Sharpe 3-Book Collection 5: Sharpe's Company, Sharpe's Sword, Sharpe's Enemy (78 page)

‘Not exactly. I saw him do it before. In India.’ Sharpe told Harper the story and the Fusiliers listened. He told of being captured by the troops of the Sultan Tippoo and how he had been taken to the prison cells in Seringapatam and had watched, through the half-moon windows that looked out at ground level, the torture of British prisoners. Perhaps torture was too strong a word, for the men had died swiftly enough. The Tippoo Sultan, for his own pleasure and the pleasure of his women, employed Jetties, professional strong-men, and Sharpe had watched as men from the 33rd had been dragged over the sand to where the muscled men waited. The heels of the prisoners had left scuff marks, he remembered. They killed in two ways that day. The first was to clamp their massive forearms either side of the victim’s head and, on a signal from the Tippoo, they would take a breath then jerk the head through half a circle. Another Jettie would hold the body still and, whatever the resistance of the prisoners, their necks would be wrung swift as a chicken.

The other method was to place a flat-headed nail on the victim’s skull and then, with one massive blow of the palm, drive the nail six inches into the skull. That killed quickly too, if the job was not botched, and Sharpe remembered telling Sergeant Hakeswill what he had seen, the Sergeant listening with the other men about the bivouac fire. Hakeswill had tried it on Indian prisoners, practising until he had got it right. Damn Hakeswill. Sharpe had damned the Sultan Tippoo too, and he had killed him later when the British troops were assaulting the citadel of Seringapatam. Sharpe could still remember the look on the fat little man’s face when one of his prisoners had come from the wrong end of the Water Tunnel where the Sultan was firing his be-jewelled fowling pieces at the British. That was a good memory, spoilt only by the ruby that Sharpe had cut from one of the pudgy, dead fingers. He had given that ruby to a woman in Dover, a woman he thought he loved more than life itself, and then she had run off with a bespectacled schoolteacher. He supposed she had been sensible. Who needs a soldier for a husband ?

A burst of cheering startled him from the top of the dungeon steps, cheers and jeers, laughter and catcalls, and he left the bodies in their crusted horror and went up the steps to see what was causing the commotion.

Fusiliers and Riflemen had formed a rough corridor down which they propelled a prisoner with their musket and rifle butts. The prisoner made small, futile, placatory gestures with plump hands and he smiled left and right, bowed, then yelped as another musket butt prodded him in his ample buttocks. Pot-au-Feu. He was still dressed in his ludicrous Marshal’s uniform, missing only the enamelled gold cross that had hung about his neck. He saw Sharpe and dropped to his’ knees, pleading in his deep voice while the enemy laughed about him. A Fusilier behind him raised a musket and aimed at the neck beneath the white-plumed hat. ‘Put that down! Did you find him?’

‘Yes, sir.’ The man dropped the musket. ‘He was in the stables, sir, hiding under a tarpaulin. Reckon he was too fat to run, sir.’

Sharpe looked at the fat face that babbled at him. ‘Shut up!’

Silence from the quivering mass of uniformed fat. Sharpe walked round him, plucking the gorgeous hat from the cherubic white curls. ‘This, lads, is your enemy. This is Marshal Pot-au-Feu.’ The Fusiliers laughed. Some of them saluted the fat man whose eyes watched Sharpe as he circled. Each time Sharpe walked behind him the head jerked on its bed of chins to catch Sharpe coming round again. ‘Not every day we capture a French Marshal, eh?’ Sharpe tossed the hat to the man who had found Pot au-Feu. ‘I want him looked after, lads. Don’t hurt him. Be very kind to him because he’s going to be very kind to you.’ The head jerked again, the eyes worried. ‘He’s really a Froggie Sergeant, this one, and he used to be a cook. A very, very good cook. So good that he’s going to the kitchens now to make you a Christmas meal!’

They cheered that and watched as Sharpe pulled Pot-au-Feu to his feet. Sharpe brushed straw from the blue and gold jacket. ‘Be good now, Sergeant! Don’t put anything in the soup that shouldn’t be there!’ It was hard to connect this fat, happy-looking face with horror in the dungeons. Pot-au-Feu, understanding that he was not to be killed on the spot, was nodding eagerly at Sharpe.

‘Look after him. Take him away.’

