The man collapsed. Frederickson stooped and retrieved the man’s fallen cigar.
The Frenchman was breathless on the cobbles, his hands clutching a pain that was like a thousand red-hot musket balls exploding outwards from his groin. For a few seconds he could not draw breath, then he gasped and afterwards screamed so loud that even the gulls seemed to be silenced. The provosts twitched towards the sound, then decided that the two Rifle officers were best left in peace.
‘Shut your bloody face, you pimp.’ Sharpe slapped the man’s cheek hard enough to loosen teeth, then began cutting open his pockets and seams much as if the Frenchman was a battlefield corpse. He found a few coins that he distributed to the women. It was a small gesture, and one that was shrunk to nothing in the face of the women’s plight. It was also a gesture that could not be repeated for the sake of every woman who accosted the two Riflemen as they crossed the city’s bridge.
To escape the hopeless appeals they ducked into a wineshop where Frederickson, who spoke good French, ordered ham, cheese, bread and wine. Outside the wineshop a legless man swung himself into the gutter where he held out a French infantry shako as a begging bowl.
The weeping women, and the sight of the beggar who had once marched proudly beneath his regiment’s eagle, had depressed Sharpe. Nor did the pathetic paper signs pinned to the wineshop’s walls help his mood. Frederickson translated the small, handwritten notices. ‘Jean Blanchard, of the hundred and sixth of the line, seeks his wife, Marie, who used to live in the Fishmongers Street. If anyone knows of her please to tell the landlord.’ The next was a plea from a mother to anyone who could inform her where her son might be. He had been a Sergeant of the Artillery, and had not been seen or heard of in three years. Another family, moved to Argentan, had left a notice for their three sons in case any should ever come back from the wars. Sharpe tried to count the small notices, but abandoned the effort at a hundred. He supposed the inns and church porches of Britain would be just as thick with such small appeals. Back on the battlefield Sharpe had never somehow thought that a rifle shot could ricochet so far.
‘I suspect we shouldn’t have come into the city.’ Frederickson pushed his plate aside. The cheese was stale and the wine sour, but it was the stench of a city’s despair that had blunted his hunger. ‘Let’s hope they give us an early ship.’
At three o’clock Sharpe and Frederickson returned to the Transport Board offices. They gave their names to a clerk who asked them to wait in an empty counting-house where dust lay thick on the tall desks. Beneath the window one of the two men who had been caught trying to join his wife was being strapped to a triangle for a flogging. Sharpe, remembering the day when he had been flogged, turned away, only to see that a tall, thin, and pale-eyed Provost Captain was staring at him from the counting house doorway.
‘You’re Major Sharpe, aren’t you, sir?’ the Captain asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re Frederickson?’
‘Captain Frederickson,’ Frederickson insisted.
‘My name is Salmon.’ Captain Salmon took a piece of paper from his pocket. ‘I’m ordered to escort you both to the prefecture.’
‘Escort us?’ Sharpe reached for the piece of paper which was nothing more than a written confirmation of what Salmon had just said. The signature meant nothing to Sharpe.
‘Those are my orders, sir.’ Salmon spoke woodenly, but there was something in his tone of voice which sent a small shiver down Sharpe’s spine. Or perhaps it was the realization that in the corridor outside the empty counting-house Salmon had a squad of provosts armed with muskets and bayonets.
‘Are we under arrest?’ Sharpe asked.
‘No, sir,’ but there was a very slight hesitation.
‘Go on,’ Sharpe ordered.
Salmon hesitated again, then shrugged. ‘If you refuse to accompany me, sir, then I’m ordered to arrest you.’
For a moment Sharpe wondered if this was some practical joke being played by an old acquaintance, yet Salmon’s demeanour suggested this was no jest. And clearly the summons presaged trouble. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ Sharpe protested, ‘we only kicked a pimp in the balls!’
‘I don’t know anything about that, sir.’
‘Then what is this about?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’
‘Then who wants us?’ Sharpe insisted.
‘I don’t know, sir.’ Salmon still spoke woodenly. ‘You’re both to bring your baggage, sir. All of it. I’ll have your servants fetch it to the prefecture.’
