Sharpe's Eagle (36 page)

There was more laughter. Sharpe leaned back and listened to the talk round the table and let
the meal rest heavy in his stomach. The servants were bringing in brandy and cigars, which meant
that the evening would soon be over, but he had enjoyed it. He was never comfortable at formal
dinners; he had not been born to them, had been to few of them, but these men had made him feel
at home and pretended not to notice when he waited for them to pick up their cutlery so that he
would know which was the correct pair to use for each course. He had told once more the story of
how he and Patrick Harper had hacked their way through the enemy line, of the death of Denny, and
how they had been swept along with the fugitives before hacking their way clear with sword and
axe.

He sipped his wine, wriggled his toes in the new shoes, and reflected again on his fortune. He
remembered his despondency before the battle, of feeling that the promises could not be kept, yet
it had all happened. Perhaps he really was lucky, as his men said, but he wished he knew how to
preserve that luck. He remembered Gibbons' falling body, the bayonet deep in his back, and the
sight of Harper back from his bird-watching just in time to stop the sabre stabbing down into
Sharpe. The next day all traces of the crime had been burned away. The dead, Gibbons among them,
had been stacked in naked piles, and the living had thrust wooden faggots deep into the corpses
and set fire to them. There had been far too many for burial, and for two days the fires were fed
with more wood and the stench hung over the town until the ashes were scattered across the
Portina valley and the only signs of the battle were the discarded equipment no-one could be
bothered to retrieve and the scorched grass where the flames had roasted the wounded.

"Sharpe?"

He started. Someone had spoken his name, and he had missed what was said. "Sir? I'm
sorry."

Wellesley was smiling at him. "Captain Hogan was saying that you've been improving
Anglo-Portuguese relations?"

Sharpe glanced at Hogan, who raised his eyebrows impishly. All week the Irishman had been
determinedly cheerful about Josefina, and Sharpe, with three Generals watching him, had no option
but to smile and give a modest shrug.

"Fortune favours the brave, eh, Sharpe?" Hill grinned.

"Yes, sir."

He leaned back and let the conversation flow on. He missed her. It was only just over two
weeks since the night he had followed her from the inn courtyard into the darkness by the stream,
and since then he had spent only five nights with her. And now there would be no more. He had
known as soon as he had reached Talavera, on the morning after the battle, and she had kissed him
and smiled at him while in the background Agostino packed the leather saddlebags and folded up
the dresses he had not had time to see her wear. She had walked with him through the town,
clinging onto his elbow, looking up into his face as though she were a child. "It would never
have lasted, Richard."

"I know." He believed otherwise.

"Do you?"

She wanted him to say goodbye gracefully, and it was the least he could do. He told her about
Gibbons; about the final look before the bayonet took its revenge. She held his arm tight. "I'm
sorry, Richard."

"For Gibbons?"

"No. That you had to do it. It was my fault, I was a fool."

"No." It was strange, he thought, how when lovers say goodbye they take all the blame. "It
wasn't your fault. I promised to protect you. I didn't."

They walked into a small, sunlit square and stared at a convent which formed one side of the
plaza. Fifteen hundred British wounded were in the building, and the army surgeons were working
on the first floor. Screams came clearly from the windows and, with them, a grisly flow of
severed limbs that piled up beside a tree: an ever growing heap of arms and legs that was guarded
by two bored privates whose job was to chase away the hungry dogs from the mangled flesh. Sharpe
shivered at the sight and prayed the soldiers' prayer; that he would be delivered from the
surgeons with their serrated blades and blood-stiff aprons.

Josefina had plucked his elbow and they turned away from the convent. "I have a present for
you."

He looked down at her. "I have nothing for you."

She seemed embarrassed. "You owe Mr Hogan twenty guineas?"

"You're not giving me money!" He let his anger show.

Josefina shook her head. "I've already paid him. Don't be angry!" He had tried to pull away
but she clung on. "There's nothing you can do about it, Richard. I paid him. You kept pretending
you had enough money, but I knew you were borrowing." She gave him a tiny paper packet and did
not look at him because she knew he was upset.

