Sharpe 3-Book Collection 5: Sharpe's Company, Sharpe's Sword, Sharpe's Enemy (52 page)

Sharpe was startled by the sudden, strange confession. He shrugged. “Does it matter?”

Spears nodded slowly. “Say thank you.”

Sharpe, not understanding, humoured him. “Thank you.”

Spears looked up again. “I tried, Richard. God, I tried. That wasn’t very decent of me.” His voice was low, directed at the stars.

It seemed a strange guilt and Sharpe still did not understand why Spears had raised the subject. “I don’t think she took offence.”

“No she didn’t.” Spears paused. “Crazy Jack.”

Sharpe drew his feet in, as if to get up. “Let me fetch a doctor.”

“No. No doctor.” Spears put a hand on Sharpe’s arm. “No doctor, Richard. Can you keep a secret?”

Sharpe nodded. “Yes.”

Spears took his hand away. His breath was heavy in his throat. He seemed to be making up his mind whether to speak or not, but finally he said it. His voice was very bitter. “I’ve got the Black Lion. Dear God! The Black Lion.”

“Oh, God.” Sharpe did not know what to say.

The two men were on the edge of the battlefield, the edge of an immense expanse of misery. Shadows crossed in front of the intermittent flames, dogs howled at the half moon that silvered the humped shapes of the wounded and dead. The guns that had shattered the French rearguard were left where they had fired, and their barrels cooled in the night wind. From far across the dark field came the sound of singing. A group of men round a fire were celebrating their survival. Sharpe looked at Spears. “How long have you known?”

Spears shrugged. “Two years.”

“Oh, God.” Sharpe felt the hopelessness of it. All men feared it, of course, it lurked in the shadows like the dark beast that the army nicknamed it. The Black Lion, the worst kind of pox, the pox that killed a man through senility, blindness, and gibbering madness. Sharpe had once paid his pennies to walk through Bedlam, the mad-house in London’s Moorfields, and he had seen the syphilitic patients in their small, foul cages. The patients could earn a small pittance, thrown farthings, by capering and displaying themselves. The Insane of Bedlam were one of the sights of London, more popular even than the public executions. Spears faced a long, filthy, agonising death. Sharpe looked at him. “Is that why you did this?”

The handsome face nodded. “Yes. You won’t tell?”

“No.”

Spears’ sabretache was lying on the bank and he reached for it, failed, and flapped a hand at it. “There are cigars in there. Would you?”

Sharpe opened the flap. A pistol lay on the top, which he put to one side, and beneath it were wrapped cigars and a tinder box. He blew the charred linen into a small flame, lit two cigars, and handed one to Spears. Sharpe rarely smoked, but tonight, in this sadness, he wanted a cigar. The smell reminded him of La Marquesa. The smoke drifted away on the breeze from the dead.

Spears made a small sound that could have been a laugh. “I didn’t even have to be here.”

“At the battle?”

“No.” He drew on the cigar, making the tip bright. “In the army.” He sighed, shifted himself. “My elder brother got the inheritance. He was such a tedious man, Richard, so utterly tedious. We had a mutual, brotherly hatred. Then two weeks before he was to get married, God answered my prayers. He fell off his bloody nag and broke his fat neck. And I got everything. Money, estate, houses, the lot.” His voice was low, almost hoarse. He seemed to want to talk. “I was already over here and I didn’t want to go back.” He turned towards Sharpe and grinned. “There’s too much joy in this war. Does that make sense?”

“Yes.” Sharpe knew the joy of war. No other thing gave such excitement, or asked such a price. He stared at the grass fires which scorched the flesh of the wounded and dead. War had brought Sharpe promotion, a wife, La Marquesa, and it could yet kill him as it Was killing Spears. Capricious Fate.

Spears coughed and this time he wiped blood from his lips. “I gambled the whole lot away. Jesus God! Every bloody penny.”

“All?”

“Twice over. You don’t gamble, do you?”

“No.”

Spears grinned. “You’re very tedious for a hero.” He coughed and turned his head to spit blood on the grass. Most of it went onto Sharpe’s greatcoat. “It’s like standing on a clifftop and knowing you can fly. There’s nothing like it, nothing. Except war and women.”

The wind was cooler now, chilling the skin of Sharpe’s face. He pulled Spears’jacket over the wound. He wished he had known this man better; Spears had offered friendship and Sharpe had been wary of it. Now he felt very close to Spears as the blood seeped into the lungs.

Spears pulled on the cigar, coughed again, and the blood flecked his cheeks. He turned his face towards Sharpe. “Will you do something for me?”

“Of course.”

“Write to my sister. Hogan’s got her address. Tell her I died well. Tell her I died a hero.” He smiled in self-deprecation. “Do you promise?”