‘I don’t have a servant,’ Frederick said, ‘so you’ll have to fetch my baggage yourself, Salmon.’
Salmon ignored the gibe. ‘If you’re ready, gentlemen?’
‘I need to speak to my servant first.’ Sharpe leaned on a desk to show he would not move until Harper was fetched.
The Irishman was summoned and ordered to bring both officers’ baggage to the prefecture. A provost would show Harper the way. As soon as Harper was gone, Sharpe and Frederickson were ordered to leave. They filed out of the room, down the stairs, and into the flogging yard where Salmon’s grim squad closed about them. The two Riflemen might not have been under arrest, but it felt and looked just as if they were. The man being flogged gave a pathetic moan, then the drummer boys laid on again with their whips. Beyond the wall the man’s wife and children sobbed.
‘Welcome to the peacetime army, sir,’ Frederickson said.
Then they were marched away.
CHAPTER 5
‘This tribunal,’ Lieutenant-Colonel Wigram solemnly intoned, ‘has been convened by and under the authority of the Adjutant-General.’ Wigram was reading from a sheaf of papers and did not look up to catch the Riflemen’s eyes as he read. He went on to recite his own commission to chair this tribunal, then the separate authorities for the presence of every other person in the room.
The room was a magnificent marbled chamber in Bordeaux’s prefecture. Four tables had been arranged in the form of a hollow square in the very centre of the room. The top table, where the tribunal itself sat, was an extraordinary confection of carved and gilded legs on which was poised a slab of shining green malachite. To its left was a humble deal table where two clerks busily recorded the proceedings, while to the right was a table for the official observers and witnesses. Completing the square, and facing the magnificent malachite table, was another cheap deal table which had been reserved for Sharpe and Frederickson. The two Rifle officers had been fetched straight up the prefecture stairs and into the room. Captain Salmon had reported to Wigram that their baggage was being fetched, then had left. Sharpe and Frederickson had still not been given any indication why they had been summoned or why this pompous tribunal had been convened.
Sharpe gazed malevolently at Wigram who, apparently oblivious of the baleful look, droned on. Wigram was a man Sharpe had met before, and had disliked mightily. He was a staff Colonel, a petty-minded and meticulous bore; a clerk in a Colonel’s uniform. Wigram, Sharpe also remembered only too well, had been an avid supporter of Captain Bampfylde in the days before the Teste de Buch expedition had sailed. Surely this tribunal could have nothing to do with the man Sharpe had fought above a dawn-grey ocean? Yet that seemed only too possible, for one of the official observers on Sharpe’s left was a Naval officer.
Wigram tonelessly introduced the other two members of the tribunal; both Lieutenant-Colonels from the Adjutant-General’s department. One of the two was a uniformed lawyer, the other a provost officer. Both men had sallow and unfriendly faces. The Naval officer was introduced to Sharpe and Frederickson as Captain Harcourt. The second man at Harcourt’s table was, strangely, a civilian French lawyer.
‘The purpose of this tribunal,’ Wigram at last reached the meat of his document, ‘is to enquire into certain happenings at the Teste de Buch fort, in the Bay of Arcachon, during the month of January this year.’
Sharpe felt an initial pulse of relief. His conscience was entirely clear about the fight at the Teste de B
uch fort, yet the relief did not last, for the formality of this tribunal was very chilling. Papers and pens had been provided on the Riflemen’s table and Sharpe wrote a question for Frederickson, ‘Why a French lawyer?’
‘God alone knows,’ Frederickson scribbled in reply.
‘I shall begin,’ Wigram selected a new sheaf of paper, ‘by recapitulating the events which took place at the Teste de Buch fortress.’
It had been decided, Wigram informed the tribunal, to capture the fort in an attempt to deceive the enemy into thinking that a sea-borne invasion might follow. The expedition was under the overall command of Captain Horace Bampfylde, RN. The land troops were commanded by Major Richard Sharpe. Wigram looked up at that point and found himself staring into Sharpe’s unfriendly eyes. The staff officer, who wore small round-lensed spectacles, quickly looked back to his paper.
The fort had been successfully captured, Wigram went on, though there was disagreement between Captain Bampfylde and Major Sharpe as to the exact manner in which that success had been achieved.
