Sharpe's Eagle (27 page)

Sharpe's boots crunched on broken plaster; he listened to the voices murmuring in the room, on
the other side of the splintered door, and stared unseeing through a small window at the high
ragged clouds which raced past the moon. Hogan sat on the top step of the steep stairs next to
the sheets they had taken from Josefina's bed. In the half light of the candles seeping through
the doorway the sheets seemed to be patterned in red and white. There was a cry from the room.
Sharpe spun round in irritation.

"What are they doing to her?"

Hogan hushed him. "The doctor's bleeding her, Sharpe. He knows what he's doing."

"As if she hasn't lost enough blood already!"

"I know, I know." Hogan spoke soothingly. There was nothing he could say that would ease the
turmoil in Sharpe's head, to soften the blow or deflect the revenge which Hogan knew was being
minutely plotted as the Rifleman paced up and down the tiny landing. The Engineer sighed and
picked up a tiny plaster head. The house belonged to a seller of religious statues, and the
stairs and corridors were stacked with his wares. When Gibbons and Berry had forced their way
into the girl's room they had trampled on twenty or thirty images of Christ, each with a bleeding
heart, and the scraps of statues still littered the landing. Hogan was a peaceful man. He enjoyed
his job, he liked the fresh challenges of each day, he was happy with his head full of angles and
reentries, yardages and imperial weights; he liked company that laughed easily, drank generously,
and would pass the time with stories of happiness past. He was no fighter. His war was fought
with picks, shovels and powder, yet when he had burst with Sharpe into the attic room he had felt
in himself a searing anger and lust for revenge. The mood had passed. Now he sat, saddened and
quiet, but as he watched the tall Rifleman he knew that in Sharpe the mood was being refined and
fed. For the twentieth time Sharpe stopped.

"Why?"

Hogan shrugged. "They were drunk, Richard."

"That's no answer!"

"No." Hogan carefully replaced the broken head on the floor, out of reach of Sharpe's pacing.
"There isn't an answer. They wanted revenge on you. Neither you nor the girl are important. It's
their pride. , He tailed away. There was nothing to say, just the enormous sadness to feel and
the fear of what Sharpe would do. Hogan regretted his first reaction to the girl; he had thought
her calculating and cold, but as he escorted her from Plasencia to Oropesa, and from there to
Talavera, he had been captivated by the charm, the easy laughter, and the honesty with which she
planned a future away from a cloying past and a fugitive husband.

Sharpe was staring through the window at the clouds patterning the moon. "Do you think I'll do
nothing?"

"They're terrified." Hogan spoke flatly; he was afraid of what Sharpe might do. He thought of
the line of Shake-speare: `Beauty provoketh fools'. Sharpe turned on him again. "Why?"

"You know why. They were drunk. Good God, man, they were so drunk they couldn't even do that
properly. So they beat her. It was all on the spur of the moment, and now? They're terrified,
Richard. Terrified. What will you do?"

"Do? I don't know." Sharpe spoke irritably and Hogan knew he was lying.

"What can you do, Richard? Call them out to a duel? That will ruin your career, you know that.
Will you charge them with rape? For God's sake, Richard, who'd believe you? The town's full of
bloody Spanish tonight, raping anything that moves! And everyone knows the girl was with Gibbons
before you. No, Richard, you must think. You must think before you do anything."

Sharpe turned on him and Hogan knew there could be no argument with that implacable face.
"I'll bloody murder them."

Hogan sighed and rubbed his face with both hands. "I didn't hear that. So you get hung? Shot?
Beat the bones out of them if you must, but no more, Richard, no more."

Sharpe did not answer and Hogan knew he was seeing in his mind the body they had found with
the blood-soaked sheets. She had been raped and beaten and when they arrived the landlady was
screaming at the girl. It had taken more money to silence the woman, find a doctor, and now they
waited. Agostino peered up the stairs, saw Sharpe's face, and went back to the front door where
he had been told to wait. New sheets had been carried into the room, water, and Sharpe had
listened to the landlady tidy up the floor, and he remembered the girl, bruised and bleeding,
crawling among the broken saints and stained sheets.

