Sharpe's Battle Part 6

"Which means I'm paying them?" Wellington inquired dangerously, and, when

Hogan's only answer was a seraphic smile, the General swore. "G.o.d d.a.m.n their eyes! I'm supposed to pay the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds? While they stab me in the back? Is that what they're here for, Hogan?"

"I wouldn't know, my Lord. But I suspect as much."

A gust of laughter sounded from a fatigue party that had just discovered some intimate drawings concealed in a dead Frenchman's coat tails. Wellington winced at the noise and edged his horse further away from the raucous group.

Some crows fought over a pile of offal that had once been a French skirmisher.

The General stared at the unpleasant sight, then grimaced. "So what do you know about this Irish guard, Hogan?"

"They're mostly Spanish these days, my Lord, though even the Spanish-born guards have to be descended from Irish exiles. Most of the guardsmen are recruited from the three Irish regiments in Spanish service, but a handful, I imagine, will be deserters from our own army. I'd suspect that most of them are patriotic to Spain and are probably willing to fight against the French, but undoubtedly a handful of them will be afrancesados, though in that regard

I'd suspect the officers before the men." An afrancesado was a Spaniard who supported the French and almost all such traitors came from the educated cla.s.ses. Hogan slapped a horsefly that had settled on his horse's neck. "It's all right, Jeremiah, just a hungry fly," he explained to his startled horse, then turned back to Wellington. "I don't know why they've been sent here, my

Lord, but I am sure of two things. First, it will be a diplomatic impossibility to get rid of them, and second we have to a.s.sume that it's the

French who want them here. King Ferdinand, I've no doubt, was gulled into writing the letter. I hear he's not very clever, my Lord."

"But you are, Hogan. It's why I put up with you. So what do we do? Put them to latrine digging?"

Hogan shook his head. "If you employ the King of Spain's household guard on menial tasks, my Lord, it will be construed as an insult to our Spanish allies as well as to His Catholic Majesty."

"d.a.m.n His Catholic Majesty," Wellington growled, then stared balefully towards the trench-like grave where the French dead were now being unceremoniously laid in a long, white, naked row. "And the junta?" he asked. "What of the junta?"

The junta in Cadiz was the regency council that ruled unoccupied Spain in their King's absence. Of its patriotism there could be no doubt, but the same could not be said of its efficiency. The junta was notorious for its internal squabbles and touchy pride, and few matters had touched that pride more directly than the discreet request that Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Wellington, be made Generalisimo of all Spain's armies. Wellington was already the General

Marshal of Portugal's army and commander of the British forces in Portugal, and no man of sense denied he was the best general on the allied side, not least because he was the only one who consistently won battles, and no one denied that it made sense for all the armies opposing the French in Spain and

Portugal to be under a unified command, but nevertheless, despite the acknowledged sense of the proposal, the junta was reluctant to grant

Wellington any such powers. Spain's armies, they protested, must be led by a

Spaniard, and if no Spaniard had yet proved capable of winning a campaign against the French, then that was no matter; better a defeated Spaniard than a victorious foreigner.

"The junta, my Lord," Hogan answered carefully, "will think this is the thin end of a very broad wedge. They'll think this is a British plot to take over the Spanish armies piecemeal, and they'll watch like hawks, my Lord, to see how you treat the Real Compania Irlandesa."

"The hawk," Wellington said with a sour twist, "being Don Luis."

"Precisely, my Lord," Hogan said. General Don Luis Valverde was the junta's official observer with the British and Portuguese armies and the man whose recommendation was needed if the Spanish were ever to appoint Wellington as their Generalisimo. It was an approval that was highly unlikely, for General

Valverde was a man in whom all the junta's great pride and none of its small sense was concentrated.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it," Wellington said, thinking of Valverde. "Well, Hogan? You're paid to advise me, so earn your d.a.m.ned pay."

Hogan paused to collect his thoughts. "I fear we have to welcome Lord Kiely and his men," he said after a few seconds, "even while we distrust them, and so it seems to me, my Lord, that we must do our best to make them uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that they either go back to Madrid or else march down to Cadiz."

"We drive them out?" Wellington said. "How?"

"Partly, my Lord, by bivouacking them so close to the French that those guardsmen who wish to desert will find it easy. At the same time, my Lord, we say that we have put them in a place of danger as a compliment to their fighting reputation, despite which, my Lord, I think we must a.s.sume that the

Real Compania Irlandesa, while undoubtedly skilled at guarding palace gates, will prove less skilled at the more mundane task of fighting the French. We should therefore insist that they submit to a period of strict training under the supervision of someone who can be trusted to make their life a living misery."

Wellington gave a grim smile. "Make these ceremonial soldiers stoop, eh? Make them chew on humble pie till it chokes them?"

"Exactly, my Lord. I have no doubt that they expect to be treated with respect and even privilege, so we must disappoint them. We'll have to give them a liaison officer, someone senior enough to smooth Lord Kiely's feathers and allay General Valverde's suspicions, but why not give them a drillmaster too?

A tyrant, but someone shrewd enough to smoke out their secrets."

Wellington smiled, then turned his horse back towards his aides. He knew exactly who Hogan had in mind. "I doubt our Lord Kiely will much like Mister

Sharpe," the General said.

"I cannot think they'll take to each other, my Lord, no."

"Where is Sharpe?"

"He should be on his way to Vilar Formoso today, my Lord. He's an unhappy recruit to the Town Major's staff."

"So he'll be glad to be c.u.mbered with Kiely instead then, won't he? And who do we appoint as liaison officer?"

"Any emollient fool will do for that post, my Lord."

"Very well, Hogan, I'll find the fool and you arrange the rest." The General touched his heels to his horse's flank. His aides, seeing the General ready to move, gathered their reins, then Wellington paused. "What does a man want with a common milking stool, Hogan?"

"It keeps his a.r.s.e dry during wet nights of sentry duty, my Lord."

"Clever thought, Hogan. Can't think why I didn't come up with the idea myself.

Well done." Wellington wheeled his horse and spurred west away from the battle's litter.

Hogan watched the General go, then grimaced. The French, he was sure, had wished trouble on him and now, with G.o.d's good help, he would wish some evil back on them. He would welcome the Real Compania Irlandesa with honeyed words and extravagant promises, then give the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds Richard Sharpe.

The girl clung to Rifleman Perkins. She was hurt inside, she was bleeding and limping, but she had insisted on coming out of the hovel to watch the two

Frenchmen die. Indeed she taunted the two men, spitting and screaming at them, then laughed as one of the two captives dropped to his knees and lifted his bound hands towards Sharpe. "He says he wasn't raping the girl, sir," Harris translated.

"So why were the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's trousers round his ankles?" Sharpe asked, then looked at his eight-man firing squad. Usually it was hard to find men willing to serve on firing squads, but there had been no difficulty this time.

"Present!" Sharpe called.

"Non, Monsieur, je vous prie! Monsieur!" the kneeling Frenchman called. Tears ran down his face.

Eight riflemen lined their sights on the two Frenchmen. The other captive spat his derision and kept his head high. He was a handsome man, though his face was bruised from Harris's ministrations. The first man, realizing that his begging was to go unanswered, dropped his head and sobbed uncontrollably.

"Maman," he called pathetically, "Maman!" Brigadier General Loup, back in his fur-edged saddle, watched the executions from fifty yards away.

Sharpe knew he had no legal right to shoot prisoners. He knew he might even be endangering his career by this act, but then he thought of the small, blood- blackened bodies of the raped and murdered children. "Fire!" he called.