Sharpe's Havoc (8 page)

“Any of our boys hurt?”

“Not a one, sir, not even a scratch. The Portuguese are the same, all alive. They did well,
didn’t they?” He looked at the burning boat again. “Sweet Jesus, was that the ferry?”

“It was Noah’s bloody ark,” Sharpe snapped. “What do you goddamned think it was?” He was
angry because he had hoped to use the ferry to get all his men safe across the Douro, but now
it seemed he was stranded. He stalked away, then turned back just in time to see Harper making
a face at him. “Have you found the taverns?” he asked, ignoring the grimace.

“Not yet, sir,” Harper said.

“Then find them, put a guard on them, then send a dozen more men to the far side of the
paddock.”

“Yes, sir!”

The French had set more fires among sheds on the river bank and Sharpe now ducked beneath
the billowing smoke to kick open half-burned doors. There was a pile of tarred nets
smoldering in one shed, but in the next there was a black-painted skiff with a fine spiked bow
that curved up like a hook. The shed had been fired, but the flames had not reached the skiff and
Sharpe managed to drag it halfway out of the door before Lieutenant Vicente arrived and
helped him pull the boat all the way out of the smoke. The other sheds were too well alight, but
at least this one boat was saved and Sharpe reckoned it could hold about half a dozen men
safely, which meant that it would take the rest of the day to ferry everyone across the wide
river. Sharpe was about to ask Vicente to look for oars or paddles when he saw that the young
man’s face was white and shaken, almost as if the Lieutenant was on the point of tears. “What
is it?” Sharpe asked.

Vicente did not answer, but merely pointed back to the village.

“The French were having games with the ladies, eh?” Sharpe asked, setting off for the
houses.

“I would not call it games,” Vicente said bitterly, “and there is also a prisoner.”

“Only one?”

“There are two others,” Vicente said, frowning, “but this one is a lieutenant. He had no
breeches which is why he was slow to run.”

Sharpe did not ask why the captured dragoon had no breeches. He knew why. “What have you
done with him?”

“He must go on trial,” Vicente said.

Sharpe stopped and stared at the Lieutenant. “He must what?” he asked, astonished. “Go on
trial?”

“Of course.”

“In my country,” Sharpe said, “they hang a man for rape.”

“Not without a trial,” Vicente protested and Sharpe guessed that the Portuguese soldiers
had wanted to kill the prisoner straight away and that Vicente had stopped them out of some
high-minded idea that a trial was necessary.

“Bloody hell,” Sharpe said, “you’re a soldier now, not a lawyer. You don’t give them a
trial. You chop their hearts out.”

Most of Barca d’Avintas’s inhabitants had fled the dragoons, but some had stayed and most
of them were now crowded about a house guarded by a half-dozen of Vicente’s men. A dead
dragoon, stripped of shirt, coat, boots and breeches, lay face down in front of the church. He
must have been leaning against the church wall when he was shot for he had left a smear of blood
down the limewashed stones. Now a dog sniffed at his toes. The soldiers and villagers parted
to let Sharpe and Vicente into the house where the young dragoon officer, fair-haired, thin
and sullen-faced, was being guarded by Sergeant Macedo and another Portuguese soldier. The
Lieutenant had managed to pull on his breeches, but had not had time to button them and he
was now holding them up by the waist. As soon as he saw Sharpe he began gabbling in French.
“You speak French?” Sharpe asked Vicente.

“Of course,” Vicente said.

But Vicente, Sharpe reflected, wanted to give this fair-haired Frenchman a trial and
Sharpe suspected that if Vicente interrogated the man he would not learn the real truth,
merely hear the excuses, so Sharpe went to the house door. “Harper!” He waited till the
Sergeant appeared. “Get me Tongue or Harris,” he ordered.

“I will talk to the man,” Vicente protested.

“I need you to talk to someone else,” Sharpe said and he went to the back room where a
girl-she could not have been a day over fourteen-was weeping. Her face was red, eyes swollen
and her breath came in fitful jerks interspersed with grizzling moans and cries of despair.
She was wrapped in a blanket and had a bruise on her left cheek. An older woman, dressed all
in black, was trying to comfort the girl who began to cry even louder the moment she saw
Sharpe, making him back out of the room in embarrassment. “Find out from her what happened,”
he told Vicente, then turned as Harris came through the door. Harris and Tongue were Sharpe’s
two educated men. Tongue had been doomed to the army by drink, while the red-haired, ever
cheerful Harris claimed to be a volunteer who wanted adventure. He was getting plenty
now, Sharpe reflected. “This piece of shit,” Sharpe told Harris, jerking his head at the
fair-haired Frenchman, “was caught with his knickers round his ankles and a young girl under
him. Find out what his excuse is before we kill the bastard.”