The door opened, scrunching on the shards, and the landlady beckoned to them. The doctor was
kneeling beside the bed and his eyes flicked warily at the two officers. Josefina lay on the bed,
her black hair fanned on the pillow, but her eyes were tight shut. Sharpe sat beside her, saw the
spreading yellow bruise on her unnaturally pale skin, and he took one of her hands that clutched
at the fresh linen. She pulled away but he held on and her eyes opened.

"Richard?"

"Josefina. How are you?" It seemed a stupid thing to say but he could think of nothing else.
She closed her eyes and the faintest smile came and went.

She opened her eyes again. "I'll be all right." There was a flash of the old Josefina, but as
she spoke a tear ran from her eye and she sobbed and turned away from him. Sharpe turned to the
doctor. "How is she?"

The doctor shrugged and looked hopelessly towards the landlady. Hogan intervened and rattled
in his Spanish at the doctor. Sharpe listened to the voices and as he did he stroked the girl's
averted face. All he could think of was that he had failed her. He had promised to protect her
and now this had happened, the worst, the unthinkable.

Hogan sat beside him. "She'll be all right. She lost some blood."

"How?"

Hogan closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them. "She was beaten, Richard.
They were not gentle. But she'll mend."

Sharpe nodded. There was silence in the room but from the street outside Sharpe could hear the
screams and shouts generated by the drunken Spanish soldiers. The girl turned back to him. She
had stopped crying. Her voice was very low. "Richard?"

"Yes?"

"Kill them." She spoke flatly. Hogan half shook his head but Sharpe bent down and kissed her
by the ear.

"I will."

As he straightened up he saw another half smile on the face, and then she forced it into a
proper smile that went oddly with the tears. She squeezed his hand. "Will there be a battle
tomorrow?"

"Yes." Sharpe spoke as if the subject could be brushed away, as if it was not of
importance.

"Be lucky."

,I'll come and see you afterwards." He smiled at her.

"Yes." But there was no conviction in her voice. Sharpe turned to Hogan.

"You'll stay?"

"Till daybreak. I'm not needed till then. But you should go-,

Sharpe nodded. "I know." He kissed her again, stood up, and put on his rifle and pack. Hogan
thought'his face was as cruel as a face could be. The Engineer walked with him to the
stairs.

"Be careful, Richard."

"I will."

Hogan put a hand on his shoulder to stop him moving. "Remember what you have to
lose."

Sharpe nodded again. "Bring me news when you can."

Sharpe pushed his way into the street, ignoring the Spaniards, and as he walked towards the
north he did not see the tall man in the blue coat with the white facings who watched from a
doorway opposite Josefina's lodgings. The man looked at Sharpe sympathetically, then up at the
windows, and settled back into the doorway where he tried to make himself comfortable despite the
broken arm with its splints and sling that would keep him from the battle tomorrow. He wondered
what was happening on the second floor but he would soon know; Agostino would tell him all in
exchange for a piece of gold.

Sharpe hurried up the track that led away from the town between the Portina stream and the
Spanish lines. The frightened infantry were being forced back into their positions, but even as
he hurried through the trees he could hear the occasional musket shot from the town, the
shouting, the coinage of Talavera's night of fear and rape. The moon had disappeared behind a
bank of clouds but the lights of the Spanish fires showed the path and he half ran as he headed
north towards the Medellin Hill. To his right the sky was glowing a deep red where the thousands
of French fires were reflected in the air. He should have been concerned for the morning; he knew
it would be the greatest battle he had ever fought, yet his mind was dominated by the need to
find Berry and Gibbons. He came to the Pajar, the tiny hill that marked the end of the Spanish
lines and the place where the Portina bent to his right and, from running behind the Spanish
troops, the stream now flowed in front of the British position. He saw the shapes of the field
guns Wellesley had placed on the small hill, and part of his mind registered how the fire of
those guns would sweep protectively in front of the Spanish lines and deflect the massive French
attack onto the British lines. But tomorrow was another battle.

