Sharpe's Rifles (34 page)

And what, Sharpe asked himself, had he expected of the girl? Did he imagine that Louisa would
willingly tramp behind the campaigning army, or find some squalid home near the barracks and eke
out his inadequate pay on scraps of meat and day-old bread? Was she to have abandoned silk
dresses for woollen shifts? Or would he have expected her to follow him to the West Indian
garrison where the yellow fever wiped out whole Regiments? He told himself that his hopes of the
girl had ever been as stupid as they were unrealistic, yet that did not heal the sudden hurt. He
told himself that he acted childishly for even feeling the hurt, but that did not make it any
easier to bear.

He plunged from the plaza’s wintry sunshine into the foetid reek of an alley where, beneath an
arcade, he found a wineshop. Sharpe had no money to pay for the wine, but his demeanour and the
hammer of his hand on the counter persuaded the tavern keeper to fill a big flask from the
barrel. Sharpe took the flask and a tin cup to an alcove at the back of the room. The few
customers, huddled round the fire and seeing his bitter face, ignored him; all but for a whore
who, at the tavern keeper’s bidding, edged onto the bench beside the foreign soldier. For a
second Sharpe was tempted to push her away, but instead he beckoned for a second mug.

The tavern keeper wiped the mug on his apron and set it on the table. A sacking curtain was
looped back over the alcove’s arch and he took hold of it and raised an interrogatory
eyebrow.

“Yes,” Sharpe said harshly. ”Si.“

The curtain dropped, plunging Sharpe and the girl into dark shadow. She giggled, put her arms
about his neck, and whispered some Spanish endearment until he silenced her with a
kiss.

The curtain was snatched back, making the girl squeal in alarm.

Bias Vivar stood in the archway. “It’s very simple to follow a foreigner through Spanish
streets. Did you hope to hide from me, Lieutenant?”

Sharpe put his left arm around the whore and pulled her towards him so that her head leaned on
his shoulder. He moved his handle cup her breast. “I’m busy, sir.”

Vivar ignored the provocation, sitting instead on the bench opposite Sharpe. He rolled a cigar
across the table. “By now,” he said, “Colonel de l’Eclin must have realized that Miss Parker lied
to him?”

“I’m sure,” Sharpe said carelessly.

“He will be returning. Soon he will meet a fugitive from the city and he will learn the extent
of his mistake.”

“Yes.” Sharpe tugged at the laces of the whore’s bodice. The girl made a desultory effort to
stop him, but he insisted, and succeeded in pulling her dress apart.

Vivar’s voice was very patient. “So I would expect de l’Eclin to attack us, wouldn’t
you?”

“I suppose he will.” Sharpe put his hand beneath the girl’s unlaced dress and dared Bias Vivar
to make a protest.

“The defence is ready?” Vivar asked in a tone of gentle reasonableness. The tavern whore might
not have existed for all the notice he took of her.

Sharpe did not answer at once. He poured himself wine with his free hand, drank the cupful,
and poured more. “Why in Christ’s name don’t you just get your damned nonsense over with, Vivar?
We’re lingering in this bloody deathtrap of a city just so you can work a conjuring trick in the
cathedral. So do what you have to do quickly, then get the hell out!”

Vivar nodded as though Sharpe’s words made sense. “Let me see now. I’ve sent Cazadores on
patrol north and south. It will take me two hours to recall them, maybe longer. We have yet to
find every man in the city who has cooperated with the French, but the searches go on and may
take another hour. Are all the supplies destroyed?”

“There are no bloody supplies. The bloody crapauds took them all into the palace
yesterday.”

Vivar flinched at the news. “I feared as much. I saw great piles of grain and hay when I
looked into the cellars of the palace. That is a pity.”

“So do your miracle, and run.”

Vivar shrugged. “I’m waiting for some churchmen to arrive, and I’ve sent men to destroy the
nearest bridges over the Ulla, which cannot be completed till late this afternoon. I don’t really
see that haste is so very feasible. We should be ready in the cathedral by sundown, and we can
certainly leave tonight rather than tomorrow, but I do think we must be ready to defend the city
against de l’Eclin, don’t you?”

Sharpe tipped the whore’s face to his own and kissed her. He knew he was behaving boorishly,
yet the hurt was strong and the jealousy like a fever.

