Sharpe 12 - Sharpe's Battle (14 page)

“Sharpe! Please! Please!” A wan Runciman stared at Sharpe's penknife. “Do you have to be so graphic?”

"General! I'm raising a serious matter! I can't hold off a brigade of

Frenchmen with my handful of riflemen. I might do some damage if the Irish boys had muskets, but without muskets, bayonets and ammunition?“ Sharpe shook his head, then snapped the blade shut. ”It's your choice, General, but if I was the senior British officer in this fort then I'd find a way to get some decent weapons up here as fast as possible. Unless, of course, I wanted to be singing the high notes in the church choir when I got back to Hampshire."

Runciman gaped at Sharpe. The Colonel was sweating now, overwhelmed by a vision of castrating Frenchmen running wild inside the crumbling fort. "But they won't give us muskets, Sharpe. We tried! Kiely and I tried together! And that awkward man General Valverde pleaded for us as well, but the

Quartermaster General says there's a temporary shortage of spare weapons. He hoped General Valverde might persuade Cadiz to send us some Spanish muskets."

Sharpe shook his head at Runciman's despair. “So we have to borrow some muskets, General, till the Spanish ones arrive. We just need to divert a wagon or two with the help of those seals you've still got.”

“But I can't issue orders to the wagon train, Sharpe! Not any longer! I have new duties, new responsibilities.”

“You've got too many responsibilities, General,” Sharpe said, “because you're too valuable a man, but really, sir, you shouldn't be worrying yourself over details. Your job is to look after the big decisions and let me look after the small.” Sharpe tossed the penknife in the air and caught it. “And let me look after the Crapauds if they come, sir. You've got better things to do.”

Runciman leaned back in his folding chair, making it creak dangerously. “You have a point, Sharpe, you do indeed have a point.” Runciman shuddered as he contemplated the enormity of the crime. “But you think I am merely anticipating an order rather than breaking one?”

Sharpe stared at the Colonel with feigned admiration. "I wish I had your mind,

General, I really do. That's a brilliant way of putting it. “Anticipating an order.” I wish I'd thought of that."

Runciman preened at the compliment. “My dear mother always maintained I could have been a lawyer,” he said proudly, “maybe even Lord Chancellor! But my father preferred me to take an honest career.” He pulled some empty papers across his makeshift desk and began writing orders. From time to time the horror of his conduct made him pause, but each time Sharpe snapped the small blade open and shut and the noise prompted the Colonel to dip his quill's tip into the inkwell.

And next day four ox-drawn wagons with puzzled drivers and beds loaded with weapons, ammunition and supplies arrived at the San Isidro Fort.

And the Real Companïa Irlandesa was armed at last.

And thinking of mutiny.

CHAPTER 4

Next morning, just after dawn, a delegation discovered Sharpe at the deserted northern end of the fort. The sun was slicing across the valley to gild the small mist that sifted above the stream where Sharpe was watching a harrier float effortlessly in the light wind with its gaze trained down on the hillside. The eight men of the delegation halted awkwardly behind Sharpe who, after one sour glance at their serious faces, looked back to the valley.

“There's some rabbits down there,” Sharpe said to no one in particular, “and that daft bird keeps losing them in the mist.”

“He won't go hungry for long though,” Harper said, “I've never seen a hawk dafter than a rabbit.” The greenjacket Sergeant was the only delegate from

Sharpe's company: the other men were all from the Real Companïa Irlandesa.

“It's a nice morning,” Harper said, sounding uncharacteristically nervous. He plainly believed that either Father Sarsfield, Captain Donaju or Captain Lacy should broach the delicate subject that had caused this delegation to seek

Sharpe out, but the chaplain and the two embarrassed officers were silent. “A grand morning,” Harper said, breaking the silence again.

