Sharpe's Escape (46 page)

Musket fire crackled in the valley. It seemed to come from the big abandoned farm that was hidden by the mist, which lay thicker above the swampy ground, yet it was plain something was happening there, for three or four hundred of the French skirmishers, instead of advancing across the valley, were crossing the bridge and moving towards the farm. The floods were receding with the ebbing tide, showing the big curve of the stream that cradled the farm.

"They're there," Major Leroy announced. He had his own telescope propped on the parapet and was staring into the shredding mist. He could only see the farm's rooftops and there was no sign of the missing light company, but Leroy could see dozens of voltigeurs firing at the buildings. He pointed down into the valley. "They must be at the farm, sir."

"Who's at the farm?" Picton demanded. "What farm? Who the devil are you talking about?"

That was the question Lawford had dreaded, but he had no choice but to confess what he had done. "I put our light company out as a picquet, sir," he said.

"You did what?" Picton asked, his tone dangerous.

"They were in the barn," Lawford said, pointing at the ruined building. He could hardly explain that he had put them there as an opportunity for his brother-in-law to get a grip on the light company, and that he had supposed that even Slingsby would have the wit to retreat the moment he was faced with overwhelming force.

"Just the barn?" Picton asked.

"They were ordered to patrol," Lawford replied.

"God damn it, man," Picton exploded. "God damn it! One picquet's about as much use as a tit on a broomstick! Chain of picquets, man, chain of picquets! One bloody picquet? The bloody French quickstepped round them, didn't they? You might as well have ordered the poor devils to line up and shoot themselves in the head. It would have been a quicker end. So where the hell are they now?"

"There's a farm," Leroy said, pointing, and just then the mist cleared enough to show the western face of the farm from which musket smoke spurted.

"Sweet Jesus bloody Christ," Picton grumbled. "You don't want to lose them, do you, Lawford? Looks bad in His Majesty's bloody army when you lose a whole light company. It reeks of carelessness. I suppose we'd best rescue them." The last words, spoken in an exaggerated Welsh accent, were scornful.

"My battalion's standing to," Lawford said with as much dignity as he could muster.

"What's left of it," Picton said. "And we have the Portuguese, don't we?" He turned to an aide.

"Both battalions are ready, sir," the aide said.

"Then bloody go," Picton ordered. "Draw them off, Lawford." Lawford and the other South Essex officers ran down the steps. Picton shook his head. "It's too late, of course," he said to an aide, "much too late." He watched the powder smoke thicken the lingering mist around the distant farmstead. "Poor buggers will be in the net long before Lawford has a chance, but we can't do nothing, can we? We can't just do nothing." He turned furiously on the gunners. "Why are you standing around like barrack-gate whores? Put some fire on those bastards." He pointed to the skirmishers threatening the farm. "Kill the vermin."

The guns were realigned, then bucked back and their smoke vented out into the valley as the shells screamed away, leaving their traces of fuse smoke behind. Picton scowled. "Bloody picquet in a barn," he said to no one in particular. "No Welsh regiment would have been so cretinous! That's what we need. More Welsh regiments. I could clear bloody Europe if I had enough Welsh regiments, instead of which I have to rescue the bloody English. God only knows why the Almighty made bloody foreigners."

"Tea, sir," an aide said, bringing the General a generous tin mug and that, at least, silenced him for the moment. The guns fired on.

S
HARPE STRUGGLED THROUGH the marsh to the edge of the higher ground where the farm stood. He expected to be shot at, but it seemed the Ferreira brothers and their three companions were not waiting for him at the eastern edge of the farmyard and, as he reached a corner of a cattle byre, he saw why. French voltigeurs, a swarm of them, were on the other side of the farmhouse which was evidently under siege. Frenchmen were coming towards him, though for the moment they seemed not to have noticed Sharpe and were plainly intent on infiltrating the buildings to surround the beleaguered farmhouse.

"Who's fighting who?" Harper asked as he joined Sharpe.

"God knows." Sharpe listened and thought he detected the crisper sound of rifles from the farmhouse. "Are those rifles, Pat?"

"They are, sir."

