Sharpe 3-Book Collection 3: Sharpe's Trafalgar, Sharpe's Prey, Sharpe's Rifles (54 page)

There was no alternative but to pass through the narrow strait. Lavisser and Sharpe were to be put ashore south of Køge, close to a village called Herfølge where Lavisser’s grandparents had their estate, and Køge Bay lay south of Helsingør and Copenhagen. They could have avoided Helsingør by sailing west about Zealand, the island on which Copenhagen lay, but that was a much longer voyage and time was short. “We have to see the Prince before the British fleet and army arrive,” Lavisser said. “D’you think they’d really bombard Copenhagen?”

“Why not?” Sharpe asked.

“Can you really imagine British gunners killing women and children?”

“They’ll aim for the walls,” Sharpe said, “for the defenses.”

“They will not,” Lavisser said. “They’ll bloody pulverize the city! Cathcart won’t want to, though. He’s squeamish.” Cathcart was the commanding General. “Let’s hope the bribe works, eh?”

They passed Helsingør in the afternoon. Guns sounded from the fortress, but their noise was diffused for they were not loaded with ball or shell, but instead were merely responding to the salute that Captain Samuels ordered fired in honor of the Danish flag. Sharpe gazed at the flag through his telescope, seeing a white cross against a red field. Captain Samuels was also staring toward the fortress, but he was looking for the splashes of water that would betray the fall of round shot. None showed, which proved the Danes were merely saluting. “So they’re still neutral,” Captain Samuels grunted.

“They’ll do all they can to stay neutral,” Lavisser offered his opinion. “They’re a small country, Captain, and they don’t want to pick a fight unless they’re forced to it.” He borrowed Sharpe’s telescope and stared at the massive Kronborg Castle which, from this distance, looked more like a palace than a fortress. The copper sheathing of its spires and steeply pitched roof glowed green above the drifting white smoke left by the guns. A frigate, anchored in the Helsingør Roads, was setting her sails in an evident attempt to follow the
Cleopatra
. “Does she mean trouble?” Lavisser asked.

Captain Samuels shook his head. “She’ll not catch us,” he said dismissively, “and besides, there’s liable to be a fog with this wind.”

Lavisser looked back to the castle. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” he intoned portentously.

“There is?” Sharpe asked.

The guardsman laughed. “It is from
Hamlet
, my dear Richard, which takes place in that very same castle. I was taken there as a child and I was quite convinced I saw the old king’s ghost wandering the battlements, but alas, it was only my imagination. Then, years later, I acted the part at Eton. Bloody Pumphrey played Ophelia and a very convincing girl he made too. I was supposed to kiss him in one scene and he appeared to enjoy it so much that I squeezed his balls until he squealed like a pig.” He smiled at the memory, then leaned on the rail to gaze at the low green shore. “I wish there really was something rotten in Denmark. It’s a dull country, Richard, dull, religious, hidebound and cautious. It’s inhabited by small people who lead little lives.”

“We must all seem like that to you.”

Lavisser was instantly contrite. “No, no. Forgive me. I was born to privilege, Richard, and I forget that others are not.”

The
Cleopatra
stayed closer to the Swedish shore, making it seem to any who watched that she was on passage to Stralsund in northern Prussia where a British garrison was stationed, but on the night after they had passed Copenhagen the frigate left the well-traveled sea lane and turned west to beat her way into Køge Bay. She was alone now. The Danish frigate had long abandoned her stern chase of the British ship and Køge Bay was empty. The moon showed occasionally through spreading clouds and the low white chalk cliffs of the approaching coast seemed to shine with an unnatural brilliance. The frigate turned northward until the cliffs faded into long beaches and it was there that Captain Samuels hove to and ordered the launch to be lowered.

The heavy chest was slung overboard by a whip rove to a yardarm, then Sharpe, Lavisser and Barker climbed down to the waiting launch. Sharpe, like his companions, was in civilian clothes. He wore a brown coat, black breeches and boots, a white stock and a brown tricorne hat that Grace had always said made him look like a bad-tempered farmer. His rifleman’s uniform was in the pack slung on his back.

The launch crew rowed through the dark. The moon was gone behind clouds that now smothered the sky, while well to the north, beyond Copenhagen, a thunderstorm roiled the night. Lightning split the blackness with snake tongues of fire, but no rain fell on Køge Bay and the sound of the thunder faded before it reached the launch. The only sounds were the creak of the muffled oars and the splash of water on the launch’s hull.

