Sharpe's Eagle (6 page)

Sharpe laughed. Hagman was forty but he could still out-shoot the rest of the company. The
hare had been running at two hundred yards, and it would have been a miracle if it had ended up
in the evening's cooking pots.

"We'll take a rest," Sharpe said. "Ten minutes." He set two men as sentries. The French were
miles away, there were British cavalry ahead of them on the road, but soldiers stayed alive by
taking precautions and this was strange country, so Sharpe kept a watch and the men marched with
loaded weapons. He took off his pack and pouches, glad to be rid of the eighty pounds of weight,
and sat beside Harper, who was leaning back and staring into the clear sky. "A hot day for a
march, Sergeant."

"It will be, sir, so it will. But better than that damned cold last winter."

Sharpe grinned. "You managed to keep warm enough."

"We did what we could, sir, we did what we could. You remember the Holy Father in the Friary?"
Sharpe nodded but there was no way to stop Patrick Harper once he was launched into a good story.
"He told us there was no drink in the place! No drink, and we were as cold as the sea in winter!
It was a terrible thing to hear a man of God lie so."

"You taught him a lesson," Sarge Pendleton, the baby of the company, just seventeen and a
thief from the streets of Bristol, grinned over the road at the Irishman. Harper nodded. "We did,
lad. You remember? No priest runs out of drink and we found it. My God, a barrel big enough to
drown an army's thirst and it did us that night. And we tipped the Holy Father head first into
the wine to teach him that lying is a mortal sin." He laughed at the memory. "I could do with a
drop right now." He looked innocently round the men resting on the verges. "Would anyone have a
drop?"

There was silence. Sharpe leaned back and hid his smile. He knew what Harper was doing and he
could guess what would happen next. The Rifles were one of the few Regiments that could pick and
choose its recruits, rejecting all but the best, but even so it suffered from the besetting sin
of the whole army: drunkenness. Sharpe guessed there were at least half a dozen bottles of wine
within a few paces, and Harper was going to find them. He heard the Sergeant get to his feet.
"Right! Inspection."

"Sergeant!" That was Gataker, too fly for his own good. "You inspected the water bottles this
morning! You know we haven't got any."

"I know you haven't any in your water bottles but that's not the same thing, is it?" There was
still no response! ,Lay your ammunition out! Now!"

There were groans. Both the Portuguese and the Spanish would gladly sell wine to a man in
exchange for a handful of cartridges made with the British gunpowder, the finest in the world,
and it was a fair bet that if any man had less than his eighty rounds then Harper would find a
bottle hid deep in that man's pack. Sharpe heard the sound of rummaging and scuffling. He opened
his eyes to see seven bottles had magically appeared. Harper stood over them triumphantly. "We
share these out tonight. Well done, lads, I knew you wouldn't let me down." He turned to Sharpe.
"Do you want a cartridge count, sir?"

"No, we'll get on." He knew the men could be trusted not to sell more than a handful of
cartridges. He looked at the huge Irishman. "How many cartridges would you have,
Sergeant."

Harper's face was sublimely honest. "Eighty, sir."

"Show me your powder horn."

Harper smiled. "I thought you might like a drop of something tonight, sir?"

"Let's get on, then." Sharpe grinned at Harper's discom-fiture. In addition to the eighty
rounds, twenty more than the rest of the army carried, Riflemen also carried a horn of fine
powder that made for better shooting when there was time to use it. "All right, Sergeant. Ten
minutes fast, then we'll march easy."

At midday they found Major Forrest with his small, mounted advance party waving to them from a
stand of trees that grew between the road and the stream Harper had been hoping for. The Major
led the Riflemen to the spot he had chosen for them. "I thought, Sharpe, that it might be best if
you were some way from the Colonel?"

"Don't worry, sir." Sharpe grinned at the nervous Major. "I think that's an excellent
idea."

Forrest was still worried. He looked at Sharpe's men, who were already hacking at the
branches. "Sir Henry insists on fires being built in straight lines, Sharpe."

Sharpe held up his hands. "Not a flame out of place, sir, I promise you."

