Sharpes assassin, p.9
Sharpe's Assassin, page 9
Fox sat up straighter. “So far as we know, Sharpe, the Emperor can still assemble over a hundred thousand men, but I think he’s doomed. There’s a provisional government in Paris, and they’ve had enough of war.”
“Good,” Sharpe said.
Fox ignored the word. “There might be a battle. But my suspicion is that the French are tired of war and want no more of Bonaparte’s adventures. If I’m right they will force him to abdicate and surrender Paris. The allies will then occupy the city. And even if there is a battle I am confident the Prussians and our troops will win, so we shall still occupy Paris.”
“Yes, sir,” Sharpe said, for lack of anything else to say.
“Before I left Paris, Sharpe, I became aware of la Fraternité. I’m told they were formed in April, just after Bonaparte arrived in Paris from Elba, and I have no doubt they received his blessing. They are men fiercely loyal to their Emperor and have sworn to protect him.”
“Isn’t that why there’s an Imperial Guard?” Sharpe asked scornfully.
“And the Guard failed,” Fox retorted sharply. “The Empire is collapsing, Sharpe. Within a few weeks France will be a monarchy again, and Bonaparte will either be dead or in prison.”
“So la Fraternité will have failed too.”
“It’s a matter of pride, Sharpe. The French are being humiliated. They’re defeated! So how do they recover a scrap of pride? By revenging themselves on their enemies, and la Fraternité is the instrument of that revenge.”
“Revenge,” Sharpe said, only because Fox had paused and seemed to want some response.
“The princes of Europe will be in Paris,” Fox said, “they won’t be able to resist a chance to gloat over their conquest. The Czar of Russia, rulers from Austria and Prussia, maybe even that fool the Prince of Wales. The Duke too, and General Blücher. La Fraternité want to kill them all, and your task, Sharpe, is to keep them alive.”
Sharpe stared at the languid Fox. “They have armies to do that,” he said.
“And you are in the Duke’s army,” Fox said, “and your job is to find la Fraternité and stop them. It won’t be easy. The members of la Fraternité are assassins, motivated by a fierce loyalty to Bonaparte. Our job is to find them and kill them before they can inflict a single death.”
“Just you and me, sir?” Sharpe asked mockingly.
“The Duke assures me you can raise a dozen men from your battalion. That should be sufficient. But they must be ready to leave tomorrow.”
“The whole army marches tomorrow,” Sharpe commented.
“We shall go ahead of them, Sharpe. The matter is too urgent. The Duke is at risk from the moment he enters Paris. I suspect he will be their first target. Either the Duke, or Fat Louis.”
“The King?” Sharpe asked.
“Louis XVIII, by God’s grace, King of France and Navarre, and he’s a disgusting, gross lump of fat.” Fox, who was razor thin, spat the words.
“So how do we find these killers?” Sharpe asked.
“I know one man who can tell us,” Fox replied. “It won’t be easy, but find them we must. You’re staying in this inn?”
Sharpe had assumed he would stay with his battalion, then remembered he had been transferred to the Duke’s staff. “For tonight, sir, yes.”
“Then be ready with your men at dawn tomorrow. You’ll need horses, I shall arrange a dozen. We meet in the stableyard of this inn.” Fox rapped out those orders swiftly, then stood, towering over Sharpe. “One last thing, Colonel. It might be best if you said nothing to the Vicomtesse.”
It took Sharpe a second to realize Fox meant Lucille. He still found it strange that she was an aristocrat. “She can be trusted, sir,” he said defiantly.
“Her husband was a Bonapartiste. I assume she’s traveling to Paris?”
“She is.”
“Then she could well speak to old friends and unwittingly betray us. Women can’t keep secrets! It’s not in their nature, so say nothing! Dawn tomorrow, Sharpe!” Fox scooped up his coat and hat and strode from the room.
Sharpe found Lucille in the room she had taken. “You wouldn’t betray me, would you?” he asked.
“Richard! How could you ask such a thing?”
So he told her everything. Then went to find the men who would go with him to Paris. To kill the Emperor’s hounds.