He went back to the street and took a long drink from his canteen. The water was warm and
brackish. Harper was waiting by a horse trough in the center of the street and Sharpe joined
him. “All well?”

“There’s two more Frogs in there.” Harper flicked a thumb toward the church behind him.
“Live ones, I mean.” The church door was guarded by four of Vicente’s men.

“What are they doing in there?” Sharpe asked. “Praying?”

The tall Ulsterman shrugged. “Looking for sanctuary, I’d guess.”

“We can’t take the bastards with us,” Sharpe said, “so why don’t we just shoot them?”

“Because Mister Vicente says we mustn’t,” Harper said. “He’s very particular about
prisoners is Mister Vicente. He’s a lawyer, isn’t he?”

“He seems halfway decent for a lawyer,” Sharpe admitted grudgingly.

“The best lawyers are six feet under the daisies, so they are,” Harper said, “and this one
won’t let me go and shoot those two bastards. He says they’re just drunks, which is true. They
are. Skewed to the skies, they are.”

“We can’t cope with prisoners,” Sharpe said. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, then
pulled his shako back on. The visor was coming away from the crown, but there was nothing he
could do about that here. “Get Tongue,” he suggested, “and see if he can find out what these
two were up to. If they’re just drunk on communion wine then march them out west, strip them of
anything valuable and boot them back where they came from. But if they raped anyone … “

“I know what to do, sir,” Harper said grimly.

“Then do it,” Sharpe said. He nodded to Harper, then walked on past the church to where the
stream joined the river. The small stone bridge carried the road eastward through a vineyard,
past a walled cemetery and then twisted through pastureland beside the Douro. It was all
open land and if more French came and he had to retreat from the village then he dared not use
that road and he hoped to God he had time to ferry his men over the Douro and that thought made
him go back up the street to look for oars. Or maybe he could find a rope? If the rope were long
enough he could rig a line across the river and haul the boat back and forth and that would
surely be quicker than rowing.

He was wondering if there were bell ropes in the small church that might stretch that far
when Harris came out of the house and said that the prisoner’s name was Lieutenant Olivier
and he was in the 18th Dragoons and that the Lieutenant, despite being caught with his
breeches round his ankles, had denied raping the girl. “He said French officers don’t
behave like that,” Harris said, “but Lieutenant Vicente says the girl swears he did.”

“So did he or didn’t he?” Sharpe asked irritably.

“Of course he did, sir. He admitted as much after I thumped him,” Harris said happily,
“but he still insists she wanted him to. He says she wanted comforting after a sergeant
raped her.”

“Wanted comforting!” Sharpe said scathingly. “He was just second in line, wasn’t he?”

“Fifth in line,” Harris said tonelessly, “or so the girl says.”

“Jesus,” Sharpe swore. “Why don’t I just give the bugger a smacking, then we’ll string him
up.” He walked back to the house where the civilans were screaming at the Frenchman, who gazed
at them with a disdain hat would have been admirable on a battlefield. Vicente was
protecting he dragoon and now appealed to Sharpe for help to escort Lieutenant Dlivier to
safety.

“He must stand trial,” Vicente insisted.

“He just had a trial,” Sharpe said, “and I found him guilty. So now I’ll thump him and then
I’ll hang him.”

Vicente looked nervous, but he did not back down. “We cannot lower ourselves to their
level of barbarity,” he claimed.

“I didn’t rape her,” Sharpe said, “so don’t place me with them.”

“We fight for a better world,” Vicente declared.

For a second Sharpe just stared at the young Portuguese officer, scarce believing what
he had heard. “What happens if we leave him here, eh?”

“We can’t!” Vicente said, knowing that the villagers would take a far worse revenge than
anything Sharpe was proposing.

“And I can’t take prisoners!” Sharpe insisted.