"Then those have to be our fellows in there," he said, and he slipped around the end of the byre and immediately muskets blasted from the farmhouse and the balls struck the byre's stone walls and thumped into the timber partitions that divided the row of open cattle stalls. He crouched behind the nearest timber wall that was about four feet high. The byre was open on the side facing the yard and the muskets kept firing from the house to snap over his head or crack into the stonework. "Maybe it's the Portuguese," he shouted back to Harper. If Ferreira had discovered a Portuguese picquet in the farmhouse then doubtless he could persuade them to fire at Sharpe. "Stay where you are, Pat!"

"Can't, sir. Bloody Crapauds are getting too close."

"Wait," Sharpe said, and he stood up behind the partition and aimed the rifle at the house and immediately the windows facing him vanished in smoke as muskets fired. "Now!" Sharpe called, and Harper, Vicente, Sarah and Joana came around the corner and joined him in the stall, which was crusted with ancient cattle dung. "Who are you?" Sharpe bellowed at the farmhouse, but his voice was lost in the din of constant musketry that echoed around the yard as the balls thumped home, and if there was any reply from the house he did not hear it. Instead two Frenchmen appeared between the cottages on the far side of the yard and Harper shot one and the other ducked away fast just before Vicente's bullet clipped a scrap of stone from the wall. The man Harper had shot crawled away and Sharpe aimed his rifle at the gap between the buildings, expecting another voltigeur to appear at any moment. "I'm going to have to reach the house," Sharpe said, and he peered over the partition again and saw what he thought was a red coat in the farmhouse window. There were no more voltigeurs on the far side of the yard and he thought briefly about staying where he was and hoping the French did not discover them, but inevitably they would find them in the end. "Watch for any bloody Frogs," he said to Harper, indicating across the yard, "and I'm going to run like hell. I think there are redcoats in there, so I just need to reach the buggers." He tensed, nerving himself to cross the bulletstitched farmyard, and just then he heard a bugle blowing. It blew a second and a third time, and voices shouted in French, some of them horribly close, and the firing slowly died away until there was silence except for the boom of the artillery on the heights and the crack of exploding shells in the valley beyond the farm.

Sharpe waited. Nothing moved, no musket fired. He dodged around the partition into the next stall and no one fired at him. He could see no one. He stood up gingerly and gazed at the farmhouse, but whoever had been at the windows was now inside the house and he could see nothing. The others followed him into the new compartment, then they leapfrogged up the spaces where cattle had been kept and still no one shot. "Sir!" Harper said warningly, and Sharpe turned to see a Frenchman watching them from beside a shed across the yard. The man was not aiming his musket, instead he waved at them and Sharpe realized the bugle call must have presaged a truce. An officer appeared beside the French soldier and he gestured that Sharpe and his companions should go back into the byre. Sharpe gave him two fingers, then ran for the next building which proved to be a dairy. He banged open the door and saw two French soldiers inside, who turned, half raising their muskets, then saw the rifle aimed at them.

"Don't even bloody think about it," Sharpe said. He crossed the flagged floor and opened the end door nearest the house. Vicente, Harper and the two women followed him into the dairy, and Sarah talked with the two Frenchmen, who were now thoroughly terrified.

"They've been told not to fire until the bugle sounds again," she told Sharpe.

"Tell them they'd bloody well better not fire, then," Sharpe said. He peered through the door to see how many voltigeurs were between the dairy and the house and saw none, but when he looked around the corner there were a score of them, just yards away. They were crouching well off to the side, then one turned and saw Sharpe's face at the dairy door and must have assumed he was French for he simply yawned. The voltigeurs were just waiting. A couple of the men were even lying down and one had his shako over his eyes as if he was trying to catch a moment's sleep. Sharpe could not see an officer, though he was sure one must be close.

Sharpe moved back out of the Frenchmen's sight and he wondered who the hell was in the farmhouse. If they were British then he was safe, but if they were Portuguese then Ferreira would have him killed. If he stayed where he was he would either be killed or captured by the French when the truce ended. "We're going to the house," he told his companions, "and there are a bunch of Frogs around the corner. Just ignore them. Hold your weapons low, don't look at them and walk as though you own the bloody place." He took a last look, saw no one in the farm window, saw the voltigeurs chatting or resting, and decided to risk it. Just cross the yard. It was only a dozen paces. "Let's do it," he said.

