Sharpe's Rifles (19 page)

It was Dodd who answered. “He’s dead, sir. Got one in the eye, sir.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“He was looking out the roof, sir.”

“Make sure someone keeps looking out!”

Williams was dead. Sharpe sat at the foot of the ladder and stared at Patrick Harper. He was
the obvious replacement, the only choice, but Sharpe suspected the big Irishman would scathingly
reject the offer. So, he thought, the rank should not be offered but simply imposed.
“Harper?”

“Sir?”

“You’re a Sergeant.”

“I’m bloody not.”

“You’re a Sergeant!”

“No, sir! Not in this damned army. No.”

“Jesus Christ!” Sharpe spat the blasphemy at the huge man, but Harper merely turned to stare
out of the window to where puffs of smoke betrayed the position of some Dragoons in a
ditch.

“Mister Sharpe?” A tentative hand touched Sharpe’s wounded arm. It was George Parker again.
“My dear wife and I have discussed it, Lieutenant, and we would appreciate it if you would
communicate with the French commander.” Parker suddenly saw Sharpe’s blood on his own fingers. He
blanched and stuttered on: ‘Please don’t think we wish to desert you at this time,
but…“

“I know,” Sharpe cut him short, “you think we’re doomed.” He spoke savagely, not because he
disapproved of Parker’s wish to be safe, but because, if the Parkers went, he would lose Louisa.
He could have left the Parkers on the road, safe in their carriage, but he had panicked them into
flight because he did not want to lose the girl’s company. Yet now Sharpe knew he had no choice,
for the two women could not be expected to endure the French assault, nor the danger of a
ricocheting bullet. Louisa must go.

On the table, where the dead Rifleman lay among shattered crockery with the blood still
dripping from his sopping hair, there was a piece of cheesecloth which, though grey and dirty,
might pass for a flag of truce. Sharpe speared the flimsy material onto the tip of his sword,
then shuffled over to the window. The Riflemen made way for him.

He reached up and pushed the sword clear of the window frame. He waved it left and right, and
was rewarded with a shout from outside. There was a pause in which, tentatively, Sharpe stood
upright.

“What do you want, Englishman?” a voice shouted.

“To talk.”

“Come out then. Just one of you!”

Sharpe plucked the cheesecloth from his sword, sheathed the blade, and went into the passage.
He stepped over a dead Dragoon, pulled the chest clear of the northern door, then, feeling oddly
naked and exposed, walked into the rain.

To talk to the man in the red pelisse.

  
A
dozen French wounded lay in the barn, filling its
cavernous space with the stench of blood, pus, and camphorated vinegar. The casualties lay on
rough beds of hay at one end while at the other, in front of a stack of woven sheep hurdles, the
officers had made a crude command post out of an upturned water barrel. A half-dozen officers
stood about the barrel and among them was the chasseur in his red pelisse, who greeted Sharpe
warmly and in fluent English. “My name is Colonel Pierre de l’Eclin, and I have the honour to be
a chasseur of His Majesty’s Imperial Guard.”

Sharpe returned the hint of a bow. “Lieutenant Richard Sharpe of the Rifles.”

“The Rifles, eh? You make it sound like a very proud boast.” De l’Eclin was a handsome man; as
tall as Sharpe, strongly built, and with a square-jawed face and golden hair. He gestured at a
flask of wine which stood on the makeshift table. “Will a Rifle take some wine?”

Sharpe was not certain whether he was being mocked or complimented. “Thank you,
sir.”

The chasseur waved away a Lieutenant, insisting on filling the two small silver cups himself.
He handed one towards Sharpe but, before the Rifleman could take the cup, de l’Eclin withdrew it
slightly as though giving himself a chance to study his scarred face. “Have we met,
Lieutenant?”

“By a bridge, sir. You broke my sabre.”

De l’Eclin seemed delighted. He gave the cup to Sharpe and clicked his fingers as the memory
came back. “You parried! A quite remarkable parry! Or was it luck?”

“Probably luck, sir.”

“Soldiers should be lucky, and consider how lucky you are that I didn’t catch up with you in
open ground today. All the same, Lieutenant, I salute your Rifles’ excellent defence. It’s a pity
it must end like this.”

Sharpe drank the wine to scour the sour taste of powder from his mouth. “It isn’t ended,
sir.”

“No?” De l’Eclin raised a polite eyebrow.

“I’m here, sir, solely on behalf of some English civilians, trapped inside the farm, who
desire to leave. They are willing to trust to your kindness, sir.”

