Sharpes assassin, p.3
Sharpe's Assassin, page 3
Vincent understood the question’s real meaning and smiled. “Thank the good Lord I’ve never got close to one, Sharpe. Nasty things, cannon. They make far too much noise.”
Vincent was one of Wellington’s exploring officers, and that made sense. Sharpe had worked with them before and knew them to be subtle and clever men whose job was to determine the enemy’s dispositions and plans. They rode good horses far behind the enemy lines and always wore uniform so that if they were captured they could claim they were not spies. “So what can you tell me about Ham?” Sharpe asked.
“It’s a nice little town on the River Somme, Sharpe, with a citadel in a bend of the river. And the citadel is a bloody great stone fortress. Big corner towers, high walls. You’ve seen the Tower of London?”
“Many times.”
“Think of the White Tower, only twice the size.”
“Jesus!” Sharpe said. “And it’s well garrisoned?”
“Oh, indeed, but usually garrison troops aren’t the best fighting men.”
“They might have been reinforced, sir,” Sharpe suggested.
“Reinforced?”
“Men fleeing the battle, sir.”
“I suppose a few might have reached there, yes, but most of the French will be retreating to the east of Ham, and the Prussians will be on their heels.”
“The Duke suggested the Prussians might reach Ham first, sir.”
“God, I hope not! The prisoners will be scattered across half of France if they do. No, Sharpe, we get there first, we release them, and we take our fellow back to the Duke.”
“Our fellow, sir?”
“Rather an important man. Pity he was captured.”
“Who is he?”
“No need for you to know until you meet him.”
Sharpe bridled at that curt response, but did not argue. “The garrison will have learned about the battle soon enough,” he said, “so why wouldn’t they just take the prisoners south, out of our way?”
“Don’t even think about that,” Vincent said. “They should do that, but will the garrison’s commandant be astute enough to act without orders? My guess is that if we hurry we’ll get there in time.”
“The Duke should have sent cavalry,” Sharpe grumbled.
“Can you imagine cavalry capturing a fortress? The poor darlings wouldn’t know how to begin.”
“And you think I do?”
“The Duke has faith in you, Sharpe,” Vincent said sternly. “Will your fellows be ready to march?”
“They’d better be,” Sharpe growled, and the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers were indeed ready, drawn up in ranks on the road that led along the ridge where the battle had been fought. The fires in the valley still smoked, their stench of burning flesh carrying up to the road. The wounded were still in their encampment, tended by the bandsmen, all but for the six drummers, who would march with the battalion.
“What about the women, sir?” Harry Price accosted Sharpe.
“What about them, Harry?”
“Can they come?”
“Of course not!” Vincent put in brusquely.
Sharpe leaned down. “Listen, Harry, we’re going to be marching fast, really fast. The women will have to keep up. If they don’t? We abandon them. Let them know.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Is that wise, Sharpe?” Vincent asked.
Sharpe turned to him. “You want these men to fight hard, and they’re not going to be happy if their wives are left with the rest of the army. Happy men fight a damn sight better than a battalion of miserable buggers. Besides, the wives will make up their own minds. Some will come, some will stay with the wounded, and some will decide their children can’t stand the pace.”
“Children too!” Vincent sounded alarmed.
“They happen when you put men and women together,” Sharpe said, then spurred his horse to the center of the battalion’s line. Harper rode with him. “’Talion!” the Irishman bellowed. “’Ten’shun!”
“Stand easy,” Sharpe called. “Now listen, you rogues! The Duke has given us a special task, and he did that because we’re special! He reckons we’re one of his best battalions! So we’re marching into France, and we’re going on our own.” He let that idea settle, hearing the murmurs in the ranks. “Quiet!” he called. “We’re going on our own and we’re also going fast! If you can’t keep up you’ll be left behind, but the Duke trusts you to march hard and we will not let him down!” It was not much of a speech, but Sharpe had wanted to warn them that they faced a hard slog. “Right, Pat, lead them off.”
