Sharpe's Escape (29 page)

"Are you really thinking of going down into that?" Vicente asked in a disbelieving voice.

"No choice, really," Sharpe said. "Stay here and die, or go down there." He took off his boots. "You might want to wear my boots, miss," he said to Sarah. "They should be tall enough to keep you out of the you-know-what, but you might want to take that frock off as well."

There were a few seconds' silence. "You want me to…" Sarah began, then her voice faded away.

"No, miss," Sharpe said patiently, "I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do, but if your dress gets in that muck then it'll stink to high heaven by the time we're through, and so far as I know you haven't got anything else to wear. Nor have I, and that's why I'm stripping."

"You can't ask Miss Fry to undress," Vicente said, shocked.

"I'm not asking her," Sharpe said, shuffling out of his French cavalry overalls. "It's up to her. But if you've got any sense, Jorge, you'll get undressed as well. Bundle everything inside your jacket or shirt and tie the sleeves around your neck. Bloody hell, man, no one can see! It's dark as Hades down there. Here, miss, my boots." He pushed them over the floor.

"You want me to go into a sewer, Mister Sharpe?" Sarah asked in a small voice.

"No, miss, I don't," Sharpe said. "I want you to be in green fields and happy, with enough money to last you the rest of your life. But to get you there I have to go through a sewer. If you like, you can wait here and Pat and I will go through and come back for you, but I can't promise that Ferragus won't come back first. So all in all, miss, it's your choice."

"Mister Sharpe?" Sarah sounded indignant, but was evidently not. "You're right. I apologize."

For a moment there was only the rustle of clothes, then all four rolled whatever they had stripped off into bundles. Sharpe was wearing his drawers, nothing else, and he wrapped his other clothes inside his overalls, then strapped the bundle tight with the shoulder straps. He laid the clothes beside the hole with his sword belt, which held his ammunition pouch, scabbard and haversack. "I'll go first," he said. "Miss? You follow me and keep your hand on my back so you know where I am. Jorge? You come next and Pat will be rearguard."

Sharpe sat on the edge of the hole, then Harper gripped his wrists and lowered him through the hole. Pieces of rubble and masonry splashed into the filth, then Sharpe's feet were in the liquid and Harper was grunting with the effort. "Just another two inches, Pat," Sharpe said, and then his wrists slid from Harper's grip and he fell those last inches and almost lost his balance because the bottom of the sewer was so treacherously slick. "Jesus," he said, filled with disgust and almost choking because of the noxious air. "Someone, hand down my sword belt, then my clothes."

He hung the buckled sword belt round his neck. His shako was tied to the cartridge box's buckle and the empty scabbard hung down his spine, then he knotted the overalls' legs over the belt. "Rifle?" he said, and someone pushed it down and he hung the weapon on his shoulder, then took his sword in his right hand. He reckoned the blade would be useful as a probe. For a moment he wondered which way to go, either uphill towards the university or down to the river, then decided the best hope of escape was the river. The sewer had to spew its muck out somewhere and that was the place he wanted. "You next, miss," he said, "and be careful. It's slippery as…" He paused, checking his language. "Don't be frightened," he went on as he heard her gasp as she negotiated the hole. "Sergeant Harper will lower you," Sharpe said, "but I'm going to hold on to you because I almost slipped when I got down here. Is that all right?"

"I don't mind," she said, almost breathless because the stench was so overpowering.

He put out his hands, found her bare waist and half supported her as she put her booted feet into the sewage. She lowered herself, but panic or horror still made her flail for balance and she gripped him hard and Sharpe put his arms round her narrow waist. "It's all right," he said, "you'll live."

Vicente handed down Sarah's bundle of clothes and, because she was shivering and frightened, Sharpe tied it around her neck while she clung to him. "You now, Jorge," Sharpe said.

Harper came last. Rats scrabbled past them, the sound of their claws fading up the unseen tunnel. Sharpe could just stand upright, but he stooped in hope of seeing even a glimmer of light farther down the sewer, but there was nothing. "You're going to hold on to me, miss," he said, deciding that the courtesy of calling her "miss" was really not needed now that they were both virtually naked and standing up to their calves in shit, but he suspected she would object if he called her anything else. "Jorge," he went on, "you hold on to Miss Fry's clothes. And we all go slowly."

