Sharpe 3-Book Collection 7: Sharpe's Revenge, Sharpe's Waterloo, Sharpe's Devil (100 page)
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Authors: Bernard Cornwell
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BOOK: Sharpe 3-Book Collection 7: Sharpe's Revenge, Sharpe's Waterloo, Sharpe's Devil
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CHAPTER 4
That evening, just before sunset, they reined their tired horses on the rocky crest above the natural harbor of Puerto Crucero. Sharpe, weary to his very bones, turned in his aching saddle and saw no sign of any pursuit. Dregara had been cheated. Sharpe and Harper, thanks to Captain Morillo and his Indian guide, had come safely to their haven where, like a sorcerer’s castle perched on a crag, stood the Citadel of Puerto Crucero.
At the heart of the Citadel, and brilliant white in the day’s last sunlight, stood the garrison church where Blas Vivar lay buried. Beside the church was a castle keep over which, streaming stiff in the sea’s hard wind, the great royal banner of Spain flew colorful and proud. The dark, wild country where murder might have been committed was behind them and in front were witnesses and light. There was also the harbor from which, by God’s grace, they would sail home with the body of a dead hero.
The harbor was not a massive refuge like Valdivia’s magnificent haven, but instead lay within a wide hook of low, rocky land that stopped the surge of the Pacific swells, but allowed the insistent southern winds to tug and fret at the anchorage. Even now the harbor was flecked with white by the wind that streamed the royal banner at the fort’s summit.
The town was built where an inner harbor had been made with a stone breakwater. The town itself was a huddle of
warehouses, fishing shacks and small houses. Nothing could move in the town or harbor without being observed from the great high fortress. The road to the fort zig-zagged up the rock hill to disappear into a tunnel that pierced a wide stone wall studded with cannon embrasures. “A bastard of a fort to take,” Harper said.
warehouses, fishing shacks and small houses. Nothing could move in the town or harbor without being observed from the great high fortress. The road to the fort zig-zagged up the rock hill to disappear into a tunnel that pierced a wide stone wall studded with cannon embrasures. “A bastard of a fort to take,” Harper said.
“Then thank God we don’t need to.” Sharpe flourished the pass which gave them entry to the citadel.
The pass, signed and sealed by Miguel Bautista, worked its charm. Sharpe and Harper were saluted at every guardpost, escorted through the fortress’s entrance tunnel, and greeted effusively by the officer of the day, a Major Suarez, who seemed somewhat astonished by the pass. In all likelihood, Sharpe suspected, Suarez had never seen such a document, for Sharpe suspected it had been issued only to lull him into a false sense of security, but now, even if Bautista had not so intended, his signature was working a wonderful magic.
“You’ll accept our hospitality?” Major Suarez was standing behind his desk, eager to show Sharpe and Harper due respect. “There is an inn beside the harbor, but I can’t recommend it. You’ll permit me to have two officers’ rooms made ready for you?”
“And a meal?” Harper suggested.
“Of course!” Suarez, assuming that Bautista was their patron, could not do enough to help. “Perhaps you will wait in my quarters while the room and the food are made ready?”
“I’d rather see the church,” Sharpe said.
“I’ll send for you as soon as things are ready.” Suarez snapped his fingers, summoning ostlers to take care of the tired horses, and orderlies to carry the travelers’ bags for safekeeping into the officers’ quarters. Sharpe and Harper kept only the strongbox which they carried between them into the welcome coolness of the garrison church, a building
of stern beauty. The walls were painted white while the heavily beamed ceiling was of a shining wood that had been oiled almost to blackness. On the walls were marble slabs that commemorated officers who had died in this far colony. Some had been killed in skirmishes, some had drowned off the coast, some had died in earthquakes, and a few, very few, had died of old age. Other marble plaques remembered the officers’ families: women who had died in childbirth, children who had been killed or captured by Indians and babies who had died of strange diseases and whose souls were now commended to God.
of stern beauty. The walls were painted white while the heavily beamed ceiling was of a shining wood that had been oiled almost to blackness. On the walls were marble slabs that commemorated officers who had died in this far colony. Some had been killed in skirmishes, some had drowned off the coast, some had died in earthquakes, and a few, very few, had died of old age. Other marble plaques remembered the officers’ families: women who had died in childbirth, children who had been killed or captured by Indians and babies who had died of strange diseases and whose souls were now commended to God.
Sharpe and Harper put the strongbox down in the nave, then walked slowly through the choir to climb the steps to the altar, which was a magnificent confection of gold and silver. Crucifixes, candle holders and ewers graced the niches and shelves of the intricate altar screen on which painted panels depicted the torture and death of Christ.
Many of the flagstones close to the altar were gravestones. Some had ornate coats of arms carved above the names, and most of the inscriptions were in Latin, which meant Sharpe could not read them; yet even without Latin he could see that none of the stones bore the name of his friend. Then Harper moved aside a small rush mat that had covered a paving slab to the right of the altar and thus discovered Don Blas’s grave. “Here,” Harper said softly, then crossed himself. The stone bore two simple letters chiseled into its surface.
BV
.
BV
.
“Poor bastard,” Sharpe said gently. There were times when he found his lack of any religion a handicap. He supposed he should say a prayer, but the sight of his old friend’s grave left him feeling inadequate. Don Blas himself would have known what to say, for he had always possessed a graceful sureness of touch, but Sharpe felt awkward in the hushed church.
“You want to start digging?” Harper asked.
“Now?” Sharpe sounded surprised.
“Why not?” Harper had spotted some tools in a side chapel where workmen had evidently been repairing a wall. He fetched a crowbar and worked it down beside the slab. “At least we can see what’s under the stone.”
Sharpe expected to find a vault under the gravestone, but they levered up the heavy slab to find instead a patch of flattened yellow shingle.
“Christ only knows how deep he is,” Harper said, then drove the crowbar hard into the gravel. Sharpe went to the side chapel and came back with a trowel that he used to scrape aside the stones and sand that Harper had loosened with the crowbar. “We’ll probably have to go down six feet,” Harper grumbled, “and it’ll take us bloody hours.”
