Sharpe’s Battle: The Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, May 1811

The pie and cheese were arranged and another wine-skin was fetched, along with a bowl of cherries, to satisfy the last possible vestiges of Runciman’s appetite. A group of cavalry officers sitting at a table on the far side of the yard were making wagers on how much food Runciman could consume, but Runciman was oblivious of their mockery. ‘It’s a chance,’ he said again when he was well tucked into his pie. ‘I can’t tell what’s in it for you, of course, because a chap like you probably doesn’t expect too much out of life anyway, but I reckon I’ve got a chance at a Golden Fleece.’ He peered up at Sharpe. ‘You do know what real means, don’t you?’

‘Royal, sir.’

‘So you’re not completely uneducated then, eh? Royal indeed, Sharpe. The royal guard! These Irish fellows are royal! Not a pack of common carriers and mule-drivers. They’ve got royal connections, Sharpe, and that means royal rewards! I’ve half an idea that the Spanish court might even give a pension with the Order of the Golden Fleece. The thing comes with a nice star and a golden collar, but a pension would be very acceptable. A reward for a job well done, don’t you see? And that’s just from the Spanish! The good Lord alone knows what London might cough up. A knighthood? The Prince Regent will want to know we’ve done a good job, Sharpe, he’ll take an interest, don’t you see? He’ll be expecting us to treat these fellows proper, as befits a royal guard. Order of the Bath at the very least, I should think. Maybe even a viscountcy? And why not? There’s only one problem.’ Colonel Runciman belched again, then raised a buttock for a few seconds. ‘My God, but that’s better,’ he said. ‘Let the effusions out, that’s what my doctor says. There’s no future in keeping noxious effusions in the body, he tells me, in case the body rots from within. Now, Sharpe, the fly in our unguent is the fact these royal guards are all Irish. Have you ever commanded the Irish?’

‘A few, sir.’

‘Well, I’ve commanded dozens of the rogues. Ever since they amalgamated the Train with the Irish Corps of Wagoners, and there ain’t much about the Irish that I don’t know. Ever served in Ireland, Sharpe?’

‘No, sir.’

‘I was there once. Garrison duty at Dublin Castle. Six months of misery, Sharpe, without a single properly cooked meal. God knows, Sharpe, I strive to be a good Christian and to love my fellow man, but the Irish do sometimes make it difficult. Not that some of them ain’t the nicest fellows you could ever meet, but they can be obtuse! Dear me, Sharpe, I sometimes wondered if they were gulling me. Pretending not to understand the simplest orders. Do you find that? And there’s something else, Sharpe. We’ll have to be politic, you and I. The Irish’ – and here Runciman leaned awkwardly forward as though confiding something important to Sharpe – ‘are very largely Romish, Sharpe. Papists! We shall have to watch our theological discourse if we’re not to unsettle their tempers! You and I might know that the Pope is the reincarnation of the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, but it won’t help our cause if we say it out loud. Know what I mean?’

‘You mean there’ll be no Golden Fleece, sir?’

‘Good fellow, knew you’d comprehend. Exactly. We have to be diplomatic, Sharpe. We have to be understanding. We have to treat these fellows as if they were Englishmen.’ Runciman thought about that statement, then frowned. ‘Or almost English, anyway. You came up from the ranks, ain’t that right? So these things might not be obvious to you, but if you just remember to keep silent about the Pope you can’t go far wrong. And tell your chaps the same,’ he added hastily.

‘A fair number of my fellows are Catholics themselves, sir,’ Sharpe said. ‘And Irish.’

‘They would be, they would be. A third of this army is Irish! If there was ever a mutiny, Sharpe …’ Colonel Runciman shuddered at the prospect of the papist redcoats running wild. ‘Well, it doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?’ he went on. ‘So ignore their infamous heresies, Sharpe, just ignore them. Ignorance is the only possible cause for papism, my dear father always said, and a burning at the stake the only known cure. He was a bishop, so he understood these matters. Oh, and one other thing, Sharpe, I’d be obliged if you didn’t call me Colonel Runciman. They haven’t replaced me yet, so I’m still the Wagon Master General, so it ought to be General Runciman.’

‘Of course, General,’ Sharpe said, hiding a smile. After nineteen years in the army he knew Colonel Runciman’s type. The man had purchased his promotions all the way to lieutenant colonel and there got stuck because promotion above that rank depended entirely on seniority and merit, but if Runciman wanted to be called General then Sharpe would play along for a while. He also sensed that Runciman was hardly likely to prove a difficult man so there was small point in antagonizing him.

‘Good fellow! Ah! You see that scrawny chap who’s just going?’ Runciman pointed to a man leaving the inn through its arched entrance. ‘I swear he’s left half a skin of wine on his table. See it? Go and snaffle it, Sharpe, there’s a stout fellow, before that hunchbacked girl gets her paws on it. I’d go myself, but the damn gout is pinching me something hard today. Off you go, man, I’m thirsty!’

