Sharpes assassin, p.6
Sharpe's Assassin, page 6
“And drunk,” Vincent said, amused. A group of men had started singing in the village and slowly came into sight. They were indeed drunk, and sang raucously. They took the path from the road to the main gate and Sharpe saw how that path led first to the triangular bastion that protected the entrance. Originally, Sharpe supposed, the bastion had been a formidable stone fortress, but it had been razed down to scarce more than a man’s height. He and Vincent heard a gate or door open, a shouted challenge, and then the drunken men filed into a tunnel that apparently led through the bastion. Another gate opened at the rear of the bastion and the drunks staggered across the bridge that spanned the fortress’s inner ditch. A moment later Sharpe heard the creak as the main gate opened. Lantern light spilled onto the stone bridge, there was laughter, then a bang as the big gate was crashed shut. “And that’s the only way in?” Sharpe asked.
“There may be a sally port, but I didn’t see one.”
“So it’s the main gate or nothing?”
“Unless you’d prefer an escalade?”
Sharpe snorted at that. The thought of making ladders long enough to scale those immense walls was bad enough, but the idea of climbing the ladders under fire from the towers that stood at the fort’s four corners was a nightmare. “No escalade, Major. If we go at all we’ll go through the front door.” He had an idea how that could be achieved, though God alone knew how desperate an idea that was, and the bastion complicated the problem. The only way to the bridge across the moat was through the bastion’s tunnel, and the shouted challenge had confirmed that the bastion was evidently garrisoned.
“Have you seen enough?”
“Too much, Major.”
“Then I suggest we go back to the farm.”
They rode back to the road and so north through the village. More raucous singing sounded from a tavern and, as they passed the entrance, two French officers came into the road. “Qui va là?” one of them challenged.
“Colonel Villon,” Vincent answered calmly, “Seventh Infantry Brigade, and you?”
“Lieutenant Brissac, monsieur. Artillery.”
“You serve in the garrison here?”
“For the moment, monsieur.” The lieutenant hesitated. “You were at the battle, Colonel?”
“We were,” Sharpe answered instead of Vincent, “and the British are on our heels.”
“Here, monsieur?” The lieutenant sounded alarmed.
“Not far behind. Expect them tonight or tomorrow. Didn’t you hear the gunfire today?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“That was Péronne. Didn’t they send you a warning?”
“They did,” the lieutenant said.
“They’re pursuing us,” Sharpe said, “and we need refuge.”
The lieutenant frowned at Sharpe, whose green rifleman’s uniform looked black in the shadows and could have belonged to any army. Besides it was mostly hidden by the great cloak from which the letter “N” glittered in the small light thrown from the tavern door. “Tonight?” Brissac asked.
“We need refuge, and we need it fast,” Sharpe said.
“I’m sorry, monsieur?” The Frenchman had apparently misheard Sharpe’s answer.
“Capitaine Lassan is from the Îles Anglo-Normandes,” Vincent put in helpfully, “and wants a refuge for his men.”
“How many men?” Brissac asked, evidently satisfied with the explanation.
“I have fifteen,” Sharpe said. “The rest are dead.”
“They’ll be welcome,” Brissac said.
“How many men do you have in the château?” Vincent demanded.
“A hundred and eighty, Colonel. And a unit from the Garde Nationale.” His tone suggested that the men of the Garde Nationale would be worse than useless.
“And your artillery?” Sharpe put in.
“We just delivered some old cannon for the Garde,” the second French officer put in contemptuously.
“We’ll join you,” Sharpe said, “tonight. Tell your commandant to expect us.”
The lieutenant hesitated. “And the battle, monsieur?” he asked. “The Emperor was really defeated?”
“He was torn to pieces, Lieutenant,” Vincent answered rather too gleefully, “even the Imperial Guard ran away.”
“Mon Dieu!” Brissac took a pace back.
“But you’re to hold the fortress?” Sharpe asked.
“Those are the orders, monsieur.”
“Then my men will be pleased to help,” Sharpe said, and turned his horse away.
Vincent wished the two lieutenants a good night and spurred to catch up with Sharpe. “Tonight?” he asked sharply.