“My kindness?” De l’Eclin gave a gleeful bellow of laughter. “I told you that I am a chasseur
of the Emperor’s Imperial Guard, Lieutenant. A man does not achieve that signal honour, let alone
a colonelcy, by kindness. Still, I’m grateful for what was indubitably meant as a compliment. Who
are these civilians?”

“English travellers, sir.”

“And these are their books?” De l’Eclin gestured at two muddy Spanish testaments which lay on
the upturned barrel. The French had clearly been curious about the spilt books, a curiosity which
Sharpe tried to satisfy. “They’re Methodist missionaries, sir, trying to turn Spain from the
Papacy.”

De l’Eclin inspected Sharpe for evidence of levity, found none, and burst into laughter.
“They’ve as much hope, Lieutenant, of turning tigers into cows! What strange people it is a
soldier’s privilege to meet. Do I have your word that these Methodists have not carried
weapons?”

Sharpe conveniently forgot Louisa’s small pistol. “You have, sir.”

“You can send them out. God knows what we’ll make of them, but we won’t shoot them.”

“Thank you, sir.” Sharpe turned to go.

“But don’t leave me yet, Lieutenant. I’d like to talk to you.” De l’Eclin saw the flicker of
worry on Sharpe’s face, and shook his head. “I won’t keep you against your will, Lieutenant. I do
respect flags of truce.”

Sharpe went to the barn door and shouted to the farmhouse that the Parker family could leave.
He also suggested that the three Spaniards in the farm might take this chance to escape, but it
seemed none of them wanted to risk French hospitality, for only the Parker family emerged from
the besieged house. Mrs Parker was the first to appear, stumping through the mud and rain with
her umbrella carried like a weapon. “Dear God,” de l’Eclin murmured behind Sharpe. “Why don’t you
recruit her?”

George Parker stepped hesitantly into the rain, then Louisa emerged and de l’Eclin breathed a
sigh of appreciation. “It seems we have to thank you.”

“You might not, sir, when you meet the aunt.”

“I don’t intend to bed the aunt.” De l’Eclin ordered a Captain to take care of the civilians,
then drew Sharpe back into the barn. “So, my Rifle Lieutenant, what do you plan to do
now?”

Sharpe ignored the patronizing tone and pretended incomprehension. “Sir?”

“Let me tell you your plans.” The tall Frenchman, whose pelisse hung so elegantly from his
right shoulder, paced up and down the barn. “You’ve succeeded in loopholing the end walls of the
farm’s upstairs room, which means I cannot surprise you until it is dark. A night attack might
succeed, but it will be risky, especially as you will doubtless have a stock of combustibles
inside the house with which you plan to illuminate the exterior.” He cocked an amused eye to
catch a reaction from the Rifleman, but Sharpe betrayed nothing. De l’Eclin paused to refill
Sharpe’s cup. “I suspect you feel you can survive at least one more attack and you also gauge
that, once that attack fails, I will wait for first light. So, at about two or three in the
morning, when my men are at their weariest, you will make a sally. I imagine you’ll head west,
because there’s a gully of brushwood just a hundred paces away. Once there you will be relatively
safe, and there are woodland paths up to the hills.” De l’Eclin had begun his pacing again, but
now swivelled back to stare at Sharpe. “Am I right?”

The chasseur had been entirely, utterly accurate. Sharpe had not known about the gully, though
he would have seen it from the hole in the roof and would undoubtedly have chosen to make his
attack in that direction.

“Well?” de l’Eclin insisted.

“I was planning something different,” Sharpe said.

“Oh?” The chasseur was exquisitely polite.

“I was planning to capture your men and do to them what they did to those Spanish villagers in
the highlands.”

“Rape them?” de l’Eclin suggested, then laughed. “Some of them might even enjoy that, but I
assure you that most will resist your bestial, though doubtless very English, lusts.”

Sharpe, made to feel extremely foolish by the Frenchman’s poise, said nothing. He also felt
unbearably ragged. His jacket was torn and blood-stained, he was hatless, his trousers were
gaping because of the missing silver buttons and his cheap boots were in shreds. De l’Eclin, in
contrast, was exquisitely uniformed. The chasseur wore a tight red dolman jacket with loops and
buttons of gold. Over it hung his scarlet pelisse; a garment of utter uselessness but high
fashion for cavalrymen. A pelisse was merely a jacket that was worn on one shoulder like a cloak.
Decorated with golden braid, de l’Eclin’s was fastened about his neck with a golden chain, and
edged with soft black lamb’s fleece. Its empty sleeves hung down to the gold-coloured chains of
his sabre slings. The inner legs and lower cuffs of his dark green overalls had been reinforced
with black leather to resist the chafing of a saddle, while their outer seams were red stripes
brightened with golden buttons. His tall boots were of soft black leather. Sharpe wondered how
much such a uniform cost, and knew it was probably more than his salary for a year.

