“Keep shooting the horses!” Sharpe shouted. It was not a pleasant job. The screams of the wounded beasts tore at men’s souls and the sight of an injured gelding trying to drag itself along by its front legs was heartbreaking, but Sharpe kept his men firing. The dragoons, spared the rifle fire now, ran toward the vineyard in the confident belief that they were dealing with a mere handful of partisans. Dragoons were supposed to be mounted infantry and so they were issued with carbines, short-barrelled muskets, with which they could fight on foot, and some carried the carbines while others preferred to attack with their long straight swords, but all of them instinctively ran toward the track which climbed among the vines. Sharpe had guessed they would follow the track rather than clamber over the entangling vines and that was why he had put Vicente and his men close by the path. The dragoons were bunching together as they entered the vines and Sharpe had an urge to run across to the Portuguese and take command of them, but just then Vicente ordered his men to stand.
The Portuguese soldiers appeared as if by magic in front of the disorganized dragoons. Sharpe watched, approvingly, as Vicente let his men settle, then ordered them to fire. The French had tried to check their desperate charge and swerve aside, but the vines obstructed them and Vicente’s volley hammered into the thickest press of cavalrymen bunched on the narrow track. Harper, off on the right flank, had the riflemen add their own volley so that the dragoons were assailed from both sides. Powder smoke drifted over the vines. “Fix swords!” Sharpe shouted. A dozen dragoons were dead and the ones at the back were already running away. They had been convinced they fought against a few undisciplined peasants and instead they were outnumbered by real soldiers and the center of their makeshift line had been gutted, half their horses were dead and now the infantry was coming from the smoke with fixed bayonets. The Portuguese stepped over the dead and injured dragoons. One of the Frenchmen, shot in the thigh, rolled over with a pistol in his hand and Vicente knocked it away with his sword and then kicked the gun into the stream. The unwounded dragoons were running toward the horses and Sharpe ordered his riflemen to drive them off with bullets rather than blades. “Just keep them running!” he shouted. “Panic them! Lieutenant!” He looked for Vicente, “Take your men into the village! Cooper! Tongue! Slattery! Make these bastards safe!” He knew he had to keep the Frenchmen in front moving, but he dared not leave any lightly wounded dragoons in his rear and so he ordered the three riflemen to disarm the cavalrymen injured by Vicente’s volley. The Portuguese were in the village now, banging open doors and converging on a church that stood next to the bridge that crossed the small stream.
Sharpe ran toward the field where the horses were dead, dying or terrified. A few dragoons had tried to untie their mounts, but the rifle fire had chased them off. So now Sharpe was the possessor of a score of horses. “Dan!” he called to Hagman. “Put the wounded ones out of their misery. Pendleton! Harris! Cresacre! Over there!” He pointed the three men toward the wall on the paddock’s western side. The dragoons had fled that way and Sharpe guessed they had taken refuge in some trees that stood thick just a hundred paces away. Three picquets were not enough to cope with even a half-hearted counterattack by the French so Sharpe knew he would have to strengthen those picquets soon, but first he wanted to make sure there were no dragoons skulking in the houses, gardens and orchards of the village.
Barca d’Avintas was a small place, a straggle of houses built about the road that ran down to the river where a short jetty should have accommodated the ferry, but some of the smoke Sharpe had seen earlier was coming from a barge-like vessel with a blunt bow and a dozen rowlocks.
Now it was smoking in the water, its upper works burned almost to the waterline and its lower hull holed and sunken. Sharpe stared at the useless boat, looked across the river that was over a hundred yards broad and then swore.
Harper appeared beside him, his rifle slung. “Jesus,” he said, staring at the ferry, “that’s not a lot of good to man or beast, is it now?”
“Any of our boys hurt?”
“Not a one, sir, not even a scratch. The Portuguese are the same, all alive. They did well, didn’t they?” He looked at the burning boat again. “Sweet Jesus, was that the ferry?”
“It was Noah’s bloody ark,” Sharpe snapped. “What do you goddamned think it was?” He was angry because he had hoped to use the ferry to get all his men safe across the Douro, but now it seemed he was stranded. He stalked away, then turned back just in time to see Harper making a face at him. “Have you found the taverns?” he asked, ignoring the grimace.
“Not yet, sir,” Harper said.
“Then find them, put a guard on them, then send a dozen more men to the far side of the paddock.”
“Yes, sir!”
The French had set more fires among sheds on the river bank and Sharpe now ducked beneath the billowing smoke to kick open half-burned doors. There was a pile of tarred nets smoldering in one shed, but in the next there was a black-painted skiff with a fine spiked bow that curved up like a hook. The shed had been fired, but the flames had not reached the skiff and Sharpe managed to drag it halfway out of the door before Lieutenant Vicente arrived and helped him pull the boat all the way out of the smoke. The other sheds were too well alight, but at least this one boat was saved and Sharpe reckoned it could hold about half a dozen men safely, which meant that it would take the rest of the day to ferry everyone across the wide river. Sharpe was about to ask Vicente to look for oars or paddles when he saw that the young man’s face was white and shaken, almost as if the Lieutenant was on the point of tears. “What is it?” Sharpe asked.
