Sharpe 3-Book Collection 2: Sharpe’s Havoc, Sharpe’s Eagle, Sharpe’s Gold

Sharpe shook his head. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said.

‘You’ll think about it?’ Christopher repeated, looking irritated now. ‘And how long, might I ask, will it take you to think about it?’

‘As long as it takes,’ Sharpe said, ‘and I can be a very slow thinker.’

‘You have one hour, Lieutenant,’ Christopher said, ‘precisely one hour.’ He spoke in French to Dulong who nodded at Sharpe, who nodded back, then Christopher threw away the half-smoked cigar, turned on his heel and went.

‘He’s lying,’ Sharpe said.

Vicente was less certain. ‘You can be sure of that?’

‘I’ll tell you why I’m sure,’ Sharpe said, ‘the bugger didn’t give me an order. This is the army. You don’t suggest, you order. Do this, do that, but he didn’t. He’s given me orders before, but not today.’

Vicente translated for the benefit of Sergeant Macedo who, with Harper, had been invited to listen to Sharpe’s report. Both Sergeants, like Vicente, looked troubled, but they said nothing. ‘Why,’ Vicente asked, ‘would he not give you an order?’

‘Because he wants me to walk off this hilltop of my own accord, because what’s going to happen down there isn’t pretty. Because he was lying.’

‘You can’t be sure of that,’ Vicente said sternly, sounding more like the lawyer he had been rather than the soldier he now was.

‘We can’t be sure of bloody anything,’ Sharpe grumbled.

Vicente looked into the east. ‘The guns have stopped at Amarante. Maybe there is peace?’

‘And why would there be peace?’ Sharpe asked. ‘Why did the French come here in the first place?’

‘To stop us trading with Britain,’ Vicente said.

‘So why withdraw now? The trading will start again. They haven’t finished the job and it isn’t like the French to give up so quick.’

Vicente thought for a few seconds. ‘Perhaps they know they will lose too many men? The further they go into Portugal the more enemies they make and the longer the supply roads they have to protect. Perhaps they are being sensible.’

‘They’re bloody Frogs,’ Sharpe said, ‘they don’t know the meaning of the word. And there’s something else. Christopher didn’t show me any bits of paper, did he? No agreement signed and sealed.’

Vicente considered that argument, then nodded to acknowledge its force. ‘If you like,’ he said, ‘I will go down and ask to see the paper.’

‘There isn’t a piece of paper,’ Sharpe said, ‘and none of us are going off this hilltop.’

Vicente paused. ‘Is that an order, senhor?’

‘That is an order,’ Sharpe said. ‘We’re staying.’

‘Then we stay,’ Vicente said. He clapped Macedo on the shoulder and the two went back to their men so Vicente could tell them what had happened.

Harper sat beside Sharpe. ‘Are you sure now?’

‘Of course I’m not bloody sure, Pat,’ Sharpe said testily, ‘but I think he’s lying. He never even asked me how many casualties we had up here! If he was on our side he’d ask that, wouldn’t he?’

Harper shrugged as if he could not answer that question. ‘So what happens if we leave?’

‘They make us prisoners. March us off to bloody France.’

‘Or send us home?’

‘If the war is over, Pat, they’ll send us home, but if the war is over then someone else will tell us. A Portuguese official, someone. Not him, not Christopher. And if the fighting’s over, why give us just an hour? We’d have the rest of our lives to get off this hill, not one hour.’ Sharpe stared down the slope where the last of the French bodies was being removed by a squad of infantrymen who had climbed the path with a flag of truce and no weapons. Dulong had led them and he had thought to bring two spades so that Sharpe’s men could bury their corpses: the two Portuguese killed by the howitzer in the dawn attack and Rifleman Donnelly who had been lying on the hilltop under a pile of stones ever since Sharpe had beaten Dulong’s men off the summit.