Vivar sighed. “If Colonel de l’Eclin has failed to take the city back by nightfall, then he
will be blinded by the darkness and we shall simply walk away. That’s why I think it best to wait
till nightfall before we leave, don’t you?”

“Or is it so you can unfurl your magic banner in the dark? Miracles are best done in darkness,
aren’t they? So that no one can see the bloody trickery.”

Vivar smiled. “I know my magic banner is not as important to you, Lieutenant, as it is to me,
but that is why I am here. And when it is unfurled I want as many witnesses as can be assembled.
The news must travel out from this city; it must go to every town and village in all of Spain.
Even in the far south they must know that Santiago has stirred in his tomb and that the sword is
drawn again.”

Sharpe, despite all his scepticism, shuddered.

Vivar, if he saw Sharpe’s betrayal of emotion, pretended not to notice. “I estimate that
Colonel de I’Eclin will be here within the next two hours. He will approach from the south of the
city, but I suspect he will attack from the west in hope that the setting sun dazzles us. Will
you undertake to conduct the defence?”

“Suddenly you need the bloody English, do you?” Sharpe’s jealousy flared vivid. “You think the
British are running away, don’t you? That we’ll abandon Lisbon. That your precious Spain will
have to beat the French without us. Then bloody well do it without me!”

For a second Vivar’s immobility suggested a proud fury that might snap like Sharpe’s temper.
The whore shrank back, expecting violence, but when Vivar did move it was only to reach across
the table to pick up Sharpe’s flask of wine. His voice was very controlled and very placid. “You
once told me, Lieutenant, that no one expected officers who had risen from the ranks of Britain’s
army to be successful. What was it you said? That the drink destroyed them?” He paused, but
Sharpe made no answer. “I think you could become a soldier of great repute, Lieutenant. You
understand battle. You become calm when other men become frightened. Your men, even when they
disliked you, followed you because they understood you would give them victory. You’re good. But
perhaps you’re not good enough. Perhaps you’re so full of self-pity that you’ll destroy yourself
with drink or,” Vivar at last deigned to notice the straggly-haired girl who leaned against the
Rifleman, “with the pox.”

Throughout this lecture, Sharpe had stared at the Spaniard as if wishing to draw the big sword
and slash across the table.

Vivar stood and tipped the wine flask to pour what was left of its contents onto the floor
rushes. Then he dropped it contemptuously.

“Bastard,” Sharpe said.

“Does that make me as good as you?” Vivar again paused to let Sharpe reply, and again Sharpe
kept silent. The Spaniard shrugged. “You feel sorry for yourself, Lieutenant, because you were
not born to the officer class. But have you ever thought that those of us who were so fortunate
sometimes regret it? Do you think we’re not frightened by the tough, bitter men from the
rookeries and hovels? Do you think we don’t look at men like you and feel envy?”

“You patronizing bastard.”

Vivar ignored the insult. “When my wife and children died, Lieutenant, I decided there was
nothing to live for. I took to drink. I now thank God that a man cared enough for me to give me
patronizing advice.” He picked up his tasselled hat. “If I have given you cause to hate me,
Lieutenant, I regret it. It was not done purposefully; indeed you gave me to believe that I would
not cause any bitterness between us.” It was as near as Vivar had come to a reference to Louisa.
“Now all I ask is that you help me finish this job. There’s a hill to the west of the city which
should be occupied. I shall put Davila under your command with a hundred Cazadores. I’ve
reinforced the picquets to the south and west. And thank you for everything you have done so far.
If you had not taken that first barricade, we would now be fleeing in the hills with lancers
stabbing at our backsides.” Vivar stepped free of the bench. “Let me know when your defences are
in place and I shall make an inspection.” He disdained any acknowledgement, but merely strode
from the wineshop.

Sharpe picked up his winecup which was still full. He stared at it. He had threatened his own
men with punishment if any became worse for drink, yet now he wished to God that he could drown
his disappointment in an alcoholic haze. Instead he threw the cup away and stood. The girl,
seeing her earnings lost, whimpered.

“Damn them all,” Sharpe said. He tore at two of the remaining silver buttons on his breeches,
ripping a great swatch of the cloth away with the buttons which he dropped into the girl’s lap.
“Damn them all.” He snatched up his weapons and left.

