Sharpe's Havoc (38 page)

It had, and the mail arrived along with a troop of British cavalry who were welcomed by
cheering inhabitants whose joy could not be dampened by the rain. Hogan, in his engineer’s
blue coat, was mistaken for a French prisoner and some horse dung was thrown at him before
Vicente managed to persuade the crowd that Hogan was English.

“Irish,” Hogan protested, “please.”

“Same thing,” Vicente said absentmindedly.

“Good God in his heaven,” Harper said, disgusted, then laughed because the crowd
insisted on carrying Hogan on their shoulders.

The main road from Braga went north across the frontier to Ponte-vedra, but to the east a
dozen tracks climbed into the hills and one of them, Vicente promised, would take them all the
way to Ponte Nova, but it was the same road that the French would be trying to reach and so he
warned Sharpe that they might have to take to the trackless hills. “If we are lucky,” Vicente
said, “we shall be at the bridge in two days.”

“And how long to the Saltador?” Hogan asked.

“Another half-day.”

“And how long will it take the French?”

“Three days,” Vicente said, “it must take them three days.” He made the sign of the cross. “I
pray it takes them three days.”

They spent the night in Braga. A cobbler repaired their boots, insisting he would take no
money, and he used his best leather to make new soles that were studded with nails to give some
grip in the wet high ground. He must have worked all night for in the morning he shyly
presented Sharpe with leather covers for the rifles and muskets. The weapons had been
protected from the rain by corks shoved into their muzzles and by ragged clouts wrapped about
the locks, but the leather sheaths were far better. The cobbler had greased the seams with
sheep fat to make the covers waterproof and Sharpe, like his men, was absurdly pleased with
the gift. They were given so much food that they ended up giving most of it to a priest who
promised to distribute it among the poor, and then, in the rain-lashed dawn, they marched. Hogan
rode because the mayor of Braga had presented him with a mule, a sure-footed beast with a
vile temper and a wall eye, which Hogan saddled with a blanket and then rode with his feet
almost touching the ground. He suggested using the mule to carry their weapons, but of all
the party he was the oldest and the least spry, and so Sharpe insisted he ride. “I’ve no idea
what we’ll find,” Hogan told Sharpe as they climbed into the rock-strewn hills. “If the bridge
at Ponte Nova has been blown, as it should have been by now, then the French will scatter.
They’ll just be running for their lives and we’ll be hard put to find Mister Christopher in
all that chaos. Still, we must try.”

“And if it hasn’t been blown?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Hogan said, and laughed. “Ah, Jesus, I do hate
this rain. Have you ever tried taking snuff in the rain, Richard? It’s like sniffing up cat
vomit.”

They walked eastward through a wide valley edged by high, pale hills that were crowned with
gray boulders. The road lay to the south of the River Cavado which ran clear and deep through
rich pastureland that had been plundered by the French so that no cattle or sheep grazed the
spring grass. The villages had once been prosperous, but were now almost deserted and the
few folk who remained were wary. Hogan, like Vicente and his men, wore blue and that was also
the color of the enemy’s coats, while the riflemen’s green jackets could be mistaken for
the uniforms of dismounted French dragoons. Most people, if they expected anything,
thought the British wore red and so Sergeant Macedo, anticipating the confusion, had found
a Portuguese flag in Braga that he carried on a pole hacked from an ash tree. The flag showed
a wreathed crest of Portugal surmounted by a great golden crown and it reassured those
folk who recognized the emblem. Not all did, but once the villagers had spoken with Vicente
they could not do enough for the soldiers. “For God’s sake,” Sharpe told Vicente, “tell them to
hide their wine.”

“They’re friendly, sure enough,” Harper said as they left another small settlement where
the dungheaps were bigger than the cottages. “Not like the Spanish. They could be cold. Not
all of them, but some were bastards.”

“The Spanish don’t like the English,” Hogan told him.

“They don’t like the English?” Harper asked, surprised. “So they’re not bastards after
all then, just wary, eh? But are you saying, sir, that the Portuguese do like the
English?”

“The Portuguese,” Hogan said, “hate the Spanish and when you have a bigger neighbor whom
you detest then you look for a big friend to help you.”

“So who’s Ireland’s big friend, sir?”

“God, Sergeant,” Hogan said, “God.”

“Dear Lord above,” Harper said piously, staring into the rainy sky, “for Christ’s sake,
wake up.”

