and that’s my task, Major, and to help me fulfil it I’m offering you an alliance. You tell me where Ducos is hiding, and I will let you live. Indeed, I
will even offer you the greater privilege of fighting under my command. For a change, Englishman, you and I will be on the same side. We are allies. Except that I am a General of Imperial France and you are a piece of English toadshit, which means that I give the orders and you obey them like a lilywhite-arsed conscript. So stop gawping like a novice nun in a gunners’ bath-house and tell me where we’re going!’
‘I don’t think we have very much choice,’ Frederickson observed drily.
Nor did they. And thus Sharpe was under orders again, back in an army’s discipline, but this time serving a new master: the Emperor of Elba himself, Napoleon.
CHAPTER 14
‘Of course the Cardinal wants the money, he’s nothing but a tub of greed, but what high churchman isn’t?’ General Calvet spoke quietly to Sharpe. The two men were lying at the crest of a steep ridge from where they could observe the Villa Lupighi which lay on yet a higher hill a mile to the west. They were hidden and shaded by a thick growth of ilex and cypress. Frederickson, Harper and the General’s twelve men were resting among the gnarled trunks of an ancient olive grove that grew in a small valley behind the ilex-covered ridge. ‘And like every other churchman,’ Calvet went on, ‘the Cardinal wants someone else to do his dirty work for him. In this case, us.’
The Cardinal had done everything he could to make Calvet’s task easier, except betray Ducos’s hiding place. The Cardinal had provided a house in which Calvet and his men could wait for Sharpe’s arrival in Naples. That arrival had been reported by the customs’ officials who had been warned by the Frenchman to expect a tall, black-haired man and a shorter, one-eyed companion. The house where Calvet waited had been very close to the place where the Frenchman had ambushed the three Riflemen. A messenger had come from the city to warn Calvet that three, not two, Englishmen had left on the northern road, and it had been a simple matter for Calvet to wait at the ravine’s northern end. ‘You’ll notice, though,’ Calvet went on, ‘that the Cardinal has left us alone now.’