Harper, of course. Because Pat Harper would not let Sharpe out of his sight if he could help it, and Harper picked three men who he assured Sharpe were as cunning as rats and fierce as wolves. “You’ll want Rifleman Finn, sir, he’s a vicious bastard in a fight. Then John Fitzpatrick from Three Company, he’s a good man to have at your side. And Mickey O’Farrell from the Seven Company.”
“O’Farrell? He’s the small man?”
“He’s a devil, sir.”
“I’ll take Butler,” Sharpe said, “and Sergeant Weller.”
“Charlie’s a good man,” Harper said, “but not a natural killer.”
“He’s steady,” Sharpe said, “and I like him.”
“So Weller then, and Micky Geoghegan, he’s a nasty fighter is Micky.” And another Irishman, Sharpe noted, but that did not surprise him. Harper was convinced that the Irish were the best fighters in the world, and Sharpe was not inclined to disagree. “But you’ve only one rifleman so far, sir,” Harper warned.
“Three,” Sharpe said, “you forget you and me. But pick me five more, all rifles.”
They walked to the barracks, where Sharpe pulled the chosen dozen aside. “You’re attached to me,” he told them, “and you won’t march with the rest of the battalion. You parade ready to march at dawn tomorrow. Sergeant Weller?”
“Mister Sharpe?”
“Come with me now and I’ll show you where to meet tomorrow.”
Charlie Weller was young, scarcely twenty, a farmer’s son from northern Essex who had volunteered to the army out of a sincere patriotism, which made him unusual in an army that mostly depended on men who had joined to escape prison. Weller’s normally cheerful face looked distraught as he walked beside Sharpe. “What is it, Charlie?” Sharpe asked him.
“We’re leaving the battalion, Mister Sharpe.”
“You’ll be back, Charlie.”
“And leaving Sally,” Weller added.
Sharpe paused, understanding. Sally Clayton was one of the battalion’s official wives, a married woman permitted to accompany her husband on campaign, only her husband had been killed at Waterloo and she had immediately sought out Charlie Weller’s company. That made Weller fortunate because Sally was by far the prettiest of the battalion’s wives. She was also cheerful, hardworking, and shrewd. “Sally will be fine,” Sharpe said.
“You think so, sir?” Weller responded miserably.
Sally, Sharpe thought, would be anything but fine. She was too pretty, and Sharpe did not want Weller distracted during whatever it was he must do in Paris. “Go back and fetch her now, Charlie,” he said on an impulse, “and bring her here.” He pointed to the big inn next to the church across the square. “Meet me in the yard of that inn.”
“Yes, sir!” Weller said enthusiastically and ran back the way they had come.
Harper had been close enough to hear what Sharpe had said. “Taking Sally with us, are we?” he asked.
“No. She can work for Lucille. Another maid.”
“And Lucille stays with the army?”
“She has to, but she’ll find us in Paris.”
“And who looks after the ladies?”
“They’ll stay with the baggage guard. They’ll be safe enough.” Lucille had two pistols if she needed them, and the Dowager Countess was a formidable woman. “And I’ll ask Harry Price to detail half a dozen men to keep an eye on them.”
The dozen men would bed down in the inn’s stables, while Sharpe joined Lucille upstairs. He took Sally Clayton with him and introduced her to Lucille, who was happy to have another young woman to help with the luggage and the baby. “We’ll pay you, Sally,” Sharpe said, “and you get to ride in a carriage all the way to Paris.”
“And you’ll look after Charlie, Mister Sharpe?”
“I’ll take good care of him,” Sharpe promised.
Next morning the dozen men paraded in the inn’s yard, where Alan Fox brought saddled horses. “We’re bleeding cavalry now,” Butler complained as he clambered into the saddle. “How do you make it go?”
“Kick it gently,” Weller advised.
Alan Fox rode a tall black stallion that Sharpe suspected came from the Duke’s own stable, while Sharpe stayed with his captured French mount, which was a docile beast. Once everyone was mounted Fox led them under the inn’s archway into the square, where the first British battalions were forming. The Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers was among them, parading in front of an officer who faced them on horseback. “Who’s that?” Sharpe asked.
“New major, sir,” Charlie Weller answered. “He arrived last night with twenty new men.”