Sharpe grinned. “I don’t have a cannon so I can’t blow down their gate, and anyway we can’t even reach the gate without going through that bastion. And I’m not going to make ladders and have my men shot down like dogs. But I do have fifteen riflemen.”
“How come you have riflemen?”
“We’re a strange battalion, Major. We were a company of the 95th Rifles that got attached to the South Essex back in Spain. We’ve stayed there, and my men, those who survived, wear their green jackets even though they march in a redcoat battalion. Those fifteen will be the only survivors of Captain Lassan’s command because in the darkness their uniforms don’t look British.”
“And me?” Vincent asked.
“You’ll still be Colonel Villon, and you’ll demand they open the gates.”
“Wouldn’t it be simpler to demand their surrender?”
Sharpe sighed. “They’ll see we’ve no artillery. They’re not going to surrender, Major, and the Duke wants this all done fast. So we go tonight.” He paused. “We’re going to fight a battle, Major, and we’ll win.”
“We will?” Vincent sounded dubious.
“We will,” Sharpe said firmly.
And if he was right then by morning he would command the Château de Ham.
They were safe enough at the farm. The owner, a dour man, was pleased with the coins Sharpe had given him, and the picquets, who were posted all around the property, reported that no one had left the farm to warn the town that British soldiers were close by. The farmer was even more pleased when three of Sharpe’s men had milked his cows. Late in the evening, Sharpe gathered all his men in the barn and talked them through the coming night.
His fifteen riflemen were to one side, joined there by Harper. “You’re not coming, Pat,” Sharpe told him.
“And how will you stop me?”
“For God’s sake, you want to die?”
“I’ve no mind to do that, Mister Sharpe, but I’ve no mind to see you die either.” He hefted his seven-barrel gun. “I’m coming.”
“Dear God, what do I tell Isabella if you die?”
“Tell her there’s a wee fortune hidden in the tavern’s cellar,” Harper said, grinning, “and besides, you know damn well you want me to come.”
“I do,” Sharpe admitted, “but take care, Pat.”
“And don’t I always?”
They left close to midnight. The moon lit the road as the riflemen followed Sharpe toward the town. He stopped a hundred paces from the nearest houses and turned to Rifleman Finn, a tall, saturnine Irishman. “You always wanted to shoot a redcoat, Brendan, but try not to.”
“How about Captain Price, Mister Sharpe?” The riflemen all knew that Sharpe liked Harry Price.
“You can scare him, but don’t hit him.”
Finn knelt and brought his rifle to his shoulder. The rest of the battalion was just seventy or eighty paces away and Price was clearly visible leading the column.
Finn fired, the sound sudden and loud in the quiet night. Sharpe saw Price jerk sideways, evidently scared by the bullet’s near miss. “Right, lads,” he told his greenjackets, “keep your heads down. Lie flat!”
Sharpe lay on the road, and a moment later the first shots came from the battalion. The musketry came from the Light Company that a startled Price had wheeled into line. The balls flew high over the riflemen’s heads, just as Sharpe had ordered. Sharpe waited till he was certain that Harry Price’s men were busy reloading, then scrambled to his feet. “Now, boys! Run!”
The riflemen ran toward the village. A scatter of musket shots followed them, all going high, but making enough noise to wake the dead in Ham’s graveyard. Sharpe led them past the tavern where he and Vincent had spoken with the French lieutenants. Major Vincent was beside him. “Your fellow almost killed Captain Price!” he panted to Sharpe.
“They’re riflemen. They only hit when they intend to.”
Sharpe halted his riflemen at the last houses before the open space in front of the citadel. “Give them fire, boys,” he called, “but shoot high!”
He aimed his own rifle, waited till the first redcoats appeared at the end of the street, then fired at a rooftop. The redcoats sought shelter as the rifles cracked, and then began returning the fire. Musket balls flew overhead to crack against the citadel’s walls. “Fix swords,” Sharpe shouted, “and follow me! Come on!”
