Sharpe’s Escape: The Bussaco Campaign, 1810

‘Yes, sir,’ Sharpe said, then stood. ‘I must go and inspect the picquets, sir.’

‘Of course you must,’ Lawford said, not hiding his frustration with the conversation. ‘We should talk more often, Sharpe.’

Sharpe took his battered shako and walked out into the fog-shrouded night. He picked his way through the thick darkness, going across the ridge’s wide crest and then some short way down the eastern slope until he could just see the mist-blurred string of enemy fires in the valley’s deep darkness. Let them come, he thought, let them come. If he could not murder Ferragus then he would take out his anger on the French. He heard footsteps behind him, but did not turn round. ‘Evening, Pat,’ he said.

‘What happened to you?’ Harper must have seen Sharpe inside the Colonel’s tent and had followed him down the slope.

‘That bloody Ferragus and two of his coves.’

‘Tried to kill you?’

Sharpe shook his head. ‘Bloody nearly succeeded. Would have done, except three provosts came along.’

‘Provosts! Never thought they’d be useful. And how is Mister Ferragus?’

‘I hurt him, but not enough. He beat me, Pat. Beat me bloody.’

Harper thought about that. ‘And what did you tell the Colonel?’

‘That I had a tumble.’

‘So that’s what I’ll tell the lads when they notice you’re better-looking than usual. And tomorrow I’ll keep an eye open for Mister Ferragus. You think he’ll be back for more?’

‘No, he’s buggered off.’

‘We’ll find him, sir, we’ll find him.’

‘But not tomorrow, Pat. We’re going to be busy tomorrow. Major Hogan reckons the Frogs are coming up this hill.’

Which was a comforting thought to end the day, and the two sat, listening to the singing from the dark encampments behind. A dog began barking somewhere in the British lines and immediately dozens of others echoed the sound, prompting angry shouts as the beasts were told to be quiet, and slowly peace descended again, all but for one dog that would not stop. On and on it went, barking frantically, until there was the sudden harsh crack of a musket or pistol.

‘That’s the way to do it,’ Harper said.

Sharpe said nothing. He just gazed down the hill to where the French fires were a dull, hazed glow in the mist. ‘But what will we do about Mister Ferragus?’ Harper asked. ‘He can’t be allowed to get away with assaulting a rifleman.’

‘If we lose tomorrow,’ Sharpe said, ‘we’ll have to retreat through Coimbra. That’s where he lives.’

‘So we’ll find him there,’ Harper said grimly, ‘and give him what he deserves. But what if we win tomorrow?’

‘God only knows,’ Sharpe said, and nodded down the hill to the misted firelight. There were thousands of fires. ‘Follow those bastards back to Spain, I suppose,’ he went on, ‘and fight them there.’ And go on fighting them, he thought, month after month, year after year, until the very crack of doom. But it would begin tomorrow, with sixty thousand Frenchmen who wanted to take a hill. Tomorrow.

Marshal Ney, second in command of l’Armée de Portugal, reckoned the whole of the enemy army was on the ridge. There were no fires in the high darkness to betray their presence, but Ney could smell them. A soldier’s instinct. The bastards were laying a trap, hoping the French would stroll up the hill to be slaughtered, and Ney reckoned they should be obliged. Send the Eagles up the hill and beat the bastards into mincemeat, but Ney was not the man to make that decision and so he summoned an aide, Captain D’Esmenard, and told him to find Marshal Masséna. ‘Tell his highness,’ Ney said, ‘that the enemy’s waiting to be killed. Tell him to get back here fast. Tell him there’s a battle to be fought.’

Captain D’Esmenard had a journey of more than twenty miles and he had to be escorted by two hundred dragoons who clattered into the small town of Tondela long after nightfall. A tricolour flew above the porch of the house where Masséna lodged. Six sentries stood outside, their muskets tipped by bayonets that reflected the firelight of the brazier that offered a small warmth in the sudden cold.

D’Esmenard climbed the stairs and hammered on the Marshal’s door. There was silence.

D’Esmenard knocked again. This time there was a woman’s giggle followed by the distinct sound of a hand slapping flesh, then the woman laughed. ‘Who is it?’ the Marshal called.

‘A message from Marshal Ney, your highness.’ Marshal André Masséna was Duke of Rivoli and Prince of Essling.

‘From Ney?’

‘The enemy has definitely stopped, sir. They’re on the ridge.’

The girl squealed.

‘The enemy has what?’

‘Stopped, sir,’ D’Esmenard shouted through the door. ‘The Marshal believes you should come back.’ Masséna had been in the valley beneath the ridge for a few moments in the afternoon, given his opinion that the enemy would not stand and fight, and ridden back to Tondela. The girl said something and there was the sound of another slap followed by more giggling.

‘Marshal Ney believes they are offering battle, sir,’ D’Esmenard said.