There was no surf, just a gentle breaking of small waves on a shelving beach. The launch’s keel grated on sand and a sailor leaped overboard to hold the boat steady while half a dozen men carried the chest of gold ashore. Sharpe, Lavisser and Barker followed, splashing through the shallows. The Midshipman in charge of the launch wished them good fortune, then the launch was heaved back from the beach and the sound of its muffled oars died swiftly away. A cold wind rattled grains of sand against Sharpe’s boots.

He was in Denmark.

And Captain Lavisser drew his pistol.

L
AVISSER HESITATED
. “Would they hear a pistol shot on the frigate?” he asked.

“Probably,” Sharpe said. “Sound carries over water. Why?”

“I’m worried the priming got wet, but I don’t want to alarm the
Cleopatra
. They might think we’re in trouble.”

“Priming didn’t get wet,” Sharpe said. “Water only came up to our ankles.”

“You’re probably right.” Lavisser holstered the pistol. “I think it’s best if you wait here, Richard. If Samuels landed us in the right place then Herfølge’s at least an hour’s walk. I’ll see you at dawn and, with any luck, I’ll bring a cart and horse to get this damn gold out of here.” He climbed a dune. “You’ll stay with Mister Sharpe, Barker?”

“I will, sir,” Barker acknowledged.

“You know what to do,” Lavisser said cheerfully, turning away.

“Do you have the key to the chest?” Sharpe called after the guardsman.

Lavisser half turned. He was nothing but a shadow on the dune’s crest. “Surely you don’t need it, Richard?”

“I’d like to get those pistols.”

“If you must. Barker has the key. I’ll see you in two or three hours.” Lavisser waved and disappeared down the other side of the dune.

Sharpe peered at Barker’s dark shape. “The key?”

“I’m looking for it.” Barker’s answer was surly. He began to rummage through a valise and Sharpe, as he waited, walked up the dune. It was cold for summer, but he supposed that was because the sea was so chill. From the dune’s top he could just see the frigate as a tracery of dark rigging against the eastern sky while inland there was only a feeble and faraway scrap of hazed and flickering light. Captain Samuels had said that fog was likely in this weather and the smeared scrap of light suggested it was forming over the flat farmlands. The ground seemed to rock as Sharpe became accustomed to being on land again. He could smell hay, salt and seaweed. “Been to Denmark before, Barker?” he called down to the beach.

“No,” Barker said.

“So where’s the key?” Sharpe asked.

“I reckon he didn’t give it me.”

“It’s customary, Barker, to address officers as ‘sir.’ ” Sharpe could not conceal his dislike for the servant, who was plainly employed for his size and his capacity for violence rather than for any skills as a valet. Sharpe rooted through his pack until he found the picklock, then went back to the beach where he knelt beside the chest.

“What are you doing, sir?” Barker asked, putting a sarcastic stress on the last word.

“Fetching my pistols,” Sharpe said, taking hold of the padlock.

A bang made him turn. The launch must have reached the frigate which was now sheeting home her foresails to turn away from land and the bang had merely been the wind slatting the canvas, but it saved Sharpe’s life. He saw the gleam in Barker’s hand, realized it was a knife that was about to bury itself in his neck and so threw himself to one side before scrambling away from the chest. He let go of the picklock, hurled a handful of sand into Barker’s eyes and drew his saber, then heard the click of a gun being cocked and knew that Barker, careless of any noise, must have had a pistol hidden beneath his long coat. Sharpe just ran, going up the dune where he snatched up his pack and then down the sandy slope into the darkness behind the beach.

He had hardly thought since the banging sail had made him turn. He had just reacted, but now he crouched in the coarse grass and watched the crest of the dune for Barker’s shadow. Sweet Jesus, he thought, but he had been fooled. He should have bloody known when Lavisser had claimed Barker possessed the chest’s key. No man would entrust a fortune in gold to a servant like Barker.

So Lord Pumphrey had been right when he suggested there was something odd about this whole mission, but in his wildest imaginings Sharpe had not thought things were this warped. Lavisser wanted him dead. What else did Lavisser want? There was no way of knowing that, and now was not the time to speculate, for Barker had come to the dune’s top and pointed the pistol into the shadows. He was waiting for Sharpe to move, just waiting, but the fog was thickening as the southern summer wind crossed the cold northern sea. Sharpe stayed motionless. Far inland a bell tolled four times. The small light had vanished, obscured by the growing fog.

