Sharpe's Rifles (15 page)

George Parker raised eyes to the ceiling, Louisa busied herself with candle-wicks, and
Mrs Parker turned to stare with horror at Sharpe. “Wine?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Your men are bibbers of strong drink?”

“They’re entitled to wine, ma’am.”

“Entitled?” The rising inflection presaged trouble.

“British army regulations, ma’am. One third of a pint of spirits a day, ma’am, or a pint of
wine.”

“Each?”

“Of course, ma’am.”

“Not, Lieutenant Sharpe, while they are escorting Christian folk to safety.” Mrs Parker thrust
the purse into a pocket of her skirt. “Our Lord and Saviour’s money, Lieutenant, will not be
frittered away on liquor. Your men may drink water. My husband and I drink nothing but
water.”

“Or small beer,” George hastened to correct her.

Mrs Parker ignored him. “The receipt, Lieutenant, if you please.”

Sharpe dutifully signed the piece of paper, then followed the innkeeper into the large room
where, for lack of any other currency, he sliced off four of the silver buttons sewn on the
outside seams of his uniform trousers. The buttons purchased enough wineskins to give each man a
cupful. The issue, like the pot of gristly bones, was received in sullen silence that was only
broken by a mutinous muttering when Sharpe announced a reveille for four o’clock in the morning.
Stung by this new evidence of the Riflemen’s most uncooperative behaviour, he snapped that if any
man preferred to be a French prisoner, then that man could leave now. He gestured to the stable
door, beyond which the frost was already forming on the stableyard.

No one spoke or moved. Sharpe could see Harper’s eyes glittering from the back of the stable,
and he saw again how the Riflemen had instinctively grouped themselves about the big Irishman.
But there was no point in looking to Harper for help. He, more than any man, seemed to resent
leaving Major Vivar, though what purpose any of them imagined would be served by staying at the
Major’s side was beyond Sharpe’s imagination. Tour o’clock!“ he said. ”And we’ll be marching at
five!“

Mrs Parker was no happier at the news than the Riflemen. “Rising at four? You think a body can
survive without sleep, Lieutenant?”

“I think, ma’am, that it’s best to be travelling before the French.” Sharpe hesitated, not
willing to make another request of this disobliging woman, but knowing he could not trust himself
to judge the hours in the night’s blackness. “I was wondering, ma’am, if you had a clock, or a
watch?”

“A timepiece, Lieutenant?” Mrs Parker asked the question to gain time in which to marshal her
forces of rejection.

“Please, ma’am.”

Louisa smiled at Sharpe from her seat on the shelf in the alcove which formed the bed. Her
aunt, seeing the smile, snatched the alcove’s curtain closed. “You, of course, will sleep outside
this door. Lieutenant?”

Sharpe, thinking of timepieces, was taken aback by the peremptory demand. “I beg your pardon,
ma’am?”

“There are defenceless females in this room, Lieutenant! British females!”

“I’m certain you will be safe, ma’am.” Sharpe pointed at the heavy bolt inside the
door.

“Have you no conception of your responsibilities, Lieutenant?” Mrs Parker advanced in wrath.
“Is it any wonder that you have never secured promotion beyond your lowly rank?”

“Ma’am, I…“

“Do not interrupt me! I will have none of your barrack manners here, Lieutenant. Have you seen
the Papist creatures who are drinking like animals in this tavern? Do you know what horrors
strong drink provokes? And let me remind you that Mr Parker paid his taxes in England, which
entitles us to your protection.”

George Parker, trying to read his scriptures by the light of a tallow dip, looked beseechingly
at Sharpe. “Please, Lieutenant?”

“I shall sleep outside, ma’am, but I need a timepiece/

Mrs Parker, pleased with her small victory, smiled.

“If you are to guard us, Lieutenant, then you will want to be wakeful. Turning an hourglass
will keep you from slumbering. George?”

George Parker rooted about in his valise to produce an hourglass that he handed, with an
apologetic grimace, to Sharpe. Mrs Parker nodded satisfaction. “It lacks twenty-five minutes of
ten o’clock, Lieutenant, and the glass takes one hour to evacuate itself.” She waved an imperious
hand in dismissal.

Sharpe leaned on the wall outside the Parker’s room. He put the hourglass on a window sill and
watched the first grains trickle through. Damn the bloody woman. No wonder the army discouraged
the spread of Methodism in its ranks. Yet in one way Sharpe was glad to be a bodyguard, even to
someone as disobliging as Mrs Parker, for it gave him an excuse not to go back to the stable
where his Riflemen would make their displeasure and disdain clear once more. There had been a
time when the company of such men had been his life and pleasure, but now, because he was an
officer, he was bereft of such companionship. He felt an immense and hopeless weariness, and
wished this damned journey was over.