De l’Eclin opened his sabretache and took out two cigars. He offered one to the Rifleman, who
saw no reason to refuse it. The two men companionably shared the flame of a tinder-box, then the
Frenchman, blowing a stream of smoke over Sharpe’s head, sighed. “I think, Lieutenant, that you
and your Rifles should surrender.”

Sharpe kept a stubborn silence. De l’Eclin shrugged. “I will be honest with you, Lieutenant,”
he paused, “Sharpe, did you say?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I will be honest with you, Lieutenant Sharpe. I do not wish my men to be in this place at
night. We have the honour to be the vanguard of our army and we are, therefore, exposed. The
Spanish peasantry is sometimes tempted to make itself a nuisance. If I am here tonight, then I
might lose a handful of men to knives in the dark. Those men will die horribly, and I do not
think that the best cavalry in the world should suffer such an ignoble and painful death. So I
expect you to surrender long before nightfall. Indeed, if you do not do so now, I shall not
accept a surrender later. Do I make myself plain?”

Sharpe hid his astonishment at the threat, “I understand you, sir.”

De l’Eclin, despite Sharpe’s assent, could not resist embroidering his menace. “You will all
die, Lieutenant. Not slowly, as we kill the Spanish peasants, but die all the same. Tomorrow the
army will catch up with me, and I shall deploy artillery to grind your Rifles into mincemeat. It
will be a lesson to other enemies of France not to waste the Emperor’s time.”

“Yes, sir.”

De l’Eclin smiled pleasantly. “Does that affirmative signify your surrender?”

“No, sir. You see, sir, I don’t believe in your guns. You’re carrying forage nets,” Sharpe
gestured through the barn’s gaping rear door at the officers’ horses which, tethered safely out
of sight of the Rifles, all had heavy nets of hay slung from their saddle spoons. Tf your army
was going to catch up with you, sir, you’d let the waggons carry your feed. You’re on a patrol,
nothing more, and if I resist long enough, you’ll leave.“

The French Colonel gazed thoughtfully at him for a few seconds. It was plain that, just as de
l’Eclin had correctly guessed Sharpe’s tactics a moment before, so Sharpe had now guessed the
Frenchman’s. De l’Eclin shrugged.

“I admire your courage, Lieutenant. But it won’t avail you. There really is no choice. Your
army is defeated and fled home, the Spanish armies are broken and scattered. No one will help
you. You can surrender now or you can be stubborn, which means that you will be cut to shreds by
my blades.” His voice had lost its light and bantering tone, and was now deadly serious. “One way
or another, Lieutenant, I will see you all killed.”

Sharpe knew he had no chance to win this siege, but was too pig-headed to give way. “I want
time to think about it, sir.”

“Time to delay, you mean?” The chasseur shrugged scornfully. “It won’t help, Lieutenant. Do
you really think we’ve come this far just to let Major Vivar escape?” Sharpe stared blankly at
him. De l’Eclin entirely misunderstood Sharpe’s expression; mistaking the Rifleman’s
incomprehension for guilty astonishment. “We know he’s with you, Lieutenant. He and his precious
strongbox!”

“He’s…“ Sharpe did not know what to say.

“So you see, Lieutenant, I really will not abandon the hunt now. I was charged by the Emperor
himself to take that strongbox to Paris, and I do not intend to fail him.” De l’Eclin smiled
condescendingly. “Of course, if you send the Major out to me, with his box, I might let you
continue south. I doubt if a few ragged Rifles will endanger the future of the Empire.”

“He’s not with me!” Sharpe protested.,

“Lieutenant!” de l’Eclin chided.

“Ask the Methodists! I haven’t seen Major Vivar in two days!”

“He’s lying!” The voice came from behind the stack of sheep hurdles, from where the tall
civilian in the black coat and white riding boots appeared. “You’re lying, Englishman.”

“Piss on you, you bastard.” Sharpe snarled at the insult to his honour.

Colonel de l’Eclin moved swiftly to interpose himself between the two angry men. He addressed
himself in English to the man in the black coat, though he still stared at the Rifleman. “It
seems, my dear Count, that your brother might have successfully spread a false rumour? He is not,
after all, travelling south to find remounts?”