Sharpe's Battle Part 38

Donaju looked as though he might make a protest at Sharpe's behaviour, then he saw the rifleman's grim face and thought better of it. "I'll take a newspaper to Hogan," he said quietly, then folded the counterfeit Morning Chronicle into his pouch and backed from the room. Harper went with him and closed the kitchen door firmly behind him.

"Don't you worry, sir," Harper said to Donaju once they were in the yard.

"I'll look after the lady now."

"You will?"

"I'll dig her a nice deep grave, sir, and bury the witch upside down so that the harder she struggles the deeper she'll go. Have a safe ride back to the lines, sir."

Donaju blanched, then went to find his horse while Harper shouted at Perkins to find some water, make a fire and brew a good strong morning cup of tea.

"You're in trouble, Richard," Hogan said when he finally reached Sharpe. It was early evening of the day which had begun with Sharpe's stealthy approach to Loup's abandoned stronghold. "You're in trouble. You've been shooting prisoners. G.o.d, man, I don't care if you shoot every d.a.m.ned prisoner between here and Paris, but why the h.e.l.l did you have to tell anyone?"

Sharpe's only response was to turn from his vantage point among the rocks and wave a hand to indicate that Hogan should keep low.

"Don't you know the first rule of life, Richard?" Hogan grumbled as he tethered his horse to a boulder.

"Never get found out, sir."

"So why the h.e.l.l didn't you keep your d.a.m.ned mouth shut?" Hogan clambered up to Sharpe's eyrie and lay down beside the rifleman. "So what have you found?"

"The enemy, sir." Sharpe was five miles beyond San Cristobal, five miles deeper inside Spain, guided there by El Castrador who had ridden back to San

Cristobal with the news that had brought Hogan out to this ridge overlooking the main road that led west out of Ciudad Rodrigo. Sharpe had reached the ridge on Dona Juanita's horse which was now picketed safely out of sight of anyone looking up from the road and there were plenty who might have looked, for Sharpe was staring down at an army. "The French are out, sir," he said.

"They're marching, and there are thousands of the b.u.g.g.e.rs."

Hogan drew out his own telescope. He stared at the road for a long time, then allowed a hiss of breath to escape. "Dear G.o.d," he said, "dear sweet merciful

G.o.d." For a whole army was on the march. Infantry and dragoons, gunners and hussars, lancers and grenadiers, voltigeurs and engineers; a trail of men that looked black in the fading light, though here and there in the long column the dying sun reflected dark scarlet from the flank of a cannon being dragged by a team of oxen or horses. Thick dust clouded up from the wheels of the cannons, wagons and coaches that were keeping to the road itself, while the infantry marched in columns in the fields either side. The cavalry rode on the outermost flanks, long lines of men with steel-tipped lances and s.h.i.+ning helmets and tossing plumes, their horses' hooves leaving long bruised marks on the spring gra.s.s of the valley. "Dear G.o.d," Hogan said again.

"Loup's down there," Sharpe said. "I saw him. That's why he left San

Cristobal. He was summoned to join the army, you see?"

"d.a.m.n it!" Hogan exploded. "Why couldn't you forget Loup? It's Loup's fault you're in trouble! Why in the name of G.o.d couldn't you keep your mouth shut about those two d.a.m.ned fools you shot to death? Now b.l.o.o.d.y Valverde's saying that the Portuguese lost a prime regiment of men because you stirred up the hornet's nest, and that no sane Spaniard can ever trust a soldier to British officers. What it means, you d.a.m.ned fool, is that we have to parade you in front of the court of inquiry. We have to sacrifice you with Runciman."

Sharpe stared at the Irish Major. "Me?"

"Of course! For Christ's sake, Richard! Don't you have the first inkling of politics? The Spanish don't want Wellington as Generalissimo! They see that appointment as an insult to their country and they're looking for ammunition to support their cause. Ammunition like some d.a.m.ned fool of a rifleman fighting a private war at the expense of a fine regiment of Portuguese cacadores whose fate will serve as an example of what might happen to any

Spanish regiments put under the Peer's command." He paused to stare through his telescope, then pencilled a note on the cuff of his s.h.i.+rt. "G.o.d d.a.m.n it,

Richard, we were going to have a nice quiet court of inquiry, put all the blame on Runciman and then forget what happened at San Isidro. Now you've confused everything. Did you happen to keep notes of what you've seen here?"

