Sharpe’s Eagle: The Talavera Campaign, July 1809

‘Lieutenant Sharpe, ma’am.’

‘Lieutenant Sharpe.’ She smiled again, spitting him with her beauty. ‘You must know Christian Gibbons?’

He nodded, knowing the unfairness of life. Money could buy anything: a commission, promotion, a sword fashioned to a man’s height and strength, even a woman like this. ‘I know him.’

‘And you don’t like him!’ She laughed, knowing that her instinct was right. ‘But I do.’ She clicked her tongue at the horse and gathered up the reins. ‘I expect we will meet again. I am going with you to Madrid.’

Sharpe did not want her to go. ‘You’re a long way from home.’

She turned back, mocking him with a smile. ‘So are you, Lieutenant, so are you.’

She led the limping mare, followed by the mute servant, towards the stand of trees and the first drifts of blue smoke where the cooking fires were being blown into life. Sharpe watched her go, let his eyes see her slim figure beneath the man’s clothes, and felt the envy and heaviness of his desire. He walked back into the olive grove as if by leaving the road he could wipe her from his memory and regain the peace of the afternoon. Damn Gibbons and his money, damn all the officers who could pay for the beauties who rode their thoroughbred mares behind the army. He encouraged his sour thoughts, swirled them round his head to try to convince himself that he did not want her, but as he walked between the trees he felt the horse-shoe nail still held in his right palm. He looked at it, a short, bent nail, and tucked it carefully into his ammunition pouch. He told himself it would come in useful; he needed a nail to jam the main-spring of the rifle when he stripped the lock for cleaning, but better nails were plentiful and he knew he was keeping it because it had been hers. Angrily he fished among the fat cartridges and threw the nail far away.

From the Battalion there came the sound of musket fire and he knew that two bullocks had been slaughtered for the evening meal. There would be wine with the stew, and Hogan’s brandy after it, and stories about old friends and forgotten campaigns. He had been looking forward to the meal, to the evening, but suddenly everything was changed. The girl was in the camp, her laughter would invade the peace, and he thought, as he walked back by the stream, that he did not even know her name.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Regimiento de la Santa Maria would have conquered the world if words and display had been enough. But punctuality was not among their more obvious military virtues.

The South Essex had marched hard for four days to reach the rendezvous at Plasencia but the town was empty of Spanish troops. Storks flapped lazily from their nests among the steep roofs that climbed to the ancient cathedral which dominated both the town and the circling plain, but of the Santa Maria there was no sign. The Battalion waited. Simmerson had bivouacked outside the walls and the men watched jealously as other units arrived and marched into the tantalising streets with their wine-shops and women. Three men disobeyed the standing order to stay away from the town and were caught, helplessly drunk, by the Provost-Marshal and received a flogging as the Battalion paraded beside the River Jerte.

Finally, two days late, the Spanish Regiment arrived and the South Essex mustered at five in the morning to begin their march south to Valdelacasa. There was a chill in the air which the rising sun would disperse but as five thirty, the hour set for departure, came and went there was still no sign of the Santa Maria and the men stamped their feet and rubbed their hands to ward off the cold. The hour of six chimed from the bells in the town. The children who were waiting with their mothers to see the Battalion depart grew bored and ran through the ranks despite all the shouting that began with Simmerson and worked its way down to the Sergeants and Corporals. The Battalion was paraded beside the Roman bridge that spanned the river and Sharpe followed a grumbling Captain Hogan on to the ancient arches and stared into the water that tumbled round the vast granite boulders which had been left in the river-bed in some long-ago upheaval of the earth. Hogan was impatient. ‘Damn them! Why can’t we just march and let the beggars catch us up?’ He knew well why it was impossible. The answer was called diplomacy and part of the price of cooperation with the touchy Spanish forces was that the native Regiment must march first. Sharpe said nothing. He stared into the water at the long weeds which waved sinuously in the current. He shivered in the dawn breeze. He shared Hogan’s impatience and it was alloyed with frustrations that stirred inside him like the slow-moving river weed. He looked up at the cathedral, touched by the rising sun, and tried to pin down his apprehensions about the operation at Valdelacasa. It sounded simple. A day’s march to the bridge, a day for Hogan to destroy the already crumbling arches, and a day’s march back to Plasencia where Wellesley was gathering his forces for the next stage of the advance into Spain. But there was something, some instinct as difficult to pin down as the grey shadows that receded in the dawn, that told him it would not be that easy. It was not the Spanish that worried him. Like Hogan he knew that their presence was a political imperative and a military farce. If they proved as useless as their reputation suggested that should not matter, the South Essex was strong enough to cope with whatever was needed. And that was the problem. Simmerson had never met the enemy and Sharpe had little faith in the Colonel’s ability to do the right thing. If there really were French on the south bank of the Tagus, and if the South Essex had to repel an attack on the bridge while Hogan laid his charges, then Sharpe would have preferred an old soldier to be making the decisions and not this Colonel of Militia whose head was stuffed with theories on battles and tactics learned on the safe fields of Essex.