Vicente had sent Sergeant Macedo and three men to dig his two graves and Sharpe had given the second spade to Williamson. ‘Digging the grave will be the end of your punishment,’ he had said. Ever since the confrontation in the wood Sharpe had been giving Williamson extra duties, keeping the man busy and trying to wear his spirit down, but Sharpe reckoned Williamson had been punished enough. ‘And leave your rifle here,’ Sharpe added. Williamson had snatched the spade, dropped his rifle with unnecessary force and, accompanied by Dodd and Harris, gone downhill to where there was enough soil above the rock to make an adequate grave. Harper and Slattery had carried the dead man down from the hilltop and rolled him into the hole and then Harper had said a prayer and Slattery had bowed his head and now Williamson, stripped to his shirtsleeves, was shovelling the soil back into the grave while Dodd and Harris watched the French carry their last casualties away.

Harper also watched the French. ‘What happens if they bring a mortar?’ he asked.

‘We’re buggered,’ Sharpe said, ‘but a lot can happen before a mortar gets here.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sharpe said irritably. He really did not know, any more than he knew what to do. Christopher had been very persuasive and it was only a streak of stubbornness in Sharpe that made him so certain the Colonel was lying. That and the look in Major Dulong’s eyes. ‘Maybe I’m wrong, Pat, maybe I’m wrong. Trouble is I like it here.’

Harper smiled. ‘You like it here?’

‘I like being away from the army. Captain Hogan’s all right, but the rest? I can’t stand the rest.’

‘Jack puddings,’ Harper said flatly, meaning officers.

‘I’m better on my own,’ Sharpe said, ‘and out here I’m on my own. So we’re staying.’

‘Aye,’ Harper said, ‘and I think you’re right.’

‘You do?’ Sharpe sounded surprised.

‘I do,’ Harper said, ‘mind you, my mother never reckoned I was any good at thinking.’

Sharpe laughed. ‘Go and clean your rifle, Pat.’

Cooper had boiled a can of water and some of the riflemen used it to swill out their weapons’ barrels. Every shot left a little layer of caked powder that would eventually build up and make the rifle unusable, but hot water dissolved the residue. Some riflemen preferred to piss down the barrel. Hagman used the boiling water, then scraped at his barrel with his ramrod. ‘You want me to clean yours, sir?’ he asked Sharpe.

‘It’ll wait, Dan,’ Sharpe said, then saw Sergeant Macedo and his men come back and he wondered where his own gravediggers were and so he went to the northernmost redoubt from where he could see Harris and Dodd stamping the earth down over Donnelly’s body while Williamson leaned on the spade. ‘Aren’t you finished?’ Sharpe shouted at them. ‘Hurry!’

‘Coming, sir!’ Harris called, and he and Dodd picked up their jackets and started up the hill. Williamson hefted the spade, looked as if he was about to follow and then, quite suddenly, turned and ran down the hill.

‘Jesus!’ Harper appeared beside Sharpe and raised his rifle.

Sharpe pushed it down. He was not trying to save Williamson’s life, but there was a truce on the hill and even a single rifle shot could be construed as breaking the truce and the howitzer could answer the shot while Dodd and Harris were still on the open slope.

‘The bastard!’ Hagman watched Williamson run recklessly down the hill as though he was trying to outrun the expected bullet. Sharpe felt a terrible sense of failure. He had not liked Williamson, but even so it was the officer who had failed when a man ran. The officer would not get punished, of course, and the man, if he were ever caught, would be shot, but Sharpe knew that this was his failure. It was a reproof to his command.

Harper saw the stricken look on Sharpe’s face and did not understand it. ‘We’re best off without the bastard, sir,’ he said.

Dodd and Harris looked dumbfounded and Harris even turned as if he wanted to chase Williamson until Sharpe called him back. ‘I should never have sent Williamson to do that job,’ he said bitterly.

‘Why not?’ Harper said. ‘You weren’t to know he’d run.’