‘Wrong,’ Sharpe said, and his interruption so astonished the room that no one objected to it. ‘Any disagreement between Captain Bampfylde and myself,’ Sharpe said harshly, ‘was ended by a duel. He lost.’
‘I was about to point out,’ Wigram said icily, ‘that all the indications reveal that the predominant credit for the fort’s capture must be given to you, Major Sharpe. Or is it that you wish this tribunal to investigate a clearly illegal occurrence of duelling?’
The Naval Captain smiled, then hastily looked more solemn as Wigram continued. Among those captured at the fort, Wigram said, had been an American Privateer, Captain Cornelius Killick. Killick had been promised good treatment by Captain William Frederickson and, when it appeared that promise was being broken by Bampfylde, Major Sharpe had released the American and his crew.
‘Is that accurate, Major?’ It was the provost Lieutenant-Colonel who asked the question.
‘Yes,’ Sharpe answered.
‘Yes, sir,’ Wigram corrected Sharpe.
‘Yes, it is accurate,’ Sharpe said belligerently.
There was a pause, and Wigram evidently decided not to press the issue.
Major Sharpe, Wigram continued, had subsequently marched inland with all the army troops, plus a contingent of Royal Marines under the command of Captain Neil Palmer.
‘May one enquire,’ it was the army lawyer who now interrupted Wigram, ‘why Captain Palmer is not here to present his evidence?’
‘Captain Palmer has been sent on a voyage to Van Dieman’s Land,’ Wigram replied.
‘He would have been,’ Frederickson said loudly enough for the whole room to hear.
The lawyer ignored Frederickson. ‘We nevertheless have an affidavit from Captain Palmer?’
‘There was no opportunity to secure one.’ Wigram was clearly discomfited by the questions.
‘There wouldn’t have been,’ Frederickson said sardonically.
Sharpe laughed aloud. He wondered how Bampfylde had so conveniently managed to have Palmer sent all the way to Australia, then he wondered how Bampfylde had managed to have this tribunal instituted. God damn the man! He had lost a duel, but had somehow continued the fight. How? The man had lied, had been a coward, yet here, in this captured prefecture, it was Sharpe and Frederickson who were being questioned.
During Sharpe’s absence from the fort, Wigram pressed on with his account, the weather conditions were such that Captain Bampfylde deemed it sensible to take his ships off shore. Bampfylde’s decision was made easier by intelligence which claimed that Major Sharpe and all his men had been defeated and captured. That intelligence later proved to be false.
Major Sharpe subsequently returned to the Teste de Buch fort, defended it against French attack, and finally escaped thanks to the intervention of the American, Killick. Wigram paused. ‘Is that an accurate account, Major Sharpe?’
Sharpe thought for a few seconds, then shrugged. ‘It’s accurate.’ In fact it had been surprisingly accurate. The nature of their quasi-arrest that afternoon had convinced Sharpe that this tribunal had been established solely to exonerate Bampfylde, yet so far he had to admit that the proceedings had been scrupulously fair and the facts not at all helpful to Bampfylde’s reputation. Was it possible that this tribunal was establishing the facts to present at Bampfylde’s court-martial?
Subsequently, Wigram recounted, Captain Bampfylde had accused Major Sharpe of accepting a bribe from the American, Killick. Sharpe, hearing that accusation for the first time, sat up, but Wigram anticipated his outrage by asking whether any evidence had been produced to substantiate the allegation.
‘None at all,’ Captain Harcourt said firmly.
Sharpe was sitting bolt upright now. Was this tribunal indeed to be Bampfylde’s doom? Frederickson must have felt the same hope, for he swiftly drew a sketch of a Naval officer dangling in a noose from a scaffold. He pushed the sketch to Sharpe, who smiled.
Frederickson’s sketched prognostication of Bampfylde’s fate seemed accurate, for Harcourt was now invited to offer the tribunal a summary of the Navy’s own investigation. That investigation, held at Portsmouth at the beginning of April, had found Captain Bampfylde derelict in his duty. Specifically he was blamed for his precipitate abandonment of the captured fort, and for not returning when the storm abated to seek news of the shore party.
‘So court-martial him,’ Sharpe offered harshly.