Barker moved northward a few paces and Sharpe broke cover and ran southward. Barker heard him, and that was what Sharpe wanted, for he half hoped Barker would try a long shot. Once the gun was discharged it would take too long to reload and Sharpe would be on the servant like a terrier onto a rat, but Barker was no fool. He held his fire and instead followed Sharpe in hope of getting close enough for the pistol not to miss.

Sharpe went to ground in black shadows between two low dunes. The fog was blanching the first hint of dawn and muffling the small sounds of the wind and waves. Barker had lost him again, though the servant had a rough idea of where Sharpe was and now crouched on the skyline. The man was no soldier, or else he would have sought the lower ground for at night it was impossible to see down into the hollows. A man could see upward against the sky, but not down. Sharpe watched the hulking servant, then raked his fingers through the sand and grass to come up with a scrap of wood and two pebbles that he flicked southward one after the other. They made tiny noises as they landed and Barker, hearing them, moved toward the small sounds.

Sharpe went back northward. He crept, feeling ahead of him to make sure he did not trample any stiff grass. He found two more pieces of wood that he hurled away into the misty dark, hoping to lure Barker farther south, and only when he had lost sight of the man did he stand and cross the dunes back to the beach. He needed to find the picklock, but it had vanished in the trampled sand about the chest. He searched quickly, sifting handfuls of sand, but he could not find it and suddenly he heard Barker returning. The servant had given up his hunt and was coming back to guard the gold so Sharpe abandoned the weapons locked in the chest and went back across the dunes.

He headed inland until he reached a damp vegetable field edged with a ditch. He moved northward now, following the ditch which was half silted with blown sand. A bird flew up from a nest, startling him, then he saw he had come to a rough track, deep rutted by cartwheels, that headed inland. He was about to follow it, then heard hoofbeats and so he scuttled back to the ditch and lay in its damp grass.

The hoofbeats sounded like a whole troop of cavalry, but Sharpe could see nothing in the soft fog. He lay motionless, the hat shadowing his face from the wan early light. Then he saw a shape in the whiteness, another, and suddenly there were a half-dozen horsemen in sight. They all wore long red jackets with pale-blue collars and cuffs. Their breeches were black, edged with white piping, and their hats were black bicornes, elaborately plumed with white feathers. Their long straight swords hung from sashes of yellow silk and suggested they were dragoons. A second group appeared, all of them going slowly because of the fog, and then a shabby cart materialized. It was pulled by a plodding pony and was hung with remnants of seaweed. Sharpe guessed the cart was normally used to fetch weed from the beach to use as fertilizer and now it had come for the gold.

The horsemen and the cart vanished onto the beach. Sharpe darted across the track and found shelter in another ditch. He heard muffled voices and thought he detected anger. But who was angry, and why? Had the dragoons captured Lavisser, or had they been sent by him? Sharpe raised his head, but could see nothing. He crawled inland, staying low so that he did not appear as a dark patch in the lightening fog. What the hell was he to do? The clink of a curb-chain made him lie flat again. The horsemen had evidently spread into the fog to search for him, but they were looking too far to the south. They called to each other, sounding oddly cheerful now, and Sharpe sensed they were a group of friends rather than a military unit. All were apparently officers, judging by the sashes, and none was shouting orders. They laughed as they kicked their horses through the wet soil of the vegetable field, then they were gone to the south and Sharpe kept crawling. Go inland, he thought, and find shelter. Find trees. Find anything that would hide him and then work out what to do. Maybe, he thought, he should just wait. A British army was supposedly coming to Denmark, but the thought of emerging from some barn or ditch to a welcoming committee of supercilious officers was more than he could bear. They would say he had failed again, but what else could he do?

The voices and hoofbeats sounded again and Sharpe dropped into the mud. He must have been closer to the track than he had thought, for he could hear the squeal and rumble of the cart. Then he heard Barker’s voice. He was apologizing, but his apology was cut short when Lavisser interrupted him. “It’s a pity, Barker,” the guardsman said, “but it’s not a tragedy. And what can he do to us? I quite liked the fellow, but he’s still an encumbrance and quite useless. Pitifully useless.”

Useless? Sharpe raised his head to see that Lavisser was wearing the Danish uniform. He must have gone back home to his grandfather, changed into the uniform, joined his waiting friends and so become wealthy. All in an hour or two. Then damn him, Sharpe thought. Damn him. He watched the cart and the cavalrymen fade into the fog.

