Sharpe's Escape (6 page)

No more French horses or men were struck. They were well spread out and the shells obstinately fell in the gaps between the small groups of men who looked as carefree as folk out for a walk in a park. They stared up at the ridge, trying to determine where the defenses lay thickest, though it was surely obvious that the places where the two roads reached the summit would be the places to defend. Another score of cavalrymen, some in green coats and some in sky blue, splashed through the stream and spurred up the lower hill. The sun glinted on brass helmets, polished scabbards, stirrups and curb chains. It was, Sharpe thought, as though the French were playing cat and mouse with the sporadic shell fire. He saw a shell burst close by a group of infantrymen, but when the smoke cleared they were all standing and it seemed to him, though they were very far away, that they were laughing. They were confident, he thought, sure they were the best troops in the world, and their survival of the gunfire was a taunt to the defenders on the ridge's top.

The taunting was evidently too much, for a battalion of brown-jacketed Portuguese light troops appeared on the crest and, scattered in a double skirmish chain, advanced down the ridge's slope towards the spur. They went steadily downhill in two loose lines, one fifty paces behind the other, both spread out, giving a demonstration of how skirmishers went to war. Most troops fought shoulder to shoulder, but skirmishers like Sharpe went ahead of the line and, in the killing ground between the armies, tried to pick off the enemy skirmishers and then kill the officers behind so that when the two armies clashed, dense line against massive column, the enemy was already leaderless. Skirmishers rarely closed ranks. They fought close to the enemy where a bunch of men would make an easy target for enemy gunners, and so the light troops fought in loose formation, in pairs, one man shooting and then reloading as his comrade protected him.

The French watched the Portuguese come. They showed no alarm, nor did they advance any skirmishers of their own. The shells went on arcing down the slope, their detonations echoing dully from the eastern hills. The vast mass of the French were making their bivouacs, ignoring the small drama on the ridge, but a dozen cavalrymen, seeing easy meat in the scattered Portuguese skirmishers, kicked their horses up the hill.

By rights the cavalrymen should have decimated the skirmishers. Men in a loose formation were no match for swift cavalry and the French, half of them dragoons and the other half hussars, had drawn their long swords or curved sabers and were anticipating some practice cuts on helpless men. The Portuguese were armed with muskets and rifles, but once the guns were fired there would be no time to reload before the surviving horsemen reached them, and an empty gun was no defense against a dragoon's long blade. The cavalry were curving around to assault the flank of the line, a dozen horsemen approaching four Portuguese on foot, but the ridge was too steep for the horses, which began to labor. The advantage of the cavalry was speed, but the ridge stole their speed so that the horses were struggling and a rifle cracked, the smoke jetting above the grass, and a horse stumbled, twisted away and collapsed. Another two rifles fired and the French, realizing that the ridge was their enemy, turned away and galloped recklessly downhill. The unhorsed hussar followed on foot, abandoning his dying horse with its precious equipment to the Portuguese who cheered their small victory.

"I'm not sure the
cazadores
had orders to do that," a voice said behind Sharpe, who turned to see that Major Hogan had come to the ridge. "Hello, Richard," Hogan said cheerfully, "you look unhappy." He held out his hand for Sharpe's telescope.

"Cazadores?" Sharpe asked.

"Hunters. It's what the Portuguese call their skirmishers." Hogan was staring at the brown-coated skirmishers as he spoke. "It's rather a good name, don't you think? Hunters? Better than greenjackets."

"I'll stay a greenjacket," Sharpe said.

Hogan watched the cazadores for a few moments. Their riflemen had begun firing at the French on the spur, and that enemy prudently backed away. The Portuguese stayed where they were, not going down to the spur where the horsemen could attack them, content to have made their demonstration. Two guns fired, the shells falling into the empty space between the cazadores and the remaining French. "The Peer will be very unhappy," Hogan said. "He detests gunners firing at hopeless targets. It just reveals where his batteries are placed and it does no damn harm to the enemy." He turned the telescope to the valley and spent a long time looking at the enemy encampments beyond the stream. "We reckon Monsieur Masséna has sixty thousand men," he said, "and maybe a hundred guns."

"And us, sir?" Sharpe asked.