"I did, sir," Sharpe said. He was still trying to come to terms with the idea that his whole career was suddenly in jeopardy. It all seemed so monstrously unfair, but he kept the resentment to himself as he handed Hogan a stiff, folded sheet of the ancient music that had concealed the counterfeit newspapers. On the back of the sheet Sharpe had pencilled a tally of the units he had watched march beneath him. It was an awesome list of battalions and squadrons and batteries, all going towards Almeida and all expecting to meet and trounce the small British army that had to try to stop them from relieving the fortress.

"So tomorrow," Hogan said, "they'll reach our positions. Tomorrow, Richard, we fight. And that's why." Hogan had spotted something new in the column and now pointed far to the west. It took Sharpe a moment to train his telescope, then he saw the vast column of ox-hauled wagons that was following the French troops west. "The relief supplies for Almeida," Hogan said, "all the food and ammunition the garrison wants, enough to keep them there through the summer while we lay siege, and if they can keep us in front of Almeida all summer then we'll never get across the frontier and the Lord alone knows how many

Frogs will attack us next spring." He collapsed his telescope again. "And talking of spring, Richard, would you like to tell me exactly what you did with the Dona Juanita? Captain Donaju said he left her with you and our knife- happy friend."

Sharpe coloured. "I sent her home, sir."

There was a moment's silence. "You did what?" Hogan asked.

"I sent her back to the c.r.a.pauds, sir."

Hogan shook his head in disbelief. "You let an enemy agent go back to the

French? Are you entirely mad, Richard?"

"She was upset, sir. She said that if I took her back to the army she'd be arrested by the Spanish authorities and tried by the junta in Cadiz, sir, and like as not put in front of a firing squad. I've never been one for fighting against women, sir. And we know who she is, don't we? So she can't do any harm now."

Hogan closed his eyes and rested his head on his forearm. "Dear G.o.d, in Your infinite mercy please save this poor b.u.g.g.e.r's soul because Wellington sure as h.e.l.l will not. Did it not occur to you, Richard, that I would have liked to talk to the lady?"

"It did, sir. But she was frightened. And she didn't want me to leave her alone with El Castrador. I was just being a gentleman, sir."

"I thought you didn't approve of the gentry fighting wars. So what did you do?

Pat her little b.u.m, dry her maidenly tears, then give her a soulful kiss and send her down to Loup so she could tell him how you're stranded in San

Cristobal?"

"I let her go a couple of miles back"-Sharpe jerked his head north and west-

"and made her travel on foot, sir, without any boots. I reckoned that would slow her down. And she did talk to me before she left, sir. It's all written down there if you can make out my handwriting. She says she distributed the newspapers, sir. She took them down to Irish encampments, sir."

"The only thing that Dona Juanita could distribute, Richard, is the pox. Jesus wept! You let that b.i.t.c.h twist you round her little fingers. For Christ's sake, Richard, I already knew she was the one fetching the newspapers. She was an errand girl. The real villain is someone else and I was hoping to follow her to him. Now you've b.u.g.g.e.red that up. Jesus!" Hogan paused to contain his anger, then shook his head wearily. "But at least she left you your b.l.o.o.d.y jacket."

Sharpe frowned in puzzlement. "My jacket, sir?"

"Remember what I told you, Richard? How the Lady Juanita collects the uniforms of every man she sleeps with. Her wardrobes must be vast, but I'm glad to see she won't be hanging a jacket of rifle green along with all the other coats."

"No, sir," Sharpe said, and blushed an even deeper red. "Sorry, sir."

"It can't be helped," Hogan said as he wriggled back from the crest. "You're an idiot for women and always were. If we thrash Ma.s.sena then the lady can't do us much harm, and if we don't, then the war's probably lost anyway. Let's get you the h.e.l.l out of here. You're on administrative duties till your crucifixion." He backed away from the crest and put his telescope back into a belt pouch. "I'll do my best for you, G.o.d knows why, but your best prayer,

Richard, and I hate to tell you this, is that we lose this battle. Because if we do it'll be such a disaster that no one will have the time or energy to remember your idiocy."

It was dark by the time they reached San Cristobal. Donaju had returned to the village with Hogan and now he led his fifty men of the Real Compania Irlandesa back towards the British lines. "I saw Lord Kiely at headquarters," he told

Sharpe.

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him his lover was an afrancesada and that she was sleeping with Loup."

Donaju's tone was stark. "And I told him he was a fool."