Sharpe's Regiment (42 page)

‘That’s what you killed him for, isn’t it?’

Weller unstrapped the pack, lugged it off the corpse’s back, and did not mind that it was slick with blood. He shook the contents out, abandoning the spare clothes, but splitting a length of sausage with Boney, then he buckled his trophy to his belt. When this was over he would transfer his own belongings to his new pack. He looked at it proudly.

‘On! On! On!’ Captain d‘Alembord was shouting at them. ’Move!‘ Angel, screaming with rage, was trying to count the Frenchmen he had killed while he killed yet more. Beside him, silent as ever, Daniel Hagman, his wounded shoulder healed, fired his rifle with murderous precision.

‘Come on, Charlie.’ Clayton pushed him on. The Light Company was coming to the pinnacle’s defences and Weller, with his bayonet blooded, and his hands sticky with enemy blood, was beginning to think that he might yet make a soldier.

 

Lieutenant Colonel Bartholomew Girdwood was singing. He was sitting in an abandoned trench, the dead lying like broken things about him, and he sang.

He sang it again. The tears running down his face gathered at the corners of his untarred moustache. He heard one of the mountain guns fire, and he shuddered. The shudder drew new tears. He looked at one of the dead man, a Welsh corporal who lay with a bullet hole in his throat, and Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood explained to the man that, in truth, this was not a battle. Not a battle at all. Battles, he said, were fought on plains. Always on plains. Not on hills. The corporal did not reply and Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood screamed at the man that he would be on a charge if he did not respond. ‘Speak, you bastard! Speak!’ Another gun made him whimper. He looked up at the sky. ‘Twenty-four inches is the proper interval between men for attack. Form up.’ He laughed. He thought he might get out of the trench and bring some order to this place. He looked at the corporal. ‘Her skin is white, you know. Did you know that? He cut it with the cane. White, white.’ He looked at his feet. ‘Two feet.’ He sang his verse of poetry again.

Then, from around the corner of the trench, one of the many dogs that plagued his Battalion trotted towards the Lieutenant Colonel. It looked at Girdwood, smelled the blood of the dead men, then began worrying at the throat of the Welsh corporal.

‘No! No!’ Girdwood screamed at the dog. He pulled out his pistol, aimed it, but the flint fell on an empty pan. His hands were shaking too much for him to reload the gun. The dog looked at him, its jowls redly wet, wagged its tail, and Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood, who had wanted nothing more than to fight in a real battle, screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed.

‘Christ!’ d‘Alembord, who thought it a miracle that he still lived, flinched from a ricochet that slapped the rock next to him. He heard the shouts from the right, knew that the Grenadier Company must be attacking the wall, and though part of him felt an unworthy temptation to let them finish this job, he knew, too, that he could not live with himself if he did. ’Are you loaded?‘

‘Yes, sir!’ the voices chorused at him.

‘One more time, lads! Once more unto the breach and we must be bloody mad. Go!’

He was laughing in hysteria as he led them. He saw the French stand behind the wall, he screamed the order to fire, and his own men’s volley hammered past his ears as he jumped to the wall’s top, swung his sword at empty air, then his men were scrambling over the stones and he led them forward towards the embrasures of the mountain guns that were thick with smoke. A French officer was hurling stones from the top of the makeshift rampart, great hunks of rock that bounced and crashed down towards the British attack.

Charlie Weller had not fired when d‘Alembord had given the order. He had fumbled with his musket, then been startled by the crash of the guns about his ears. His musket was still loaded. Back in Lincolnshire, on the farm where his father was a labourer, he was sometimes allowed out with the farmer to shoot rabbits. The farmer liked to boast about young Weller. ’Can knock their bloody eyes out!‘

He aimed at the French officer who threw the great stones. Weller suddenly did not have to think about it, the gun seemed a part of him, he fired, felt the burning powder sting his cheek, and the officer went backwards. He had killed at last. He screamed with delight and achievement and charged with the other men of his Company. He was a soldier. Angel slapped his back. ‘Well done!’