“Is it?” Sharpe responded. He had been standing on a merlon beside a gun embrasure, but now he jumped down to the firing platform and from there into the bed of the dry ditch. Years of rainfall had eroded the glacis and filled the ditch, just as frost had degraded and crumbled the stonework of the ramparts. “I've seen hovels built better than this,” Sharpe said. He kicked at the wall's base and one of the larger stones shifted perceptibly. “There's no bloody mortar there!” he said.

“There wasn't enough water in the mix,” Harper explained. He took a deep breath, then, realizing that his companions would not speak up, took the plunge himself. “We wanted to see you, sir. It's important, sir.”

Sharpe clambered back up to the ramparts and brushed his hands together. “Is it about the new muskets?”

“No, sir. The muskets are just grand, sir.”

“The training?”

“No, sir.”

“Then the man you want to see is Colonel Runciman,” Sharpe said curtly. “Call him ”General“ and he'll give you anything.” Sharpe was deliberately dissembling. He knew exactly why the delegation was here, but he had small appetite for their worries. “Talk to Runciman after breakfast and he'll be in a good enough mood,” he said.

“We've spoken to the Colonel,” Captain Donaju spoke at last, “and the Colonel said we should speak with you.”

Father Sarsfield smiled. “I think we knew he would say that, Captain, when we approached him. I don't think Colonel Runciman is particularly sympathetic to the problems of Ireland.”

Sharpe looked from Sarsfield to Donaju, from Donaju to Lacy, then from Lacy to the sullen faces of the four rank and file guardsmen. “So it's about Ireland, is it?” Sharpe said. “Well, go on. I haven't got any other problems to solve today.”

The chaplain ignored the sarcasm, offering Sharpe a folded newspaper instead.

“It is about that, Captain Sharpe,” Sarsfield said respectfully.

Sharpe took the paper which, to his surprise, came from Philadelphia. The front page was a dense mass of black type: lists of ships arriving or departing from the city wharves; news from Europe; reports of Congress and tales of Indian atrocities suffered by settlers in the western territories.

“It's at the bottom of the page,” Donaju offered.

“ 'The Melancholy Effects of Intemperance'?” Sharpe read a headline aloud.

“No, Sharpe. Just before that,” Donaju said, and Sharpe sighed as he read the words “New Massacres in Ireland”. What followed was a more lurid version of the tale Runciman had already told Sharpe: a catalogue of rape and slaughter, of innocent children cut down by English dragoons and of praying women dragged out of houses by drink-crazed grenadiers. The newspaper claimed that the ghosts of Cromwell's troopers had come back to life to turn Ireland into a blood-drenched misery again. Ireland, the English government had announced, would be pacified once and for all, and the newspaper commented that the

English were choosing to make that pacification when so many Irishmen were fighting against France in the King's army in Portugal. Sharpe read the piece through twice. “What did Lord Kiely say?” he asked Father Sarsfield, not because he cared one fig what Kiely thought, but the question bought him a few seconds while he thought how to respond. He also wanted to encourage Sarsfield to do the delegation's talking, for the Real Companïa Irlandesa's chaplain had struck Sharpe as a friendly, sensible and cool-headed man and if he could get the priest on his side then he reckoned the rest of the company would follow.

“His Lordship hasn't seen the newspaper,” Sarsfield said. “He has gone hunting with the Dona Juanita.”

Sharpe handed the paper back to the priest. “Well, I've seen the newspaper,” he said, “and I can tell you it's bloody rubbish.” One of the guardsmen stirred indignantly, then stiffened when Sharpe gave him a threatening look.

“It's a fairy tale for idiots,” Sharpe said provocatively, “pure bloody make- believe.”

“How do you know?” Donaju asked resentfully.

“Because if there was trouble in Ireland, Captain, we'd have heard about it before the Americans. And since when did the Americans have a good word to say about the British?”

“But we have heard about it,” Captain Lacy intervened. Lacy was a stocky young man with a pugnacious demeanour and scarred knuckles. “There've been rumours,”

Lacy insisted.

“There have too,” Harper added loyally.