“I reckon Major Suarez will give us a work party tomorrow,” Sharpe said, then moved aside to let Harper thrust down with the bar again.
Harper slammed the crowbar down. It crashed through the shingle, thumped on something hollow, then abruptly burst through into a space beneath.
“Jesus!” Harper could not resist the imprecation.
Sharpe twisted aside, a hand to his mouth. The crowbar had pierced a coffin that had been buried scarcely a foot beneath the floor, and now the shallow grave was giving off a stink so noxious that Sharpe could not help gagging. He stepped backward, out of range of the effluvia. Harper was gasping for clean air. “God save Ireland, but you’d think they’d bury the poor man a few feet farther down. Jesus!”
It was the smell of death—a sickly, clogging, strangely sweet and never-to-be-forgotten stench of rotting flesh. Sharpe had smelled such decay innumerable times, yet not lately, not in these last happy years in Normandy. Now the first slight hint of the smell brought back a tidal wave of
memories. There had been a time in his life, and in Harper’s life, when a man slept and woke and ate and lived with that reek of mortality. Sharpe had known places, like Waterloo, where even after the dead had all been buried the stench persisted, souring every tree and blade of grass and breath of air with its insinuating foulness. It was the smell that traced a soldier’s passing, the grave smell, and now it pervaded the church where a friend was buried.
memories. There had been a time in his life, and in Harper’s life, when a man slept and woke and ate and lived with that reek of mortality. Sharpe had known places, like Waterloo, where even after the dead had all been buried the stench persisted, souring every tree and blade of grass and breath of air with its insinuating foulness. It was the smell that traced a soldier’s passing, the grave smell, and now it pervaded the church where a friend was buried.
“Christ, but you’re right about needing an airtight box to hold him.” Harper had retreated to the edge of the choir. “We’ll drink the brandy, and he can have the box.”
Sharpe crept closer to the grave. The stench was appalling, much worse than he remembered it from the wars. He held his breath and scraped with his trowel at the hole Harper had made, but all he could see was a splinter of yellow wood in the gravel.
“I think we should wait and let a work party do this,” Harper said fervently.
Sharpe scuttled back a few feet before taking a deep breath. “I think you’re right.” He shuddered at the thought of the body’s corruption and tried to imagine his own death and decay. Where would he be buried? Somewhere in Normandy, he supposed, and beside Lucille, he hoped, perhaps under apple trees so the blossoms would drift like snow across their graves every spring.
Then the door at the back of the church crashed open, disrupting Sharpe’s gloomy reverie, and suddenly a rush of heavy boots trampled on the nave’s flagstones. Sharpe turned, half-dazzled by the sunlight which lanced low across the world’s rim to slice clean through the church’s door. He could not see much in the eye of that great brilliance, but he could see enough to understand that armed men were swarming into the church.
“Sweet Jesus,” Harper swore.
“Stop where you are!” a voice shouted above the tramp and crash of boot nails.
It was Sergeant Dregara, his dark face furious, who led the rush. Behind him was Major Suarez carrying a cocked pistol and with a disappointed look on his face as though Sharpe and Harper had abused his friendly welcome. Dregara, like his travel-stained men, was carrying a cavalry carbine that he now raised so that its barrel gaped into Sharpe’s face.
“No!” Suarez said.
“Easiest thing,” Dregara said softly.
“No!” Major Suarez insisted. There were a score of infantrymen in the church who waited, appalled, for Dregara to blow Sharpe’s brains across the altar. “They’re under arrest,” Suarez insisted nervously.
Dregara, plainly deciding that he could not get away with murder in the presence of so many witnesses, reluctantly lowered the carbine. He looked tired, and Sharpe guessed that he and his cavalrymen must have ridden like madmen in their pursuit. Now Dregara stared malevolently into the Englishman’s face before turning away and striding back down the church’s nave. “Lock them up.” He snapped the order, even though he was a Sergeant and Suarez a Major. “Bring me their weapons, and that!” He gestured at the strongbox and two of his men, hurrying to obey, lifted the treasure.
Major Suarez climbed to the altar. “You’re under arrest,” he said nervously.
“For what?” Sharpe asked.
“General Bautista’s orders,” Suarez said, and he had gone quite pale, as though he could feel the cold threat of the Captain-General’s displeasure reaching down from Valdivia. Dregara was plainly Bautista’s man, known and feared as
such. “You’re under arrest,” Suarez again said helplessly, then waved his men forward.
such. “You’re under arrest,” Suarez again said helplessly, then waved his men forward.
And Sharpe and Harper were marched away.
T
hey were taken to a room high in the fortress, a room that looked across the harbor entrance to where the vast Pacific rollers pounded at the outer rocks to explode in great gouts of white water. Sharpe leaned through the bars of the high window and stared straight down to see that their prison room lay directly above a flight of rock-cut steps which led to the citadel’s wharf. To the north of the wharf was a shingle beach where a handful of small fishing boats lay canted on their sides.
The window bars were each an inch thick and deeply rusted, but, when Harper tried to loosen them, they proved stubbornly solid. “Even if you managed to escape,” Sharpe asked in a voice made acid by frustration, “and survived the eighty-foot drop to the quay, just where the hell do you think you’d go?”
“Somewhere they serve decent ale, of course,” Harper gave the bars a last massive but impotent tug, “or maybe to that Jonathan out there.” He pointed to a brigantine which had just anchored in the outer harbor. The boat was flying an outsize American flag, a splash of bright color in the twilight gloom. Sharpe assumed the flag was intentionally massive so that, should the dreaded Lord Cochrane make a raid on Puerto Crucero, he could not mistake the American ship for a Spanish merchantman.
Sharpe wished Cochrane would make a raid, for he could see no other route out of their predicament. He had tried hammering on their prison door, demanding to be given paper and ink so that he could send a message to George Blair, the Consul in Valdivia, but his shouting was ignored.
