Sharpe's Escape (17 page)

"Hold him up," Ferragus said, stripping off his coat and shirt.

Two men seized Pires under his arms and hauled him upright and Ferragus stepped in close and punched with a vicious intensity. His fists did not travel far, these were not wild swinging clouts, but short, precise blows that landed with sickening force. He worked on the man's belly, then moved up to his chest, pounding it so that Pires's head flopped with every strike and his bloody mouth sprayed drops of reddened spittle onto Ferragus's chest. He went on punching until the man's head jerked back and then flopped sideways like a puppet whose crown-string had snapped. There was a rattling noise from the battered throat, Ferragus hit him one last time and then stepped back. "Put him in the cellar," Ferragus ordered, "and slit his belly."

"Slit his belly?" one of the men asked, thinking he had misheard.

"Give the rats something to work on," Ferragus said, "because the sooner they're done with him, the sooner he's gone." He crossed to Miguel who gave him a rag with which he wiped the blood and spittle from his chest and arms that were covered in tattoos. There were anchors wrapped in chains on both his forearms, three mermaids on his chest, and snakes encircling his vast upper arms. On his back was a warship under full sail, its skyscrapers aloft, studding sails spread, and at its stern a British flag. He pulled on his shirt, then a coat, and watched the corpse being dragged to the back of the warehouse where a trapdoor opened into a cellar. There was already one belly-slitted corpse rotting in that darkness, the remnants of a man who had tried to betray Ferragus's hoard to the authorities. Now another had tried, failed and died.

Ferragus locked the warehouse. If the French did not come, he thought, then this food could be sold legally and at a profit, and if they did come, then it might mean a greater profit. The next few hours would reveal all. He made the sign of the cross, then went to find a tavern because he had killed a man and was thirsty.

NO ONE CAME from battalion to give Sharpe orders, which suited him just fine. He was standing guard on the rocky knoll where, he reckoned, a hundred French infantry were keeping their heads well down because of his desultory rifle fire. He wished he had enough men to shift the voltigeurs off the hill, for their presence was an invitation to the enemy to try for the summit again. They could throw a couple of battalions up to the knoll and use them to attack along the spur, and such a move might be encouraged by the new French attack that was heating up a mile to the north. Sharpe went a small way along the spur, too far probably because a couple of musket shots whirred past him as he crouched and took out his telescope. He ignored the voltigeurs, knowing they were shooting far beyond a musket's accurate range, and he stared at the vast French columns climbing the better road that twisted up to the village just beneath the ridge's northern crest. A stone windmill, its sails and vanes taken away and machinery dismantled like every other mill in central Portugal, stood near the crest itself and there was a knot of horsemen beside the stumpy tower, but Sharpe could not see any troops except for the two French columns that were halfway up the road and a third, smaller column, some way behind. The huge French formations looked dark against the slope. British and Portuguese guns were blasting shot from the crest, blurring his view with their gray-white smoke.

"Sir! Mister Sharpe, sir!" It was Patrick Harper who called.

Sharpe collapsed the telescope and walked back, seeing as he went what had prompted Harper's call. Two companies of brown-coated cazadores were approaching the spur and Sharpe supposed the Portuguese troops had orders to clear the rocky knoll of the enemy. A pair of nine-pounders were being repositioned to support their attack, but Sharpe did not hold out much chance for it. The cazadores numbered about the same as the voltigeurs, but the French had cover and it would be a nasty fight if they decided to make a stand.

"I didn't want you in the way when those gunners started firing," Harper explained, jerking his head towards the pair of nine-pounders.

"Decent of you, Pat."

"If you died, sir, then Slingsby would take over," Harper said without a trace of insubordination.

"You wouldn't want that?" Sharpe asked.

"I'm from Donegal, sir, and I put up with whatever the good Lord sends to trouble me."

"He sent me, Pat, he sent me."

"Mysterious are the ways of the Lord," Harris put in.

The cazadores were waiting fifty paces behind Sharpe. He ignored them, instead asking again if any of the men had seen Dodd. Mister Iliffe, who had not heard Sharpe ask before, nodded nervously. "He was running, sir."

"Where?"

"When we were almost cut off, sir? Down the hill. Going like a hare." Which matched what Carter, Dodd's partner, had thought. The two men had very nearly been trapped by the voltigeurs and Dodd had elected the fast way out, downhill, while Carter had been lucky to escape uphill with nothing more serious than a musket ball in his pack, which he claimed had only helped him along. Sharpe reckoned Dodd would rejoin later. He was a countryman, could read ground, and doubtless he would avoid the French and climb up the southern part of the ridge. Whatever, there was nothing Sharpe could do about him now.