Sharpe decided he should give the new man a wide berth and steered his horse toward the houses at the edge of the square. Then the new major turned and caught sight of him.
Sharpe checked his horse and just stared back in disbelief. Then he kicked the horse toward the major. “You,” he said.
“Sharpe,” the major answered, in the same tone of disbelief that Sharpe had used.
“The word you’re looking for,” Sharpe said, “is sir.”
He waited. The major bridled, looked at the battalion, then back to Sharpe. “Sir,” he said unhappily.
“Off your horse, Major,” Sharpe growled, “and come with me.”
He did not wait to see if the major obeyed, but swung off his horse and paced toward an alley that led between two shops. At the alley’s end he discovered a small courtyard piled with broken crates. Sharpe turned there, hidden from the battalion, and watched the major approach.
He was a tall man, his uniform jacket a bright red, unfaded by campaigning. Sharpe remembered him as a handsome man, but the good looks had been dissipated by appetite and alcohol, and the major stumbled as he came into the small yard. “Charles Morris,” Sharpe said the name as though it left a bad taste in his mouth.
“It’s been a long time,” Morris said, “Colonel.”
“And the Duke appointed you a major in my battalion.”
“He did.”
“I’m on his staff now,” Sharpe said, “and I’ve a mind to tell him to take you away.”
“Now, Sharpe . . .”
“Sir!” Sharpe roared. “You call me ‘sir.’ ” He paused, but Morris said nothing. “I’d been hoping to meet you, Charlie, you poxed bastard. I’ve been dreaming of it for nigh on fifteen years.”
“There’s no need . . .” Morris began, then saw Sharpe’s face and went silent.
“You had me flogged, Charlie, and you knew it was for nothing. You and that bastard Hakeswill.”
“Sergeant Hakeswill was a good soldier . . .”
“Hakeswill was a piece of shit, like you, and I had the pleasure of watching him die.” Morris backed against the brick wall. A door opened and a gray-haired man peered out to discover the cause of the noise. He took one look at Sharpe’s face and retreated swiftly, shutting and bolting the door. “Hakeswill was a lying piece of shit, and you knew it.” Sharpe took a step nearer Morris.
“I didn’t . . .” Morris began, then his voice faltered.
“Let me tell you, Charlie,” Sharpe said, “I’ve been wounded more times than I can remember. Musket balls, shell fragments, swords and bayonets, but none of those wounds was as painful as that flogging. And you knew I didn’t deserve it.”
“I didn’t . . .” Morris began again, and again faltered.
“And ever since, Charlie, I’ve dreamed of finding you again. Dreamed of retaliation.”
Morris took a deep breath, calming himself. “Retaliation? I see that promotion has increased your vocabulary, Sharpe.”
Sharpe hit him. He buried his fist into Morris’s plump belly, folding the major over. “Don’t patronize me, Charlie. I’m a colonel now, and you call me sir. And for the moment you command my battalion, and it’s a good one.” He waited for Morris to straighten. “So let me tell you the rules, Charlie. Are you listening?”
Morris managed to nod. There were tears in his eyes and his face wore a grimace of pain.
“Then listen well, Charlie. You always were a flogger because you’re weak. But I won’t flog men, you understand? So if I hear that one man in my battalion has been flogged on your orders I’ll find you, I’ll strip you to the waist, and I’ll flog the skin off your back. Do you understand me?”
Morris nodded again.
“Do you understand me?” Sharpe almost shouted the question.
“I do,” Morris managed to say and, after a pause, “sir.”
“They’re good men,” Sharpe said, “and they fight well. Something you never knew how to do. One flogging, Charlie, and I’ll lay your ribs bare.” He took a pace back just as Patrick Harper appeared from the alley.
“Mister Sharpe,” Harper said, taking in the cowed figure of Morris, “Mister Fox is wondering where you are, sir.”
“He can wonder, Pat. Remember me telling you about Major Charles Morris?”
“Oh I do, sir.”
“Last I heard he was in Dublin. Now he’s here.”
“So that’s him, sir?”
“Miserable piece of shit that he is, yes.”
“He had you flogged, sir? Is he the one?”