An hour later the Battalion arrived, and the men threw themselves onto the ground and rested
their heads on their packs. Some went to the stream and sat with blistered, swollen feet in the
cool water. Sentries were posted, weapons stacked, the smell of tobacco drifted through the
trees, and a desultory game of football started far away from the pile of baggage that marked the
temporary officers' mess. Last to arrive were the wives and children, mixed with the Portuguese
muleteers and their animals, Hogan and his mules, and the herd of cattle, driven by hired labour,
that would provide the evening meals until the last beast was killed.

In the somnolent afternoon Sharpe felt restless. He had no family to write to and no desire to
join Harper vainly tempting non-existent fish with his maggots. Hogan was sleeping, snoring
gently in a patch of shade, so Sharpe got up from the grass, took his rifle, and strolled towards
the picquet line and beyond. It was a beautiful day. No cloud disturbed the sky, the water in the
stream flowed clear, a whisper of a breeze stirred the grass and flickered the pale leaves of the
olive trees. He walked between the stream and a field of growing corn, jumped a crude, wicker dam
that stopped an irrigation channel, and into a rock-strewn field of stunted olives. Nothing
moved. Insects buzzed and clicked, a horse whinnied from the camp site, the sound of the water
faded behind him. Someone had told him it was July. Perhaps it was his birthday. He did not know
on which day he had been born, but before his mother died he remembered her calling him a
July-baby, or was it June? He remembered little else of her. Dark hair and a voice in the
darkness. She had died when he was an infant, and there was no other family.

The landscape crouched beneath the heat, still and silent, the Battalion swallowed up in the
countryside as though it did not exist. He looked back down the road the Battalion had marched
and far away, too far to see properly, there was a dust cloud where the main army was still on
the road. He sat beside a gnarled tree trunk, rifle across his knees, and stared into the heat
haze. A lizard darted across the ground, paused, looked at him, then ran up a tree trunk and
froze as if he would lose sight of it because of its stillness. A speck of movement in the sky
made him look up, and high in the blue a hawk slid silently, its wings motionless, its head
searching the ground for prey. Patrick would have known instantly what it was but to Sharpe the
bird was just another hunter, and today, he thought, there is nothing for us hunters and, as if
in agreement, the bird stirred its wings and in a moment had gone out of view. He felt
comfortable and lazy, at peace with the world, glad to be a Rifleman in Spain. He looked at the
stunted olives with their promise of a thin harvest and wondered what family would shake the
branches in the autumn, whose lives were bounded by the stream, the shallow fields, and the high,
climbing road he would probably never see again.

Then there was a noise. Too hesitant and far off to sound an alarm in his head, but strange
and persistent enough to make him alert and send his right hand to curl unconsciously round the
narrow part of the rifle's stock. There were horses on the road, only two from the sound of their
hooves, but they were moving slowly and uncer-tainly, and the sound suggested that something was
wrong. He doubted that the French would have cavalry patrols in this part of Spain but he still
got to his feet and moved silendy through the grove, instinctively choosing a path that kept his
green uniform hidden and shadowed until he stood in the bright sunlight and surprised the
traveller.

It was the girl. She was still dressed like a man, in the black trousers and boots, with the
same wide-brimmed hat that shadowed her beauty. She was walking, or rather limping like her
horse, and at the sight of Sharpe she stopped and looked at him angrily, as if she was annoyed at
being seen unexpectedly. The servant, a slight, dark man leading the heavily loaded mule, stopped
ten paces behind and stared mutely at the tall, scarred Rifleman. The mare also looked at Sharpe,
swished its tail at the flies, and stood patiendy with one hind leg lifted off the ground. The
shoe was hanging loose, held by a single nail, and the animal must have suffered agonies on the
heat of the stony road. Sharpe nodded at the hind foot. "Why didn't you take the shoe
off?"

Her voice was surprisingly soft. "Can you do it?" She smiled at him, the anger going from her
face, and for a second Sharpe said nothing. He guessed she was in her early twenties, but she
carried her looks with the assur-ance of someone who knew that beauty could be a better
inheritance than money or land. She seemed amused at his hesitation, as though she was accustomed
to her effect on men, and she raised a mocking eyebrow. "Can you?"

Sharpe nodded and moved to the horse's rear. He pulled the hoof towards him, holding the
pastern firmly, and the mare trembled but stayed still. The shoe would have fallen off within a
few paces and he pulled it clear with the slightest tug and let the leg go. He held the shoe out
to the girl. "You're lucky."