Harcourt glanced at the Riflemen, then shrugged. ‘It was decided that, for the good of the service, there will be no court-martial. You may be assured, though, that Captain Bampfylde has left the Navy, and that he still has difficulty with his bowels.’
The small jesting reference to the duel passed unnoticed. If there was to be no court-martial, Sharpe wondered, then why in hell were they here? The Navy had decided to hush up an embarrassing incident, yet this army tribunal was re-opening the sack of snakes and apparently doing it with the Navy’s connivance.
It would be assumed, Wigram continued, from the evidence already offered to the tribunal, that Captain Bampfylde’s accusations against Major Sharpe were groundless. The army had indeed already decided as much. Major Sharpe had been faced by a French brigade commanded by the notorious General Calvet, which brigade Major Sharpe had roundly defeated. Nothing but praise could attach itself to such an action. Captain Harcourt, who seemed rather sympathetic to the two Riflemen, applauded by slapping the table top. The French lawyer, who could hardly be supposed to share Harcourt’s sympathy, nevertheless beamed happily.
‘Perhaps they want to give us both Presentation swords,’ Frederickson wrote on his piece of paper.
‘Now, however,’ Wigram’s voice took on a firmer tone, ‘fresh evidence has been received at the Adjutant-General’s office.’ Wigram laid down the papers from which he had been reading and looked owlishly to his right. ‘Monsieur Roland? Perhaps you would be so kind as to summarise that evidence?’
The room was suddenly expectant and quiet. Sharpe and Frederickson did not move. Even the two clerks, who had been busily writing, became entirely still. The French lawyer, as if enjoying this moment of notoriety, slowly pushed back his chair before rising to his feet.
Monsieur Roland was a fleshy, happy-looking man. He was entirely bald, all but for two luxurious side-whiskers that gave his benevolent face an air of jollity. He looked like a family man, utterly trustworthy, who would be happiest in his own drawing room with his children about him. When he spoke he did so in fluent English. He thanked the tribunal for the courtesy shown in allowing him to speak. He understood that the recent events in Europe might lead ignorant men to suppose that no Frenchman could ever again be trusted, but Monsieur Roland represented the law, and the law transcended all boundaries. He thus spoke, Roland said, with the authority of the law, which authority sprang from a ruthless regard for the truth. Then, more prosaically, he said that he was a lawyer employed by the French Treasury, and that therefore he had the honour to rep
resent the interests of the newly restored King of France, Louis XVIII.
‘Might one therefore presume,’ the lawyer from the Adjutant-General’s department had a silky, almost feline voice, ‘that until a few weeks ago, Monsieur, you were perforce an advocate for the Emperor?’
Roland gave a small bow and a bland smile. ‘Indeed, Monsieur, I had that honour also.’
The tribunal’s members smiled to demonstrate that they understood Roland’s apparently effortless change of allegiance. The smiles suggested that the tribunal was composed of worldly men who were above such petty things as the coming and going of emperors and kings.
‘In December last year,’ Roland had arranged his papers, and could now begin his peroration, ‘the Emperor was persuaded to contemplate the possibility of defeat. He did not do this willingly, but was pressed by his family; chief among them his brother, Joseph, whom you gentlemen will remember as the erstwhile King of Spain.’ There was a delicacy in Roland’s tone which mocked Joseph Bonaparte and flattered the British. Wigram, whose contribution to Joseph’s downfall had been to amass paperwork, smiled modestly to acknowledge the compliment. Sharpe’s face was unreadable. Frederickson was drawing two Rifle officers.
‘The Emperor,’ Roland hooked his thumbs behind his coat’s lapels, ‘decided that, should he be defeated, he might perhaps sail to the United States where he was assured of a warm welcome. I cannot say that he was enthusiastic about such a plan, but it was nevertheless urged upon him by his brother who alarmed the Emperor by tales of the ignominy that the family would suffer if they were forced to surrender to their enemies. Happily the generosity of those enemies has made such prophecies worthless,’ again Roland had flattered his hosts, ‘and it is now evident that the Emperor may confidently rely on his victors to treat him with a proper dignity.’
‘Indeed.’ Wigram could not forbear the pompous interruption.