Sharpe's Escape (34 page)

"French, Portuguese and Spanish," she said.

Sharpe thumped the man in the groin for a remembrance, then led his companions past the bodies of two men, both Portuguese, who lay on the cobbles. One had been eviscerated and his blood trickled ten feet down the gutter from his corpse which was being sniffed by a three-legged dog. A window broke above them, showering them with glittering shards. A woman screamed, and the bells in one of the churches began a terrible cacophony. None of the French soldiers took any notice of them other than to ask if they had finished with the two girls, and only Sarah and Vicente understood those questions. The street became more crowded as they went uphill and got closer to where, rumor said, there was food enough for a multitude. Sharpe and Harper used their size to bully past soldiers, then, reaching the houses that stood opposite Ferragus's warehouse, Sharpe went into the first door and climbed the stairs. A woman, blood on her face and clutching a baby, shrank from them on the landing, then Sharpe was up the last flight of stairs and discovered, to his relief, that the attic here was like the first, a long room that overlaid the separate houses beneath. There had been a score of students living up here, now their beds were overturned, all except one on which a French soldier slept. He woke as their footsteps sounded loud on the boards and, seeing the two women, rolled off the bed. Sharpe was opening a window onto the roof and turned as the man held out his hands to Sarah who smiled at him and then, with surprising force, rammed the muzzle of her French musket into his belly. The man let out his breath in a gasp, bent over, and Joana hit him with the stock of her musket, swinging it in a haymaker's blow to crack the butt onto his forehead, and the man, without a sound, collapsed backwards. Sarah grinned, discovering abilities she had not suspected.

"Stay here with the women," Sharpe told Vicente, "and be ready to run like hell." He was going to attack the dragoons from above, and he reckoned the cavalrymen would come after their assailants by using the stairs closest to the warehouse, ignorant that the attic gave access to four separate stairwells in the four houses. Sharpe planned to go back the way he had come, and by the time the dragoons reached the attic he would be long gone. "Come on, Pat."

They clambered out onto the roof, the same roof that they had reconnoitered earlier, and, by following the gutter behind the parapet, they reached the gable end from which, leaning over, Sharpe could again see the horsemen three floors below him. He took the volley gun from Harper. "There's an officer down there, Pat," he said. "He's on the left, mounted on a gray horse. When I give the word, shoot him."

Harper put some pigeon dung into his rifle's barrel and rammed it down to hold the bullet in place, then he edged forward and peered down into the street. There were dragoons at either end of the short roadway, using their horses' weight and the threat of their long swords to hold the hungry infantry at bay. The officer was just behind the left-hand group, easily distinguished because of the fur-lined pelisse that hung from his left shoulder and because his green saddle cloth had no pouch attached. None of the dragoons looked upwards, why should they? Their job was to guard the street, not watch the rooftops, and Harper aimed the rifle downwards and pulled back the cock.

Sharpe stood beside him with the volley gun. "Ready?"

"I'm ready."

"You fire first," Sharpe said. Harper had to be sure of his aim, but there was no need for Sharpe to aim the volley gun, for it had no accuracy. It was just a slaughtering machine, its seven bullets spreading like canister from the clustered barrels.

Harper lined the sights on the officer's brass helmet which had a brown plume trailing from its crest. The gray horse stirred and the Frenchman calmed it, then looked behind him and just then Harper fired. The bullet cracked open the helmet so that a jet of blood sprayed briefly upwards, then more blood flooded from beneath the helmet's rim as the officer toppled slowly sideways, and just then Sharpe fired into the other dragoons, the noise of the volley gun sounding like a cannon shot as it echoed from the warehouse's facade. Smoke filled the air. A horse screamed. "Run!" Sharpe said.

They went back the way they had come, through the window and down the far stairs, with Vicente and the women following. Sharpe could hear uproar at the other end of the house. Men were shouting in alarm, horses' hooves were loud on cobbles, and then he was at the front door and, with the two guns slung on his shoulder, he pushed into the crowd. Sarah held on to his belt. The infantrymen were surging forward, but over their heads Sharpe could see dismounted dragoons shoving into the far house. As far as Sharpe could see only one man had stayed in his saddle, and that man was holding a dozen reins, but the horses were being pushed aside by the rush of infantry who suddenly understood that the warehouse was unguarded.