"So are we going to help the Portuguese boys?" Harper asked.

"Not on your bloody life," Sharpe said, "not unless they bring a whole bloody battalion."

"He's coming to ask you," Harper said in warning, nodding towards a slim Portuguese officer who approached the light company. His brown uniform had black facings and his high-fronted shako had a long black plume. Sharpe noted that the officer wore a heavy cavalry sword and, unusually, carried a rifle. Sharpe could think of only one officer who was so armed, himself, and he felt irritated that there should be another officer with the same weapons, but then the approaching man took off his black-plumed
barretina
and smiled broadly.

"Good God," Sharpe said.

"No, no, it's only me." Jorge Vicente, whom Sharpe had last seen in the wild country north east of Oporto, held out his hand. "Mister Sharpe," he said.

"Jorge!"

"Capitão Vicente now." Vicente clasped Sharpe and then, to the rifleman's embarrassment, gave his friend a kiss on both cheeks. "And you, Richard, a major by now, I expect?"

"Bloody hell, no, Jorge. They don't promote the likes of me. It might spoil the army's reputation. How are you?"

"I am— how do you say?— flourishing. But you?" Vicente frowned at Sharpe's bruised face. "You are wounded?"

"Fell down some steps," Sharpe said.

"You must be careful," Vicente said solemnly, then smiled. "Sergeant Harper! It is good to see you."

"No kissing, sir, I'm Irish."

Vicente greeted the other men he had known in the wild pursuit of Soult's army across the northern frontier, then turned back to Sharpe. "I've orders to knock those things out of the rocks." He gestured towards the French.

"It's a good idea," Sharpe said, "but there aren't enough of you."

"Two Portuguese are equal to one Frenchman," Vicente said airily, "and you might do the honor of helping us?"

"Bloody hell," Sharpe said, then evaded an answer by nodding at the Baker rifle on Vicente's shoulder. "And what are you doing carrying a rifle?"

"Imitating you," Vicente said frankly, "and besides, I am now the captain of a
atirador
company, the how do you say? marksmen. We carry rifles, the other companies have muskets. I transferred from the 18th when we raised the cazador battalions. So, shall we attack?"

"What do you think?" Sharpe countered.

Vicente smiled uncertainly. He had been a soldier for less than two years; before that he had been a lawyer and when Sharpe first met him the young Portuguese had been a stickler for the supposed rules of warfare. That might or might not have changed, but Sharpe suspected Vicente was a natural soldier, brave and decisive, no fool, yet he was still nervous of showing his skills to Sharpe who had taught him most of what he knew about fighting. He glanced at Sharpe, then shadowed his eyes to stare at the French. "They won't stand," he suggested.

"They might," Sharpe said, "and there are at least a hundred of the bastards. How many are we? A hundred and thirty? If it was up to me, Jorge, I'd send in your whole battalion."

"My Colonel ordered me to do it."

"Does he know what he's doing?"

"He's English," Vicente said dryly. The Portuguese army had been reorganized and trained in the last eighteen months and huge numbers of British officers had volunteered into its ranks for the reward of a promotion.

"I'd still send in more men," Sharpe said.

Vicente had no chance to answer because there was the sudden thump of hooves on the springy turf and a stentorian voice shouting at him. "Don't hang about, Vicente! There are Frogs to kill! Get on with it, Captain, get on with it! Who the devil are you?" This last question was directed at Sharpe and came from a horseman who had trouble curbing his gelding as he tried to rein in beside the two officers. The rider's voice betrayed he was English, though he was wearing Portuguese brown to which he had added a black cocked hat that sported a pair of golden tassels. One tassel shadowed his face that looked to be red and glistening.

"Sharpe, sir," Sharpe answered the man's bad-tempered question.

"95th?"

"South Essex, sir."

"That bloody mob of yokels," the officer said. "Lost a color a couple of years back, didn't you?"

"We took one back at Talavera," Sharpe said harshly.

"Did you now?" The horseman did not seem particularly interested. He took out a small telescope and stared at the rocky knoll, ignoring some musket balls which, fired at extreme range, fluttered impotently by.

"Allow me to name Colonel Rogers-Jones," Vicente said, "my Colonel."

"And the man, Vicente," Rogers-Jones said, "who ordered you to turf those buggers out of the rocks. I didn't tell you to stand here and chatter, did I?"

"I was seeking Captain Sharpe's advice, sir," Vicente said.