Sharpe probed every step with the sword, then inched ahead before prodding the blade again, but after a while he became more confident and their pace increased to a shuffle. Sarah had her hands on Sharpe's waist, gripping him tight, and she felt almost light-headed. Something strange had happened to her in the last few minutes, almost as if by undressing and lowering herself into a sewer she had let go of her previous life, of her precarious but determined grip on respectability, and had let herself drop into a world of adventure and irresponsibility. She was, suddenly and unexpectedly, happy.

Nameless things hanging from the sewer roof brushed against Sharpe's face and he ducked from them, dreading to think what they were, and after a while he used his sword to clear the air in front of him. He tried to count the feet and yards, but gave up because their progress was so painfully slow. After a while the floor of the sewer rose, while the roof stayed at the same level and he had to crouch to keep going. More tendrils brushed against his hair. Other things dripped from the roof, then the bottom of the tunnel abruptly fell away and he was poking the sword into a stinking nothingness. "Hold still," he told his companions, then gingerly pushed the sword forward and found the bottom of the sewer again two feet away and at least a foot lower. There was some kind of sump here, or else the base of the tunnel had collapsed into a cavern. "Let go of me," he told Sarah. He prodded again, measured the distance and then, still bent into a crouch, took one long step and made the far side safely, but his foot slipped as he landed and he fell heavily against the sewer's side. He used the efficacious word. "Sorry, miss," he said, his voice echoing in the tunnel. He had managed to keep his clothes out of the muck, but the slip had scared him and his ribs were hurting again so that it was painful to draw breath. He straightened slowly and discovered he could stand up straight because the roof had risen again. He turned to face Sarah. "In front of you," he told her, "there's a hole in the floor. It's only a good pace wide. Find the edge of it with one of your feet."

"I've found it."

"You're going to take a long step," Sharpe told her, "two feet forward and one foot down, but take my hands first." He propped the sword against the wall, reached out and found her hands. "Are you ready?"

"Yes." She sounded nervous.

"Slide your hands forward," he told her, "hold on to my forearms, and hold hard." She did as he ordered and Sharpe gripped her arms close to her elbows. "I've got you now," he said, "and you're going to take one long step, but be careful. It's slippery as…"

"Shit?" Sarah asked, and laughed at herself for daring to say the word aloud, then she took a deep breath of the fetid air, launched herself forward, but her back foot slipped and she fell, crying aloud in fear, only to find herself being hauled to safety. Sharpe had half expected her to slip and now he pulled her hard into his body and she came easily, no weight on her at all, and she clung to him so that he felt her naked breasts against his skin. She was gasping.

"It's all right, miss," he said, "well done."

"Is she all right?" Vicente asked anxiously.

"She's never been better," Sharpe said. "There are some soldiers I wouldn't bring down here because they'd fall to pieces, but Miss Fry is doing well." She was holding on to him, shaking slightly, her hands cold on his bare skin. "You know what I like about you, miss?"

"What?"

"You haven't complained once. Well, about our swearing, of course, but you'll get over that, but you haven't once complained about what's happened. Not many women I could take down a sewer without getting an earful." He stepped back, trying to disentangle himself from her, but Sarah insisted on holding him. "You must give Jorge some room," he told her, and led her a pace down the sewer where she kept her arm around his waist. "If I didn't think it was a daft idea," Sharpe went on, "I'd guess you're enjoying yourself."

"I am," Sarah said, then giggled. She was still holding him and her face was against his chest so Sharpe, without really thinking about it, bent his head and kissed her forehead. For a second she went very still, then she put her other arm around him and lifted her face to press her cheek against his. Bloody hell, Sharpe thought. In a sewer?

There was a splashing sound and someone bashed into Sharpe and Sarah, then clutched at both of them. "You safe, Jorge?" Sharpe asked.

"I'm safe. I'm sorry, miss," Vicente said, deciding his hand had inadvertently groped something inappropriate.