“Why don’t you fight for the bloody French,” Harris snarled.

“Enough!” Sharpe snapped.

They marched in silence for a while, then Vicente could not contain his curiosity. “If
the Irish hate the English,” he asked, “why do they fight for them?” Harper chuckled at the
question, Hogan raised his eyes to the gray heavens and Sharpe just scowled.

The road, now that they were far from Braga, was less well maintained. Grass grew down its
center between ruts made by ox carts. The French had not scavenged this far and there were a
few flocks of bedraggled sheep and some small herds of cattle, but as soon as a herdsman or
shepherd saw the soldiers he hustled his beasts away. Vicente was still puzzled and, having
failed to elicit an answer from his companions, tried again. “I really do not
understand,” he said in a very earnest voice, “why the Irish would fight for the English
King.” Harris drew a breath as if to reply, but one savage look from Sharpe made him change
his mind. Harper began to whistle “Over the Hills and Far Away,” then could not help laughing
at the strained silence that was at last broken by Hogan.

“It’s hunger,” the engineer explained to Vicente, “hunger and poverty and desperation,
and because there’s precious little work for a good man at home, and because we’ve always
been a people that enjoy a good fight.”

Vicente was intrigued by the answer. “And that is true for you, Captain?” he asked.

“Not for me,” Hogan allowed. “My family’s always had some money. Not much, but we never
had to scratch in thin soil to raise our daily bread. No, I joined the army because I like
being an engineer. I like practical things and this was the best way to do what I liked. But
someone like Sergeant Harper?” He glanced at Harper. “I dare say he’s here because he’d be
starving otherwise.”

“True,” Harper said.

“And you hate the English?” Vicente asked Harper.

“Careful,” Sharpe growled.

“I hate the bloody ground the bastards walk on, sir,” Harper said cheerfully, then saw
Vicente cast a bewildered glance at Sharpe. “I didn’t say I hated them all,” Harper
added.

“Life is complicated,” Hogan said vaguely. “I mean there’s a Portuguese Legion in the
French army, I hear?”

Vicente looked embarrassed. “They believe in French ideas, sir.”

“Ah! Ideas,” Hogan said, “they’re much more dangerous than big or little neighbors. I
don’t believe in fighting for ideas”-he shook his head ruefully-”and nor does Sergeant
Harper.”

“I don’t?” Harper asked.

“No, you bloody don’t,” Sharpe snarled.

“So what do you believe in?” Vicente wanted to know.

“The trinity, sir,” Harper said sententiously.

“The trinity?” Vicente was surprised.

“The Baker rifle,” Sharpe said, “the sword bayonet, and me.”

“Those too,” Harper acknowledged, and laughed.

“What it is,” Hogan tried to help Vicente, “is that it’s like being in a house where there’s
an unhappy marriage and you ask a question about fidelity. You cause embarrassment. No
one wants to talk about it.”

“Harris!” Sharpe warned, seeing the red-headed rifleman open his mouth.

“I was only going to say, sir,” Harris said, “that there’s a dozen horsemen on that hill
over there.”

Sharpe turned just in time to see the horsemen vanish across the crest. The rain was too
thick and the light too poor to see if they were in uniform, but Hogan suggested the French
might well have sent cavalry patrols far ahead of their retreat. “They’ll be wanting to know
whether we’ve taken Braga,” he explained, “because if we hadn’t then they’d turn this way and
try to escape up to Pontevedra.”

Sharpe gazed at the far hill. “If there’s bloody cavalry about,” he said, “then I don’t want
to be caught on the road.” It was the one place in a nightmare landscape where horsemen would
have an advantage.

So to avoid enemy horsemen they struck north into the wilderness. It meant crossing the
Cavado which they managed at a deep ford which led only to the high summer pastures. Sharpe
continually looked behind, but saw no sign of the horsemen. The path climbed into a wild
land. The hills were steep, the valleys deep and the high ground bare of anything except
gorse, ferns, thin grass and vast rounded boulders, some balanced on others so
precariously that they looked as if a child’s touch would send them bounding down the
precipitous slopes. The grass was fit only for a few tangle-haired sheep and scores of feral
goats on which the mountain wolves and wild lynx fed. The only village they passed was a poor
place with high rock walls about its small vegetable gardens. Goats were hobbled on pastures
the size of inn yards and a few bony cattle stared at the soldiers as they passed. They climbed
still higher, listening to the goat bells among the rocks and passing a small shrine heaped
with faded gorse blossom. Vicente crossed himself as he passed the shrine.