He cut one more button from his trousers which already gaped to show a length of scarred
thigh, and bought himself a skin of wine. He drank it quickly and miserably, then dragged a bench
close to the family’s door. The tavern customers, suspicious of the ragged, harsh-faced, foreign
soldier, kept clear of him. The bench was close to a small unshuttered window that gave Sharpe a
view of the stables. He half suspected that the Riflemen might attempt another mutiny, perhaps
sneaking off in the darkness to rejoin their beloved Major Vivar, but except for a few men who
appeared in the stableyard to urinate, all seemed calm. Calm, but not quiet. Sharpe could hear
the Riflemen’s laughter and it galled his loneliness. Gradually the laughter turned to
silence.

He could not sleep. The tavern emptied, except for two drovers who snored cheerfully by the
dying fire and the potman who made his bed under the serving hatch. Sharpe felt the beginnings of
a headache. He suddenly missed Vivar. The Spaniard’s cheerfulness and certainty had made the long
march bearable, and now he felt adrift in chaos. What if the British garrison had left Lisbon? Or
what if there were no naval ships off the coast? Was he doomed to wander through Spain till, at
last, the French solved his problems by making him a prisoner? And what if they did? The war must
soon end with French victory, and the French would send their prisoners home. Sharpe would go
back to England as just another failed officer who must eke out a bare existence on half-pay. He
turned the hourglass and scratched another mark on the limewashed wall.

There was a half-collapsed skin of wine beside the sleeping drovers and Sharpe stole it. He
squirted the foul liquid into his mouth, hoping that the raw taste would cut through his
burgeoning headache. He knew it would not. He knew that in the morning he would feel
foul-tempered and sore. So, doubtless, would his men, and the memory of their sullenness only
depressed him more. Damn them. Damn Williams. Damn Harper. Damn Vivar. Damn Sir John Moore for
ruining the best damned army that had ever left England. And damn Spain and damn the bloody
Parkers and damn the bloody cold that slowly seeped into the tavern as the fire died.

He heard the bolt shifting in the door behind him. It was being drawn surreptitiously and with
excruciating care. Then, after what seemed a long time, the heavy door creaked ajar. A pair of
nervous eyes stared at Sharpe. “Lieutenant?”

“Miss?”

“I brought you this.” Louisa closed the door very, very carefully and crossed to the bench.
She held out a thick silver watch. “It’s a striking watch,” she said quietly, “and I have set it
to ring at four o’clock.”

Sharpe took the heavy watch. “Thank you.”

“I have to apologize,” Louisa said hastily.

“No…“

“Indeed I do. I spend many hours apologizing for my aunt’s behaviour. Perhaps tomorrow you
would be kind enough to return the watch without her noticing?”

“Of course.”

“I also thought you might like this, Lieutenant.” She smiled mischievously as she brought a
black bottle from beneath her cloak. To Sharpe’s astonishment it held Spanish brandy. “It’s my
uncle’s,” she explained, “though he’s not supposed to drink it. He’ll think my aunt found it and
threw it away.”

“Thank you.” Sharpe swallowed some of the fierce liquid. Then, with awkward courtesy, he wiped
the bottle’s mouth on his dirty sleeve and offered it to Louisa.

“No, thank you.” She smiled at the clumsy gesture but, recognizing it as a friendly
invitation, sat in decorous acceptance at the far end of Sharpe’s bench. She was still dressed in
skirts, cloak and bonnet.

“Your uncle drinks?” Sharpe asked in amazement.

“Wouldn’t you? Married to her?” Louisa smiled at his expression. “Believe me, Lieutenant, I
only came with my aunt for the opportunity to see Spain. It was hardly because I desired months
of her company.”

“I see,” Sharpe said, though he really did not understand any of it, and certainly not why
this girl had sought his company in the middle of the night. He did not think she had risked her
aunt’s wrath just to lend him a watch, but she seemed eager to talk and, even though her presence
made him shy and tongue-tied, he wanted her to stay. The dying fire cast just enough light to
give a red sheen to her face. He thought her very beautiful.

“My aunt is uncommonly rude,” Louisa said in further apology. “She had no cause to comment on
your rank in the manner that she did.”

