Sharpe’s Enemy: The Defence of Portugal, Christmas 1812

The mess was empty. With Wellington away most of the officers seemed to spend their mornings in bed, or else sitting in the inn next door where the landlord had been educated in the making of a proper breakfast. Pork chops, fried eggs, fried kidneys, bacon, toast, claret, more toast, butter, and tea so strong that it could scour a fouled howitzer barrel. Some officers had already gone to Lisbon for Christmas. If the French attacked now, Sharpe thought, they could stroll through Portugal to the sea.

The door banged open and a middle-aged man wearing a voluminous dressing-gown over his uniform trousers walked in. He scowled at the Rifleman. ‘Sharpe?’

‘Yes, sir.’ The ‘sir’ seemed judicious. The man had an air of authority despite a streaming cold.

‘Major General Nairn.’ The Major General dropped papers on a low table, next to the back numbers of the Times and the Courier from London, then crossed to the other tall window. He scowled at the street. ‘Damned Papists.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Another judicious reply.

‘Damned Papists! The Nairns, Sharpe, are all Scottish Presbyterians! We may be boring, but by God we are Godly!’ He grinned, then sneezed violently before vigorously wiping his nose with a huge grey handkerchief. He gestured with the handkerchief at the procession. ‘Another god-damned feast-day, Sharpe, can’t think why they’re all so bloody thin.’ He laughed, then looked with shrewd eyes at the Rifleman. ‘So you’re Sharpe?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well don’t come near me, I’ve got a bloody cold.’ He walked towards the fire. ‘Heard about you, Sharpe. Bloody impressive! Scottish, are you?’

‘No, sir.’ Sharpe grinned.

‘Not your fault, Sharpe, not your fault. Can’t help our damned parents which is why we have to thrash our damned children.’ He glanced quickly at Sharpe, making sure he was being appreciated. ‘Came up from the ranks, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You’ve done bloody well, Sharpe, bloody well.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ It was amazing how few words were usually needed to get by with senior officers.

Major General Nairn bent down and damaged the fire by bashing its logs with a poker. ‘I suppose you’re wondering why you’re here. That right?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You’re here because this is the warmest damned room in Frenada and you’re obviously no fool.’ Nairn laughed, dropped the poker, and worried his nose with his handkerchief. ‘Bloody awful place, Frenada.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Nairn looked accusingly at Sharpe. ‘Do you know why the Peer chose Frenada as his winter Headquarters?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Some people will tell you,’ and here the Major General broke off to collapse with a satisfied sigh into a vast horsehair armchair, ‘that it was chosen because it is near the Spanish border.’ He wagged a finger at Sharpe. ‘That bears some truth, but not the whole truth. Some people will tell you that the Peer chose this benighted town because it is bloody miles from Lisbon and no snivelling place-seekers and bum-lickers will bother to make the journey up here to annoy him. Now that, too, might contain a grain of the eternal truth, except that the Peer’s down there half the time which makes life bloody easy for the sycophantic bastards. No, Sharpe, we must look for the real reason elsewhere.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Nairn groaned as he stretched himself out. ‘The real reason, Sharpe, the immaculately conceived reason, is that this God-damned excuse for a bloody miserable little hovel of a crippled town being chosen is that it is right in the centre of the best God-damned fox-hunting in Portugal.’

Sharpe grinned. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘And the Peer, Sharpe, likes to chase foxes. Thus are the rest of us consigned to the eternal torments of this bloody place. Sit down, man!’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And stop saying “yes, sir”, “no, sir” like a bloody bum licker.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Sharpe sat in the chair opposite Major General Nairn. The Scotsman had huge grey eyebrows that seemed to be trying to grow upwards to meet his shock of grey hair. The face was good and strong, shrewd-eyed and humorous, spoilt only by his cold-reddened nose. Nairn returned the gaze, looking Sharpe up and down from the French cavalry boots to the Rifleman’s black hair, then he twisted round in the armchair.

‘Chatsworth! You scum! You varlet! Chatsworth! Heel! You hear me? Heel!’

An orderly appeared who grinned happily at Nairn. ‘Sir?’

‘Tea, Chatsworth, tea! Bring me strong tea! Something that will rekindle my military ardour. And kindly try to bring it before the New Year.’

‘I’ve already wet it, sir. Something to eat, sir?’

‘Eat? I’ve got a cold, Chatsworth. I’m nigh unto death and you blather at me about eating! What have you got?’

‘I’ve some ham, sir, that you liked. Mustard. Bread and fresh butter?’ Chatsworth was solicitous, obviously liking Nairn.

‘Ah, ham! Bring us ham, Chatsworth, ham and mustard, with your bread and butter. Did you steal the toasting fork from this mess, Chatsworth?

‘No, sir.’

‘Then find which of your thieving comrades did take it, have them flogged, then bring the fork to me!’

‘Yes, sir.’ Chatsworth grinned as he left the room.

Nairn smiled at Sharpe. ‘I’m a harmless old man, Sharpe, left in charge of this bloody madhouse while the Peer gallivants round half of the bloody Peninsula. I am supposed, God help me, to be running this Headquarters. Me! If I had time, Sharpe, I suppose I could lead the troops on a winter campaign! I could inscribe my name in glory, but I don’t have bloody time! Look at this!’ He picked a paper from the pile beside him. ‘A letter, Sharpe, from the Chaplain General. The Chaplain General, no less! Do you know that he is in receipt of a salary of five hundred and sixty-five pounds a year, Sharpe, and in addition is named advisor on the establishment of semaphore stations for which nonsensical bloody job he receives a further six hundred pounds! Can you believe that? And what does God’s vicar to His Majesty’s Army do with his well-paid time? He writes to me thus!’ Nairn held the letter in front of his face. ‘“I require of you to report on the containment of Methodism within the Army.” Good God Almighty, Sharpe! What’s a man to do with such a letter?’

Sharpe smiled. ‘I wouldn’t know, sir.’

‘I do, Sharpe, I do. That’s why I’m a Major General.’ Nairn leaned forward and threw the letter onto the fire. ‘That’s what you do with letters like that.’ Nairn chuckled happily as the paper caught fire and flared brightly. ‘You want to know why you’re here, don’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You are here, Sharpe, because the Prince of Wales has gone mad. Just like his Father, poor man, stark staring raving mad.’ Nairn leaned back and nodded triumphantly at Sharpe. The letter shrivelled to a black wisp on the logs as Nairn waited for a reaction. ‘Good God, Sharpe! You’re supposed to say something! God bless the Prince of Wales would do at a pinch, but you sit there as though the news means nothing. Comes of being a hero, I suppose, always keeping a straight face. Stern business is it? Being a hero?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Sharpe was grinning broadly.

The door opened and Chatsworth edged in with a heavy wooden tray that he put on the floor in front of the fire. ‘Bread and ham, sir, mustard in the small pot. Tea’s well brewed, sir, and I beg to report that the toasting fork was in your room, sir. Here it is, sir.’

‘You’re a rogue and a scoundrel, Chatsworth. You’ll be accusing me of burning correspondence from the Chaplain General next.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Chatsworth grinned contentedly.

‘Are you a Methodist, Chatsworth?’

‘No, sir. Don’t rightly know what a Methodist is, sir.’

‘You are fortunate indeed.’ Nairn was fixing a slice of bread to the toasting fork. A Lieutenant appeared at the open door behind him, knocked hesitantly to attract attention. ‘General Nairn, sir?’

‘Major General Nairn is in Madrid! Negotiating a surrender to the French!’ Nairn pushed the bread close to the logs, wrapping his hand in his handkerchief to keep the scorching heat away.