That made victory sweeter, alleviated the blunder of not blocking the escape route from the castle, to have captured the leader of this miserable band. Sharpe stood and watched the groups of prisoners being pushed together, listened to the shouts of women who’ pulled at their captors’ arms and shrieked after husbands and lovers. It was still chaos in the yard.

A Rifle Lieutenant found him and saluted. ‘Captain Frederickson’s compliments, sir, and he says they’ve abandoned the watchtower.’

‘Where is Captain Frederickson?’

‘On the roof, sir.’ The Lieutenant jerked his head at the keep.

‘Leave three men guarding the liquor and ask the Captain to take the Company to the tower.’ Sharpe did not like putting yet another burden on Frederickson, but he could hardly order a Company of the Fusiliers to the watchtower, not while he was still a junior officer to whoever was in command. That was a thought. Who was in command? Sharpe asked Fusiliers if they had seen Farthingdale, but they shook their heads, nor did they have news of Kinney. A Major Ford would be next in line for command of the Fusiliers, but Ford was missing too. ‘Look for him!’

‘Yes, sir.’ A Sergeant of the Fusiliers backed from Sharpe’s anger.

Sharpe looked at Harper. ‘I could do with some lunch.’

‘I’ll take that as an order, sir.’

‘No! I was just talking.’

Harper nevertheless followed Pot-au-Feu towards the Castle kitchens and Sharpe walked up onto the rubble of the eastern wall and smelt the smell of burned flesh. A miserable battle against a miserable enemy, and worse, a battle that need not have been fought. If the watchtower had been taken then the bodies that still littered the wide breach would not need to be here. The thought made him angry and he turned on a Captain of the Fusiliers who was clambering over the blackened stones. ‘Hasn’t anyone thought to bury these men?’

‘Sir? Oh. I’ll attend to it, sir. Major Sharpe?’

‘Yes.’

The Captain saluted. ‘Captain Brooker, sir. Grenadier Company.’ Brooker was nervous.

‘Well?’

‘Colonel Kinney’s dead, sir.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Sharpe truly was. He had liked Kinney in the short time he had known him, and he remembered the Welshman saying what a tragedy it would be if any man was to die on this Christmas Day. ‘I am sorry, Captain.’

‘He was a good man, sir. Major Ford’s dead too, sir.’

‘Jesus!‘

‘Brooker shrugged. ‘In the back, sir. Shot.’

‘Unpopular?’

Brooker nodded miserably. ‘Very, sir.’

‘It happens.’ It did too, though no one liked to admit it. Sharpe had once heard a Captain, knowing his unpopularity, appeal to his men before battle to let the enemy kill him. They had granted him his wish.

Then Sharpe remembered. Ford had been the only Major with the Fusiliers, the second Major being on leave, and that meant Sharpe was senior officer. Except for Farthingdale. ‘Have you seen Sir Augustus?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Are you senior Captain?’

Brooker nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then I want one Company back in the Convent, and I want another sent to the watchtower, understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You’ll find Riflemen there as well. And send someone to get those damned fools over here.’ Sharpe pointed to the Rocket Troop who were wandering curiously towards the village.

‘The prisoners, sir?’

‘In the dungeons, once they’re cleared up. Bring the ones from the Convent here, too. Strip them all.’

‘Sir?’

‘Strip them. Take their bloody uniforms off. They’ve disgraced them. And naked men find it hard to escape in this weather.’

Brooker nodded unhappily. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘And get these men buried! You can use prisoners. They. can stay dressed if they’re working outside. Do you have a surgeon with the Battalion?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Put him to work in the Convent. Move the wounded there.’ Sharpe turned to look at the first two squads of Frederickson’s Company going over the stones towards the watchtower five hundred yards away. Thank God for Riflemen. ‘Carry on, Captain. Then come and find me. We’re bound to have forgotten something.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Farthingdale. Where the hell was Farthingdale? Sharpe walked through the scattered stones towards the spot where he had seen the Colonel fall, but there was no red, gold and black uniform among the dead. Nor was Sir Augustus’ big bay horse lying in its own blood. Perhaps the Colonel still lived, in which case he was in command here, but where the hell was he?

A Lieutenant led another dozen Riflemen over the stones, but there were still some Greenjackets on the ramparts of the keep for a bugle suddenly startled the valley, a bugle blown from the topmost stone of the Castle, a bugle that sounded two quick calls. The first was nine notes long, the second just eight. ‘We have discovered the enemy’. ‘The enemy is cavalry’.

Sharpe stared at the ramparts. A face leaned out of an embrasure and Sharpe cupped his hands. ‘Where?’