Sharpe was saved the indignity of scavenging the tables like a beggar by the arrival of Major Michael Hogan who waved Sharpe back towards the wreckage of Runciman’s luncheon. ‘Good afternoon to you, Colonel,’ Hogan said, ‘and it’s a grand day too, is it not?’ Hogan, Sharpe noticed, was deliberately exaggerating his Irish accent.

‘Hot,’ Runciman said, dabbing with his napkin at the perspiration that dripped down his plump cheeks and then, suddenly conscious of his naked belly, he vainly tried to tug the edges of his corset together. ‘Damnably hot,’ he said.

‘It’s the sun, Colonel,’ Hogan said very earnestly. ‘I’ve noticed that the sun seems to heat up the day. Have you noticed that?’

‘Well, of course it’s the sun!’ Runciman said, confused.

‘So I’m right! Isn’t that amazing? But what about winter, Colonel?’

Runciman threw an anguished glance towards the abandoned wineskin. He was about to order Sharpe to fetch it when the serving girl whisked it away. ‘Damn,’ Runciman said sadly.

‘You spoke, Colonel?’ Hogan asked, helping himself to a handful of Runciman’s cherries.

‘Nothing, Hogan, nothing but a twinge of gout. I need some more Husson’s Water, but the stuff is damned hard to find. Maybe you could put a request to the Horse Guards in London? They must realize we need medication here? And one other thing, Hogan?’

‘Speak, Colonel. I am ever yours to command.’

Runciman coloured. He knew he was being mocked but, though he outranked the Irishman, he was nervous of Hogan’s intimacy with Wellington. ‘I am still, as you know, Wagon Master General,’ Runciman said heavily.

‘So you are, Colonel, so you are. And a damned fine one too, I might say. The Peer was only saying to me the other day. Hogan, says he, have you ever seen wagons so finely mastered in all your born days?’

‘Wellington said that?’ Runciman asked in astonishment.

‘He did, Colonel, he did.’

‘Well, I’m not really surprised,’ Runciman said. ‘My dear mother always said I had a talent for organization, Hogan. But the thing is, Major,’ Runciman went on, ‘that until a replacement is found then I am still the Wagon Master General’ – he stressed the word ‘General’ – ‘and I would be vastly obliged if you addressed me as –’

‘My dear Wagon Master,’ Hogan interrupted Runciman’s laborious request, ‘why didn’t you say so earlier? Of course I shall address you as Wagon Master, and I apologize for not thinking of that simple courtesy myself. But now, Wagon Master, if you’ll excuse me, the Real Compañía Irlandesa have reached the edge of town and we need to review them. If you’re ready?’ Hogan gestured to the inn’s gateway.

Runciman quailed at the prospect of exerting himself. ‘Right now, Hogan? This minute? But I can’t. Doctor’s orders. A man of my constitution needs to take a rest after …’ He paused, seeking the right word. ‘After …’ he went on and failed again.

‘Rest after labour?’ Hogan suggested sweetly. ‘Very well, Wagon Master, I’ll tell Lord Kiely you’ll meet him and his officers at General Valverde’s reception this evening while Sharpe takes the men up to San Isidro.’

‘This evening at Valverde’s, Hogan,’ Runciman agreed. ‘Very good. And Hogan. About my being Wagon Master General –’

‘No need to thank me, Wagon Master. You’d just embarrass me with gratitude, so not another word! I shall respect your wishes and tell everyone else to do the same. Now come, Richard! Where are your green fellows?’

‘In a taproom at the front of the inn, sir,’ Sharpe said. His riflemen were to join Sharpe in the San Isidro Fort, an abandoned stronghold on the Portuguese border, where they would help train the Real Compañía Irlandesa in musketry and skirmishing.

‘My God, Richard, but Runciman’s a fool!’ Hogan said happily as the two men walked through the inn’s gateway. ‘He’s a genial fool, but he must have been the worst Wagon Master General in history. McGilligan’s dog would have done a better job, and McGilligan’s dog was famously blind, epileptic and frequently drunk. You never knew McGilligan, did you? A good engineer, but he fell off the Old Mole at Gibraltar and drowned himself after drinking two quarts of sherry, God rest his soul. The poor dog was inconsolable and had to be shot. The 73rd Highlanders did the deed with a full firing party and military honours to follow. But Runciman’s just the fellow to flatter the Irish and make them think we’re taking them seriously, but that’s not your job. You understand me?’

‘No, sir,’ Sharpe said, ‘don’t understand you in the least, sir.’