“He did, Pat.” Sharpe reached out and patted Morris’s cheek. “I want you to meet Regimental Sergeant Major Patrick Harper, Charlie. He and I captured an Eagle together, and if you flog one man in my battalion then Patrick Harper will wield the whip that flogs you.”
“It’ll be a real pleasure, Mister Sharpe,” Harper said, grinning.
“Now back to my battalion, Charlie,” Sharpe said, “and don’t forget my promise.”
Morris hesitated, as if unwilling to reappear in the town square before he had composed himself, but a threatening fist from Sharpe persuaded him to move. Sharpe followed him. “What did you do to the fellow?” Harper asked.
“Thumped him once, that’s all.”
“He’s not a happy man.” Harper grinned. The blow to the belly had winded Morris and he staggered slightly as he left the alley, and then had trouble mounting his horse. The Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers watched, then recognized some of their own men among the horsemen who followed Sharpe, and jeered good-naturedly. Sharpe, mounted again, waved to them and the jeers turned to cheers, which followed Sharpe as he rode west.
Alan Fox spurred to ride beside Sharpe. “What was that about?” he asked.
“Years ago,” Sharpe said, “I was a private in the 33rd and that piece of crap was my company officer. He had me flogged for something I didn’t do. That was in India, Mister Fox.”
“And now he commands your battalion?”
“So I just put the fear of God into him.”
Fox laughed. “He looked as if he’d seen the devil!”
“Maybe he did.”
They left the city through an ancient gate, now guarded by redcoats, then passed the hornwork that the light companies of the British Guards had captured, a victory that had persuaded the city’s garrison to surrender. Once turned southward, Sharpe turned again to Alan Fox. “How many miles to Paris?” he asked.
“I reckon about ninety,” Fox said. “Three or four days?”
“And how many troops in Paris?” Sharpe went on.
“The Duke told me there are about a hundred and twenty thousand men.”
Sharpe turned and gestured at his dozen troops. “We’re a small force, sir.”
Fox smiled. “We will be an invisible force, Sharpe.”
“Red coats and green jackets?”
“You know Colquhoun Grant, Colonel?”
“I met him once, sir.” Colquhoun Grant was the most famous of Wellington’s exploring officers, the men who rode in full uniform behind the French lines to estimate the enemy’s strength.
“Poor Grant was captured by the French.”
“I remember, sir.”
“But what you may not know is that he escaped. He went to Paris and lived there for some weeks and never once took off his red coat. When challenged he claimed it was the uniform of the United States, and he was believed.”
“So we’re Americans now, sir?” Sharpe asked sourly.
“No, Colonel. This afternoon we should reach Roye, and there’s bound to be a clothing store there. Probably not the height of fashion if that worries you?”
Sharpe plucked at his faded and stained green jacket. “Terrifies me.” He paused. “Because if they capture us they’ll claim we’re spies and then shoot us.”
“Indeed they will,” Fox said, “but your job, Sharpe, is to make sure I’m not captured.”
They stopped just north of Roye and Fox declared he would shop for civilian clothing. Harper was already in civilian clothing, though his green rifleman’s jacket was in the pack he wore, and he accompanied Fox into the small town, leaving Sharpe with his men in a grove of trees beside the road.
“Sergeant Harps doesn’t speak Crapaud, does he, sir?” Butler asked.
“Not a word,” Sharpe said, “but he’s Irish. He could talk himself out of the devil’s lockbox.”
Which turned out to be true when Fox and Harper returned with a pile of nondescript clothing. “They believed we’re deserters from the Emperor’s army,” Fox explained, “and we’re evidently not the first such men to buy clothes.”
There was the inevitable hilarity as red or green jackets were discarded and replaced by homespun coats. Fox handed Sharpe a long black coat. “I’m told it belonged to a doctor. It fits too!”
“So we’re deserters now?”
“I think everyone who sees us will assume that.”
“And try to arrest us?”
“Once we reach Paris? Possibly. But I suspect the city will be full of deserters. The defeat at Waterloo has thrown the whole country into chaos.” Fox had an insouciance that irritated Sharpe. The man dismissed all difficulties as though they did not exist, which left Sharpe to worry about them.
“And in that chaos,” Sharpe said, “we have to find these assassins?”