Vicente did not answer, but merely pointed back to the village.
“The French were having games with the ladies, eh?” Sharpe asked, setting off for the houses.
“I would not call it games,” Vicente said bitterly, “and there is also a prisoner.”
“Only one?”
“There are two others,” Vicente said, frowning, “but this one is a lieutenant. He had no breeches which is why he was slow to run.”
Sharpe did not ask why the captured dragoon had no breeches. He knew why. “What have you done with him?”
“He must go on trial,” Vicente said.
Sharpe stopped and stared at the Lieutenant. “He must what?” he asked, astonished. “Go on trial?”
“Of course.”
“In my country,” Sharpe said, “they hang a man for rape.”
“Not without a trial,” Vicente protested and Sharpe guessed that the Portuguese soldiers had wanted to kill the prisoner straight away and that Vicente had stopped them out of some high-minded idea that a trial was necessary.
“Bloody hell,” Sharpe said, “you’re a soldier now, not a lawyer. You don’t give them a trial. You chop their hearts out.”
Most of Barca d’Avintas’s inhabitants had fled the dragoons, but some had stayed and most of them were now crowded about a house guarded by a half-dozen of Vicente’s men. A dead dragoon, stripped of shirt, coat, boots and breeches, lay face down in front of the church. He must have been leaning against the church wall when he was shot for he had left a smear of blood down the limewashed stones. Now a dog sniffed at his toes. The soldiers and villagers parted to let Sharpe and Vicente into the house where the young dragoon officer, fair-haired, thin and sullen-faced, was being guarded by Sergeant Macedo and another Portuguese soldier. The Lieutenant had managed to pull on his breeches, but had not had time to button them and he was now holding them up by the waist. As soon as he saw Sharpe he began gabbling in French. “You speak French?” Sharpe asked Vicente.
“Of course,” Vicente said.
But Vicente, Sharpe reflected, wanted to give this fair-haired Frenchman a trial and Sharpe suspected that if Vicente interrogated the man he would not learn the real truth, merely hear the excuses, so Sharpe went to the house door. “Harper!” He waited till the Sergeant appeared. “Get me Tongue or Harris,” he ordered.
“I will talk to the
man,” Vicente protested.
“I need you to talk to someone else,” Sharpe said and he went to the back room where a girl-she could not have been a day over fourteen-was weeping. Her face was red, eyes swollen and her breath came in fitful jerks interspersed with grizzling moans and cries of despair. She was wrapped in a blanket and had a bruise on her left cheek. An older woman, dressed all in black, was trying to comfort the girl who began to cry even louder the moment she saw Sharpe, making him back out of the room in embarrassment. “Find out from her what happened,” he told Vicente, then turned as Harris came through the door. Harris and Tongue were Sharpe’s two educated men. Tongue had been doomed to the army by drink, while the red-haired, ever cheerful Harris claimed to be a volunteer who wanted adventure. He was getting plenty now, Sharpe reflected. “This piece of shit,” Sharpe told Harris, jerking his head at the fair-haired Frenchman, “was caught with his knickers round his ankles and a young girl under him. Find out what his excuse is before we kill the bastard.”
He went back to the street and took a long drink from his canteen. The water was warm and brackish. Harper was waiting by a horse trough in the center of the street and Sharpe joined him. “All well?”
“There’s two more Frogs in there.” Harper flicked a thumb toward the church behind him. “Live ones, I mean.” The church door was guarded by four of Vicente’s men.
“What are they doing in there?” Sharpe asked. “Praying?”
The tall Ulsterman shrugged. “Looking for sanctuary, I’d guess.”
“We can’t take the bastards with us,” Sharpe said, “so why don’t we just shoot them?”
“Because Mister Vicente says we mustn’t,” Harper said. “He’s very particular about prisoners is Mister Vicente. He’s a lawyer, isn’t he?”
“He seems halfway decent for a lawyer,” Sharpe admitted grudgingly.
“The best lawyers are six feet under the daisies, so they are,” Harper said, “and this one won’t let me go and shoot those two bastards. He says they’re just drunks, which is true. They are. Skewed to the skies, they are.”
“We can’t cope with prisoners,” Sharpe said. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, then pulled his shako back on. The visor was coming away from the crown, but there was nothing he could do about that here. “Get Tongue,” he suggested, “and see if he can find out what these two were up to. If they’re just drunk on communion wine then march them out west, strip them of anything valuable and boot them back where they came from. But if they raped anyone ... “
“I know what to do, sir,” Harper said grimly.
“Then do it,” Sharpe said. He nodded to Harper, then walked on past the church to where the stream joined the river. The small stone bridge carried the road eastward through a vineyard, past a walled cemetery and then twisted through pastureland beside the Douro. It was all open land and if more French came and he had to retreat from the village then he dared not use that road and he hoped to God he had time to ferry his men over the Douro and that thought made him go back up the street to look for oars. Or maybe he could find a rope? If the rope were long enough he could rig a line across the river and haul the boat back and forth and that would surely be quicker than rowing.