Captain Smith, whose Company had come onto the right flank of d‘Alembord’s, was shaking with terror. A dead French officer lay at his feet, killed by Smith’s sword. He had just done what Charlie Weller had done; become a soldier. ‘After me!’ The shout sounded feeble to him, but the men followed him. He watched them clear the last trenches, heard their shouts, and did not notice that the French fire was slackening.

Charlie Weller, his dog shaking at his side, could find no more enemy on this side of the pinnacle. He was watching the other attack, seeing Sharpe and Harper together, amazed suddenly that for eight days he had shared a tent with the two men who, instinctively seeking each other in battle, now carved a path through the last defences. The Irish group were with them, shouting their own challenges, but the French were running. Everywhere there seemed to be shouting, a sound of victory, but there were still some men crouching in rock holes, muskets loaded, and, like clearing vermin from a field, Harper attacked them. His men’s blades were reddened to the hilts. He had his own rifle and bayonet in his hands, but now, as he saw the French running down the reverse slope of the hill he shouted for his men to cease fighting. ‘Take prisoners! Prisoners!’

Sharpe heard the shout. He had killed again, sweeping the sword about one of the gunpits, but now he saw what Harper had seen, the enemy retreating in panicked confusion. He looked upwards. The pinnacle, that could be climbed by rough, natural steps weathered in the rock, was flying, instead of its tricolour, a white shirt. A man, waving a dirty handkerchief, peered cautiously over the edge. Sharpe beckoned him down. It was over; the last barrier of the border mountains was broken apart.

He climbed onto the hot barrel of a mountain gun, bracing one foot on its sturdy wheel, and he stared northwards. He saw a wide, rolling countryside, oddly green after these winter mountains, dotted with small villages, and thick with trees that still had their last leaves of autumn. Like spilt and molten silver, reflecting the sunlight, he saw the rivers and lakes of a fertile land. France. Tonight, when the dead were buried, they would march down into that heartland of the enemy. Behind him, heavy in the breeze, were the silken flags that he had fought to bring to this place. They were in France, and they had a victory.

 

‘He’s babbling of green fields,’ d‘Alembord said. ’Or rather of white skins, which is not nearly so poetic. He’s gone mad.‘

‘He can’t have!’

‘Lost his topsails completely.’ d‘Alembord was wiping his sword blade. ’He’s weeping, reciting poetry that I daren’t repeat to you, and gibbering like an idiot. If he was in Bedlam you’d pay tuppence to see him. Sergeant Major Harper is keeping the curious at bay, but I think he needs your attention, sir.‘

‘What the hell am I supposed to do with him?’

‘If I were you, sir, I’d tie him up, turn him round, and send him to brigade. They’re used to mad colonels.’

Sharpe smiled. ‘Find out the bill for me, Dally, I’ll look at Girdwood.’

Bartholomew Girdwood was just as d‘Alembord had described. He was piling shards of rock onto his thigh, sitting with tears running down his face, sometimes laughing, sometimes singing sad snatches of heroic poetry into the cold air.

‘Lieutenant Mattingley!’

‘Sir?’

‘You’ll need two men. Take him to brigade.’

‘Me, sir?’

‘You.’ Sharpe looked again at the Lieutenant Colonel who had persecuted the recruits at Foulness, who had believed himself a soldier among soldiers, a warrior who had craved the chance of one fight against the French. ‘You don’t need to tie him up. Treat him gently.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Sharpe walked back towards the pinnacle, crowned now by his own Colours in the afternoon sun. The air still smelt of powder smoke and blood, the sobs of the wounded still sounded. He thanked Smith, Carline, and other officers. He stopped by wounded men and told them they would recover. He shouted for the bandsmen to hurry with their stretchers. d‘Alembord, by the time Sharpe reached the pinnacle again, had come back with the butcher’s bill. Sharpe saw that the tall Captain looked unhappy. ’Tell me, Dally.‘

‘Eleven dead, sir, forty-three wounded.’

‘Badly wounded?’