"Reckon he's got any to offer?" The Colonel sounded amused.

"He took a French Eagle," Vicente pointed out.

"Not by standing around talking, he didn't," Rogers-Jones said. He collapsed his telescope. "I'll tell the gunners to open fire," he went on, "and you advance, Vicente. You'll help him, Sharpe." He added the order carelessly. "Winkle them out, Vicente, then stay there to make sure the bastards don't come back." He turned his horse and spurred away.

"Jesus bloody wept," Sharpe said. "Does he know how many of them there are?"

"I still have my orders," Vicente said bleakly.

Sharpe took the rifle off his shoulder and loaded it. "You want advice?"

"Of course."

"Send our rifles up the middle," Sharpe said, "in skirmish order. They're to keep firing, hard and fast, no patches, just keeping the bastards' heads down. The rest of our lads will come up behind in line. Bayonets fixed. Straightforward battalion attack, Jorge, with three companies, and hope your bastard Colonel is satisfied."

"Our lads?" Vicente picked those two words out of Sharpe's advice.

"Not going to let you die alone, Jorge," Sharpe said. "You'd probably get lost trying to find the pearly gates." He glanced northwards and saw the cannon smoke thickening as the French attack closed on the village beneath the ridge's summit, then the first of the guns close to the knoll fired and a shell banged smoke and casing scraps just beyond the rocky knoll. "So let's do it," Sharpe said.

It was not wise, he thought, but it was war. He cocked the rifle and shouted at his men to close up. Time to fight.

T
HE VILLAGE OF SULA, which was perched on the eastward slope of the ridge very close to where the northernmost road crossed the summit, was a small and unremarkable place. The houses were cramped, the dung heaps large, and for a long time the village had not even possessed a church, which had meant that a priest must be fetched from Moura, at the ridge's foot, or else a friar summoned from the monastery, to give extreme unction to the dying, but the sacraments had usually arrived too late and so the dead of Sula had gone to their long darkness unshriven, which was why the local people liked to claim that the tiny hamlet was haunted by specters.

On Thursday, 27th September 1810, the village was haunted by skirmishers. The whole first battalion of the 95th Rifles were in and around the hamlet, and with them were the 3rd Cazadores, many of whom were also armed with the Baker rifle, which meant that more than a thousand skirmishers in green and brown opened fire on the two advancing French columns, which had deployed almost as many skirmishers themselves, but the French had muskets and were opposed by rifles, and so the voltigeurs were the first to die in the small walled paddocks and terraced vineyards beneath the village. The sound of the fight was like dry brush burning, an unending crackle of muskets and rifles, which was augmented by the bass notes of the artillery on the crest that fired shell and shrapnel over the Portuguese and British skirmishers to tear great holes in the two columns struggling up the slope behind the voltigeurs.

To the French officers in the column, scanning the ridge above, it seemed they were opposed only by skirmishers and artillery. The artillery had been placed on a ledge beyond the village and just below the skyline, and near the guns was a scatter of horsemen who watched from beside the white-painted stump of the windmill's tower. The artillery was hurting the columns, smashing round shot through tight ranks and exploding shells above the files, but two batteries could never stop these great columns. The horsemen by the mill were no danger. There were only four or five riders visible when the cannon smoke thinned, and all wore cocked hats, which meant they were not cavalrymen, so it seemed that the British and Portuguese skirmishers, supported by cannon, were supposed to defeat the attack. Which meant the French must win, for there were no redcoats in sight, no damned lines to envelop a column with volley fire. The drummers beat the
pas de charge
and the men gave their war cry, "
Vive l'Empereur!
" One of the two columns divided into two smaller units to negotiate an outcrop of rock, then rejoined on the road as two shells exploded right over their front ranks. A dozen men were thrown down, the dusty road was suddenly red and sergeants dragged the dead and wounded aside so that the ranks behind would not be obstructed. Ahead of the column the sound of the skirmishing grew in intensity as the voltigeurs closed the range and opened on the riflemen with their muskets. There were so many skirmishers now that the noise of their battle was a continuous crackling. Smoke drifted off the hillside. "
Vive l'Empereur!
" the French shouted and the first riflemen began picking at the columns' front ranks. A bullet smacked an Eagle, ripping off the tip of a wing, and an officer went down in the front rank, gasping with pain as the files tramped round him. The voltigeurs, outranged by the rifles, were being driven back onto the columns and so Marshal Ney, who commanded this attack, ordered that more companies were to deploy as skirmishers to drive the riflemen and cazadores back up the slope.