Her eyes were huge and dark. "Why?"

"It can probably be put back on, I don't know." He felt clumsy and awkward in her presence,
aware of her beauty, suddenly tongue-tied because he wanted her very much. She made no move to
take the shoe, so he pushed it under the strap of a bulging saddle bag. "Someone will know how to
shoe a horse up there." He nodded up the road. "There's a Battalion camped up there."

"The South Essex?" Her English was good, tinged with a Portuguese accent.

"Yes."

She nodded. "Good. I was following them when the shoe came off." She looked at her servant and
smiled. "Poor Agostino. He's frightened of horses."

"And you, ma'am?" Sharpe wanted to keep her talking. It was not unusual for women to follow
the army; already Sir Arthur Wellesley's troops had collected English, Irish, Spanish and
Portuguese wives, mistresses, and whores, but it was unusual to see a beautiful girl, well
horsed, attended by a servant, and Sharpe's curiosity was aroused. More than his curiosity. He
wanted this girl. It was a reaction to her beauty as much as a reaction to the knowledge that a
girl with this kind of looks did not need a shabby Lieutenant without a private fortune. She
could take her pick of the rich officers, but that did not stop Sharpe looking at her and
desiring her. She seemed to read his thoughts.

"You think I should be afraid?"

Sharpe shrugged, glancing up the road where the Battalion's smoke drifted into the evening.
"Soldiers aren't delicate, ma'am."

"Thank you for warning me." She was mocking him. She looked down at his faded red sash.
"Lieutenant?"

"Lieutenant Sharpe, ma'am."

"Lieutenant Sharpe." She smiled at him, spitting him with her beauty. "You must know Christian
Gibbons?"

He nodded, knowing the unfairness of life. Money could buy anything: a commission, promotion,
a sword fash-ioned to a man's height and strength, even a woman like this. "I know
him."

"And you don't like him!" She laughed, knowing that her instinct was right. "But I do." She
clicked her tongue at the horse and gathered up the reins. "I expect we will meet again. I am
going with you to Madrid."

Sharpe did not want her to go. "You're a long way from home."

She turned back, mocking him with a smile. "So are you, Lieutenant, so are you."

She led the limping mare, followed by the mute servant, towards the stand of trees and the
cooking fires. Sharpe watched her go, let his eyes see her slim figure beneath the black clothes,
and felt the envy and heaviness of his desire. He walked back into the olive grove, as if by
leaving the road he could wipe her from his memory and regain the peace of the afternoon. Damn
Gibbons and his money, damn all officers who could buy such thoroughbred beauty. He knew it was
jealousy, yet he encouraged the sour thoughts, let them swill round his head to try to convince
himself that he did not want her, but as he walked between the gnarled trees he felt the
horse-shoe nail still held in his right palm. He looked at it, a short, bent nail, and tucked it
carefully into his ammunition pouch. He told himself it would come in useful; he needed a nail to
jam the mainspring of the rifle when he stripped the lock for cleaning, but better nails were
plentiful and he knew he was keeping it because it had been hers. Angrily he fished among the fat
cartridges and threw the nail far away.

From the Battalion there came the sound of musket fire, and he knew that bullocks had been
slaughtered for the evening meal. There would be wine with the stew, and Hogan's brandy after it,
and stories about old friends and half-forgotten campaigns. He had been looking forward to the
meal, to the evening, but suddenly everything was changed. The girl was in the camp, her laughter
would invade the peace, and he thought, as he walked back by the stream, that he did not even
know her name.

The Regimienta de la Santa Maria would have conquered the world if words and display had been
enough. But punctuality was not among their more obvious military virtues.

The South Essex had marched hard for four days to reach the rendezvous at Plasencia, but the
town was empty of Spanish troops. Storks flapped lazily from their nests among the steep roofs
that climbed to the ancient cathe-dral which dominated both the town and the circling plain, but
of the Santa Maria there was no sign. The Battalion waited. Simmerson had bivouacked outside the
walls, and the men watched jealously as other units arrived and marched into the tantalising
streets with their wine shops and women. Three men disobeyed the standing order to stay away from
the town and were caught, helplessly drunk, by the Provost-Marshal and received a flogging as the
Battalion paraded beside the River Jerte.