“Damn them,” Sharpe growled, “damn them and damn them!”
“Damn them,” Sharpe growled, “damn them and damn them!”
“They won’t dare punish us,” Harper tried either to console Sharpe or to convince himself. “They’re scared wicked of our navy, aren’t they? Besides, if they meant us harm they wouldn’t have put us in here. This isn’t such a bad wee place,” Harper looked around their prison. “I’ve been in worse.”
The room was not, indeed, a bad wee place. The wall beside the window had been grievously cracked at some point, Sharpe assumed by one of the famous earthquakes that racked this coast, but otherwise the room was in fine repair and furnished comfortably enough. There were two straw-filled mattresses on the floor, a stool, a table and a lidded bucket. Such comforts suggested that Major Suarez, or his superiors, would deal very gingerly with two British citizens.
It was also plain to Sharpe that the Puerto Crucero authorities were waiting for instructions from Valdivia, for, once incarcerated, they were left alone for six days. No one interrogated them, no one brought them news, no one informed them of any charges. The only visitors to the high prison room were the orderlies who brought food and emptied the bucket. The food was good, and plentiful enough even for Harper’s appetite. Each morning a barber came with a pile of hot towels, a bowl and a bucket of steaming water. The barber shook his head whenever Sharpe tried to persuade the man to bring paper, ink and a pen. “I am a barber, I know nothing of writing. Please to tilt your head back,
señor
.”
señor
.”
“I want to write to my Consul in Valdivia. He’ll reward you if you bring me paper and ink.”
“Please don’t speak,
señor
, when I am shaving your neck.”
señor
, when I am shaving your neck.”
On the fifth morning, under a sullen sky from which a
sour rain spat, the
Espiritu Santo
had appeared beyond the northern headland and, making hard work of the last few hundred yards, beat her way into the outer harbor where, with a great splash and a gigantic clanking of chain, she let go her two forward anchors. Captain Ardiles’s frigate, like the American brigantine which still lay to her anchors in the roadstead, drew too much water to be safe in the shallow inner harbor, and so she was forced to fret and tug at her twin cables while, from the shore, a succession of lighters and longboats ferried goods and people back and forth.
sour rain spat, the
Espiritu Santo
had appeared beyond the northern headland and, making hard work of the last few hundred yards, beat her way into the outer harbor where, with a great splash and a gigantic clanking of chain, she let go her two forward anchors. Captain Ardiles’s frigate, like the American brigantine which still lay to her anchors in the roadstead, drew too much water to be safe in the shallow inner harbor, and so she was forced to fret and tug at her twin cables while, from the shore, a succession of lighters and longboats ferried goods and people back and forth.
The next morning, under the same drab sky, the
Espiritu Santo
raised her anchors and, very cautiously, approached the stone wharf which lay at the foot of the citadel’s crag. It was clear to Sharpe that the big frigate could only lay alongside the wharf at the very top of the high tide, and that as a result Captain Ardiles was creeping his way in with extreme caution. The frigate was being towed by longboats, and had men casting lead lines from her bows. She finally nestled alongside the wharf and Harper, leaning as far out as the bars would allow him, described how the contents of a cart were being unloaded by soldiers and carried on board the frigate. “It’s the gold!” Harper said excitedly. “They must be loading the gold! My God, there’s enough gold there to buy a Pope!”
Espiritu Santo
raised her anchors and, very cautiously, approached the stone wharf which lay at the foot of the citadel’s crag. It was clear to Sharpe that the big frigate could only lay alongside the wharf at the very top of the high tide, and that as a result Captain Ardiles was creeping his way in with extreme caution. The frigate was being towed by longboats, and had men casting lead lines from her bows. She finally nestled alongside the wharf and Harper, leaning as far out as the bars would allow him, described how the contents of a cart were being unloaded by soldiers and carried on board the frigate. “It’s the gold!” Harper said excitedly. “They must be loading the gold! My God, there’s enough gold there to buy a Pope!”
The frigate only stayed at the wharf long enough to take on board the boxes from the cart before she raised a foresail and slipped away from the dangerously shallow water to return to her deeper anchorage. “Lucky bastards,” Harper said as the rattle of the anchor chains echoed across the harbor. “They’ll be going home soon, won’t they? Back to Europe, eh? She could take us to Cadiz, we’d have a week in a good tavern, then I’d catch a sherry boat north to Dublin. Christ, what wouldn’t I give to be on board her?” He watched as a longboat pulled away from the frigate and was
rowed back toward the citadel’s steps, then he sighed. “One way or another we’ve made a mess of this job, haven’t we?”
rowed back toward the citadel’s steps, then he sighed. “One way or another we’ve made a mess of this job, haven’t we?”
Sharpe, lying on one of the mattresses and staring at the cracks in the plastered ceiling, smiled. “Peace isn’t like war. In wartime things were simpler.” He turned his head toward the metal-studded door beyond which footsteps sounded loud in the passageway. “Bit early for food, isn’t it?”
The door opened, but instead of the usual two servants carrying the midday trays, Major Suarez and a file of infantrymen now stood in the stone passageway. “Come,” Suarez ordered. “Downstairs. The Captain-General wants you.”
“Who?” Sharpe swung his legs off the cot.
“General Bautista is here. He came on the frigate.” The terror in Suarez was palpable. “Please, hurry!”
They were taken downstairs to a long hall which had huge arched windows facing onto the harbor. The ceiling was painted white and decorated with an iron chandelier under which a throng of uniformed men awaited Sharpe’s arrival. The crowd of officers reminded Sharpe of the audience that had watched Bautista attending to his duties in the Citadel at Valdivia.
Bautista, attended by Marquinez and his other aides, was again offering a display of public diligence. He was working at papers spread on a table on which rested Sharpe’s sword and Harper’s seven-barrel gun. The strongbox was also there. The sight of the weapons gave Sharpe a pulse of hope that perhaps they were to be released, even maybe allowed to travel home on the
Espiritu Santo
, for Captain Ardiles was among the nervously silent audience. Sharpe nodded at the frigate’s Captain, but Ardiles turned frostily away, revealing, to Sharpe’s astonishment, George Blair, the British Consul. Sharpe tried to cross the hall to speak with Blair, but a soldier pulled him back. “Blair!” Sharpe shouted, “I want to talk to you!”