“I promise.” Sharpe looked upwards. The stars were the camp fires of a limitless heavenly army. Beneath them, the fires of the victorious British were dull. The muskets sounded far away as men dispatched the wounded.

Spears blew out a spume of smoke. “Her name’s Dorothy. Ugly name. I do like her. I want her to know I died well. It’s the least I can do now.”

„I’ll tell her.“

Spears seemed to ignore Sharpe’s words. “I’ve ruined her life, Richard. No money, no inheritance, no dowry. She’ll have to marry some bloody tradesman to get his money and in return he’ll get her body and some noble blood.” His voice was very bitter. “Poor Dorothy.” He took a deep breath that rasped in his throat. “I’m broke, I’m poxed, and I’ve disgraced the family. But if I die a hero, then at least she has that. A lot of people won’t cash my notes of hand. Bad behaviour when a fellow has just died for King and Country.” Spears laughed, and the blood was dark on his skin. “You can live as bad as you like, Richard, as long as you can, but if you die for your country you’ll be forgiven everything. Everything.” Spears turned away from Sharpe so he could stare into the immensity of the battlefield’s sadness. “I used to get dragged to bloody church every Sunday. We went into the private pew and all the peasants tugged their forelocks. Then the bloody preacher got up on his back trotters and warned us about gambling, drunkenness, and fornication. He gave me all my ambitions in life.” He coughed again, worse this time, and there was a pause as he forced air into his lungs. “I just want Dorothy to know I was a hero. They can put a marble plaque in the church. The last of the Spears, dead at Salamanca.”

„I’ll write.“ Sharpe took off his shako and pushed a hand through his hair. ”I’m sure the Peer will write.“

Spears turned his head to look at Sharpe again. “And tell Helena she broke my heart.”

Sharpe smiled. He did not know if he would ever see La Marquesa again, but he nodded. „I’ll tell her.“

Spears sighed, smiled ruefully, and stared at the battlefield.“ I could havedone my bit for England. Given her the pox.”

Sharpe grinned dutifully. He supposed that it must be near eleven o’clock. So many people in England would be going to bed and they would be quite ignorant that at tea-time the Third Division had smashed the French left, and that by the time the bone china was cleared away the French had lost a quarter of their army. In a few days, though, the bells would ring out in all the villages and parsons would give thanks to God as though the deity were some kind of superior General of Division. The squires would pay for hogsheads of beer and make speeches about the Tyrant Broken by Honest Englishmen. There would be a fresh crop of plaques in the churches, for those who could afford it, but on the whole England would not show much gratitude for the men who had done their bit this day. Then he remembered what Spears had said. “Given her the pox‘, ”done my bit for England’ and Sharpe was suddenly cold inside. Spears knew she was French and he had betrayed it because he could not resist the joke. Sharpe kept his voice calm. “How long have you known about her?”

Spears twisted to look at him. “You know?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus. The things people say in bed.” He wiped blood off his cheek.

Sharpe stared into the darkness. “How long have you known.”

Spears tossed his cigar down the slope. “A month.”

“Did you tell Hogan?”

There was a pause. Sharpe looked at Spears. The cavalryman was watching him, conscious suddenly that he had said too much. Slowly, Spears nodded. “Of course I did.” He smiled suddenly. “How many do you think died today?”

Sharpe did not reply. He knew Spears was lying. Hogan had only discovered that La Marquesa was once Helene Leroux yesterday. Curtis had received the letter in the morning, seen Hogan in the afternoon, and then come to Sharpe. Spears had never told Hogan, nor did Spears know that Curtis had seen Sharpe. “How did you find out?”

“It doesn’t matter, Richard.”

“It does.”

There was a flash of anger in Spears. “I’m a bloody Exploring Officer, remember? It’s my job to find things out.”

“And to tell Hogan. You didn’t.”

Spears breathed heavily. He watched Sharpe, then shook his head. His voice was weary. “Christ! It doesn’t matter now.”

Sharpe stood up, tall against the night sky, and he hated what he had to do, but it did matter now, whatever Spears thought. The sword hissed out of the scabbard, came free, and the steel was pale in the half-moon.

Spears frowned. “What the hell are you doing?”

Sharpe put the blade beneath Spears, pushed away a protesting arm, and then levered with the steel so that the cavalryman was half rolled over, facing away from Sharpe, and then the Rifleman put one foot on Spears’ waist and the sword blade against Spears’ back. There was anger in

Sharpe’s voice, a cold, frightening anger. “Heroes don’t have scarred backs. You talk to me, my lord, or I’ll carve your back into bloody ribbons. I’ll tell your sister you died as a poxed coward, with your wounds behind.”