Inside the paper was a ring, made of silver, and on the boss was engraved an eagle. Not a
French eagle, holding a thunderbolt, but an eagle all the same. She looked up at him, pleased at
his expression. "I bought it in Oropesa. For you."

Sharpe had not known what to say. He had stammered his thanks and now, sitting with the
Generals, he let his fingers feel the silver ring. They had walked back to the house and, waiting
outside, there had been a cavalry officer with two spare horses. "Is that him?"

"Yes."

"And he's rich?"

She had smiled. "Very. He's a good man, Richard. You'd like him."

Sharpe had laughed. "I doubt it." He wanted to tell her how much he would not like Claud
Hardy, with his stupid sounding name and his rich uniform and his thorough-bred horses. The
Dragoon had watched them as she looked up at Sharpe.

"I can't stay with the army, Richard."So you're going back to Lisbon?"

She nodded. "We're not going to Madrid, are we?" He shook his head. "Well, it has to be
Lisbon." She smiled at him. "He has a house in Belem, a big one. I'm sorry."Don't be."

"I can't follow an army, Richard." She was pleading for understanding.

"I know. But armies follow you, yes?" It was a clumsy attempt at gallantry, and it had pleased
her, but now it was time to part and he wanted her to stay. He did not know what to say.
"Josefina? I'm sorry."

She touched his arm arid there was the gleam of tears in her eyes. She blinked them away and
forced herself to sound happy. "One day, Richard, you will fall in love with the right girl? You
promise?"

He had not watched her walk to the Dragoon but instead turned away to rejoin the company in
the stench of the dead on the battlefield.

"Captains shouldn't marry." Crauford thumped the table and Sharpe jumped. "Isn't that
true?"

Sharpe did not reply. He suspected Crauford was right, and he determined, again, to thrust
away the memory of Josefina. She was on her way to Lisbon, to the big house, to live with a man
who was to join the Lisbon garrison and live a life of dancing and diplomacy. Damn all of it. He
drank his wine, reached for the bottle, and forced himself to listen to the conversation which
was now as gloomy as his thoughts. They were talking of the fifteen hundred wounded men in the
convent who would have to be abandoned to the care of the Spanish. Hill was peering worriedly at
Wellesley. "Will Cuesta look after them?"

"I wish I could say "yes"." Wellesley sipped his wine. "The Spanish have failed us in every
promise. It was not easy to leave our wounded to their care but we have no choice, gentlemen, no
choice."

Hill shook his head. "The retreat will not be received well in England."

"Damn England!" Wellesley spoke with asperity, his eyes suddenly alive with anger. "I know
what England will say; that once again we have been driven from Spain, and so we have, gentlemen,
so we have!" He leaned back in his chair and Sharpe could see the tiredness on his face. The
other officers were still, listening intently, and like Sharpe they could see in Wellesley's face
the difficulty of the decision he had taken. "But this time, the General ran his finger round the
wine glass so that it rang-,this time we have been driven out, not by the French, but by our
allies." He let the sarcasm come through on the word. "A starving army, gentlemen, is worse than
no army. If our allies cannot feed us then we must go where we can feed ourselves and we will
come back, I promise you that, but we will come back on our terms and not on the Spanish terms."
There were murmurs of agreement round the table. Wellesley sipped his wine. "The Spanish have
failed us everywhere. They promised us food and delivered none. They prom-ised to shield us from
Soult's northern army, and now I find that they did not. Soult, gentlemen, is behind us and
unless we move now we will find ourselves a surrounded and starving army simply because we
believed General Cuesta and his promises. Now he has promised to look after our wounded."
Wellesley shook his head. "I know what will happen. He will insist on advancing to meet the
French, he will be thrashed, and the town will be aban-doned to the enemy." He shrugged. "I am
convinced, gentlemen, that they will treat our wounded better than our allies."

There was silence round the table. The candles flickered and shimmered their reflections on
the polished wood. From somewhere, far away, there came the sound of music but it faded with the
breeze beyond the heavy curtains. And what happens to Josefina now? Sharpe filled his glass with
wine and passed the bottle to Hill. If Wellesley was right, and he was, then in a matter of days
the French would be masters of Talavera and the British army would be well on its way back to
Portugal and probably to Lisbon.

