Sharpe's Havoc (29 page)

So they marched. The dew was still on the grass. They went through a deserted village that
looked undamaged and Sharpe suspected the villagers had seen them coming and hidden
themselves. There were certainly people there, for some drying washing was draped over two
laurel bushes, but though Sergeant Macedo bellowed that they were friends no one dared to
appear. One of the pieces of washing was a fine man’s shirt with bone buttons and Sharpe saw
Cresacre dawdling so that he would have a moment on his own when the others were ahead. “The
penalty for theft,” Sharpe called to his men, “is hanging. And there are good hanging trees
here.” Cresacre pretended he had not heard, but hurried on all the same.

They stopped when they reached the Douro. Barca d’Avintas was still some way to the west and
Sharpe knew his men were tired and so they bivouacked in a wood high on a bluff above the river.
No boats moved there. Far off to the south a single spire of smoke wavered in the sky, and to
the west there was a shimmering haze that Sharpe suspected was the smoke of Oporto’s
cooking fires. Vicente said Barca d’Avintas was little more than an hour away, but Sharpe
decided they would wait till next morning before marching again. Haifa dozen of the men were
limping because their boots were rotting and Gataker, who had been wounded in the thigh, was
feeling the pain. One of Vicente’s men was walking barefoot and Sharpe was thinking of
doing the same because of the condition of his boots. But there was a still better reason
for delay. “If the French are there,” he explained, “then I’d rather sneak up on them in the
dawn. And if they’re not we’ve got all day to make some sort of raft.”

“What about us?” Vicente asked.

“You still want to go to Oporto?”

“That’s where the regiment is from,” Vicente said, “it’s home. The men are anxious. Some
have families there.”

“See us to Barca d’Avintas,” Sharpe suggested, “then go home. But go the last few miles
slowly, go carefully. You’ll be all right.” He did not believe that, but he could not say
what he did believe.

So they rested. Picquets watched from the wood’s edge while the others slept and some time
after midday, when the heat made everyone drowsy, Sharpe thought he heard thunder far away,
but there were no rain clouds in sight and that meant the thunder had to be gunfire, but he
could not be sure. Harper was sleeping and Sharpe wondered if he was just hearing the echo of
the big Irishman’s snores, but then he thought he heard the thunder again, though it was so
faint that he could just have imagined it. He nudged Harper.

“What is it?”

“I’m trying to listen,” Sharpe said.

“And I’m trying to sleep.”

“Listen!” But there was silence except for the murmur of the river and the rustle of
leaves in the east wind.

Sharpe thought about taking a patrol to reconnoiter Barca d’Avintas, but decided
against it. He did not want to divide his already perilously small force, and whatever
dangers lurked at the village could wait till morning. At nightfall he thought he heard the
thunder again, but then the wind gusted and snatched the sound away.

Dawn was silent, still, and the gently misted river looked as polished as steel. Luis, who
had attached himself to Vicente’s men, had proved to be a good cobbler and had sewn up some
of the more decrepit boots. He had volunteered to shave Sharpe who had shaken his head. “I’ll
have a shave when we’re across the river,” he said.

“I pray you don’t grow a beard,” Vicente said, and then they marched, following a track
that meandered along the high ground. The track was rough, overgrown and deeply rutted and
the going was slow, but they saw no enemy, and then the land flattened, the track turned into
a lane that ran beside vineyards and Barca d’Avintas, its white walls lit bright by the
rising sun, was ahead.

There were no French there. Two score of folk had moved back into the plundered houses and
they looked alarmed at the uniformed ruffians who came across the small bridge over the
stream, but Vicente calmed them. There were no boats, the people said, the French had taken or
burned them all. They rarely saw the French, they added. Sometimes a patrol of dragoons would
clatter through the village, stare across the river, steal some food and then go away. They
had little other news. One woman who sold olive oil, eggs and smoked fish in Oporto’s market
said that the French were all guarding the river bank between the city and the sea, but Sharpe
did not put much weight on her words. Her husband, a bent giant with gnarled hands, guardedly
allowed that it might be possible to make a raft from some of the village’s broken
furniture.