The dragoons had done exactly what Sharpe had wanted, what he thought they would do. Their officer was dead, others of them were wounded and, lacking leadership, their only thought was to take revenge on the men who had attacked them, and so they swarmed into the house and left the warehouse unguarded except for a handful of dragoons who were powerless to stem the surge of men who charged at the doors. A dragoon sergeant tried to stop them by swinging the flat of his sword at the leading men, but he was hauled from the saddle, his horse was shoved aside, and the great doors were dragged open. A huge cheer sounded. The remaining dragoons let the men run past, intent only on saving themselves and their horses.

"It's going to be chaos in there," Sharpe said to Harper. "I'm going in alone."

"To do what?"

"What I have to do," Sharpe said. "You and Captain Vicente look after the girls." He pushed them into a doorway. "I'll join you here." Sharpe would have preferred to take Harper with him, for the Irishman's size and strength would be huge assets in the crowded warehouse, but the biggest danger would be that the five of them would be separated in the dark, confused interior, and it was better that Sharpe worked alone. "Wait for me," Sharpe said, then gave Harper his pack and his rifle and, armed only with his sword and the unloaded volley gun, he bullied and shoved his way up the street, past the dead officer's frightened horse and so, at last, into the warehouse. The entrance was crammed, and, once inside, he found men hauling down boxes, sacks and barrels, making it hard to get through, but Sharpe used the butt of the volley gun, savagely clearing the way. An artilleryman tried to stop him, throwing a wild punch, and Sharpe drove the man's teeth in with the brass-bound stock, then he scrambled across a sprawling mound of sacks pulled down from one of the great heaps, and found himself in a relatively uncrowded area. From here he could work his way to the edge of the warehouse where he remembered seeing the supplies piled on the two carts parked beside the great timber wall that divided this warehouse from the next. Few men were back here, for the French were interested in food, not candles and buttons and nails and horseshoes.

One man was already at one of the wagons, sorting through the goods on its bed, and Sharpe saw he already had a full sack, presumably stuffed with food, and so he clouted the man on the back of the neck with the volley gun, kicked him when he was down, stamped on his face when he tried to move, then looked inside the sack. Biscuits, salt beef and cheese. He would take that, for all of them were hungry, and so he put the sack aside, then drew his sword and used the blade to break open two barrels of lamp oil. It was whale oil, and it gave off a rank stench as it spilled from the broken staves and dripped down to the wagon bed. There were some bolts of cloth at the far end of the wagon and he climbed up to discover what they were made of and discovered, as he had hoped, that they were linen. He shook two of the bolts out, letting the cloth lie loosely across the wagon's load.

He jumped down, sheathed the sword, then broke open a cartridge to make a paper spill filled with gunpowder. He primed the unloaded volley gun, then glanced around the warehouse where men were dragging at supplies like fiends. A stack of rum barrels collapsed, crushing a man, who screamed as his legs were broken by a full barrel that split apart to flood rum across the floor. A Frenchman beat at another barrel with an axe, then dipped a tin cup into the rum. A dozen others went to join him, and no one took any notice of Sharpe as he cocked the unloaded volley gun.

He pulled the trigger, the priming flared and the spill caught. It fizzed angrily; he let the flame grow until the spill was burning well, then he tossed it down into the oil on the wagon bed. For a second the paper burned on its own, then a sheet of flame spread across the wagon and Sharpe snatched up the sack of food and ran.

For a few steps he was unimpeded. The men around the rum barrels ignored him as he edged past, but then the linen caught the fire and there was a sudden flare of light. A man shouted a warning, smoke began to spread, and the panic began. A dozen dragoons were fighting their way into the warehouse, ordered to the hopeless task of ejecting the men stealing the precious food, and now a wave of terrified soldiers struck the dragoons, two of whom fell, and there was screaming and snarling, the sound of a shot, and then the smoke thickened with appalling rapidity as the wagon caught fire. The cartridges in the pouch of the man whose food Sharpe had stolen began to explode and a burning scrap of paper fell into the rum and sudden blue flames rippled across the floor.