A hand pointed eastwards.

‘What are they?’

‘Lancers! French!’

Another enemy had come to the Gateway of God.

There was one priority in Sharpe’s head, just one, and he ran towards the Convent, arms waving, voice bellowing. ‘Captain Gilliland! Captain Gilliland!’

He pounded over the road and saw with relief that the horses were still in the traces of the carts. ‘Get them moving! Hurry!’

‘Sir?’ Gilliland was running from the Convent’s door.

‘Get this troop moving! Hurry! Into the Castle. Push that bloody cart aside, but hurry!’ Sharpe pointed to the ox cart that blocked the main gate of the Castle. Gilliland was still gaping at him. ‘For Christ’s sake, move!’

Sharpe looked at the artillerymen spread up the valley towards the village. He cupped his hands. ‘Gunners!’

He chivvied them, snapped at them, turned horses himself, and gradually the sense of urgency communicated itself to the men who had thought Christmas Day a day of rest. ‘Move, you bastards! It’s not a bloody funeral! Whip it up, man! Move!’

He was not fearing an attack by French cavalry. He guessed that the men on the keep had seen the advance scouts of a French force that had been sent to do what he had done last night; rescue the hostages. Now the three horsemen seen in the dawn made sense; they had been a patrol who had discovered that the work had been done for them, and doubtless the French now hoped to recover their own hostages under a flag of truce, but Sharpe still did not want them to see the strange carts and portable forge of the Rocket Troop. Perhaps he was right, and there would be no fight, or perhaps he was wrong. In which case the rockets, bundled inside their special cases on the long carts, would be the one surprise he could spring in this high valley. ‘Move it!’ Even if the French did see the carts they would have no idea of their purpose, but Sharpe wanted to take no chances. They would know there was something odd at the western end of the valley, and that something would give them caution. Surprise would be diluted.

Sharpe ran with the leading cart and bellowed at Fusiliers. ‘Clear that gate! Hurry!’

Frederickson, reliable Frederickson, pushed past the men struggling with the cart. ‘Lancers, sir. Green uniforms, red facings. There’s only a dozen.’

‘Green and red?’

‘Imperial Guard, I think. Germans.’

Sharpe looked towards the village, but could see nothing. The valley floor fell beyond Adrados before turning right, turning south, and if he could not see them then they could not see the odd carts that were at last moving behind him into the Castle courtyard. German lancers. Men recruited from the duchies and small kingdoms that had allied themselves to Napoleon. There were far more Germans fighting against the Emperor than for him, but they were alike in one thing; they fought as well as any man on a battlefield. Sharpe looked for Gilliland. ‘Hide your men in the stable, d’you hear me? Hide them!‘

‘Yes, sir.’ Gilliland was appalled by the sudden urgency. His war, till now, had been a patient matter of angles and theories; suddenly death was just beyond the horizon.

‘Where’s your Company?’ Sharpe turned back to the Rifle Captain.

‘On their way, sir.’ Frederickson nodded towards the Riflemen threading the thorn bushes. ‘Ten minutes and they’ll all be there.’

‘I’ve ordered a Company of Fusiliers up there as well. I’ll send another. Just make sure of one thing.’

‘Sir?’

‘Your Commission dates before theirs.’

Frederickson grinned. ‘Yes, sir.’ Whichever Captain had been promoted to the rank first would be in charge of the watchtower garrison, and Sharpe had no wish for this one-eyed fighter to be under anyone’s command but his own. Frederickson would lie for him.

‘And William?’ It was the first time he had used his Christian name.

‘Try Bill, sir.’

‘Assume we’ll have to fight eventually. That means you’ll be holding that hill.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Sweet William went happily away with the promise not just of a fight, but his very own personal fight. Some officers hated responsibility, but the best welcomed it, wanted it, and would take it whether it was offered or not.

Now there were a dozen things for Sharpe to do. A second Company had to be despatched to the watchtower, Riflemen must be sent to the Convent, ammunition must be taken from Gilliland’s carts and distributed as ready magazines about all the positions. He found Cross’s bugler, then two Ensigns of the Fusiliers, and made them into his own messengers, and all the while fools came to him with problems they could have solved without his help. How was food to be taken to the watchtower? What about the packs left in the Convent? The rope that took water from the well in the keep was broken, and Sharpe snapped, cajoled, decided, and all the time watched the village for the first sight of the enemy horsemen.