“Where to?” Harper asked, amused.
“Center of the ridge, then turn right. And reverse the company order.”
The battalion had lined up facing north, so the Grenadier Company was on Sharpe’s left, the direction they would march. They were a good company, but the Light Company, on his right, would set a quicker pace and Sharpe intended to march fast. The Grenadiers wouldn’t like it, reckoning that they should always lead the battalion, but a Light Company marching pace would leave them too tired to grumble. “Drummers!” Sharpe bellowed. “I want to hear you!”
He rode to the head of the column, accompanied by Harper and Vincent. They marched along the ridge, past the corpses of the French horses that had charged so gallantly and been cut down ruthlessly by canister fire from the cannons and by the relentless volley fire from the British squares. A little farther on Sharpe passed the spot where his rifle bullet had struck the Prince of Orange’s shoulder and he felt a pulse of pleasure in the memory, along with a wish that the bullet has struck a hand’s breadth lower. Then they were at the crossroads where the farm track joined the main road, and Sharpe turned right, leading his battalion past the walled farmyard of La Haye Sainte, where the King’s German Legion had fought and died. Dead horses lined the road and there were still dead men who had not yet been collected for burial or burning. Among them were too many green-jacketed riflemen. “God,” he said to Harper, “this was a bloody slaughter.”
“Worst I’ve been in,” the Irishman said.
“Badajoz was worse.”
“Aye, that was a proper fight too.”
“You were at Badajoz?” Vincent asked, then looked at the wreath of oak leaves sewn onto Sharpe’s sleeve. “Is that—” he began, then stopped.
“That’s Badajoz.” Sharpe had seen the major’s glance. “We were both there.” The oak wreath marked a man who had survived a Forlorn Hope, the suicidal group that went first into an enemy breach. Sharpe and Harper had climbed the Santa Maria breach, clawing their way up blood-soaked stones into the fire of the defenders, while behind them the deep ditch had been filled with the dead. There were nights when he still woke in a sweat, dreaming of that fight, wondering how he and Harper had survived, and to this day he did not know by what miracle they had lived, let alone won. “And I hope,” he continued to Vincent, “that we never have to fight again.”
“Amen to that,” Harper said.
“The damned Frogs haven’t surrendered yet, Colonel,” Vincent said.
“They’re well beaten though.”
“Maybe.” Vincent sounded dubious. “Marshal Grouchy led his Corps south, and Davout has at least a hundred thousand men in and around Paris. And the Emperor don’t give up easy! He’ll fight to the end.”
“Then we’ll just have to beat him again,” Sharpe said. They had reached the floor of the valley where there were fewer corpses, though the foul smoke of the fires still soured the air. A woman with a baby strapped to her back was busy pulling teeth from a French corpse. She grunted as her pliers dragged another free, then grinned at Sharpe. “Need new teeth?” She pushed the extracted tooth into a bag and went back to work.
“Teeth?” Vincent asked with a shudder.
“She’ll get good money for them,” Sharpe said. “They make the best false teeth.”
“We collected a sackful after Salamanca,” Harper said cheerfully, “sold them too!”
Sharpe nodded a greeting to a dozen artillerymen who were guarding a group of captured French cannon, then climbed the slope toward the ridge where Napoleon had arrayed his army, and where the French attacks had started, only to die under the flail of British musketry. There was a tavern at the top of the slope and not far away a rickety tower made of slender tree trunks lashed together to support a platform reached by a ladder. “Boney spent much of the battle up that contraption,” Vincent said, “watching us through his glass.”
“And where were you?” Sharpe asked.
“I spent most of the day out there,” Vincent waved eastward, “looking for the Prussians.”
Sharpe spurred his horse toward the head of the column. He noticed two or three soldiers wearing new bright redcoats, meaning they had come with the new draft. Private Bee was one of them, and Sharpe beckoned the lad. “Can you ride a horse, Bee?”