Get to Copenhagen, he thought. He felt in his pocket and found the piece of paper that Lord Pumphrey had given him in Harwich. There was just enough light to read the elegant handwriting. “Ole Skovgaard, Ulfedt’s Plads,” it read, and Sharpe stared at it. Was that a name? Or an address? Then he guessed the comma meant that Ole Skovgaard was the man’s name and Ulfedt’s Plads was where he lived, and that, Pumphrey had said, was in Copenhagen, so get there fast. Be useful.

He pushed the scrap of paper back into his coat pocket, checked that Lavisser and the other horsemen were truly gone from sight, then stood.

And that was when the dragoon sprang the trap.

It was an old trick. The cavalrymen had left one horseman behind, reckoning that Sharpe would think himself safe when he saw the riders leave and so come out of hiding.

Which Sharpe dutifully did and the last dragoon, waiting by the dunes, saw the rifleman appear as a dark shape in the field.

The dragoon should have shouted immediately. He should have called his companions back, but he wanted all the credit for capturing the missing Englishman and so he drew his sword and raked his spurs back. Sharpe heard the hooves, turned and saw the big horse being spurred across the muddy field. He cursed himself for falling for such an old ruse, but saw, too, that the horseman was right-handed, understood that the horse would therefore go to his own right and knew that the dragoon would lean from the saddle to chop with the sword, and knew, too, that there was no time to draw his own saber. Or perhaps he knew none of that, but instinctively realized it in the space of a heartbeat and understood how to react.

The cavalryman shouted, more to frighten Sharpe than summon his companions, but the horseman was too confident and too inexperienced. He believed Sharpe would stand like a scarecrow and be beaten down by the flat of his sword and the last thing he expected was for the rifleman to swing the heavy pack hard into the side of his horse’s head. The horse slewed away and the dragoon, already swinging his heavy sword, found his horse going one way while he was leaning the other. Lavisser had cautioned him that the Englishman was dangerous so he had intended to stun Sharpe with the weight of his heavy straight blade, but instead he flailed for balance. Sharpe let go of his pack, seized the dragoon’s sword arm and simply tugged. The man yelped as he was jerked from the saddle, then the breath was thumped out of him as he fell into the mud. He yelped again as Sharpe dropped onto his belly. “Bloody fool,” Sharpe said.

The horse, shaking its head, had stopped. There was a pistol holstered on its saddle.

Sharpe was angry. It did not take much to make him angry, not since Grace died, and he hit the man hard. Too hard. He found a fist-sized stone in the field’s mud and used it to break the dragoon’s jaw. The man moaned as blood trickled into his long fair mustache. “Bloody fool,” Sharpe said again. He stood and kicked the man. He thought about taking the sword, for a heavy cavalry sword was a much better weapon than a light saber, but the blade had fallen some feet away and the scabbard was secured by a complicated buckle and meanwhile the man’s shout must have been heard by the other dragoons, for a voice called urgently out of the fog. Lavisser and his companions were coming back so Sharpe rescued his pack and ran to the horse. He put his left foot in the stirrup, hopped clumsily as the horse sidled nervously away, then managed to haul himself into the saddle. He fiddled his right foot into the second stirrup, turned the horse north and kicked his heels back. The fallen man watched him sadly.

Sharpe swerved back to the beach. He could hear hoofbeats and knew the other dragoons would soon be in full pursuit. Once across the dunes and on the beach he turned south and kicked the horse into a gallop. Sharpe clung on for dear life, the pack bouncing against his right thigh and the saber scabbard clanging like a cracked bell. He rode past the jumble of hoofprints where he and Lavisser had come ashore, then turned inland again. He was riding in a circle, hoping that the changes of direction would confuse his pursuers. He crossed the dunes, let the horse find its own way over the ditch, then curbed it in the field. He listened, but could hear nothing except his horse’s harsh breathing.

He kicked the beast on. He crossed two more ditches, then turned northward again until he came to the rutted track where he turned west, then north again where a path branched away between windbent trees. His instinct told him he had lost his pursuers, but he doubted they would have given up the chase quite yet. They would be looking for him and, as the sun rose, the fog began to thin. The horse would be a liability soon, for Lavisser and his companions would be searching for a horseman in this flat, featureless landscape and so, reluctantly, Sharpe slid out of the saddle. He unbuckled the girth and took the saddle off the beast, then slapped its rump to drive it into a pasture. With any luck the other horsemen would simply see a grazing horse, not an abandoned cavalry mount.