Sharpe looked at his friend. “Oh, Christ,” he said as he realized just how hurt Harper was, though he also realized that Harper must have come to him hoping that the stories were not true. If Harper had wanted a fight he would not have chosen Sharpe, but some other representative of the enemy race. "Oh,

Christ," Sharpe swore again. He was plagued with more than enough problems already. The Real Companïa Irlandesa had been promised pay and given none; every time it rained the old barracks ran with damp; the food in the fort was dreadful and the only well provided nothing but a trickle of bitter water.

Now, on top of those problems and the added threat of Loup's vengeance, there was this sudden menace of an Irish mutiny. "Give me back the newspaper,

Father,“ Sharpe said to the chaplain, then stabbed a dirty fingernail at the date printed at the top of the sheet. ”When was this published?" He showed the date to Sarsfield.

“A month ago,” the priest said.

“So?” Lacy asked belligerently.

“So how many bloody drafts have arrived from Ireland in the last month?”

Sharpe asked, his voice as scornful as it was forceful. “Ten? Fifteen? And not one of those men thought to tell us about his sister being raped or his mother being buggered witless by some dragoon? Yet suddenly some bloody American newspaper knows all about it?” Sharpe had addressed his words to Harper more than to the others, for Harper alone could be expected to know how frequently replacement drafts arrived from Ireland. “Come on, Pat! It doesn't make bloody sense, and if you don't believe me then I'll give you a pass and you can go down to the main camps and find some newly arrived Irishmen and ask them for news of home. Maybe you'll believe them if you don't believe me.”

Harper looked at the date on the paper, thought about Sharpe's words, and nodded reluctantly. “It doesn't make sense, sir, you're right. But not everything in this world needs to make sense.”

“Of course it bloody does,” Sharpe snapped. "That's how you and I live. We're practical men, Pat, not bloody dreamers! We believe in the Baker rifle, the

Tower musket and twenty-three inches of bayonet. You can leave superstitions to women and children, and these things“-he slapped the newspaper - ”are worse than superstitions. They're downright lies!“ He looked at Donaju. ”Your job,

Captain, is to go to your men and tell them that they're lies. And if you don't believe me then you ride down to the camps. Go to the Connaught Rangers and ask their new recruits. Go to the Inniskillings. Go wherever you like, but be back here by dusk. And in the meantime, Captain, tell your men they've got a full day of musket training. Loading and firing till their shoulders are raw meat. Is that clear?"

The men from the Real Companïa Irlandesa nodded reluctantly. Sharpe had won the argument, at least until the evening when Donaju returned from his reconnaissance. Father Sarsfield took the paper from Sharpe. “Are you saying this is a forgery?” the priest asked.

“How would I know, Father? I'm just saying it isn't true. Where did you get it?”

Sarsfield shrugged. “They're scattered throughout the army, Sharpe.”

“And when did you and I ever see a newspaper from America, Pat?” Sharpe asked

Harper. "And funny, isn't it, that the first one we ever see is all about

Britain being bloody to Ireland? It smacks of mischief to me."

Father Sarsfield folded the paper. "I think you're probably right, Sharpe, and praise be to God for it. But you won't mind, will you, if I ride with Captain

Donaju today?"

“It isn't up to me what you do, Father,” Sharpe said. “But for the rest of you, let's get to work!”

Sharpe waited while the delegation left. He motioned Harper to stay behind, but Father Sarsfield also lingered for Sharpe's attention. "I'm sorry,

Sharpe," the priest said.

“Why?”

Sarsfield flinched at Sharpe's harsh tone. “I imagine you do not need Irish problems intruding on your life.”

“I don't need any damn problems, Father. I've got a job to do, and the job is to turn your boys into soldiers, good soldiers.”

Sarsfield smiled. “I think you are a rare thing, Captain Sharpe: an honest man.”

“Of course I'm not,” Sharpe said, almost blushing as he remembered the horrors done to the three men caught by El Castrador at Sharpe's request. “I'm not a bloody saint, Father, but I do like to get things done. If I spent my damn life dreaming dreams I'd still be in the ranks. You can only afford dreams if you're rich and privileged.” He added the last words viciously.