But it was not just Simmerson. He looked at the road leading to the town where an indistinct group of women stood, the wives of the Battalion, and wondered whether the girl, Josefina Lacosta, was there. He had at least learned her name and seen her, a dozen times, mounted on the delicate black mare with a crowd of Simmerson’s Lieutenants laughing and joking with her. He had listened to the rumours about her; that she was the widow of a rich Portuguese officer, that she had run away from the Portuguese officer, no one seemed sure, but what was certain was that she had met Gibbons at a ball in Lisbon’s American Hotel and, within hours, had decided to go to the war with him. It was said that they planned to marry once the army reached Madrid and that Gibbons had promised her a house and a life of dancing and gaiety. Whatever the truth of Josefina there was no denying her presence, entrancing the whole Battalion, flirting even with Sir Henry who responded with a heavy gallantry and told the officers that young men would be young men. ‘Christian needs his exercise, what?’ Simmerson would repeat the joke and laugh each time. The Colonel’s indulgence reached to letting his nephew break his standing order and take a suite of rooms in the town where he lived with the girl and entertained friends in the long, warm evenings. Gibbons was the envy of all the officers, Josefina the jewel in his crown, and Sharpe shivered on the bridge and wondered if she would ever go back to the flatlands of Essex and to a big house built on the profits of salted fish.

Seven chimed and there was a stir of excitement as a group of horsemen appeared from the houses and spurred towards the waiting Battalion. The riders turned out to be British and the ranks relaxed again. Hogan and Sharpe walked back to their men paraded next to Lennox’s Light Company at the left of the Battalion and watched the newcomers ride to join Simmerson. All the riders but one were in uniform and the exception wore blue trousers under a grey cloak and on his head a plain bicorne hat. Ensign Denny, sixteen years old and full of barely suppressed excitement, was standing near the Riflemen and Sharpe asked him if he knew who the apparent civilian was.

‘No, sir.’

‘Sergeant Harper! Tell Mr Denny who the gentleman in the grey cloak is.’

‘That’s the General, Mr Denny. Sir Arthur Wellesley himself. Born in Ireland like all the best soldiers!’

A ripple of laughter went through the ranks but they all straightened up and stared at the man who would lead them towards Madrid. They saw him take out a watch and look towards the town from where the Spanish should be coming but there was still no sign of the Regimienta even though the sun was well over the horizon and the dew fading fast from the grass. One of the staff officers with Wellesley broke away from the group and trotted his horse towards Hogan. Sharpe supposed he wanted to talk to the Engineer and he walked away, back to the bridge, to give Hogan some privacy.

‘Sharpe! Richard!’

The voice was familiar, from the past. He turned to see the staff officer, a Lieutenant Colonel, waving to him but the face was hidden beneath the ornate cocked hat.

‘Richard! You’ve forgotten me!’

Lawford! Sharpe’s face broke into a smile. ‘Sir! I didn’t even know you were here!’

Lawford swung easily out of the saddle, took off his hat, and shook his head. ‘You look dreadful! You must really buy yourself a uniform one of these days.’ He smiled and shook Sharpe’s hand. ‘It’s good to see you, Richard.’

‘And to see you, sir. A Lieutenant Colonel? You’re doing well!’

‘It cost me three thousand, five hundred pounds, Richard, and well you know it. Thank God for money.’

Lawford. Sharpe remembered when the Honourable William Lawford was a frightened Lieutenant and a Sergeant called Sharpe had guided him through the heat of India. Then Lawford had repaid the debt. In a prison cell in Seringapatam the aristocrat had taught the Sergeant to read and write, the exercise had stopped them both going mad in the dank hell of the Sultan Tippoo’s dungeons. Sharpe shook his head. ‘I haven’t seen you for …’

‘It’s been months. Far too long. How are you?’

Sharpe grinned. ‘As you see me.’