"Fifty thousand and sixty," Hogan said, giving Sharpe back the telescope, "and half of ours are Portuguese."

There was something in his tone that caught Sharpe's attention. "Is that bad?" he asked.

"We'll see, won't we?" Hogan said, then stamped his foot on the turf. "But we do have this." He meant the ridge.

"Those lads seem eager enough." Sharpe nodded at the cazadores who were now retreating up the hill.

"Eagerness in new troops is quickly wiped away by gunfire," Hogan said.

"I doubt we'll find out," Sharpe said. "The Crapauds won't attack up here. They're not mad."

"I certainly wouldn't want to attack up this slope," Hogan agreed. "My suspicion is that they'll spend the day staring at us, then go away."

"Back to Spain?"

"Good Lord, no. If they did but know it there's a fine road that loops round the top of this ridge," he pointed north, "and they don't need to fight us here at all. They'll find that road eventually. Pity, really. This would be a grand place to give them a bloody nose. But they may come. They reckon the Portuguese aren't up to scratch, so perhaps they'll think it's worth an attempt."

"Are the Portuguese up to scratch?" Sharpe asked. The gunfire had ended, leaving scorched grass and small patches of smoke on the spur. The French, denied their game of dare, were drifting back towards their lines.

"We'll find out about the Portuguese if the French decide to have at us," Hogan said grimly, then smiled. "Can you come for supper tonight?"

"Tonight?" Sharpe was surprised by the question.

"I spoke with Colonel Lawford," Hogan said, "and he's happy to spare you, so long as the French aren't being a nuisance. Six o'clock, Richard, at the monastery. You know where that is?"

"No, sir."

"Go north," Hogan pointed up the ridge, "until you see a great stone wall. Find a gap in it, go downhill through the trees until you discover a path and follow that till you see rooftops. There'll be three of us sitting down."

"Three?" Sharpe asked suspiciously.

"You," Hogan said, "me and Major Ferreira."

"Ferreira!" Sharpe exclaimed. "Why's that slimy piece of traitorous shit having supper with us?"

Hogan sighed. "Has it occurred to you, Richard, that the two tons of flour might have been a bribe? Something to exchange for information?"

"Was it?"

"Ferreira says so. Do I believe him? I'm not sure. But whatever, Richard, I think he regrets what happened and wants to make his peace with us. It was his idea to have supper, and I must say I think it decent of him." Hogan saw Sharpe's reluctance. "Truly, Richard. We don't want resentments to fester between allies, do we?"

"We don't, sir?"

"Six o'clock, Richard," Hogan said firmly, "and try to convey the impression that you're enjoying yourself." The Irishman smiled, then walked back to the ridge's crest where officers were pacing off the ground to determine where each battalion would be positioned. Sharpe wished he had found a good excuse to miss the supper. It was not Hogan's company he wanted to avoid, but the Portuguese Major, and he felt increasingly bitter as he sat in the unseasonable warmth, watching the wind stir the heather beneath which an army, sixty thousand strong, had come to contest the ridge of Bussaco.

SHARPE SPENT the afternoon bringing the company books up to date, helped by Clayton, the company clerk, who had the annoying habit of saying the words aloud as he wrote them. "Isaiah Tongue, deceased," he said to himself, then blew on the ink. "Does he have a widow, sir?"

"Don't think so."

"He's owed four shillings and sixpence halfpenny is why I ask."

"Put it in the company fund."

"If we ever gets any wages," Clayton said gloomily. The company fund was where stray money went, not that there ever was much stray money, but wages owed to the dead were put there and, once in a while, it was spent on brandy, or to pay the company wives for the laundry. Some of those wives had come to the ridge's crest where, joined by scores of civilians, they were gazing down at the French. The civilians had all been ordered to go south, to find the safety of the countryside around Lisbon that was protected by the Lines of Torres Vedras, but plainly many had disobeyed for there were scores of Portuguese folk gawping at the invaders. Some of the spectators had brought bread, cheese and wine and now sat in groups eating and talking and pointing at the French, and a dozen monks, all with bare feet, were among them.

"Why don't they wear shoes?" Clayton asked.

"God knows."

Clayton frowned disapprovingly at a monk who had joined one of the small groups eating on the ridge. "
Déjeuner à la fourchette
," he said, sniffing with disapproval.