Espiritu Santo
, for Captain Ardiles was among the nervously silent audience. Sharpe nodded at the frigate’s Captain, but Ardiles turned frostily away, revealing, to Sharpe’s astonishment, George Blair, the British Consul. Sharpe tried to cross the hall to speak with Blair, but a soldier pulled him back. “Blair!” Sharpe shouted, “I want to talk to you!”
Blair made urgent hushing motions as though Sharpe disturbed a sacred assembly. Captain Marquinez, as beautifully uniformed as a palace guard, frowned at Sharpe’s temerity, though Bautista, at last looking up from his paperwork, seemed merely amused by Sharpe’s loud voice. “Ah, Mister Sharpe! We meet again. I trust you have not been discommoded? You’re comfortable here? You find the food adequate?”
Sharpe, suspicious of Bautista’s affability, said nothing. The Captain-General, plainly enjoying himself, put down his quill pen and stood up. “This is yours?” Bautista put his hand on the strongbox.
Sharpe still said nothing, while the audience, relishing the contest that was about to begin, seemed to tense itself.
“I asked you a question, Mister Sharpe.”
“It belongs to the Countess of Mouromorto.”
“A rich woman! But why does she send her money on voyages around the world?”
“You know why,” Sharpe said.
“Do I?” Bautista opened the strongbox’s lid. “One thousand, six hundred and four guineas. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Sharpe said defiantly, and there was a murmur of astonishment from Bautista’s audience as they translated the figure into Spanish dollars. A man could live comfortably for a whole lifetime on six and a half thousand dollars.
“Why were you carrying such a sum in gold?” Bautista demanded.
Sharpe saw the trap just in time. If he had admitted that the money had been given to him for use as bribes, then the Captain-General would accuse him of attempting to corrupt Chilean officials. Sharpe shrugged. “We didn’t know what expenses we might have,” he answered vaguely.
“Expenses?” Bautista sneered. “What expenses are involved in digging up a dead man? Shovels are so expensive
in Europe?” The audience murmured with laughter, and Sharpe sensed a relief in the assembled officers. They were like men who had come to a bullfight and they wanted to see their champion draw blood from the bull, and the swift jest about the price of shovels had pleased them. Now Bautista took one of the coins from the strongbox, picked up a riding crop from the table, and walked toward Sharpe. “Tell me, Mister Sharpe, why you came to Chile?”
in Europe?” The audience murmured with laughter, and Sharpe sensed a relief in the assembled officers. They were like men who had come to a bullfight and they wanted to see their champion draw blood from the bull, and the swift jest about the price of shovels had pleased them. Now Bautista took one of the coins from the strongbox, picked up a riding crop from the table, and walked toward Sharpe. “Tell me, Mister Sharpe, why you came to Chile?”
“To collect the body of Don Blas,” Sharpe said, “as you well know.”
“I heard you were groveling in General Vivar’s grave like a dog,” Bautista said. “But why carry so much gold?”
“I told you, expenses.”
“Expenses.” Bautista sneered the word, then tossed the coin to Sharpe.
Sharpe, taken by surprise, just managed to snatch the guinea coin out of the air.
“Look at it!” Bautista said. “Tell me what you see?”
“A guinea,” Sharpe said.
“The cavalry of Saint George,” Bautista still sneered. “Do you see that, Mister Sharpe?”
Sharpe said nothing. The guinea coin had the head of the King on one side, and on its obverse bore the mounted figure of Saint George thrusting his lance into the dragon’s flank. The nickname for such coins was the Cavalry of Saint George which, during the French wars and in the form of lavish subsidies to foreign nations, had been sent to do battle against Bonaparte.
“The British Government uses such golden cavalry to foment trouble, isn’t that so, Mister Sharpe?”
Again Sharpe said nothing, though he glanced toward Blair to see if the Consul planned any protest, but Blair was clearly cowed by the company and seemed oblivious of Bautista’s jeering.
“Afraid to send their own men to fight wars,” Bautista sneered, “the British pay others to do their fighting. How else did they beat Napoleon?”
He let the question hang. The audience smiled. Sharpe waited.
Bautista came close to Sharpe. “Why are you in Chile, Mister Sharpe?”
“I told you, to collect General Vivar’s body.”
“Nonsense! Nonsense! Why would the Countess of Mouromorto send a lackey to collect her husband’s body? All she needed to do was ask the army headquarters in Madrid! They would have been happy to arrange an exhumation—”
“Doña Louisa did not know her husband was dead,” Sharpe said, though it sounded horribly lame even as he said it.
“What kind of fool do you take me for?” Bautista stepped even closer to Sharpe, the riding crop twitching in his hand. His aides, not daring to move, stood frozen behind the table, while the audience watched wide-eyed. “I know why you came here,” Bautista said softly.
“Tell me.”
“To communicate with the rebels, of course. Who else was the money for? All the world knows that the English want to see Spain defeated here.”
Sharpe sighed. “Why would I bring money to the rebels in a Royal ship?”
“Why indeed? So no one would suspect your intentions?” Bautista was enjoying tearing Sharpe’s protests to shreds. “Who sent you, Sharpe? Your English merchant friends who think they can make more profit out of Chile if it’s ruled by a rebel government?”
“The Countess of Mouromorto sent me,” Sharpe insisted.
“She’s English, is she not?” Bautista responded swiftly. “Do you find it noble to fight for trade, Sharpe? For cargoes
of hide and for barrels of tallow? For the profits of men like Mister Blair?” He threw a scornful hand toward the Consul who, seemingly pleased at being noticed, bobbed his head in acknowledgment.
of hide and for barrels of tallow? For the profits of men like Mister Blair?” He threw a scornful hand toward the Consul who, seemingly pleased at being noticed, bobbed his head in acknowledgment.