‘Untidy?’ Lawford smiled. He was the same age as Sharpe but there the resemblance stopped. Lawford was a dandy, dressed always in the finest cloth and lace, and Sharpe had seen him pay a Regimental Tailor seven guineas to achieve a tighter fit on an already immaculately tailored jacket. He spread his hands expansively.

‘You can stop worrying, Richard, Lawford is here. The French will probably surrender when they hear. God! It’s taken me months to get this job! I was stuck in Dublin Castle, changing the bloody guard, and I’ve pulled a hundred strings to get on to Wellesley’s staff. And here I am! Arrived two weeks ago!’ The words tumbled out. Sharpe was delighted to see him. Lawford, like Gibbons, summed up all that he hated most about the army; how money and influence could buy promotion while others, like Sharpe, rotted in penury. Yet Sharpe liked Lawford, could feel no resentment, and he supposed that it was because the aristocrat, for all the assurance of his birth, responded to Sharpe in the same way. And Lawford, for all his finery and assumed languor, was a fighting soldier. Sharpe held up a hand to stop the flow of news.

‘What’s happening, sir? Where are the Spanish?’

Lawford shook his head. ‘Still in bed. At least they were, but the bugles have sounded, the warriors have pulled on their trousers and we’re told they’re coming.’ He leaned closer to Sharpe and dropped his voice. ‘How do you get on with Simmerson?’

‘I don’t have to get on with him. I work for Hogan.’

Lawford appeared not to hear the answer. ‘He’s an extraordinary man. Did you know he paid to raise this Regiment?’ Sharpe nodded. ‘Do you know what that cost him, Richard? Unimaginable!’

‘So he’s a rich man. But it doesn’t make him a soldier.’ Sharpe sounded sour.

Lawford shrugged. ‘He wants to be. He wants to be the best. I sailed out on the same boat and all he did, every day, was sit there reading the Rules and Regulations for His Majesty’s Forces!’ He shook his head. ‘Perhaps he’ll learn. I don’t envy you, though.’ He turned to look at Wellesley. ‘Well. I can’t stay all day. Listen. You must dine with me when you get back from this job. Will you do that?’

‘With pleasure.’

‘Good!’ Lawford swung up into the saddle. ‘You’ve got a scrap ahead of you. We sent the Light Dragoons down south and they tell us there’s a sizeable bunch of Frenchies down there with some horse artillery. They’ve been trying to flush the Guerilleros out of the hills but they’re moving back east now, like us, so good luck!’ He turned his horse away, then looked back. ‘And, Richard?’

‘Sir?’

‘Sir Arthur asked to be remembered.’

‘He did?’

Lawford looked down on Sharpe. ‘You’re an idiot.’ He spoke cheerfully. ‘Shall I remember you to the General? It’s the done thing, you know.’ He grinned, raised his hat and turned away. Sharpe watched him go, the apprehension of the cold dawn suddenly dissipated by the rush of friendship. Hogan joined him.

‘Friends in high places?’

‘Old friend. We were in India.’

Hogan said nothing. He was staring across the field, his jaw sagging in astonishment, and Sharpe followed his gaze. ‘My God.’

The Regimienta had arrived. Two trumpeters in powdered wigs led the procession. They were mounted on glossy black horses, bedecked in uniforms that were a riot of gold and silver, their trumpets festooned with ribbons, tassels, and banners.

‘Hell’s teeth.’ The voice came from the ranks. ‘The Fairies are on our side.’

The colours came next, two flags covered in armorial bearings, threaded with gold, tasselled, looped, crowned, curlicued, emblazoned, carried by horsemen whose mounts stepped delicately high as though the earth was scarcely fit to carry such splendid creations. The officers came next. They should have delighted the soul of Sir Henry Simmerson for everything that could be polished had been burnished to an eye-hurting intensity; whether of leather, or bronze, silver or gold. Epaulettes of twisted golden strands were encrusted with semi-precious stones; their coats were piped with silver threads, frogged and plumed, sashed and shining. It was a dazzling display.

The men came next, a shambling mess, rattled on to the field by energetic but erratic drummers. Sharpe was appalled. All he had heard of the Spanish army seemed to be true in the Regimienta; their weapons looked dull and uncared for, there was no spirit in their bearing, and Madrid seemed suddenly a long way off if this was the quality of the allies who would help clear the road. There was a renewed energy from the Spanish drummers as the two trumpeters challenged the sky with a resounding fanfare. Then silence.

‘Now what?’ Hogan muttered.