Sharpe shrugged. “She’s right. I am old to he a Lieutenant, but five years ago I was a
Sergeant.”

Louisa looked at him with new interest. “Truly?”

”Truly.“

She smiled, thus striking darts of desire into Sharpe’s soul. “I think you must be an
extremely remarkable man, Lieutenant, though I should tell you that my aunt thinks you are
extremely uncouth. She continually expresses amazement that you hold His Majesty’s commission,
and avers that Sir Hyde would never have allowed a ruffian like you as an officer on one of his
ships.”

For an instant Sharpe’s battered self-esteem made him bristle at the criticism, then he saw
that Louisa’s face was mischievous rather than serious. He saw, too, a friendliness in the girl.
It was a friendliness that Sharpe had not received from anyone in months and, though he warmed to
it, his awkwardness made his response clumsy. A born officer, he thought sourly, would know how
to reply to the girl’s dry humour, but he could only ask a dull question. “Was Sir Hyde your
father?”

“He was a cousin of my father’s, a very distant cousin indeed. I’m told he was not a good
Admiral. He believed Nelson was a mere adventurer.” She froze, alerted by a sudden noise, but it
was only the fall of a log in the smouldering fire. “But he became a very rich Admiral,” Louisa
went on, “and the family benefited from all that prize money.”

“So you’re rich?” Sharpe could not help asking.

“Not I. But my aunt received a sufficiency to create trouble in the world.” Louisa spoke very
gravely. “Have you any idea, Mr Sharpe, just how embarrassing it is to be spreading Protestantism
in Spain?”

Sharpe shrugged. “You volunteered, miss.”

“True. And the embarrassment is the price I pay for seeing Granada and Seville.” Her eyes lit
up, or perhaps it was just the reflected flare of glowing embers. “I would like to see
more!”

“But you’re returning to England?”

“My aunt thinks that is wise.” Louisa’s voice was carefully mocking. “The Spanish, you see,
are not welcoming her attempts to free them from Rome’s shackles.”

“But you’d like to stay?”

“It’s scarcely possible, is it? Young women, Mr Sharpe, do not have the freedom of this world.
I must return to Godalming where a Mr Bufford awaits me.”

Sharpe had to smile at her tone. “Mr Bufford?”

“He’s entirely respectable,” Louisa said, as though Sharpe had intimidated otherwise, “and, of
course, a Methodist. His money comes from the manufacture of ink, a trade of such profitability
that the future Mrs Bufford may look forward to a large house and a life of great, if tedious,
comfort. Certainly it will never be discoloured by the ink, which is manufactured in faraway
Deptford.”

Sharpe had never before talked with a girl of Louisa’s evident education, nor heard the monied
class spoken of with such deprecation. He had always believed that anyone born to great, if
tedious, comfort would be eternally grateful for the gift. “You’re the future Mrs Bufford?”

“That is the intention, yes.”

“But you don’t want to be married?”

“I do desire that, I think.” Louisa frowned. “Are you married?”

“I’m not rich enough to marry.”

“That’s rarely stopped others, I think. No, Mr Sharpe, I simply do not desire to marry Mr
Bufford, though my reluctance is doubtless very selfish of me.” Louisa shrugged away her
indiscretions. “But I did not hope to find you awakejust to impose my small unhappiness on you. I
wished to ask of you, Lieutenant, whether our presence makes it more likely that you and your men
will be captured by the French?”

The answer was clearly yes, but equally clearly Sharpe could not say so. “No, miss. So long as
we keep going at a fair clip, we should keep ahead of the bast-of them.”

“I was going to enjoin you, should you have answered me truthfully, to abandon us to the
bast-to them.” Louisa smiled her gravely mischievous smile.

“I wouldn’t abandon you, miss,” Sharpe said clumsily, glad that the gloom hid his
blush.

“My aunt does provoke great loyalty.”

“Exactly.” Sharpe smiled, and the smile turned into a laugh which Louisa hushed by holding a
finger to her lips.

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” She stood. “I hope you do not feel badly about our encumbering
you?”

“Not now, miss.”

Louisa crept to her door. “Sleep well, Lieutenant.”

“And you, miss.” Sharpe watched as she slipped through the door, and held his breath until he
heard the bolt slide safely shut on its far side. His sleep would be turbulent now, for all his
thoughts and desires and dreams had been turned inside out and upside down by a gentle, mocking
smile. Richard Sharpe was far from home, endangered by a conquering enemy and, just to make
things worse, he had fallen in love.