“Never ridden one, sir.”
“Time you learned then, Pat Bee.” Sharpe gave the boy the horse’s reins. “He’s an easy horse, just don’t kick him too hard, and try to stay close to me.” He helped him into the saddle. “How old are you, Bee?”
“Seventeen, sir?” the boy sounded uncertain and, to Sharpe’s eyes, appeared little more than a boy, no taller than his musket, which looked too heavy for him to carry.
“Where are you from, Bee?”
“I was born in Balham, sir, but live in Shoreditch now.”
“I’m from that part of the world,” Sharpe said, “and why did you join up?”
“Magistrate, sir.”
Sharpe laughed. “Me too. What did you do?”
“Pickpocket, sir.” Bee sounded ashamed.
“You were a clouter!” Sharpe said, using the Londoners’ word for a pickpocket.
“Not a very good one, sir.”
“Then be a good soldier, Bee,” Sharpe said, then strode to the front of the column. He would set the pace and it would be a fast one. They were south of the battlefield now, though the fields on either side of the road were littered with muskets and knapsacks that had been discarded by French soldiers fleeing the carnage. Harry Price caught up with Sharpe and fell into step. “Showing the men you can march like them, sir?” Price asked, amused.
“Exactly, Harry.”
“So what are we doing, sir?”
“Following the Duke’s orders, Harry.”
“Which are what, sir?”
“Not very much, Harry. Get first into France, capture a fortress, release some prisoners, and then rejoin the army.”
Price marched a few paces in silence. “I knew you wouldn’t tell me.”
“You shouldn’t have asked, Harry. Oh, and once we do rejoin the army I want you to detail half a dozen men to accompany the Vicomtesse.” Lucille was the Vicomtesse de Seleglise, a title she rarely used and that never ceased to astonish Sharpe. “Reliable men.”
“That I can do, sir, but capturing a fortress? Ha ha.”
The dawn was obscured by clouds and by the time the battalion reached the crossroads called Quatre Bras a light rain was falling. Sharpe turned right at the crossroads, leading the battalion through yet more unburied corpses of men and horses killed in the battle two days before the bigger conflict at Mont-Saint-Jean. The corpses were mostly naked, having been stripped by villagers. He looked left to where the French heavy cavalry had hammered three battalions of good infantry that the Prince of Orange had insisted stay in line despite Sharpe’s warnings that enemy horsemen were lurking in the fields of rye.
They stopped beyond the battlefield to rest for a few minutes and to let the men fill their canteens from a small stream. Major Vincent unfolded a map and ineffectually tried to protect it from the rain with his pelisse. “A good start, Sharpe!” he said happily. “On to Mons, eh?”
“How far’s that, sir?”
Vincent traced the route with a finger. “Oh, about thirty miles.”
“We’ll not make it today,” Sharpe said.
“Then we’d best press on!”
They marched through the fortress town of Mons next morning, assailed by folk wanting news of the battle. Sharpe purchased bread and salt pork in the town and ignored the ale that his men bought. They deserved it after their hard marching. He had marched with them, setting a brisk pace.
That afternoon they crossed into France. The road, which was gravel over stone, suddenly deteriorated. “Boney ordered it plowed up,” Vincent explained. “He didn’t want to make it easy for an invasion.” Any invasion of France must follow the main roads and, while infantry and cavalry could move easily through the fields on either side, the big guns and the supply wagons must stay on the road, which was now a churned mess. They passed through villages where sullen folk watched them. Sharpe had spoken to the battalion the night before, warning them that the Duke had ordered that there was to be no pillaging. “The bloody Frogs aren’t going to like us, but we don’t want them angry enough to fight us. If you want bread or beer you pay for it! And not with buttons either.” In Spain the British soldiers had learned to detach their uniform buttons and hammer them flat, then persuade villagers that they were genuine coinage. “I’m not a flogger,” Sharpe had told his men, “but if you mistreat French civilians I’ll beat the shit out of you myself.”