It took a moment for the riflemen to fix the long sword-bayonets on their rifles, but then they followed Sharpe across the grass toward the door of the bastion. Musket shots flew over them, the crackle of the guns unceasing. Major Vincent, his sword drawn, ran beside Sharpe. All of them were in their dark uniforms. “Ouvrez! Ouvrez!” Vincent bellowed for the door to be opened as they neared the bastion. Sharpe drew his sword. It was a long, straight blade, designed to be carried by a heavy cavalryman, but Sharpe liked it. It was reputed to be clumsy, but a strong man could make havoc with the long heavy blade and the very sight of it put the fear of God into enemies.
The bastion’s door swung open, letting a shaft of lantern light show on the gravel path. Two blue-uniformed men stood there, beckoning for Sharpe and his companions to run faster. “Vite! Vite!” one of them called. He could see the redcoats coming from the trees and waved Sharpe and his men forward. Sharpe, outpacing Vincent, slammed the sword’s blade into the man’s belly so hard that it went clean through and stuck in the door’s wooden jamb. Riflemen thrust past him, their sword-bayonets slashing forward.
Sharpe tugged the sword free, put his foot on the chest of the dying man, and dragged the blade out of his belly. The Frenchman was making a mewing noise and clutching at the wound, so Sharpe finished him with a cut to the throat, then pushed into the tunnel.
The bastion was a triangular wedge with stone walls filled with earth, originally designed to protect the citadel’s gate from artillery bombardment. The tunnel inside was a dogleg, entering on one side of the wedge, then turning toward the gate. “Keep going!” Sharpe shouted. He pushed to the front and led them around the sharp bend and saw another door ahead. To its right was a second door that Sharpe guessed was the guardroom. He sensed rather than saw that second door close. “Pat!”
“Sir?”
“Volley gun!”
Sharpe stood by the guardroom door, waited for Harper, then kicked the door wide open. He had an impression of blue-coated men in lantern light, of a table where there was bread, cheese, and playing cards, then Harper pulled the trigger, the volley gun filled the tunnel with noise and smoke, and the blue-coated men were hurled backward. That was stupid, Sharpe thought to himself, the noise of the volley gun was so massive that it must have alarmed the guards on the main gate, but there was no time to worry about stupidity. He hoped they would think it was all part of the pretend battle between the fugitives and the pursuing redcoats. He thrust open the larger door and found himself running across the stone bridge that crossed the dry moat. The gate was huge in front of him. “Open!” he bellowed in French.
The Frenchmen defending the gate had seen dark-uniformed men being pursued by redcoats. They had watched as the fugitives went into the bastion, and now they opened the main gate and beckoned them to safety. “Cooper!” Sharpe shouted.
“Sir?”
“Bugle?”
“I’ve got it, sir.”
“Sound it!” Sharpe shouted, not caring he spoke in English, and ran through the half open gate. A big sergeant waited there and Sharpe ripped the tip of his sword through the man’s throat as his riflemen came behind, their bayonets seeking other Frenchmen, while just beyond the gate, Cooper blew the signal to charge. The bugle told the redcoats that the gate was captured and that they should run to reinforce the riflemen. Two or three muskets fired from the citadel’s high walls, but there was small resistance in the vast courtyard, where Sharpe stood over the bloodied men who had guarded the gate. “Form line!” he called to his men.
The fifteen riflemen made a line and reloaded their weapons. The courtyard stretched away toward the southern wall, broken only by a solitary tree that grew in the yard’s center. There was no enemy in sight, though Sharpe could still hear sporadic musketry coming from the rampart above the gate, presumably aimed at his redcoats who would be filing into the bastion’s tunnel. “Sergeant Harper!”
“Sir?”
“Take half a dozen men and finish off those bastards. Must be a way up there!”
“Pleasure, sir.” Harper began to reload the volley gun. “Won’t be a minute, sir!”
“Any idea where the prison is?” Sharpe asked Vincent.
“God knows,” Vincent said. The long courtyard was surrounded on all sides by two-story buildings, three if you included the dormer windows jutting from the slate roofs.
“They’re dozy bastards,” Sharpe grunted. “We’ve killed what? A dozen men? The rest of them must be awake by now.”
“And there they are,” Vincent said. A file of infantrymen had appeared from a door at the courtyard’s far end, maybe thirty of them, and were being hurried toward the gate. “Rifles,” Sharpe called, “target practice.”