“I fought alongside Don Blas,” Sharpe said, “and I fight for the same things he wanted.”
“Oh, do tell me! Please!” Bautista urged in a caustic voice.
“He hated corruption,” Sharpe said.
“Don’t we all?” Bautista said with wonderfully feigned innocence.
“Don Blas believed men could live in freedom under fair government.” It was an inadequate statement of Vivar’s creed, but the best Sharpe could manage.
“You mean Vivar fought for liberty!” Bautista was delighted with Sharpe’s answer. “Any fool can claim liberty as his cause. Look!” Bautista pointed at the hugely flagged American brigantine in the outer harbor. “The Captain of that ship is waiting for whalers to rendezvous with him so he can take home their sperm oil and whalebone. He comes every year, and every year he brings copies of his country’s declaration of independence, and he hands them out as though they’re the word of God! He tells the mestizos and the criollos that they must fight for their liberty! Then, when he’s got his cargo, he sails home and who do you think empties that cargo in his precious land of liberty? Slaves do! Slaves! So much for his vaunted liberty!” Bautista paused to let a rustle of agreement sound in his audience. “Of course Vivar believed in liberty!” Bautista interrupted the murmuring. “Vivar believed in every impracticality! He wanted God to rule the world! He believed in truth and love and pigs with wings.” The audience laughed delightedly. Captain Marquinez and one or two others even clapped at their Captain-General’s wit, while Bautista, delighted with himself, smiled at Sharpe. “And you share Vivar’s beliefs, Mister Sharpe?”
“I’m a soldier,” Sharpe said stubbornly, as though that excused him from holding beliefs.
“A plain, bluff man, eh? Then so am I, so I will tell you very plainly that I believe you are telling lies. I believe you came to Chile to bring money and a message to the rebels.”
“So you believe in pigs with wings too?”
Bautista ignored the sneer, striding instead to the table where he opened a writing box and took out an object which he tossed to Sharpe. “What is that?”
“Bloody hell,” Harper murmured, for the object which Bautista had scornfully shied at Sharpe was the signed portrait of Napoleon that had been stolen in Valdivia.
“This was stolen from me,” Sharpe said, “in Valdivia.”
“At the time,” Bautista jeered from the window, “you denied anything more was missing. Were you ashamed of carrying a message from Napoleon to a mercenary rebel?”
“It isn’t a message!” Sharpe said scornfully. “It was a gift.”
“Oh, Mister Sharpe!” Bautista’s voice was full of disappointment, as though Sharpe was not proving a worthy opponent. “A man carries a gift to a rebel? How did you expect to deliver this gift if you were not to be in communication with the rebels? Tell me!”
Sharpe said nothing.
Bautista smiled pitifully. “What a bad conspirator you are, Mister Sharpe. And such a bad liar, too. Turn the portrait over. Go on! Do it!” Bautista waited till Sharpe had dutifully turned the picture over, then pointed with his riding crop. “That backing board comes off. Pull it.”
Sharpe saw that the stiffening board behind the printed etching had been levered out of the frame. The board had been replaced, but now he prized it out again and thus revealed a piece of paper which had been folded to fit the exact space behind the board.
“Open it! Go on!” Bautista was enjoying the moment.
At first glance the folded paper might have been taken for a thickening sheet which merely served to stop the glass from rattling in the metal frame, but when Sharpe unfolded the sheet he saw that it bore a coded message. “Oh, Christ,” Sharpe said softly when he realized what it was. The ink-written code was a jumble of letters and numerals and meant nothing to Sharpe, but it was clearly a message from Bonaparte to the mysterious Lieutenant Colonel Charles, and any such message could only mean trouble.
“You are pretending you did not know the message was there?” Bautista challenged Sharpe.
“Of course I didn’t.”
“Who wrote it? Napoleon? Or your English masters?”
The question revealed that Bautista’s men had not succeeded in breaking the code. “Napoleon,” Sharpe said, then tried to construct a feeble defense of the coded message. “It’s nothing important. Charles is an admirer of the Emperor’s.”
“You expect me to believe that an unimportant letter would be written in code?” Bautista asked mockingly, then he calmly walked to Sharpe and held out his hand for the message. Sharpe paused a second, then surrendered the message and the framed portrait. Bautista glanced at the code. “I believe it is a message from your English masters, which you inserted into the portrait. What does the message say?”
“I don’t know.” Sharpe, conscious of all the eyes that watched him, straightened his back. “How could I know? You probably concocted that message yourself.” Sharpe believed no such thing. The moment he had seen the folded and coded message he had known that he had been duped into being Napoleon’s messenger boy, but he dared not surrender the initiative wholly to Bautista.
But Sharpe’s counteraccusation was a clumsy riposte and Bautista scoffed at it. “If I planned to incriminate you by
concocting a message, Mister Sharpe, I would hardly invent one that no one could read.” His audience laughed at the easy parry, and Bautista, like a matador who had just made an elegant pass at his prey, smiled, then walked to one of the high arched windows which, unglazed, offered a view across the harbor and out to the Pacific. Bautista turned in the window and beckoned to his prisoners. “Come here! Both of you!”
concocting a message, Mister Sharpe, I would hardly invent one that no one could read.” His audience laughed at the easy parry, and Bautista, like a matador who had just made an elegant pass at his prey, smiled, then walked to one of the high arched windows which, unglazed, offered a view across the harbor and out to the Pacific. Bautista turned in the window and beckoned to his prisoners. “Come here! Both of you!”
Sharpe and Harper obediently walked to the window, which looked down onto a wide stone terrace that formed a gun battery. The guns were thirty-six-pound naval cannons that had been removed from their ship trolleys and placed on heavy garrison mounts. There were twelve of the massive guns, each capable of plunging a vicious fire down onto any ship that dared attack Puerto Crucero’s harbor.