The track melted away into the grass. He could see the scattered fires of the British but he
had no idea which was the South Essex. They were positioned at the Medellin Hill, he knew that,
so he ran by the stream, tripping over tussocks of grass, splashing through patches of marsh,
keeping the silvered Portina as his guide to the Medellin. He was alone in the darkness. The
British fires were far off to his left, the French even further to the right, the two armies
still and quiet. Something was wrong. The old instinct prickled him and he stopped, sank to one
knee and searched the darkness ahead. In the night the Medellin Hill looked like a long, low
ridge pointing at the French army. It was the key to Wellesley's left flank; if the French
assaulted the hill they could turn and crush the British between the Medellin and Talavera. Yet
there were no fires on the ridge. He could see a bright smear of flames at the western end,
furthest from the enemy, but on the side facing the town, and on the half of the flat summit
nearest the enemy there were no lights. He had thought the South Essex to be bivouacking on the
gentle slope that faced him but it was black and empty. He listened. There were the sounds of the
night, the noises from the town that had faded to a dull murmur, the wind in the grass, insects,
the splashing of the stream, and the far-off sounds of a hundred thousand men crouching by fires
waiting for morning. Behind him the small Pajar hill was bright with fires, the guns silhouetted
against the white wall of the farmhouse on its crest, but in front it was dark and quiet. He
stood up and walked softly on, his instincts alive to a danger he could not define, his mind
searching for clues in the darkness and from the murmured sounds of the night. Why had he not
been challenged? There should be picquets on the line of the Portina, sentries huddled against
the chill wind looking towards the enemy, but no-one had stopped him and asked his business. He
kept by the stream until the black loom of the Medellin was above him, then turned left and began
to climb the slope. By daylight it looked a gentle slope but as he climbed with his pack and
rifle the ground felt steep and each step made the muscles at the back of his legs ache.
Tomorrow, he thought, this is precisely where the French columns will come. They will march up
this slope, heads down, while the guns crack iron shot into their ranks and the muskets wait in
silence at the crest.

Halfway up the slope he stopped and turned round. On the far side of the stream was another
hill, similar in shape to the Medellin but lower and smaller. On its level top Sharpe could see
the fires of the French, the flitting shadows of his enemy, and he turned and hurried on up the
hill. His mind was still alerted to danger, to a threat he did not understand, but continually he
thought of the girl's black hair fanned on the pillow, of her hand gripping the sheet, of the
blood stains, her terror in the attic when the two men had burst in. He had no idea what he could
do. Gibbons and Berry were probably safe in the company of Simmerson and his cronies. Somehow he
must flush them out, get them into the darkness, and he pushed himself to go faster.

The slope levelled out onto the plateau. Far off he could see the fires of the British, and he
ran slowly towards them, the pack bumping awkwardly, the rifle flapping at his side. He had still
not been challenged. He was approaching the army from the direction of the enemy and there were
no sentries, no line of picquets in the darkness, as if the army had forgotten about the French
just the other side of the Portina. Two hundred yards from the line of fires he stopped and
crouched low on the grass. He had found the South Essex. They were on the edge of the hill, and
he could see the bright yellow facings of their uniforms glowing in the light of the flames. He
searched the fires, saw the green uniforms of his Riflemen, and went on looking as though, from
this distance, he might see the figures of his enemies. His anger was turning into frustra-tion.
He had walked and run more than a mile to find the Battalion, yet he knew that there was nothing
he could do. Gibbons and Berry would be sitting round a fire with the officers, secure from his
revenge. Hogan was right. He would throw his career away if he fought them, yet he had made a
promise to Josefina, and he did not know how to keep the promise. And tomorrow he must try to
keep the earlier promise to Lennox. He tugged the great sword from its scabbard and laid its tip
on the grass in front of him. The blade shone dully in the light of the fires; he stared at the
length of steel and felt the sting of tears in his eyes as he remembered the girl's body lying
teasingly and naked along its flat blade. That had been only this afternoon. Now he cursed the
fate that had led to this night, to the promises he could not keep. He thought of the girl, of
the men clawing at her, and he looked up at the fires and felt his helplessness. It was better,
he knew, to give it all up, to walk into the light of the fires and concentrate on tomorrow but
how was he to face Gibbons or Berry and see the triumph on their faces without swinging the blade
at them?