He was wondering if there were bell ropes in the small church that might stretch that far when Harris came out of the house and said that the prisoner’s name was Lieutenant Olivier and he was in the 18th Dragoons and that the Lieutenant, despite being caught with his breeches round his ankles, had denied raping the girl. “He said French officers don’t behave like that,” Harris said, “but Lieutenant Vicente says the girl swears he did.”
“So did he or didn’t he?” Sharpe asked irritably.
“Of course he did, sir. He admitted as much after I thumped him,” Harris said happily, “but he still insists she wanted him to. He says she wanted comforting after a sergeant raped her.”
“Wanted comforting!” Sharpe said scathingly. “He was just second in line, wasn’t he?”
“Fifth in line,” Harris said tonelessly, “or so the girl says.”
“Jesus,” Sharpe swore. “Why don’t I just give the bugger a smacking, then we’ll string him up.” He walked back to the house where the civilans were screaming at the Frenchman, who gazed at them with a disdain hat would have been admirable on a battlefield. Vicente was protecting he dragoon and now appealed to Sharpe for help to escort Lieutenant Dlivier to safety.
“He must stand trial,” Vicente insisted.
“He just had a trial,” Sharpe said, “and I found him guilty. So now I’ll thump him and then I’ll hang him.”
Vicente looked nervous, but he did not back down. “We cannot lower ourselves to their level of barbarity,” he claimed.
“I didn’t rape her,” Sharpe said, “so don’t place me with them.”
“We fight for a better world,” Vicente declared.
For a second Sharpe just stared at the young Portuguese officer, scarce believing what he had heard. “What happens if we leave him here, eh?”
“We can’t!” Vicente said, knowing that the villagers would take a far worse revenge than anything Sharpe was proposing.
“And I can’t take prisoners!” Sharpe insisted.
“We can’t kill him”-Vicente was blushing with indignation as he confronted Sharpe and he would not back down-”and we can’t leave him here. It would be murder.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Sharpe said in exasperation. Lieutenant Olivier did not speak English, but he seemed to understand that his fate was in the balance and he watched Sharpe and Vicente like a hawk. “And who’s going to be the judge and jury?” Sharpe demanded, but Vicente got no opportunity to answer for just then a rifle fired from the western edge of the village and then another sounded and then there was a whole rattle of shots.
The French had come back.
Colonel James Christopher liked wearing the hussar uniform. He decided it suited him and he spent a long time admiring himself in the pier glass in the farmhouse’s largest bedroom, turning left and right, and marveling at the feeling of power conveyed by the uniform. He deduced it came from the long tasseled boots and from the jacket’s high stiff collar that forced a man to stand upright with his head back, and from the fit of the jacket that was so tight that Christopher, who was lean and fit, still had to suck in his belly to fasten the hooks and eyes down its silver-laced front. The uniform made him feel encased in authority, and the elegance of the outfit was enhanced by the fur-edged pelisse that was draped from his left shoulder and by the silver-chained saber scabbard that chinked as he went downstairs and as he paced up and down the terrace where he waited for his guest. He put a sliver of wood into his mouth, obsessively working it between his teeth as he gazed at the distant smear of smoke which showed where buildings burned in the captured city. A handful of fugitives had stopped at the farm to beg for food and Luis had talked with them and then told Christopher that hundreds if not thousands of people had drowned when the pontoon bridge broke. The refugees claimed that the French had wrecked the bridge with cannon fire and Luis, his hatred of the enemy fueled by the false rumor, eyed his master with a surly expression until Christopher had finally lost his patience. “It is only a uniform, Luis! It is not a sign of a changed allegiance!”
“A French uniform,” Luis had complained.
“You wish Portugal to be free of the French?” Christopher snapped. “Then behave respectfully and forget this uniform.”
Now Christopher paced the terrace, picking at his teeth and constantly watching the road that led across the hill. The clock in the farm’s elegant parlor struck three and no sooner had the last chime faded than a large column of cavalry appeared across the far crest. They were dragoons and they came in force to make sure that no partisans or fugitive Portuguese troops gave trouble to the officer who rode to meet Christopher.
The dragoons, all from the 18th regiment, wheeled away into the ields beneath the farmhouse where a stream offered water for the
ir lorses. The cavalrymen’s rose-fronted green coats were white with dust. Some, seeing Christopher in his French hussar’s uniform, offered a hasty salute, but most ignored him and just led their horses toward the stream is the Englishman turned to greet his visitor.
His name was Argenton and he was a captain and the Adjutant of the 18th Dragoons and it was plain from his smile that he knew and liked colonel Christopher. “The uniform becomes you,” Argenton said.
“I found it in Oporto,” Christopher said. “It belonged to a poor fellow who was a prisoner and died of the fever and a tailor trimmed it to size for me.”
“He did well,” Argenton said admiringly. “Now all you need are the cadenettes.”
“The cadenettes?”
“The pigtails,” Argenton explained, touching his temples where the French hussars grew their hair long to mark themselves as elite cavalrymen. “Some men go bald and have wigmakers attach false cadenettes to their shakoes or colbacks.”
“I’m not sure I want to grow pigtails,” Christopher said, amused, “but perhaps I can find some girl with black hair and cut off a pair of tails, eh?”