Sharpe, afterwards, reckoned the French simply did not know what to do. The senior officers, those who might have made an instant decision what to do about enemy soldiers patently breaking a truce, were at the front of the farm, and those who saw the three men and two women emerge from the dairy and cross the angle of the yard to the back door of the house were too surprised to react at once, and by the time any Frenchman had made up his mind, Sharpe was already at the farmhouse. One man did open his mouth to protest, but Sharpe smiled at him. "Nice day, eh?" he said. "Should dry out our wet clothes." Sharpe ushered the others through the door and then, going in last, he saw the redcoats. "Who the hell's been trying to kill us?" he demanded loudly and, for answer, an astonished Rifleman Perkins pointed wordlessly at Major Ferreira, and Sharpe, without breaking stride, crossed the room and smacked Ferreira across the side of the head with his rifle butt. The Major dropped like a poleaxed ox. Ferragus started forward, but Harper put his rifle muzzle to the big man's head.

"Do it," the Irishman said softly, "please."

Redcoats and greenjackets were staring at Sharpe. Lieutenant Bullen, in the front doorway, had stopped and turned, and now gazed at Sharpe as if he saw a ghost. "You bloody lot!" Sharpe said. "Of all people, you bloody lot. You were trying to kill me out there! Lousy bloody shots, all of you! Not one bullet came near me! Mister Bullen, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where are you going, Mister Bullen?" Sharpe did not wait for an answer, but turned away. "Sergeant Huckfield! You'll disarm those civilians. And if that big bastard gives you any trouble, shoot him."

"Shoot him, sir?" Huckfield asked, astonished.

"Are you bloody deaf? Shoot him! If he so much as bloody twitches, shoot him." Sharpe turned back to Bullen. "Well, Lieutenant?"

Bullen looked embarrassed. "We were going to surrender, sir. Major Ferreira said we should." He gestured at Ferreira who lay motionless. "I know he isn't in charge here, sir, but that's what he said and…" His voice trailed away. He had been about to add that Slingsby had recommended surrender, but that would have been a disavowal of responsibility and so dishonorable. "I'm sorry, sir," he said miserably. "It was my decision. The Frenchman said they're fetching a cannon."

"The miserable bastard lied to you," Sharpe said. "They haven't got cannon. On ground as wet as this? It would take twenty horses to get a cannon over here. No, he just wanted to scare you, because he knows as well as anyone that we could all die of old age in here. Harvey, Kirby, Batten, Peters. Shut this door," he pointed to the front door, "and pile all the packs behind it. Block it up!"

"Back doorway too, sir?" Rifleman Slattery asked.

"No, Slats, leave it open, we're going to need it." Sharpe took a quick glance through one of the front windows and saw that it was so high from the ground that no Frenchman could hope to escalade the sill. "Mister Bullen? You'll command this side," he meant the two windows and the door at the front of the house, "but you only need four men. They can't get through those windows. Are there any redcoats upstairs?"

"Yes, sir."

"Get 'em down here. Rifles only up there. Carter, Pendleton, Slattery, Sims. Get up that ladder and try to look as if you're enjoying yourselves. Mister Vicente? Can you climb upstairs with your shoulder?"

"I can," Vicente said.

"Take your rifle up, look after the boys up there." Sharpe turned back to Bullen. "Keep your four men firing at the bastards. Don't aim, just fire. I want every other redcoat on this side of the room. Miss Fry?"

"Mister Sharpe?"

"Is that musket loaded? Good. Point it at Ferragus. If he moves, shoot him. If he breathes, shoot him. Perkins, stay with the ladies. Those men are prisoners, and you treat them as such. Sarah? Tell them to sit down and put their hands on their heads and if any one of them moves his hands, kill him." Sharpe crossed to the four men and kicked their bags to the side of the room and heard the chink of coins. "Sounds like your dowry, Miss Fry."

"The five minutes are up, sir," Bullen reported, "at least I think so." He had no watch and could only guess.

"Is that what they gave you? So watch the front, Mister Bullen, watch the front. That side of the house is your responsibility."

"I will command there." Slingsby, who had watched Sharpe in silence, suddenly pushed himself away from the hearth. "I am in command here," he amended his statement.

"Do you have a pistol?" Sharpe demanded of Slingsby, who looked surprised at the question, but then nodded. "Give it here," Sharpe said. He took the pistol, lifted the frizzen and blew out the priming powder so the weapon would not fire. The last thing he needed was a drunk with a loaded weapon. He put the gun back into Slingsby's hand, then sat him back down in the hearth. "What you're going to do, Mister Slingsby," he said, "is watch up the chimney. Make sure the French don't climb down."