“We can’t kill him”-Vicente was blushing with indignation as he confronted Sharpe and
he would not back down-”and we can’t leave him here. It would be murder.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Sharpe said in exasperation. Lieutenant Olivier did not speak
English, but he seemed to understand that his fate was in the balance and he watched Sharpe
and Vicente like a hawk. “And who’s going to be the judge and jury?” Sharpe demanded, but
Vicente got no opportunity to answer for just then a rifle fired from the western edge of
the village and then another sounded and then there was a whole rattle of shots.

The French had come back.

Colonel James Christopher liked wearing the hussar uniform. He decided it suited him
and he spent a long time admiring himself in the pier glass in the farmhouse’s largest
bedroom, turning left and right, and marveling at the feeling of power conveyed by the
uniform. He deduced it came from the long tasseled boots and from the jacket’s high stiff
collar that forced a man to stand upright with his head back, and from the fit of the jacket
that was so tight that Christopher, who was lean and fit, still had to suck in his belly to
fasten the hooks and eyes down its silver-laced front. The uniform made him feel encased in
authority, and the elegance of the outfit was enhanced by the fur-edged pelisse that was
draped from his left shoulder and by the silver-chained saber scabbard that chinked as he went
downstairs and as he paced up and down the terrace where he waited for his guest. He put a
sliver of wood into his mouth, obsessively working it between his teeth as he gazed at the
distant smear of smoke which showed where buildings burned in the captured city. A handful of
fugitives had stopped at the farm to beg for food and Luis had talked with them and then told
Christopher that hundreds if not thousands of people had drowned when the pontoon bridge
broke. The refugees claimed that the French had wrecked the bridge with cannon fire and Luis,
his hatred of the enemy fueled by the false rumor, eyed his master with a surly expression
until Christopher had finally lost his patience. “It is only a uniform, Luis! It is not a
sign of a changed allegiance!”

“A French uniform,” Luis had complained.

“You wish Portugal to be free of the French?” Christopher snapped. “Then behave
respectfully and forget this uniform.”

Now Christopher paced the terrace, picking at his teeth and constantly watching the road
that led across the hill. The clock in the farm’s elegant parlor struck three and no sooner
had the last chime faded than a large column of cavalry appeared across the far crest. They
were dragoons and they came in force to make sure that no partisans or fugitive Portuguese
troops gave trouble to the officer who rode to meet Christopher.

The dragoons, all from the 18th regiment, wheeled away into the ields beneath the
farmhouse where a stream offered water for their lorses. The cavalrymen’s rose-fronted
green coats were white with dust. Some, seeing Christopher in his French hussar’s uniform,
offered a hasty salute, but most ignored him and just led their horses toward the stream is
the Englishman turned to greet his visitor.

His name was Argenton and he was a captain and the Adjutant of the 18th Dragoons and it
was plain from his smile that he knew and liked colonel Christopher. “The uniform becomes
you,” Argenton said.

“I found it in Oporto,” Christopher said. “It belonged to a poor fellow who was a
prisoner and died of the fever and a tailor trimmed it to size for me.”

“He did well,” Argenton said admiringly. “Now all you need are the cadenettes.”

“The cadenettes?”

“The pigtails,” Argenton explained, touching his temples where the French hussars grew
their hair long to mark themselves as elite cavalrymen. “Some men go bald and have
wigmakers attach false cadenettes to their shakoes or colbacks.”

“I’m not sure I want to grow pigtails,” Christopher said, amused, “but perhaps I can find
some girl with black hair and cut off a pair of tails, eh?”

“A good idea,” Argenton said. He watched approvingly as his escort set picquets, then
smiled his thanks as a very sullen-looking Luis brought him and Christopher glasses of vinho
verde, the golden white wine of the Douro valley. Argenton sipped the wine cautiously and
was surprised that it was so good. He was a slight man with a frank, open face and red hair that
was damp with sweat and marked where his helmet had been. He smiled easily, a reflection of
his trusting nature. Christopher rather despised the Frenchman, but knew he would be
useful.

Argenton drained the wine. “Did you hear about the drownings in Oporto?” he asked.

“My servant says you broke the bridge.”

“They would say that,” Argenton said regretfully. “The bridge collapsed under the
weight of the refugees. It was an accident. A sad accident, but if the people had stayed in
their homes and given our men a decent welcome then there wouldn’t have been any panic at the
bridge. They’d all be alive now. As it is, we’re being blamed, but it had nothing to do with
us. The bridge wasn’t strong enough and who built the bridge? The Portuguese.”