Yet Bautista had not invited Sharpe and Harper to see the guns, but rather the man who was shackled to a wooden post at the very edge of one of the embrasures. That man was Ferdinand, the Indian guide who had brought them through the misted mountains ahead of Dregara’s pursuit. Now, stripped of his tattered uniform and dressed only in a short brown kilt, Ferdinand was manacled just seven or eight feet from the muzzle of one of the giant cannons. Dregara, who was clearly an intimate of Bautista’s, stood holding a smoking linstock beside the loaded gun. Sharpe, understanding what he was about to see, turned in horror on Bautista. “What in Christ’s name are you doing?”
“This is an execution,” Bautista said in a tone of voice he might use to explain something to a small child, “a means of imposing order on an imperfect world.”
“You can’t do this!” Sharpe protested so strongly that one of the infantrymen stepped in front of him with a musket and bayonet.
“Of course I can do this!” Bautista mocked. “I am the
King’s plenipotentiary. I can have men killed, I can have them imprisoned, I can even have them broken down to the ranks, like Private Morillo who is being sent to the mines to learn the virtues of loyalty.”
King’s plenipotentiary. I can have men killed, I can have them imprisoned, I can even have them broken down to the ranks, like Private Morillo who is being sent to the mines to learn the virtues of loyalty.”
“What has this man done?” Sharpe gestured at Ferdinand.
“He has displeased me, Mister Sharpe,” Bautista said, then he beckoned the other men in the room forward so they could watch the execution from the other windows. Bautista’s eyes were greedy. “Are you watching?” Bautista asked Sharpe.
“You bastard,” Sharpe said.
“Why? This is a quick and painless death, though admittedly messy. You have to understand that the savages believe their souls will not reach paradise unless their bodies are intact for the funeral rites. They consequently have a morbid fear of dismemberment, which is why I devised this punishment as a means of discouraging rebellion among the Indian slaves. It works remarkably well.”
“But this man has done nothing! Morillo did nothing!”
“They displeased me,” Bautista hissed the words, then he looked down to the gun battery and held up a hand.
Ferdinand, his lips drawn back from his filed teeth, seemed to be praying. His eyes were closed. “God bless you!” Sharpe shouted, though the Indian showed no signs of hearing.
“You think God cares about scum?” Bautista chuckled, then dropped his hand.
Dregara reached forward and the linstock touched the firing hole. The sound of the cannon was tremendous; loud enough to rattle the iron chandelier and hurt the eardrums of the men crowded at the windows. Harper crossed himself. Bautista licked his lips, and Ferdinand died in a maelstrom of smoke, fire and blood. Sharpe glimpsed the Indian’s shattered trunk whirling blood as it was blasted away from the
parapet, then the smoke blew apart to reveal a splintered stake, a pair of bloody legs, and lumps and spatters of blood and flesh smeared across the cannon’s embrasure. The rest of Ferdinand’s body had been scattered into the outer harbor where screaming gulls, excited by this sudden largesse, dived and tore and fought for shreds of his flesh. Far out to sea, beyond the rocky spit of land, the cannonball crashed into the swell with a sudden white plume, while in the nearer waters, scraps of flesh and splinters of bone and drops of blood rained down to the frenzied gulls. Men had rushed to the rail of the American brigantine, fearful of what the gunfire meant, and now they stared in puzzlement at the blood-flecked water. Bautista sighed with pleasure, then turned away as the white-faced gun crew heaved the dead man’s legs over the parapet.
parapet, then the smoke blew apart to reveal a splintered stake, a pair of bloody legs, and lumps and spatters of blood and flesh smeared across the cannon’s embrasure. The rest of Ferdinand’s body had been scattered into the outer harbor where screaming gulls, excited by this sudden largesse, dived and tore and fought for shreds of his flesh. Far out to sea, beyond the rocky spit of land, the cannonball crashed into the swell with a sudden white plume, while in the nearer waters, scraps of flesh and splinters of bone and drops of blood rained down to the frenzied gulls. Men had rushed to the rail of the American brigantine, fearful of what the gunfire meant, and now they stared in puzzlement at the blood-flecked water. Bautista sighed with pleasure, then turned away as the white-faced gun crew heaved the dead man’s legs over the parapet.
There was a stunned silence in the hall. The stench of powder smoke and fresh blood was keen in the air as Bautista, half smiling, turned to his audience. “Mister Blair?”
“Your Excellency?” George Blair ducked an eager and frightened pace forward.
“You have heard my questions to Mister Sharpe today?”
“Indeed, Your Excellency.”
“Do you confirm that I have treated the prisoners fairly? And with consideration?”
Blair smirked and nodded. “Indeed, Your Excellency.”
Bautista went to the table and held up the signed portrait of Napoleon and the folded message. “You heard the prisoner’s assertion that Napoleon wrote this message?”
“I did, Your Excellency, indeed I did.”
“And you see it is addressed to a notorious rebel?”
“I do, Your Excellency, indeed I do.”
Bautista’s face twitched with amusement. “Tell me, Blair, how your government will respond to the news that Mister Sharpe was acting as an errand boy for Bonaparte?”
“They will doubtless regard any such message as treasonable correspondence, Your Excellency.” Blair bobbed obsequiously.
Bautista smiled, and no wonder, for Sharpe’s possession of the Emperor’s message was enough to condemn Sharpe, not just with the Spanish, but with the British too. The British might possess the greatest navy and the strongest economy in the world, yet they were terrified of the small fat man cooped up in Saint Helena’s Longwood, and maybe they were terrified enough to allow Bautista to tie two British subjects to wooden stakes and blow their souls into eternity at the mouths of loaded cannons. Sharpe, suddenly feeling very abandoned, also felt frightened.
Bautista sensed the fear and smiled. He had won now. He turned again to Blair. “Either Mister Sharpe was carrying a message from Napoleon, which makes him an enemy of his own country, or else this is a message from the British merchants who are my country’s enemies, but either way, Mister Sharpe’s possession of the message calls for punishment. Might I assume, Blair, that your government would not approve if I were to execute Mister Sharpe?”