Harper came last and Sharpe turned around and led on, conscious of Sarah's hands on his waist. He shuddered as he passed another sewer that came from the right-hand side. A dribble of something flopped from its outfall and splashed up his thigh. He sensed that their sewer was running more steeply downhill now. The filth was shallower here, for much of the sewage was stopped up behind the place where the floor had buckled upwards, but what there was ran faster and he tried not to think what might be bumping against his ankles. He was going in tiny steps, fearful of the slippery stones beneath him, though for much of the time his toes were squelching in jelly-like muck. He began using the sword as a support as much as a probe, and now he was sure that the fall was steepening. Where did it come out? The river? The sewer began to tilt downwards and Sharpe stopped, suspecting they could go no farther without falling and sliding into whatever horror lay below. He could hear the turgid stream splashing far beneath, but into what? A pool of muck? Another sewer? And how long was the drop?

"What is it?" Sarah asked, worried that Sharpe had stopped.

"Trouble," he said, then listened again and detected a new sound, a background noise, unstopping and faint, and realized it had to be the river. The sewer fell away, then ran to its outfall in the Mondego, but how far it fell, or how steeply, he could not tell. He felt with his right foot for a loose stone or fragment of brick and, when he found something, edged it up the curve of the sewer's side until it was out of the liquid. He tossed it ahead of him, heard it rattle against the sides of the sewer as it dropped, then came a splash.

"The sewer turns down," he explained, "and it falls into some kind of pool."

"Not some kind of pool," Harper said helpfully, "a pool of piss and shit."

"Thank you, Sergeant," Sharpe said.

"We have to go back," Vicente suggested.

"To the cellar?" Sarah asked, alarmed.

"God, no," Sharpe said. He wondered about lowering himself down, dangling on the rifle slings, but then remembered the terror of thinking himself trapped in the Copenhagen chimney. Anything was better than going through that again. "Pat? Turn around, go back slowly and tap the walls. We'll follow you."

They turned in the dark. Sarah insisted on going behind Sharpe, keeping her hands on his waist. Harper used the hilt of his sword bayonet, the dull clang echoing forlorn in the fetid blackness. Sharpe was hoping against hope that they would find some place where the sewer ran by a cellar, somewhere that was not blanketed by feet of earth and gravel, and if they could not find it then they would have to go back past the warehouse cellar and find some place that the sewer opened to the surface. It would be a long night, he thought, if it was still night time, and then, not ten paces up the sewer, the sound changed. Harper tapped again, and was again rewarded with a hollow noise. "Is that what you're looking for?" he asked.

"We'll break the bloody wall down," Sharpe said. "Jorge? You'll have to hold Sergeant Harper's clothes. Miss Fry? You hold mine. And keep the ammunition out of the sludge."

They tapped the wall some more, finding that the hollow spot was about ten feet long on the upper curve of the sewer. "If there's anybody up there," Harper said, "we're going to give them one hell of a surprise."

"What if it falls in on us?" Sarah asked.

"Then we get crushed," Sharpe said, "so if you believe in a God, miss, pray now."

"You don't?"

"I believe in the Baker rifle," Sharpe said, "and in the 1796 Pattern heavy cavalry sword, so long as you grind down the back blade so that the point don't slide off a Frog's ribs. If you don't grind down the back blade, miss, then you might as well just beat the bastards to death with it."

"I'll remember that," Sarah said.

"Are you ready, Pat?"

"Ready," Harper said, hefting his rifle.

"Then let's give this bastard a walloping."

They did.

THE LAST BRITISH and Portuguese troops left Coimbra at dawn on Monday morning. As far as they knew every scrap of food in the city had been destroyed or burned or tossed into the river, and all the bakers' ovens had been demolished. The place was supposed to be empty, but more than half of the city's forty thousand inhabitants had refused to leave, because they reckoned flight was futile and that if the French did not overtake them here then they would catch them in Lisbon. Some, like Ferragus, stayed to protect their possessions, others were too old or too sick or too despairing to attempt escape. Let the French come, those who stayed thought, for they would endure and the world would go on.

The South Essex were the last battalion across the bridge. Lawford rode at the back and glanced behind for a sign of Sharpe or Harper, but the rising sun showed the river's quay was empty. "It isn't like Sharpe," he complained.