‘Who are you?’ the Marshal asked.

‘Captain D’Esmenard, sir.’

‘One of Ney’s boys, eh?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Have you eaten, D’Esmenard?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Go downstairs, Captain, tell my cook to give you supper. I shall join you.’

‘Yes, sir.’ D’Esmenard paused. He heard a grunt, a sigh, then the sound of bedsprings rhythmically squeaking.

‘Are you still there, Captain?’ the Prince of Essling shouted.

D’Esmenard crept downstairs, timing his steps on the creaking stair treads to the regular bounce of the bedsprings. He ate cold chicken. And waited.

Pedro and Luis Ferreira had always been close. Luis, the oldest, the rebel, the huge, uncontrollable boy, had been the brighter of the two, and if he had not been exiled from his family, if he had not been sent to the nuns who beat and mocked him, if he had not run away from Coimbra to see the world, he might have secured an education and become a scholar, though in truth that would have been an unlikely fate for Luis. He was too big, too belligerent, too careless of his own and other men’s feelings, and so he had become Ferragus. He had sailed the world, killed men in Africa, Europe and America, had seen the sharks eat the dying slaves thrown overboard off the Brazilian coast, and then he had come home to his younger brother and the two of them, so different and yet so close, had embraced. They were brothers. Ferragus had come home rich enough to set himself up in business, rich enough to own a score of properties about the city, but Pedro insisted that he have a room in his house to use when he wished. ‘My house is your house,’ he had promised Ferragus, and though Major Ferreira’s wife might wish otherwise she dared not protest.

Ferragus rarely used the room in his brother’s house, but on the day when the two armies faced each other at Bussaco, after his brother had promised to lure Captain Sharpe to a beating among the trees, Ferragus had promised Pedro that he would return to Coimbra and there guard the Ferreira household until the pattern of the French campaign was clear. Folk were supposed to be fleeing the city, going to Lisbon, but if the French were stopped then no such flight would be necessary, and whether they were stopped or not, there was unrest in the streets because people were unhappy with the orders to abandon their homes. Ferreira’s house, grand and rich, bought with the legacy of his father’s wealth, would be a likely place for thieves to plunder, though none would dare touch it if Ferragus and his men were there and so, after his failure to kill the impudent rifleman, the big man rode to keep his promise.

The journey from the ridge of Bussaco to the city of Coimbra was less than twenty miles, but the mist and the darkness slowed Ferragus and his men, so it was just before dawn that they rode past the imposing university buildings and down the hill to his brother’s house. There was a squeal from the hinges of the gates to the stable yard where Ferragus dismounted, abandoned his horse and pushed into the kitchen to thrust his injured hand into a vat of cool water. Sweet Jesus, he thought, but the damned rifleman had to die. Had to die. Ferragus brooded on the unfairness of life as he used a cloth to wipe the wounds on his jawbone and cheeks. He winced at the pain, though it was not as bad as the throbbing in his groin that persisted from their confrontation at the shrine. Next time, Ferragus promised himself, next time he would face Mister Sharpe with nothing but fists and he would kill the Englishman as he had killed so many other men, by pulverizing him into a bloody, whimpering mess. Sharpe had to die, Ferragus had sworn it, and if he did not keep the oath then his men would think he was weakening.

He was being weakened anyway. The war had seen to that. Many of his victims had fled Coimbra and its surrounding farmlands, gone to take shelter in Lisbon. That temporary setback would pass, and, anyway, Ferragus hardly needed to go on extorting money. He was rich, but he liked to keep cash flowing for he did not trust the banks. He liked land, and the vast profits of his slaving years had been invested in vineyards, farms, houses and shops. He owned every brothel in Coimbra and scarcely a student at the university did not live in a house owned by Ferragus. He was rich, rich beyond his childhood dreams, but he could never be rich enough. He loved money. He yearned for it, loved it, caressed it, dreamed of it.

He rinsed his jaw again and saw how the water dripped pink from the cloth. Capitâo Sharpe. He said the name aloud, feeling the pain in his mouth. He looked at his hand that was hurting. He reckoned he had cracked some knuckle bones, but he could still move his fingers so the damage could not be that bad. He dipped the knuckles in the water, then turned suddenly as the kitchen door opened and his brother’s governess, Miss Fry, dressed in a nightdress and a heavy woollen gown, came into the kitchen. She was carrying a candle and gave a small start of surprise when she saw her employer’s brother. ‘I am sorry, senhor,’ she said, and made to leave.

‘Come in,’ Ferragus growled.

Sarah would rather have gone back to her room, but she had heard the horses clattering in the stable yard and, hoping it might be Major Ferreira with news of the French advance, she had come to the kitchen. ‘You’re hurt,’ she said.

‘I fell from my horse,’ Ferragus said. ‘Why are you up?’