Sharpe knew that he wanted her still and wondered what would happen if the swirling currents
of war brought them together again.

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts and he watched as a Staff Captain entered and
gave Wellesley a sealed paper. The officers talked, inventing topics of conversation so that
Wellesley could open the paper and talk to the Captain in some privacy. Hill was telling Sharpe
about the Drury Lane Theatre. Did he know it had been burned down in February? Sharpe nodded and
smiled, made the right noises, but he looked round the table, at the three Generals, at the
aristocrats, and he thought of the foundling home and prisons he had known as a child. He
remembered the foetid barracks where two men shared a cot, the vicious beatings, the unprincipled
struggle just to stay alive. And now this? The candles danced in the draught, the red wine was
rich and deep, and he wondered where the road they must take in tomorrow's cold dawn would lead.
If Bonaparte was to be defeated, then tomor-row's march could last for years before it ended at
the gates of Paris.

The Captain left and Wellesley tapped the table. The conversation tailed away and they looked
at their hook-nosed General, who lifted the paper into the air. "The Austrians have made peace
with Bonaparte." He waited for the exclamations to die down. "Effectively, gentlemen, we are on
our own. We can expect more French troops, maybe even Napoleon himself, and even more enemies at
home." Sharpe thought of Simmerson, already on the way home, planning to conspire in Parliament
and in the smoking rooms of London against Wellesley and the British army in the Peninsula. "But,
gentlemen, we have beaten three Marshals this year so let the rest come on!"

The officers pounded the table and raised their glasses. In the town a clock struck eight
o'clock and, abruptly, Sir Arthur Wellesley got to his feet and held up his wineglass. "I see the
cigars are here and the evening is getting on. We leave early so, gentlemen, I give you the
King."

Sharpe scraped his chair back, took the glass, and joined in the murmuring. "The King, God
bless him."

He was sitting down again, looking forward to the brandy and one of the General's cigars, when
he noticed that Wellesley was still standing. He straightened up, cursing his lack of social
manners and hoping that the others would not see his blushing. Wellesley waited for him. "I
remember one other battle, gentlemen, which almost matched our recent victory in carnage. After
Assaye I had to thank a young Sergeant; today we salute the same man, a Captain." He raised his
glass to Sharpe, who was convulsed with embarrassment. He watched the officers smile at him,
raise their glasses to him, and he looked down at the silver eagle. He wished Josefina could see
him at this moment, that she could hear Wellesley's toast. He only half heard it
himself.

"Gentlemen. I give you Sharpe's Eagle."

Sir Arthur Wellesley (who was soon to become, thanks to the events of July 27th and 28th,
1809, Viscount Welling-ton of Talavera) lost 5365 dead and wounded in the battle. About 15
percent of those casualties were killed outright on the field. French casualties numbered 7268
and there were also about 600 to add to the `butcher's bill'. The French also lost seventeen guns
but, alas, no Eagle. The first Eagle to be captured by the British in the Peninsular War was won
by Ensign Keogh and Sergeant Masterman of the 87th, an Irish Regiment, at the Batde of Barossa on
March 5th, 1811. Keogh died of his wounds, but Master-man survived and was rewarded with a
commission, thus joining the small number of British officers, perhaps one in twenty, who had
risen from the ranks. I hope that the ghosts of Keogh and Masterman, as well as the modern
successors of the 87th, the Royal Irish Rangers, will forgive me for preempting their
achievement.

Masterman was made into an Ensign, the lowest officer rank of Britain's army in 1809. Above
him, in a Battalion, there would be Lieutenants, ten Captains, two Majors, and a Lieutenant
Colonel in command. That was on paper. A Battalion was supposed to consist of a thousand fighting
men, but disease and casualties, added to the shortage of recruits, meant that Battalions often
went into battle with only half their numbers of men and officers.

In Sharpe's Eagle the South Essex, a fictional Regiment, is sometimes described as a
`Regiment' and sometimes as a `Battalion'. A Regiment was an administrative unit and usually
consisted of at least two Battalions, the basic fighting unit. There were a few Regiments, like
the imaginary South Essex, that were single-Battalion Regi-ments, and that is why, in the novel,
the two words are used interchangeably.