‘Twenty or so, sir.’

‘Officers?’

‘Captain Thomas is dead, sir,’ d‘Alembord shrugged, ’which means Harry gets his Company, yes?‘

‘Yes.’ Price would be pleased, even though the promotion was because of a death. Sharpe was thinking that the bill was light. ‘Did we lose any sergeants?’

‘just Lynch, sir.’ d‘Alembord’s voice was disapproving.

‘Lynch?’

‘Torn apart, sir.’ d‘Alembord’s eyes seemed to accuse Sharpe.

‘He must have been trapped by a dozen of the bastards, sir. He’s not a very fetching sight.’

‘He did deserve it, Dally.’

‘I was under the misapprehension that there were military courts, sir.’

Sharpe looked at the tall Captain, knowing he had deserved d‘Alembord’s reproof. ’Yes, you’re right.‘

d‘Alembord was embarrassed by Sharpe’s contrition. ’But the Battalion fought well, sir, they fought damned well.‘

‘Didn’t they?’ Sharpe was pleased at the compliment. ‘How did Weller do?’

d‘Alembord smiled, relieved that the moment had passed. ’Damned well, sir. He’ll make a fine soldier. And well done, sir.‘

‘Thank you, Daily.’

Sharpe stood under the pinnacle, staring at the groups of men who moved about the scarred rock landscape and who cleared the dead and wounded before the carrion eaters flew from the winter skies. ‘Regimental Sergeant Major!’

‘Sir?’ Harper scrambled towards him.

‘Thank you for your efforts.’

‘It was nothing, sir.’

Sharpe had found an abandoned French canteen, filled with wine, and he took a mouthful. ‘The Colonel’s gone mad.’ He handed the canteen to Harper. ‘And I hear you lost Lynch?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Harper did not smile. ‘So it’s all over?’

‘And forgotten, Patrick. Tell your men they fought well.’

‘I will, sir.’

The army was already moving along the road that flanked the side of the hill. Sharpe could hear the thunder of the gun wheels going into France. He stared the other way, towards the distant peaks of Spain which, now that the sun had been shrouded by clouds, were darkly shadowed. He had a daughter there. He had fought more than five years in that country, in mountains and river valleys, in fortresses and city streets. Now he was leaving.

‘Sir!’

He looked left. Captain Smith was smiling idiotically, looking pleased with himself. Sharpe ran his cleaned sword into its scabbard.

He could see, where the road skirted the hillside, a group of four women whose horses’ bridles were held by Spanish servants. The women were wives of Sharpe’s officers. Closer, smiling at him, and walking up the hill with the unnecessary attention and help of two dozen men, came his own wife.

They had been married two months. She had insisted, against his direct orders, that she would come with him. ‘I’ve always wanted to travel. Besides, it will be good for my sketching.’

‘Sketching?’

‘I sketch and paint; didn’t you know that?’

‘No.’

Isabella, who had decided that London was a strange and fearful place, had insisted on returning as Jane’s servant. Harper, who had ordered his pregnant wife to remain in London, had, like Sharpe, been flagrantly disobeyed.

‘Richard!’ Jane wore a dark red cloak over her dress.

‘My love.’ He felt awkward saying it in front of so many men.

She smiled, striking her beauty into his soul like a sword. ‘I met Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood. Poor man.’

‘Poor man.’

She turned and looked at the battlefield. The British dead were gone, but the French dead, stripped naked, still lay among the rocks. ‘Have I got time for one drawing?’

‘It’s hardly suitable, is it?’

‘Don’t be pompous.’ She smiled at him, put Rascal on the ground, and took from her bag a large pad and a box of pencils.

They had been married two months, and Sharpe had not regretted a moment of them. He had not guessed at this kind of happiness, he was even frightened that one day it would be taken from him, and he did not even mind that men laughed at him because of his sudden uxoriousness. The laughter was not cruel, and he was happy. He thought she was happy too. He was astonished how important to him her happiness was. He watched her pencil, amazed at her skill. ‘I have to go and form the Battalion.’