They turned eastward again, following a stony ridge where the great rounded boulders
would make it impossible for any cavalry to form and charge, and Sharpe kept watching
southwards and saw nothing. Yet there had been horsemen, and there would be more, for he was
making a rendezvous with a desperate army that had been bounced from imminent success to
abject defeat in one swift day.

It was hard traveling in the hills. They rested every hour, then trudged on. All were
soaked, tired and chilled. The rain was relentless and the wind had now gone into the east so
that it came straight into their faces. The rifle slings rubbed their wet shoulders raw, but
at least the rain lifted that afternoon, even if the wind stayed brisk and cold. At dusk,
feeling as weary as he ever had on the terrible retreat to Vigo, Sharpe led them down from
the ridge to a small deserted hamlet of low stone cottages roofed with turf. “Just like
home,” Harper said happily. The driest places to sleep were two long, coffin-shaped
granaries that protected their contents from rats by being raised on mushroom-shaped stone
pillars, and most of the men crammed themselves into the narrow spaces while Sharpe, Hogan
and Vicente shared the least damaged cottage where Sharpe conjured a fire from damp
kindling, and brewed tea.

“The most essential skill of a soldier,” Hogan said when Sharpe brought him the tea.

“What’s that?” Vicente asked, ever eager to learn his new trade.

“Making fire from wet wood,” Hogan said.

“Aren’t you supposed to have a servant?” Sharpe asked.

“I am, but so are you, Richard.”

“I’m not one for servants,” Sharpe said.

“Nor am I,” Hogan said, “but you’ve done a grand job with that tea, Richard, and if His
Majesty ever decides he doesn’t want a London rogue to be one of his officers then I’ll give
you a job as a servant.”

Picquets were set, more tea brewed and moist tobacco coaxed alight in clay pipes. Hogan and
Vicente began an impassioned argument about a man called Hume of whom Sharpe had never
heard and who turned out to be a dead Scottish philosopher, but, as it seemed the dead
Scotsman had proposed that nothing was certain, Sharpe wondered why anyone bothered to
read him, let alone argue about him, yet the notion diverted Hogan and Vicente. Sharpe,
bored with the talk, left them to their debate and went to inspect the picquets.

It started to rain again, then peals of thunder shook the sky and lightning whipped into
the high rocks. Sharpe crouched with Harris and Perkins in a cave-like shrine where some faded
flowers lay in front of a sad-looking statue of the Virgin Mary. “Jesus bloody wept,”
Harper announced himself as he splashed through the downpour, “and we could be tucked up with
those ladies in Oporto.” He crammed himself in beside the three men. “I didn’t know you were
here, sir,” he said. “I brought the boys some picquet juice.” He had a wooden canteen of hot
tea. “Jesus,” he went on, “you can’t see a bloody thing out there.”

“Weather like home, Sergeant?” Perkins asked.

“What would you know, lad? In Donegal, now, the sun never stops shining, the women all say
yes and both the gamekeepers have wooden legs.” He gave Perkins the canteen and peered into
the wet dark. “How are we going to find your fellow in this, sir?”

“God knows if we do.”

“Does it matter now?”

“I want my telescope back.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Harper said, “you’re going to wander into the middle of the
French army and ask for it?”

“Something like that,” Sharpe said. All day he had been besieged by a sense of the
futility of the effort, but that was no reason not to make the effort. And it seemed right
to him that Christopher should be punished. Sharpe believed that a man’s loyalties were at
his roots, that they were immovable, but Christopher evidently believed they were
negotiable. That was because Christopher was clever and sophisticated. And, if Sharpe had
his way, he would soon be dead.

The dawn was cold and wet. They climbed back up to the boulder-strewn heights, leaving
behind the valley which was filled with mist. The rain was soft now, but still in their faces.
Sharpe led and saw nobody, and still saw nobody even when a musket banged and a cloud of smoke
blossomed beside a rock and he dived for cover as the bullet smacked on a boulder and whined
into the sky. Everyone else sheltered, except for Hogan who was stranded on his ugly mule,
but Hogan had the presence of mind to shout. “Ingles,” he called, “ingles!” He was half on and
half off the mule, fearing another bullet, but hoping his claim to be English would
prevent it.