"Day-jay what?" Sharpe asked.

"Dinner with a fork," Clayton explained. He had been a footman in a great house before he joined the South Essex, and had a great knowledge of the gentry's strange ways. "It's what people of quality do, sir, when they don't want to spend a lot of money. Give 'em food and a fork and let 'em wander round the grounds sniffing the bloody flowers. All titter and giggle in the garden." He frowned at the monks. "Shoeless bloody papist monks," he said. The gowned men were not monks at all, but friars of the Discalced Carmelite order, two of whom were gravely inspecting a nine-pounder cannon. "And you should see inside their bloody monastery, sir," Clayton went on. "The altar in one of the chapels is smothered with wooden tits."

Sharpe gaped at Clayton. "It's smothered with what?"

"Wooden tits, sir, all painted to look real. Got nipples and everything! I took the ration returns down there, sir, and one of the guards showed me. I couldn't believe my eyes! Mind you, them monks ain't allowed the real things, are they, so perhaps they make do as best they can. Punishment book now, sir?"

"See if you can scuff up some tea instead," Sharpe suggested.

He drank the tea on the crest. The French were plainly not planning to attack this day for their troops were scattered about the bivouacs near the villages. Their numbers had grown so that the low ground was now dark with men, while nearer the ridge shirt sleeved gunners were piling shot beside the newly placed batteries. The position of those batteries suggested where the French would attack, if indeed they did, and Sharpe saw that the South Essex would be just to the left of any assault aimed up the rough southern track that had been barricaded near its top with felled trees, presumably to deter the French from dragging their artillery up towards the crest. More French guns were crowded close to the road at the northern end of the ridge, which suggested there would be two assaults, and Sharpe supposed they would be like every other French attack he had ever endured: great columns of men advancing to the beat of massed drums, hoping to batter their way through the Anglo-Portuguese line like giant rams. The vast columns were supposed to overawe inexperienced troops and Sharpe looked to his left where the officers of a Portuguese battalion were watching the enemy. Would they stand? The Portuguese army had been reorganized in the last few months, but they were enduring the third invasion of their country in three years, and so far no one could pretend that the Portuguese army had covered itself in glory.

There was a parade and inspection of kit in the late afternoon, and when it was done Sharpe walked north along the ridge until he saw the high stone wall enclosing a great wood. The Portuguese and British soldiers, wanting passage through the wall, had knocked gaps in it and Sharpe negotiated one such breach and went into the trees, eventually finding a path which led downhill. There were odd-looking brick sheds beside the path, equally spaced, each about the size of a gardener's potting shed, and Sharpe stopped at the first to peer through the door which was made of iron bars. Inside were clay statues, life-size, showing a group of women clustered about a half-naked man and then Sharpe saw the crown of thorns and realized the central figure must be Jesus and that the brick sheds had to be part of the monastery. All of the small buildings had the eerie statues, and at several of the shrines shawled women were kneeling in prayer. A very pretty girl was beside another, listening shyly to an impassioned Portuguese officer who paused, embarrassed, as Sharpe walked by. The officer began his harangue again as soon as Sharpe had gone down a flight of stone steps that led to the monastery. An ancient and gnarled olive tree grew by the entrance and a dozen saddled horses were tethered to its branches, while two redcoats stood guard by the doorway. They ignored Sharpe as he ducked through the low archway into a dark passageway lined with doors that were covered with thick layers of cork. One of the doors was open and Sharpe looked inside to see a shirt sleeved surgeon in a monk's small cell. The surgeon was sharpening a scalpel. "I'm open for trade," he said cheerfully.

"Not today, sir. Do you know where I'll find Major Hogan?"

"End of the passage, door on the right."

The supper was awkward. They ate in one of the small cells that was lined with cork to keep out the cold of the coming winter, and their meal was a stew of goat and beans, with coarse bread, cheese and a plentiful supply of wine. Hogan did his best to keep the conversation moving, but Sharpe had little to say to Major Ferreira who never referred to the events on the hilltop where Sharpe had burned the telegraph tower. Instead he talked of his time in Brazil where he had commanded a fort in one of the Portuguese settlements. "The women are beautiful!" Ferreira exclaimed. "The most beautiful women in all the world!"