“I know nothing!”

Sharpe leaned on the blade, enough for its razor point to go through cloth. His voice was loud, strong. “You know, you bastard. You knew she was French, no one else did. You knew she was Leroux’s sister, didn’t you?” There was silence. He pushed the sword.

“Yes.” Spears choked, spat blood. “Stop it, for God’s sake, stop it.”

“Then talk.” There was silence again, except for the wind rustling the leaves of the trees behind them, the crackle of flames from the fires of the Sixth Division, and the desultory, far-away musket shots. Sharpe lowered his voice. “Your sister will be disgraced. She’ll have nothing. No money, no prospects, not even a dead hero as a brother. She’ll have to marry some ironmonger with dirty hands and a great belly and she’ll whore herself for his money. You want me to save your bloody honour, my lord? You talk.”

Spears talked. His words were punctuated by the coughing, the spitting of blood. He whined at times, tried to wriggle, but the sword was always close and, bit by horrid bit, Sharpe took the story from him. It depressed Sharpe, it saddened him. Spears pleaded for understanding, forgiveness even, but it was a tale of honour sold. Spears had told Sharpe, weeks before, that he had been nearly captured by Leroux. He had told of escaping through a window, tearing his arm to shreds, but the story was not true.

Lord Spears had never escaped from Leroux. He had been captured and had signed his parole. Leroux, he said, had talked to him through a long night, had drunk with him, and found the weakness. They had made a bargain. Information for money. Spears sold Colquhoun Grant, the army’s finest Exploring Officer, and Leroux gave him five hundred Napoleons and all had been gambled away. “I thought I might get the town house back, at least.”

“Go on.”

He had sold the list stolen from Hogan’s papers; the list of men paid by Britain for information. He had made ten gold coins a head, then lost it at the tables, and then, he said, Sharpe spoiled everything. He had chased Leroux into the fortresses and Spears thought his paymaster was gone, trapped, and then Helena had asked for him, talked with him, and the money had started coming again. And all the while Leroux had Spears’ parole, the piece of paper that proved Spears was a liar, that he had been a prisoner once, and the paper was held against Spears. If he double-crossed them, he said, then Leroux threatened to send the paper to Wellington. Leroux had made a slave of Spears, a well-paid slave, and who would ever suspect an English lord? The clerks, the grooms, the servants, the cooks, the lesser people of the Headquarters had all been under suspicion, but not Lord Spears, Crazy Jack, the man who livened parties and used his wit and charm to entrance the world, and all the time he was a spy.

There was more. Sharpe knew there would be more. He had taken his sword away, was sitting beside Spears, and the cavalryman confessed all, almost glad to spill it out, yet there was a reticence at the end of his story. The grass fires were dying. The moaning and the musket shots were lower and fewer from the battlefield, the wind had reached its night chill. Sharpe looked at the grey blade that stretched in front of him. “El Mirador?”

“He’s safe.”

“Where?”

Spears shrugged. “He’s in a monastery today. Bowing and scraping.”

“You didn’t sell him?”

Spears laughed, and the sound was harsh and bubbling because of the blood in his throat. He swallowed and grimaced. “I didn’t need to. Leroux had already found out.”

As Hogan had suspected. “Sweet God.” Sharpe stared at the field after battle. He had once feared for La Marquesa’s body beneath Leroux’s torture, now he flinched from the thought of the elderly priest racked on a blood soaked table. “But you said he’s safe?”

Curtis was safe, but he was an old man. Old men worry, Spears said, about dying before their work is done, and so Curtis had written the names and addresses of all his correspondents in a small, leather book. It was disguised as one of his notebooks of astronomical observations, filled with star charts and Latin names, but the codes could be broken.

Leroux had bided his time. He had planned to take Curtis when the British had gone, but then came news of a great British victory, and he had demanded that Spears fetch the priest. Spears’ voice was small now. “I couldn’t do that. So I fetched him the book instead.”

Leroux no longer needed El Mirador. With the book in his hands he could find all the correspondents who wrote faithfully from throughout Europe and he could take them one by one, kill them, and Britain would be blind. Sharpe shook his head in disbelief. “Why didn’t you just lie? Why did you have to give them the book? They didn’t know about it!”

“I thought they’d reward me.” Lord Spears was pathetic.

“Reward you! More blood money?”

“No.” Blood was dark on his cheek. “I wanted her body just once. Just once.” He made a choking sound that could have been a laugh or a sob. “I didn’t get it. Leroux gave me back my parole instead. He returned me my honour.” The bitterness was rank in his voice.

The dark bulk of the Greater Arapile was topped by two small fires. It blocked Sharpe’s view of the lights of Salamanca. “Where’s Leroux now?”