Sharpe ripped men away from his path, stamped on them, kicked them, then drew his sword because he reckoned it was the only thing that would clear the way. He stabbed men with the blade and they twisted aside, protesting, then shrank from the anger on his face, and behind him a small barrel of gunpowder exploded and the fire sprayed across the warehouse as Sharpe fought his way through the crush, except there was no way through. Scores of terrified men were blocking the gaps between the heaps, so Sharpe sheathed his sword, threw his sack of food up to the top of a stack of boxes and clambered up the side. He ran across the top. Cats fled from him. Smoke billowed in the rafters. He jumped to a half-collapsed heap of flour sacks, crossed them towards the doorway, then slid down the far side. He put his head down and ran, trampling fallen men, using his strength to escape the smoke, and burst out of the doors into the street where, gripping the sack of food to keep it safe, he worked his way back down to the house where he had left Harper.

"God save Ireland." Harper was standing in the doorway, watching the chaos. Smoke was tumbling out of the great doors and more was spewing up from the broken skylight. Soldiers, scorched and coughing, were staggering out of the door. Screams sounded inside the warehouse, and then there was another explosion as the rum barrels cracked apart. There was a glow like a giant furnace in the doors now, and the sound of the fire was like the roaring of a huge river going through a ravine. "You did that?" Harper asked.

"I did that," Sharpe said. He felt tired suddenly, tired and ravenously hungry, and he went into the house where Vicente and the girls were waiting in a small room decorated with a picture of a saint holding a shepherd's crook. He looked at Vicente. "Take us somewhere safe, Jorge."

"Where's safe on a day like this?" Vicente asked.

"Somewhere a long way from this street," Sharpe said, and the five of them went out of the back door and, looking back, Sharpe saw that the warehouse next to Ferragus's had caught the fire and its roof was now burning. More dragoons were evidently coming because Sharpe could hear the hooves loud in the narrow streets, but it was too late.

They went down one alley, up another, crossed a street and went through a courtyard where a dozen French soldiers were lying dead drunk. Vicente led them. "We'll go uphill," he said, not because he thought the upper town was any safer than the lower town, but because it had been his home.

No one accosted them. They were just another band of exhausted soldiers stumbling through the city. Behind them was fire, smoke and anger. "What do we say if they challenge us?" Sarah asked Sharpe.

"Tell them we're Dutch."

"Dutch?"

"They have Dutch soldiers," Sharpe said.

The upper town was quieter. It was mostly cavalrymen quartered here and some of them told the interloping infantrymen to go away, but Vicente led them down an alley, through a courtyard, down some steps and into the garden of a big house. At the side of the garden was a cottage. "The house belongs to a professor of theology," Vicente explained, "and his servants live here." The cottage was tiny, but so far no French had found it. Sharpe, on his way uphill, had seen how some houses had a uniform coat hung in the doorway to denote that soldiers had taken up residence and that the place was not to be plundered, and so he took off his blue jacket and hung it from a nail above the cottage door. Maybe it would keep the enemy away, maybe not. They ate, all of them ravenous, tearing at the salt beef and hard biscuit, and Sharpe wished he could lie down and sleep for the rest of the day, but he knew the others must be feeling the same. "Get some sleep," he told them.

"What about you?" Vicente asked.

"Someone has to stand guard," Sharpe said.

The cottage had one small bedroom, little more than a cupboard, and Vicente was given that because he was an officer, while Harper went into the kitchen where he made a bed from curtains, blankets and a greatcoat. Joana followed him and the kitchen door was firmly shut behind her. Sarah collapsed in an old, broken armchair from which tufts of horsehair protruded. "I'll stay awake with you," she told Sharpe, and a moment later she was fast asleep.

Sharpe loaded his rifle. He dared not sit for he knew he would never stay awake and so he stood in the doorway, the loaded rifle beside him, and he listened to the distant screams and he saw the great plume of smoke smearing the cloudless sky and he knew he had done his duty.

Now all he had to do was get back to the army.

F
ERRAGUS AND HIS BROTHER went back to the Major's house, which had been spared the plundering suffered by the rest of the city. A troop of dragoons from the same squadron that had ridden to protect the warehouse had been posted outside the house, and they were now relieved by a dozen men sent by Colonel Barreto who, when his day's work was complete, planned to billet himself in the house. Miguel and five others of Ferragus's men were at the house, safe there from French attention, and it was Miguel who interrupted the brothers' celebrations by reporting that the warehouse was burning.