Sharpe 3-Book Collection 7: Sharpe's Revenge, Sharpe's Waterloo, Sharpe's Devil (18 page)

‘You don’t sound utterly certain that you want to be a priest,’ Lucille said.

Henri shrugged. ‘There’s been a Lassan in this house for eight hundred years.’ He stopped, unable to argue against the numbing weight of that tradition, and even feeling some sympathy for his mother’s fervent wishes for the family’s future. But if the price of that future was Mademoiselle Pellemont? He shuddered, then looked at his watch. ‘Maman will be awake soon.’

They stood. Lassan glanced once more at the far hills, but nothing untoward moved among the orchards, and no green men threatened on the high ridge where the elms, beeches and hornbeams grew. The château was calm, at peace, and safe, so Henri picked up his loaded musket and walked his sister home.

‘They’re scared, you see,’ Harper explained, and, as if to prove his point, he wafted the chamber-pot towards the provost sentries who guarded the corridor outside the room where Sharpe and Frederickson waited.

The provost recoiled from the chamber-pot, then protested when Harper offered to remove the strip of cloth which covered its contents.

‘You can’t expect gently-born officers to live in a room with the stench of shit,’ Harper said, ‘so I have to empty it.’

‘Go to the yard. Don’t bloody loiter about.’ It was the Provost Sergeant who snapped the orders at Harper.

‘You’re a grand man, Sergeant.’

‘Get the hell out of here. And hurry, man!’ The Sergeant watched the big Irishman go down the stairs. ‘Bloody Irish, and a bloody Rifleman,’ he said to no one in particular, ‘two things I hate most.’

The windowless corridor was lit by two glass-fronted lanterns which threw the shadows of the three guards long across the floorboards. Laughter and loud voices echoed from the prefecture’s ground floor where the highest officials of the Transport Board were giving a dinner. A clock at the foot of the deep stairwell struck half past eight.

More than fifteen minutes passed before Harper came whistling up the stairs. He carried the empty chamber-pot in one hand. Inside the pot were three empty wine glasses, while on his shoulder was a sizeable wooden keg that he first dropped on to the landing, then rolled towards the officers’ doorway with his right foot. He nodded a cheerful greeting to the Provost Sergeant. ‘A gentleman downstairs sent this up to the officers, Sergeant.’

The Provost Sergeant stepped into the path of the rolling keg which he checked with a boot. ‘Who sent it?’

‘Now how would I be knowing that?’ Harper, when it pleased him, could easily play the role of a vague-witted Irishman. That such a role, however it distorted the truth, nevertheless suited the prejudice of men like the Provost Sergeant only made it the more effective. ‘He didn’t give me his name, nor did he, but he said he had a sympathy for the poor gentlemen. He said he’d never met them, but he was sorry for them. Mind you, Sergeant, the gentleman was more than a little drunk himself, which always makes a man sympathetic. Isn’t that the truth? It’s a pity our wives don’t drink more, so it is.’

‘Shut your face.’ The Sergeant tipped the cask on to its end, then worked the bung loose. He was rewarded with the rich smell of good brandy. He thrust the bung home. ‘I’ve got orders not to allow anyone to communicate with the officers.’

‘You wouldn’t deny them a wee drink now, would you?’

‘Shut your bloody face.’ The Sergeant stood, reached for the chamber-pot, and took out the three glasses. ‘Get inside, and tell your damned officers that if they’re thirsty they should drink water.’

‘Yes, Sergeant. Whatever you say, Sergeant. Thank you, Sergeant.’ Harper edged past the keg, then darted through the door as though he truly feared the Provost Sergeant’s wrath. Once inside the room he closed the door, then grinned at Sharpe. ‘As easy as stealing a fleece off a lamb’s back, sir. One keg of brandy safely delivered. The bastards just couldn’t wait to take it off me.’

‘Let’s just hope they drink it,’ Frederickson said.

‘In two hours,’ Harper said confidently, ‘those three will be dancing drunk. I even thought to bring them some glasses.’

‘How much did the brandy cost?’ Sharpe asked.

‘All you gave me, sir, but the fellow in the kitchens said it was the very best.’ Harper, properly pleased with himself, went on to deliver the rest of his news. There were only three guards on the top landing, and he had seen no other sentries till he reached the ground floor where he saw a sergeant and two men in the guardroom by the front door.

‘But they weren’t provosts, sir, so they mayn’t be any trouble to us. I said hello to them, and saw our guns in there.’ There were another two sentries in the town square beyond the front door. ‘They’re giving a grand dinner downstairs, so there’s a fair number of fellows wandering about looking for places to piss. Oh, and there’s a bookcase on the first floor, sir, full of bloody ledgers.’

‘Did you look for the stables?’ Sharpe asked.

‘I did, sir, but they’re already locked tight, and so’s the yard gate.’

‘So there’s no chance of stealing horses?’

Harper considered the question, then shrugged. ‘It’ll be hard, sir.’

‘We’re infantry,’ Frederickson said dismissively, ‘so we can damn well walk out of the city.’

‘And if they send cavalry after us?’

Frederickson dismissed the fear. ‘How will they know which way we’ve gone? Besides, the French cavalry never caught us, so what chance would you give our dozy lot?’

‘We walk, then.’ Sharpe stretched his arms wide as though he prepared for exercise. ‘But where to?’

‘That’s easy,’ Frederickson said. ‘We go to Arcachon.’

‘Arcachon?’ Sharpe asked with surprise. That was the town closest to the Teste de Buch fort, but otherwise he could think of no special significance attached to the place.