‘You’re being awkward, Richard,’ Hogan said, then stopped and took hold of one of Sharpe’s silver coat buttons to emphasize his next words. ‘The object of all we now do is to upset Lord Kiely. Your job is to insert yourself into Lord Kiely’s fundament and be an irritant. We don’t want him here and we don’t want his bloody Royal Company here, but we can’t tell them to bugger off because it wouldn’t be diplomatic, so your job is to make them go away voluntarily. Oh! Sorry now,’ he apologized because the button had come away in his fingers. ‘The buggers are up to no good, Richard, and we have to find a diplomatic way of getting rid of them, so whatever you can do to upset them, do it, and rely on Runciman the Rotund to smooth things over so they don’t think we’re being deliberately rude.’ Hogan smiled. ‘They’ll just blame you for not being a gentleman.’

‘But I’m not, am I?’

‘As it happens, you are, it’s one of your faults, but let’s not worry about that now. Just get rid of Kiely for me, Richard, with all his merry men. Make them cringe! Make them suffer! But above all, Richard, please, please make the bastards go away.’

The Real Compañía Irlandesa might be called a company, but in fact it was a small battalion, one of the five that made up the household guard of Spain’s royalty. Three hundred and four guardsmen had been on the company’s books when it had last served in the Escorial Palace outside Madrid, but the imprisonment of Spain’s king and benign neglect by the occupying French had reduced its ranks, and the journey by sea around Spain to join the British army had thinned the files even more, so that by the time the Real Compañía Irlandesa paraded on the outskirts of Vilar Formoso there were a mere one hundred and sixty-three men left. The one hundred and sixty-three men were accompanied by thirteen officers, a chaplain, eighty-nine wives, seventy-four children, sixteen servants, twenty-two horses, a dozen mules, ‘and one mistress,’ Hogan told Sharpe.

‘One mistress?’ Sharpe asked in disbelief.

‘There’s probably a score of mistresses,’ Hogan said, ‘two score! A walking brothel, in all likelihood, but his Lordship tells me we have to arrange accommodation suitable for himself and a lady friend. Not that she’s here yet, you understand, but his Lordship tells me she’s coming. The Doña Juanita de Elia is supposed to charm her way across the enemy lines in order to warm his Lordship’s bed and if she’s the same Juanita de Elia that I’ve heard about then she’s well practised in bed warming. You know what they say of her? That she collects a uniform from the regiment of every man she sleeps with!’ Hogan chuckled.

‘If she crosses the lines here,’ Sharpe said, ‘she’ll be damned lucky to escape the Loup Brigade.’

‘How the hell do you know about Loup?’ Hogan asked instantly. For most of the time the Irishman was a genial and witty soul, but Sharpe knew the bonhomie disguised a very keen mind and the tone of the question was a sudden baring of that steel.

Yet Hogan was also a friend and for a split second Sharpe was tempted to confess how he had met the Brigadier and illegally executed two of his grey-uniformed soldiers, but then decided that was a deed best forgotten. ‘Everyone knows about Loup here,’ he answered instead. ‘You can’t spend a day on this frontier without hearing about Loup.’

‘That’s true enough,’ Hogan admitted, his suspicions allayed. ‘But don’t be tempted to inquire further, Richard. He’s a bad boy. Let me worry about Loup while you worry about that shambles.’ Hogan and Sharpe, followed by the riflemen, had turned a corner to see the Real Compañía Irlandesa slouching in parade order on a patch of waste land opposite a half-finished church. ‘Our new allies,’ Hogan said sourly, ‘believe it or not, in fatigue dress.’

Fatigue dress was meant to be a soldier’s duty uniform for everyday wear, but the fatigue uniform of the Real Compañía Irlandesa was much gaudier and smarter than the full dress finery of most British line battalions. The guardsmen wore short red jackets with black-edged, gilt-fringed swallowtails behind. The same gold-trimmed black cord edged their buttonholes and collars, while the facings, cuffs and turnbacks of their coats were of emerald green. Their breeches and waistcoats had once been white, their calf-length boots, belts and crossbelts were of black leather, while their sashes were green, the same green as the high plume that each man wore on the side of his black bicorne hat. The gilded hat badges showed a tower and a rearing lion, the same symbols that were displayed on the gorgeous green and gold shoulder sashes worn by the sergeants and drummer boys. As Sharpe walked closer he saw that the splendid uniforms were frayed, patched and discoloured, yet they still made a brave display in the bright spring sunshine. The men themselves looked anything but brave, instead appearing dispirited, weary and aggravated.

‘Where are their officers?’ Sharpe asked Hogan.

‘Gone to a tavern for luncheon.’

‘They don’t eat with their men?’

‘Evidently not.’ Hogan’s disapproval was acid, but not as bitter as Sharpe’s. ‘Now don’t be getting sympathetic, Richard,’ Hogan warned. ‘You’re not supposed to like these boys, remember?’