The tavern keeper looked at the girl who was re-lacing her bodice. He shrugged
sympathetically. “The English, yes? Mad. All mad. Heretics. Mad.” He made the sign of the cross
to defend himself from the heathen evil. “Like all soldiers,” the tavern keeper said. “Just
mad.”

Sharpe walked with Sergeant Harper to the west of the city and forced himself to forget both
Louisa and the shame of his behaviour in the tavern. Instead he tried to judge what approach the
French might choose if they attacked Santiago de Compostela.

The Dragoons had gone to Padron, and the road from that small town approached Santiago from
the south-west. That made an attack from the south or west the likeliest possibility. De l’Eclin
could emulate Vivar and make an assault from the north, but Sharpe doubted if the chasseur would
choose that approach because it needed surprise. The ground to the city’s east was broken, and
the most easily defended. The land to the south was hedged and ditched, while the ground to the
west, from where Vivar believed the attack would come, was open and inviting like an English
common field.

The western open ground was flanked to the south by the low hill which Vivar wanted garrisoned
and on which Sharpe’s Riflemen now waited for orders. The French, knowing the value of the hill,
had chopped down most of the trees which had covered the high ground and made a crude
fortification of brushwood jammed between the fallen trunks. Further west was dead ground where
de l’Eclin’s Dragoons could assemble unseen. Sharpe stopped at the edge of that lower ground and
stared back at the city. “We might have to hold the bloody place till after nightfall.”

Harper instinctively glanced to find the sun’s position. “It won’t be full dark for six
hours,” he said pessimistically, “and it’ll be a slow dusk, sir. No damned clouds to hide
us.”

“If God was on our side,” Sharpe essayed one of the stock jokes of the Regiment, “he’d have
given the Baker rifle tits.”

Harper, recognizing from the feeble jest that Sharpe’s grim mood was passing, grinned
dutifully. “Is it true about Miss Louisa, sir?” The question was asked very carelessly and
without evident embarrassment, making Sharpe think that none of his men had suspected his
attachment to the girl.

“It’s true.” Sharpe tried to sound as though he took little interest in the matter. “She’ll
have to become a Catholic, of course.”

“There’s always room for another. Mind you,” Harper stared down into the dead ground as he
spoke, “I never thought it was a good thing for a soldier to be married.”

“Why ever not?”

“You can’t dance if you’ve got one foot nailed to the bloody floor, can you now? But the Major
isn’t a soldier like us, sir. Coming from that big castle!” Harper had clearly been mightily
impressed by the wealth of Vivar’s family. “The Major’s a grand big fellow, so he is.”

“So what are we? The damned?”

“We’re that, sure enough, but we’re also Riflemen, sir. You and me, sir, we’re the best
God-damned soldiers in the world.”

Sharpe laughed. Just weeks ago he had been bitterly at odds with his Riflemen, now they were
on his side. He did not know how to acknowledge Harper’s compliment, so he resorted to a vague
and meaningless cliche. “It’s a bloody odd world.”

“Difficult to do a good job in six days, sir,” Harper said wryly. “I’m sure God did his best,
but where was the sense in putting Ireland plum next to England?”

“He probably knew you bastards needed smacking around.” Sharpe turned to look south. “But how
the hell do we smack this French bastard back into his tracks?”

“If he attacks.”

“He’ll attack. He thinks he’s better than us, and he’s damned annoyed at being tricked again.
He’ll attack.”

Sharpe walked to the southern edge of the common ground, then swivelled back to stare at the
city. He was putting himself in de I’Eclin’s glossy boots, seeing what the Frenchman would see,
trying to anticipate his plans.

Vivar was certain that de l’Eclin would come from the west, that the chasseur would wait till
the setting sun was a blinding dazzle behind his charge, then launch his Dragoons across the open
ground.

Yet, Sharpe reasoned, a cavalry charge was of dubious value to the French. It might sweep the
Dragoons in glorious style to the city’s margin, but there the horses would baulk at walls and
barricades, and the glory would be riven into blood and horror by the waiting muskets and rifles.
De I’Eclin’s attack, just like Vivar’s, would best be done by infantry that could open the city
to the cavalry’s fierce charge; and the best infantry approach was from the south.

Sharpe pointed to the south-western corner of the city. “That’s where he’ll make his
attack.”