But Frederickson, while Harper had been performing his charade with the chamber-pot, had been deep in thought. There never had been any gold in the fort, Frederickson now explained, at least not when the Riflemen had captured it. If that fact could be proved, then their troubles would be over. ‘What we need to do,’ he went on, ‘is find Commandant Lassan. I don’t believe he wrote that statement. I believe Ducos made it up.’ Frederickson paused as a man laughed outside the door. ‘I suspect your brandy is being appreciated, Sergeant.’

‘Why do you think the Commandant’s statement was faked?’ Sharpe asked.

Frederickson paused to strike a flame in his tinderbox and to light one of his small foul cheroots. ‘Do you remember his quarters?’

Sharpe thought back to the few hectic days he had spent at the Teste de Buch fortress. ‘I remember the bastard had a lot of books. He couldn’t fight, but he had a lot of bloody books.’

‘Do you remember what the books were about?’

‘I had better things to do than read.’

‘I looked,’ Frederickson said, ‘and I remember that Commandant Lassan had a very civilized library, which made it a great pity when we turned most of it into cartridge paper and cannon-wadding. I recall some very fine editions of essays, and a large, indeed comprehensive, collection of sermons and other devotional literature. A very devout man, our Commandant Lassan.’

‘Then no wonder we beat the bastard to jelly,’ Harper said happily.

‘And if he is devout,’ Frederickson ignored Harper’s cheerful comment, ‘then my guess is that he may also be honest. It doesn’t always follow, of course, I remember a very sanctimonious chaplain of the 60th who stole the mess ragged and then ran off with a Corporal’s rather rancid woman, but I’m willing to think Lassan may be cut from a rather better cloth. Indeed, I seem to recall that the American told us he was a decent man?’

‘Yes, he did,’ Sharpe remembered.

‘So let’s hope he is decent. Let’s hope that he’ll deny that damned statement and ease us all off a bloody sharp hook. The trick of it is simply to find the man, then persuade him to travel to London.’

Frederickson’s calm words made the task sound oddly easy. Sharpe, turning to the window, saw how the darkness was shrouding the city. There was a slender moon, sharp-edged and low above a tangle of dark masts and rigging which showed over the black rooftops. Candles showed in some windows and torches flickered where link-boys escorted pedestrians about the streets. ‘Why Arcachon, though?’ Sharpe turned back from the window. ‘You think Lassan lives there?’

‘I doubt we shall be so fortunate as that,’ Frederickson said, ‘but because he’s an educated man, and a devout one, it’s likely that he and the local priest would have been on friendly terms. It’s hard to find civilized conversation in a small garrison, let alone someone to play chess with, and I recall that we kindled a fire with a very fine chess-set from Lassan’s quarters. So, my suggestion is that we find the priest of Arcachon and hope he can tell us where to find Lassan. Do you agree?’

‘I think it’s a brilliant notion,’ Sharpe said admiringly.

‘I’m just a humble Rifle Captain,’ Frederickson said, ‘and therefore flattered by the praise of a staff officer.’

‘But,’ Sharpe said, ‘if Lassan’s an honourable man, why would Ducos falsify a statement of his? He must know that Lassan could deny it.’

‘I don’t know the answer to that,’ Frederickson admitted, ‘but we’ll never know unless we find Lassan.’

‘Or get out of here,’ Harper said grimly. ‘Can I have permission to hit a provost?’

‘No killing,’ Frederickson warned. ‘If we kill one of the bastards then they’ll have real cause to court-martial us.’ He crept close to the door. ‘I wonder if our brandy is working.’

The three men went silent as they tried to decipher the small sounds from beyond the door. They heard voices, and then, quite distinctly, the sound of liquid being poured. ‘Another half hour,’ Sharpe decided.

The half hour crept by, but at last the first of the town’s clocks rang ten. Sharpe grimaced, seized the door handle, and nodded at Harper. ‘You first, Sergeant.’

He snatched the door open, and their escape had begun.

Lieutenant-Colonel Wigram was the guest of honour at the dinner which the Transport Board was giving in the prefecture. The officials and their guests had dined well on roast mutton, roast chicken, and baked pears. Now, as the bottles of brandy thickened among the remaining bottles of claret, Wigram was invited to make a speech.

He spoke well. The vast majority of the men about the long table were civilians from London who had come to supervise the onerous task of removing an army from France. Their days were spent in settling accounts with the masters of ships, allocating hull space, and securing supplies for the army’s journey home. Now, in the candlelit splendour of the prefecture’s large hall, they could hear a little of what that army had achieved.

‘In the darkest days of the struggle,’ Wigram said, ‘when every man’s voice at home was raised against our endeavours, and when any prudent man might have deemed our cause lost, there would never have been a dinner as splendid as this one you have so generously provided. Then, gentlemen, we lived on very short commons indeed. Many is the night when I have given my horse the last food from my saddlebags, then slept hungry myself. The French were never far away on those cold nights, yet we survived, gentlemen, we survived.’ There were murmurs of admiration, and a few guests, overcome both by Wigram’s heroism and the plenitude of the wine, tapped their glasses with their spoons to make a pleasant ringing applause.

‘And even later,’ Wigram’s glasses reflected the candlelight as he looked up to make sure his voice reached the far end of the table where the more junior guests sat, ‘when fortune smiled more compassionately upon us, hardship was still our constant companion.’ In fact Wigram had slept between sheets every night of his war, and had been known to have a cook flogged because his nightly joint of beef was underdone, but this was no time to quibble. This was a time for every man to garner what credit he could from the war, and Wigram could garner with the best. He bowed to Captain Harcourt, another guest at the dinner, and paid a fulsome tribute to the contribution made by the Royal Navy. Again there was applause.