The moon cast shadows in front of the hurrying Frenchmen, who scattered as the first rifle bullets struck home. Most sought shelter behind the tree, which was some two hundred paces away, but still the rifle bullets struck mercilessly. Then Sharpe heard a massive shot from above and knew that Pat Harper had fired the volley gun. A spattering of other shots sounded, then silence, before Captain Price was standing beside Sharpe. “All here, sir.”
“Lose any men?”
“A couple are wounded. There were buggers on the roof.”
“Pat Harper dealt with them.”
“Good.”
“Cooper!”
“Mister Sharpe?”
“Reveille! Wake the buggers up! Keep repeating it till I tell you.”
The bugle sounded over and over as the rest of the battalion came through the gate. They were too many to shelter under the gate’s arch, so Sharpe lined them in two ranks across the courtyard. “Prince of Wales’s Volunteers!” he shouted, using the battalion’s new name. “One volley. Aim at the buggers by the tree.” He doubted any of the musket balls would hit. At two hundred paces a musket was notoriously inaccurate, but the sheer weight of the volley would give the French pause. “Make ready!” He paused. “Fire!”
The volley crashed out, the sound echoing back from the buildings. A scream sounded somewhere beyond the thick smoke. “Reload! Rifles, keep firing!”
Cooper was still blowing his bugle, and its sound was answered by another bugle call from the courtyard’s far end. “Cease fire!” Sharpe bellowed. “Enough, Cooper! Save your breath!”
The thick smoke slowly cleared and Sharpe saw that French troops, their white crossbelts visible in the moon-shadowed farther end of the courtyard, were being hurried into position. Three officers walked toward the château’s entrance. The man in the center had a wooden leg, which made a hollow sound when it struck the courtyard’s cobbles. “Gourgand,” Sharpe said sourly.
“Let’s meet him,” Vincent said.
Sharpe and Vincent walked toward the three men, who stopped a few yards beyond the tree and waited for them. Gourgand carried a cane that he tapped impatiently on the ground. He wore a red coat and yellow breeches. “He’s a Chasseur of the Guard?” Sharpe asked, surprised at Gourgand’s uniform.
“Evidently,” Vincent said calmly. “Shall we talk with them?”
“Might be easier to just shoot them.”
Vincent smiled. “You forget, Colonel, that we come to bring peace and prosperity to France.”
“So we do, Major,” Sharpe said. He slung his rifle on his shoulder. “Let’s talk.”
“You always carry that rifle?” Vincent asked.
“Never without one, Major. I’m a rifleman.”
The three French officers stood at attention as Sharpe and Vincent neared them. Lieutenant Brissac was one of the three and was standing beside a plump man who looked nervous. “You are Colonel Gourgand?” Vincent demanded peremptorily as he stopped a few paces away.
“I am,” Gourgand replied.
“I am Colonel Vincent,” Vincent said, apparently promoting himself again, “of his Brittanic Majesty’s army. We have occupied this town and demand your surrender.”
Gourgand smiled. It was not friendly. “I serve his Imperial Majesty,” he said, “and give you ten minutes to take your forces out of this citadel, and a half hour to leave the town.”
Vincent returned the smile. “His Imperial Majesty is defeated, his army broken. What authority he possessed died with his army.” He pulled a watch from his pocket and clicked open the lid. He turned the face so the moonlight shone on it. “I give you ten minutes, Colonel, to parade your men. They will pile their arms and march from the citadel. Officers may keep their swords.”
“If you are not gone in ten minutes,” Gourgand answered, “my men will attack. I have nothing more to say.” He turned and stumped away, followed by his two officers.
“He sounded confident,” Vincent said when the Frenchmen were out of earshot.
“So did you.”
“I’d appreciate it if you could capture Gourgand rather than slaughter him,” Vincent said.
“Why?”
“To question him, of course,” Vincent said. “If our man isn’t here, God forbid, then Gourgand will know where he’s gone. How many men do you think he has?”
“More than us,” Sharpe replied, “but we’ll find out how many when we fight them.” He turned. “Captain Jefferson, to me!”