“You speak of Kiely,” Sarsfield said and started walking slowly back along the ramparts beside Sharpe. The skirts of the priest's soutane were wet with the dew from the ragweed and grass that grew inside the fort. “Lord Kiely is a very weak man, Captain,”

Sarsfield went on. “He had a very strong mother”-the priest grimaced at the memory-"and you would not know, Captain, what a trial to the church strong women can be, but I think they can be even more of a trial to their sons. Lady

Kiely wanted her son to be a great Catholic warrior, an Irish warrior! The

Catholic warlord who would succeed where the Protestant lawyer Wolfe Tone failed, but instead she drove him into drink, pettiness and whoring. I buried her last year“-he made a quick sign of the cross - ”and I fear her son did not mourn her as a son should mourn his mother nor, alas, will he ever be the

Christian she wanted him to be. He told me last night that he intends to marry the Lady Juanita and his mother, I think, will be weeping in purgatory at the thought of such a match.“ The priest sighed. ”Still, I didn't want to talk to you about Kiely. Instead, Captain, I beg you to be a little patient with us."

“I thought I was being patient with you,” Sharpe said defensively.

“With us Irish,” Father Sarsfield explained. "You are a man with a country,

Captain, and you don't know what it's like to be an exile. You cannot know what it is like to be listening to the harps beside the waters of Babylon."

Sarsfield smiled at the phrase, then shrugged. "It's like a wound, Captain

Sharpe, that never heals, and I pray to God that you never have to feel that wound for yourself

Sharpe felt a stab of embarrassed pity as he looked into the priest's kindly face. “Were you never in Ireland, Father?”

“Once, my son, years ago. Long years ago, but if I live a thousand years that one brief stay will always seem like yesterday.” He smiled ruefully, then hitched up his damp soutane. “I must join Donaju for our expedition! Think about my words, Captain!” The priest hurried away, his white hair lifting in the breeze.

Harper joined Sharpe. “A nice man, that,” Harper said, nodding at the priest's receding back. "He was telling me how he was in Donegal once. Up in Lough

Swilly. I had an aunt who lived that way, God rest her poor soul. She was in

Rathmullen."

“I never was in Donegal,” Sharpe said, “and I'll probably never get there, and frankly, Sergeant, right at this moment I don't care. I've got enough bloody troubles without the bloody Irish going moody on me. We need blankets, food and money which means I'm going to have to get Runciman to write another of his magic orders, but it won't be easy because the fat bugger's scared shitless of being court-martialled. Lord bloody Kiely's no bloody help. All he does is suck brandy, dream about bloody glory and trail around behind that black-haired whore like a mooncalf.” Sharpe, despite Sarsfield's advice about patience, was losing his temper. "The priest is telling me to feel sorry for you all, Hogan wants me to kick these lads in the teeth and there's a fat

Spaniard with a castrating knife who thinks I'm going to hold Loup down while he cuts off his bloody balls. Everyone expects me to solve all their bloody problems, so for God's sake give me some bloody help."

“I always do,” Harper said resentfully.

“Yes, you do, Pat, and I'm sorry.”

“And if the stories were true-” Harper began.

“They're not!” Sharpe shouted.

“All right! All right! God save Ireland.” Harper blew out a long breath, then there was an awkward silence between the two men. Sharpe just glowered to the north while Harper clambered down into a nearby gun embrasure and kicked at a loosened stone. “God knows why they built a fort up here,” he said at last.

“There used to be a main road down there.” Sharpe nodded to the pass which lay to the north. “It was a way to avoid Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, but half the road got washed away and what's left of it can't take modern guns so it's no use these days. But the road eastwards is still all there, Pat, and Loup's bloody brigade can use it. Down there”-he pointed to the route as he spoke-“up this slope, over these walls and straight down on us and there's bugger all here to stop them.”