Sharpe put picquets on the village’s western margin where Hagman had been wounded. He
climbed a tree there and was amazed that he could see some of Oporto’s outlying buildings on
the hilly horizon. The big, flat-roofed white building that he remembered passing when he
first met Vicente was the most obvious and he was appalled that they were so close. He was no
more than three miles from the big white building and surely the French would have their own
picquets on that hill. And surely they would have a telescope up there to watch the city
approaches. But he was committed to crossing the river here and so he clambered down and
was just brushing off his jacket when a wild-haired young man in ragged clothes mooed at him.
Sharpe stared back, astonished. The man mooed again, then grinned inanely before giving a
cackle of laughter. He had dirty red hair, bright blue eyes and a slack, dribbling mouth and
Sharpe realized he was an idiot and probably harmless. Sharpe remembered Ronnie, a
village idiot in Yorkshire, whose parents would shackle him to the stump of an elm on the
village green where Ronnie would bellow at the grazing cows, talk to himself and growl at
the girls. This man was much the same, but he was also importunate, plucking at Sharpe’s
elbow as he tried to drag the Englishman toward the river.

“Made yourself a friend, sir?” Tongue asked, amused.

“He’s being a bloody nuisance, sir,” Perkins said.

“He don’t mean harm,” Tongue said, “just wants you to go for a swim, sir.”

Sharpe pulled away from the idiot. “What’s your name?” he asked, then realized there was
probably little point in speaking English to a Portuguese lunatic, but the idiot was so
pleased at being spoken to that he gibbered wildly, grinned and bounced up and down on his
toes. Then he plucked at Sharpe’s elbow again.

“I’ll call you Ronnie,” Sharpe said, “and what do you want?”

His men were laughing now, but Sharpe had intended to go to the river bank anyway to see
what kind of challenge his raft would face and so he let Ronnie pull him along. The idiot made
conversation all the way, but none of it made any sense. He took Sharpe right to the river
bank and, when Sharpe tried to detach his surprisingly strong grip, Ronnie shook his head
and tugged Sharpe on through some poplars, down through thick bushes and then at last he
relinquished his grip on Sharpe’s arm and clapped his hands.

“You’re not such an idiot after all, are you?” Sharpe said. “In fact you’re a bloody
genius, Ronnie.”

There was a boat. Sharpe had seen the ferry burned and sunk on his first visit to Barca
d’Avintas, but now realized there must have been two craft and this was the second. It was a
flat, wide and cumbersome vessel, the kind of boat that could carry a small flock of sheep or
even a carriage and its horses, and it had been weighted with stones and sunk in this wide
ditch-like creek that jutted under the trees to make a small backwater. Sharpe wondered why
the villagers had not shown it to him before and guessed that they feared all soldiers and so
they had hidden their most valuable boat until peaceful times returned. The French had
destroyed every other boat and had never guessed that this second ferry still existed.
“You’re a bloody genius,” Sharpe told Ronnie again, and he gave him the last of his bread,
which was the only gift he had.

But he also had a boat.

And then he had something else for the thunder he had heard so distantly the previous
day sounded again. Only this time it was close and it was unmistakable and it was not
thunder at all and Christopher had lied and there was no peace in Portugal.

It was cannon fire. 

The sound of the firing was coming from the west, channeled up the steep-sided river
valley, and Sharpe could not tell whether the battle was being fought on the northern or
southern bank of the Douro. Nor could he even tell whether it was a battle. Perhaps the French
had established batteries to protect the city against an attack from the sea and those
batteries might just be firing at inquisitive frigates. Or maybe the guns were merely
practice firing. But one thing was certain, he would never know what the guns were doing
unless he got closer.

He ran back to the village, followed by the shambling Ronnie who was bellowing his
inarticulate achievement to the world. Sharpe found Vicente. “The ferry’s still here,”
Sharpe said, “he showed me.” He pointed to Ronnie.

“But the guns?” Vicente was bemused.

“We’re going to find out what they’re doing,” Sharpe said, “but ask the villagers to raise
the ferry. We might yet need it. But we’ll go toward the city.”

“All of us?” Vicente asked.

“All of us. But tell them I want that boat floating by mid-morning.”

Ronnie’s mother, a shrunken and bent woman swathed in black, retrieved her son from
Sharpe’s side and berated him in a shrill voice. Sharpe gave her the last chunk of cheese from
Harper’s pack, explained that Ronnie was a hero, then led his motley group westward along
the river bank.