Blair beamed as though Bautista had made a fine jest. “My government would be displeased, Your Excellency.”
“But you do accept that Mister Sharpe deserves punishment?”
“Alas, Your Excellency, it appears so.” Blair nodded obsequiously at the Captain-General, then snatched a sideways glance at Sharpe who wondered just how much of Doña Louisa’s money the Consul was taking as a bribe.
Bautista strolled back to the table where he picked up Sharpe’s heavy sword. “This was carried at Waterloo?” Sharpe said nothing, but Bautista did not need an answer. “I shall keep it as a trophy! Perhaps I shall have a plaque made
for it. ‘Taken from an English soldier who at last met his match’!”
for it. ‘Taken from an English soldier who at last met his match’!”
“Fight for it now, you bastard,” Sharpe called.
“I don’t fight against lice, I just smoke them out.” Bautista dropped the sword onto the table, then adopted a portentous tone of voice. “I declare your possessions are forfeited to the Spanish crown, and that the two of you are unwelcome in Chile. You are therefore expelled from these territories, and will embark on the next ship to leave this harbor.” Bautista had already prepared the expulsion papers which now, with a theatrical flourish, he offered to Captain Ardiles of the
Espiritu Santo
. “That would be your frigate, Captain. You have no objections to carrying the prisoners home?”
Espiritu Santo
. “That would be your frigate, Captain. You have no objections to carrying the prisoners home?”
“None,” Ardiles, ready for the request, said flatly.
“Put them to work. No comforts! Sign them on to your crew and make them sweat.”
“Indeed, Your Excellency.” Ardiles took the papers and pushed them into the tail pocket of his uniform.
Bautista came close to Sharpe. “I would have preferred to put you to work in the mines, Englishman, so think yourself lucky.”
“Frightened of the Royal Navy?” Sharpe taunted him.
“Be careful, Englishman,” Bautista said softly.
“You’re a thief,” Sharpe said just as quietly. “And Vivar knew it, which is why you killed him.”
At first Bautista looked astonished at the accusation, then it made him laugh. He clapped with delight at his amusement, then waved at Major Suarez. “Take them away! Now!” The audience, in ludicrous sycophancy, began to applaud wildly as the infantrymen who had escorted Sharpe and Harper from their prison now chivied the two men through an archway and onto a flight of wide stone steps that ran down beside the bloody gun battery. The steps, which were very steep and cut from the crag on which the citadel stood,
led down to the fortress quay where a longboat from the
Espiritu Santo
waited.
led down to the fortress quay where a longboat from the
Espiritu Santo
waited.
Ardiles followed, his scabbard’s metal tip clattering on the stone steps. “Into the boat!” he ordered Sharpe and Harper when they reached the quay.
“Make them sweat!” Bautista shouted from the gun battery’s parapet. “Put them at the oars now! You hear me, Ardiles! Put them at the oars! I want to see them sweat!”
Ardiles nodded to the Bosun who made space for Sharpe and Harper on the bow thwarts. The other oarsmen grinned. Captain Ardiles, cloaked against the cold south wind, sat in the stern sheets where, it seemed to Sharpe, he carefully avoided his two captives’ eyes. “Push off!” he ordered.
“Oars!” the Bosun shouted. From the high arched windows above the battery of heavy guns, a row of faces stared down at Sharpe’s humiliation.
“Stroke!” the Bosun shouted, and Sharpe momentarily thought of rebelling, but knew that such mutiny would lead nowhere. Instead, like Harper, he pulled clumsily. Their oar-blades splashed and clattered on the other oars as they dragged the heavy boat away through the blood-flecked water. A gull, disturbed by the longboat’s proximity, flapped up from the water with a length of Ferdinand’s intestines in its beak. Other gulls screamed as they fought for the delicacy.
“Pull!” the Bosun shouted, and Sharpe felt a pang of impotent anger. The rage was not directed at his tormentors, but at himself. He had been in the Americas little more than a week, yet now he would have to crawl back to Europe, confess his failure, and try to return Louisa her money. Which effort, he much feared, would mean bankruptcy. Except he knew that Louisa would forgive him, and that clemency hurt almost as much as bankruptcy. Goddamn and Goddamn and Goddamn! He had been rooked like a child wandering into a cutpurse’s tavern! It was that knowledge
that really hurt, that he had been treated like a fool, and deservedly so. And to have lost his sword! The sword was only a cheap Heavy Cavalry blade, ugly and ill-balanced, but it had been a gift from Harper and it had kept Sharpe alive in some grim battles. Now it would be a trophy on Bautista’s wall. Christ! Sharpe stared at the fortress where Bautista ruled, and he felt the horrid impotence of failure, and the horrid certainty that he could never have his revenge. He was being taken away, across a world and back to ignominy, and he was helpless.
that really hurt, that he had been treated like a fool, and deservedly so. And to have lost his sword! The sword was only a cheap Heavy Cavalry blade, ugly and ill-balanced, but it had been a gift from Harper and it had kept Sharpe alive in some grim battles. Now it would be a trophy on Bautista’s wall. Christ! Sharpe stared at the fortress where Bautista ruled, and he felt the horrid impotence of failure, and the horrid certainty that he could never have his revenge. He was being taken away, across a world and back to ignominy, and he was helpless.
He was helpless, he was penniless, and he had just come ten thousand bloody miles for nothing.
T
he frigate, with its cargo of gold, sailed on that evening’s tide. Sharpe and Harper were put to work on a capstan that raised one of the anchors, then sent down to the gundeck where they helped to stack nine- and twelve-pounder shots in the ready racks about the frigate’s three masts. They worked till their muscles were sore and sweat was stinging their eyes, but they had no other choice. The dice had rolled badly, there was no other explanation, and the two men must knuckle under. Which did not mean they had to be subservient. A huge scarred beast of a man, a one-eyed seaman who was an evident leader of the forecastle, came to look them over, and such was the man’s power that the Bosun’s mates quietly edged back into the shadows when he gestured them away.