“Or I will!” Harper put in.
They marched on. Sharpe had decided to start early each morning, before dawn, and march through the morning and early afternoon, then stop long before sundown to give the men time to make shelters. The rain followed them, but never fell hard. Major Vincent had a hoard of French currency that Sharpe used to buy bread, wine, eggs, and meat. A half-dozen men, their feet blistered or bleeding, had to drop out of the marching column, and Sharpe left them behind with a scribbled note that listed the men’s names and testified they were not deserters. Vincent countersigned it. “Wait for the army,” Sharpe told them.
Vincent reckoned they must be at least twenty miles ahead of the rest of the army, which would be slowed by the heavy guns and baggage wagons. That afternoon they passed Condé, a fortress town, and blue-uniformed men watched them from the walls, but made no effort to oppose them. “Valenciennes next,” Vincent said, “a much bigger garrison.”
The rain had stopped and a weak sun lit the flat countryside, and Sharpe kept the column moving. “We’ll stop close to Valenciennes,” he told Vincent. “You think there’ll be trouble there?”
“Garrison troops gone soft,” Vincent said scornfully. “They’ll leave us alone if they’ve a scrap of sense.”
“How many in the garrison?”
“Lord knows,” Vincent said airily, “maybe a thousand?”
They skirted Valenciennes, again watched by troops on the town’s ramparts. Sharpe wanted to stop, but not so close to an enemy fortress and so they marched on, following field tracks to the west of the town.
Then the enemy opened fire. Two cannons shot from a bulwark, their balls searing across the damp fields to throw up sprays of earth and water some fifty paces to the right of the column. “Cold barrels,” Sharpe said.
“Cold?” Vincent asked.
“Cannons fire farther with hot barrels,” Sharpe said, “so the next shots will be closer.”
The next shots screamed overhead, missing the Light Company’s shakos by less than a yard. Sharpe hurried the pace.
“Sir?” Private Bee said nervously.
“What is it, Bee?”
“Horsemen, sir, behind us.” Bee, with the added height of being on Sharpe’s horse, could see farther. Sharpe turned and saw three blue-uniformed horsemen following them. The cannons hammered again, their sound bellowing across the damp fields, but the artillerymen on the wall had overcompensated and their shots again fell short and were stopped by the soggy ground. The horsemen stayed well back. Sharpe thought of leaving riflemen behind to ambush the followers, but decided it was best not to provoke an enemy that could outnumber them.
He finally stopped some five miles south of Valenciennes in a wood that gave them timber for shelters and fires. The three horsemen left at dusk, spurring back to the town. “I don’t like it,” Sharpe said, peeling a hard-boiled egg.
“What?” Vincent asked.
“Maybe I should have shot those three. Some ambitious bastard back in the town might be reckoning we’re easy meat.”
“They’ll have heard of Boney’s defeat,” the major said, “and won’t want trouble.”
“And they’ll have counted us as we went past,” Sharpe insisted, “and they’ll know we’re on our own. Harry!”
Price ran to Sharpe’s side. “Sir?”
“Picquets, Harry, strong ones, watching the road back to town.”
At nightfall Sharpe walked the picquet line that was strung between the road and the River Scheldt that ran to the west. The small rain had stopped and the sky was ragged with clearing clouds. “You really think they’ll come, sir?” Price asked him.
“I’ve no idea, Harry, but we’re a tempting target. One badly understrength battalion all on its own? I’d attack us.”
“They must know the war’s lost!”
“Must they? Major Vincent assures me Davout has over a hundred thousand men around Paris, and Marshal Grouchy escaped Waterloo with a whole army corps.”
“And we’re all alone in France,” Price said dourly.
“Don’t worry, Harry, you’ve got me.” Sharpe clapped him on the shoulder. “And if they do come, Harry, you’ll command the skirmishers.”
“Of course, sir.”