There was plenty of cover. Orchards, olive groves, cattle sheds and small vineyards were
crowded on the narrow piece of level land beside the Douro’s northern bank. The cannons,
hidden by the loom of the great hill on which the flat-roofed building stood, were sporadic.
Their firing would swell to a battle intensity then fade away. For minutes at a time there
would be no shots, or just a single gun would fire and the sound of it would echo off the
southern hills, rebound from the northern and bounce its way down the valley.

“Perhaps,” Vicente suggested, pointing up to the great white building, “we should go to
the seminary.”

“Frogs will be there,” Sharpe said. He was crouching beside a hedge and for some reason
kept his voice very low. It seemed extraordinary that there were no French picquets, not one,
but he was certain the French must have put men into the big building that dominated the
river east of the city as effectively as a castle. “What did you say it was?”

“A seminary.” Vicente saw Sharpe was puzzled. “A place where priests are trained. I thought
of becoming a priest once.”

“Good God,” Sharpe said, surprised, “you wanted to be a priest?”

“I thought of it,” Vicente said defensively. “Do you not like priests?”

“Not much.”

“Then I’m glad I became a lawyer,” Vicente said with a smile.

“You’re no lawyer, Jorge,” Sharpe said, “you’re a bloody soldier like the rest of us.” He
offered that compliment and then turned as the last of his men came across the small meadow
to crouch behind the hedge. If the French did have men in the seminary, he thought, then
either they were fast asleep or, more likely, they had seen the blue and green uniforms and
confused them with their own jackets. Did they think the Portuguese blue were French coats?
The Portuguese blue was darker than the French infantry coats and the Rifle green was much
darker than the dragoons’ coats, but at a distance the uniforms might be confused. Or was
there no one in the building? Sharpe took out the small telescope and stared for a long time.
The seminary was huge, a great white block, four stories high, and there had to be at least
ninety windows in the south wall alone, but he could see no movement in any of them, nor was
anyone on the flat roof which had a red tile coping and surely provided the best lookout
post east of the city.

“Shall we go there?” Vicente prompted Sharpe.

“Maybe,” Sharpe responded cautiously. He was tempted because the building would offer
a marvelous view of the city, but he still could not believe the French would leave the
seminary empty. “We’ll go further along the bank first, though.”

He led with his riflemen. Their green jackets blended better with the leaves, offering
them a small advantage if there was a French picquet ahead, but they saw no one. Nor did
Sharpe see any activity on the southern bank, yet the guns were still firing and now, over
the loom of the seminary hill, he could see a dirty white cloud of gun smoke being pumped into
the river valley.

There were more buildings now, many of them small houses built close to the river, and
their gardens were a maze offences, vines and olive trees that hid Sharpe’s men as they went on
westward. Above Sharpe, to his right, the seminary was a great threat in the sky, its serried
windows blank and black, and Sharpe could not rid himself of the fear that a horde of French
soldiers were hidden behind that sun-glossed cliff of stone and glass, yet every time he
looked he saw no movement.

Then, suddenly, there was a single French soldier just ahead. Sharpe had turned a corner
and there the man was. He was in the middle of a cobbled slipway that led from a boat
builder’s shed to the river, and he was crouching to play with a puppy. Sharpe desperately
beckoned for his men to stop. The enemy was an infantryman, and he was only seven or eight
paces away, utterly oblivious, his back to Sharpe and his shako and musket on the
cobblestones, letting the puppy playfully nip his right hand. And if there was one French
soldier there had to be more. Had to be! Sharpe stared past the man to where a stand of poplars
and thick bushes edged the slipway’s far side. Was there a patrol there? He could see no sign
of one, nor any activity among the boatyard’s tumbledown sheds.

Then the Frenchman either heard the scuff of a boot or else sensed he was being watched for
he stood and turned, then realized his musket was still on the ground and he stooped for it,
then froze when Sharpe’s rifle pointed at his face. Sharpe shook his head, then jerked the
rifle to indicate that the Frenchman should stand up straight. The man obeyed. He was a
youngster, scarce older than Pendleton or Perkins, with a round, guileless face. He looked
scared and took an involuntary step back as Sharpe came fast toward him, then he whimpered
as Sharpe tugged him by the jacket back around the corner. Sharpe pushed him to the ground,
took his bayonet from its scabbard and threw it into the river. “Tie him up,” he ordered
Tongue.