“My name’s Balin,” the huge man said, “and you’re English.”
“I’m English,” Sharpe said, “he’s Irish.”
Balin jerked his head to order Harper aside. “I’ve no quarrel with the Irish,” he said, “but I’ve no love for Englishmen. Though mind you,” he took a step forward, ducking under the deck beams, “I like English clothes. That’s a fine coat,
Englishman. I’ll take it.” He held out a broad hand. Two score of seamen made a ring to hide what happened from any officers who might come down to the deck. “Come on!” Balin insisted.
Englishman. I’ll take it.” He held out a broad hand. Two score of seamen made a ring to hide what happened from any officers who might come down to the deck. “Come on!” Balin insisted.
“I don’t want trouble,” Sharpe spoke very humbly, “I just want to get home safely.”
“Give me your coat,” Balin said, “and there’s no trouble.”
Sharpe glanced left and right at the unfriendly faces in the gundeck’s gloom. Night had fallen, and the only lights were a few glass-shielded lanterns that hung above the guns, and the flickering flames made the seamen’s faces even more grim than usual. “If I give you the coat,” Sharpe asked, “you’ll keep me from trouble?”
“I’ll cuddle you to sleep, diddums,” Balin said, and the men laughed.
Sharpe nodded. He took off the fine green coat and held it out to the massive man. “I don’t want trouble. My friend and I just want to get home. We didn’t ask to be here, we don’t want to be here, and we don’t want to make enemies.”
“Of course you don’t,” Balin said scornfully, reaching for the good kerseymere coat, and the moment his hand took hold of the material Sharpe brought up his right boot, hard and straight, the kick hidden by the coat until the instant it slammed into Balin’s groin. The big man grunted, mouth open, and Sharpe rammed his head forward, hearing and feeling the teeth break under his forehead’s blow. He had his hands in Balin’s crotch now, squeezing, and Balin began to scream. Sharpe let go with one hand and used that hand like an axe on the big man’s neck. Once, twice, harder a third time, and finally Balin went down, bleeding and senseless. Sharpe kicked him, breaking a rib, then slammed the heel of his right boot into the one-eyed face, thus breaking Balin’s nose. The seaman’s hand fluttered on the deck, so for good measure Sharpe stamped on the fingers, shattering them.
Then he stooped, plucked a good bone-handled knife from Balin’s belt, picked his coat up from the deck and looked around. “Does anyone else want an English coat?”
Then he stooped, plucked a good bone-handled knife from Balin’s belt, picked his coat up from the deck and looked around. “Does anyone else want an English coat?”
Harper had stunned a man who tried to intervene, and now stooped and took that man’s knife for himself. The other seamen backed away. Balin groaned horribly, and Sharpe felt a good deal better as well as a good deal safer. From now on, he knew, he and Harper would be treated with respect. They might have made enemies, but those enemies would be exceedingly cautious from now on.
That night, as the frigate’s bows slathered into the great rollers and exploded spray past the galley and down to the guns in the ship’s waist, Sharpe and Harper sat by the beakhead and watched the clouds shred past the stars. “Do you think that shithead Bautista invented the letter?” Harper asked.
“No.”
“So it was Boney who wrote it?” Harper sounded disappointed.
“It had to be.” Sharpe was fiddling with the locket of Napoleon’s hair that still hung around his neck. “Strange.”
“Being in code, you mean?”
Sharpe nodded. It probably made sense for Bautista to assume that the message had come from London, and had merely been hidden inside the Emperor’s portrait, but Sharpe knew better. That coded message had come from Longwood, from the Emperor himself. Napoleon had claimed that Lieutenant Colonel Charles was a stranger, a mere admirer, but no one replied to such a man in code. The letter suggested a longstanding and sinister intrigue, but Sharpe could make no other sense of it. “Unless this Colonel Charles is supposed to organize a rescue?” he guessed.
And why not? Napoleon was a young man, scarcely fifty, and could expect to campaign for at least another twenty
years. Twenty more years of battle and blood, of glory and horror. “God spare us,” Sharpe murmured as he realized that the coded letter might mean that the Emperor would be loose again, rampaging about Europe. What had Bonaparte said? That all over the world there were embers, men like Charles, and Cochrane, even General Calvet in Louisiana, who only needed to be gathered together to cause a great searing blaze of heat and light. Was that what the coded message had been intended to achieve? Then maybe, Sharpe thought, it was just as well that Bautista had intercepted the hidden letter. “But why use us as messengers?” he wondered aloud.
years. Twenty more years of battle and blood, of glory and horror. “God spare us,” Sharpe murmured as he realized that the coded letter might mean that the Emperor would be loose again, rampaging about Europe. What had Bonaparte said? That all over the world there were embers, men like Charles, and Cochrane, even General Calvet in Louisiana, who only needed to be gathered together to cause a great searing blaze of heat and light. Was that what the coded message had been intended to achieve? Then maybe, Sharpe thought, it was just as well that Bautista had intercepted the hidden letter. “But why use us as messengers?” he wondered aloud.
“Boney can’t meet that many people on their way to Chile,” Harper observed sagely. “He’d have to use anyone he could find! Mind you, if I was him, I wouldn’t rely on just one messenger getting through. I’d send as many copies of the letter as I could.”
Dear God, Sharpe thought, but that could mean Charles already had his message and the escape could already be under way. He groaned at the thought of all that nonsense being repeated. The last time Bonaparte had escaped from an island it had driven Sharpe and Lucille from their Norman home. Their return had been difficult, for they had to live beside families whose sons and husbands had died at Waterloo, yet Sharpe had gone back and he had won his neighbors’ trust again, but he could not bear to think that the whole horrid business would have to be endured a second time.
Except that now, in a ship which was being swallowed in the immensity of the Pacific under a sky of strange southern stars, there was nothing Sharpe could do. The Emperor’s plot would unfold without Sharpe, Don Blas would rot in his stinking grave, and Sharpe, pressed as a seaman, would go home.
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