Sharpe’s Devil: Napoleon and South America, 1820–1821

‘You’re just jealous.’ Harper, seeing new sights, was a happy man. The French wars had given him a taste for travel, and that taste was being well fed by Chile. His only disappointment so far was the paucity of one-legged giants, unicorns or any other mythical beasts. ‘Look at that! Handsome, aren’t they, now?’ He nodded admiringly towards a group of women who, standing in the shade of the striped awnings which protected the shop fronts, returned Harper’s curiosity and admiration. Harper and Sharpe were new faces in a small town, and thus a cause for excited speculation. The wind swirled dust devils across the square and flapped the ornate Spanish ensign which flew over the Citadel’s gatehouse. A legless beggar, swinging along on his hands, followed Sharpe and pleaded for money. Another, who looked like a leper, made a meaningless noise and held out the stump of a wrist towards the two strangers. A Dominican monk, his white robes stained with the red dust that blew everywhere, was arguing with a carter who had evidently failed to deliver a shipment of wine.

‘We’re going to need a carter,’ Sharpe was thinking aloud as he led Harper towards the Citadel’s sentries, ‘or at least a cart. We’re also going to want two riding horses, plus saddlery, and supplies for as long as it takes to get to Puerto Crucero and back. Unless we can sail home from Puerto Crucero? Or maybe we can sail down there! That’ll be cheaper than buying a cart.’

‘What the hell do we want a cart for?’ Harper was panting at the brisk pace set by Sharpe.

‘We need a cart to carry the coffin to Puerto Crucero, unless, of course, we can go there by ship.’

‘Why the hell don’t we have a coffin made in Puerto Crucero?’ Harper asked. ‘The world’s not so short of carpenters that you can’t find a man to knock up a bloody box!’

‘Because a box won’t do the trick!’ Sharpe said. ‘The thing has to be watertight, Patrick, not to keep the rain out but to keep the decay in. We’re going to need a tinsmith, and I don’t suppose Puerto Crucero has too many of those! So we’ll have a watertight box made here before we go south.’

‘We could plop him in a vat of brandy,’ Harper suggested helpfully. ‘There’s a fellow who drinks in my place that was a gunner’s mate on the Victory at Trafalgar, and he says that after the battle they brought Nelson back in a barrel of brandy. My fellow had a look at the body when they unstowed it, and he says the Admiral was as fresh as the day he died, so he was, with flesh soft as a baby, and the only change was that all the man’s hair and nails had grown wild. He tasted the brandy too, so he did. He says it was a bit salty.’

‘I don’t want to put Don Blas in brandy,’ Sharpe said irritably. ‘He’ll be half rotted out as it is, and if we put him in a cask of bloody liquor he’ll like as not dissolve altogether, and instead of burying the poor man in Spain we’ll just be pouring him away. So we’ll put him in a tin box, solder him up tight, and take him back that way.’

‘Whatever you say,’ Harper said grimly, the tone provoked by the unfriendly faces of the sentries at the fort’s gate. The Citadel reminded Sharpe of the Spanish fortresses he had assaulted in the French wars. It had low walls over which the muzzles of the defenders’ guns showed grimly, and a wide, dry moat designed to be a killing ground for any attackers who succeeded in crossing the earthen glacis which was banked to ricochet assaulting cannonfire safely up and over the defenders’ heads. The only incongruity about Valdivia’s formidable Citadel was an ancient-looking tower that stood like a mediaeval castle turret in the very centre of the fortifications.

A sergeant accosted Sharpe and Harper on the bridge, then reluctantly allowed them into the fort itself. They walked through the entrance tunnel, across a wide parade ground, then through a second gateway into a cramped and shadowed inner courtyard. One wall of the yard was made by the ancient limewashed tower that was pockmarked by bullet holes. There were smears of dried blood near some of the bullet marks, suggesting that this cheerless place was where Valdivia’s prisoners met their firing squads.

They enquired at the inner guardroom for Captain Marquinez who, arriving five minutes later, proved to be a tall, strikingly handsome and extraordinarily fashionable young man. His uniform seemed more appropriate for the jewelled halls of Madrid than for this far, squalid colony. He wore a Hussar jacket so frogged with gold braid that it was impossible to see the cloth beneath, a white kidskin pelisse edged with black fur, and skintight sky blue cavalry breeches decorated with gold embroidery and silver side buttons. His epaulette chains, sword sling, spurs and scabbard furnishings were all of shining gold. His manners matched his uniform’s tailoring. He apologized for having kept his visitors waiting, welcomed them to Chile on behalf of Captain-General Bautista, then invited Sharpe and Harper to his quarters where, in a wide, comfortable room, his servant brought cups of steaming chocolate, small gold beakers of a clear Chilean brandy, and a plate of sugared grapes. Marquinez paused in front of a gilt-framed mirror to check that his wavy black hair was in place, then crossed to his wide-arched window to show off the view. ‘It really is a most beautiful country,’ the Captain spoke wistfully, as though he knew it was being lost.

The view was indeed spectacular. The window looked eastwards across the town’s thatched roofs, then beyond the shadowy foothills to the far snow-topped mountains. One of those distant peaks was pluming a stream of brown smoke to the south wind. ‘A volcano,’ Marquinez explained. ‘Chile has a number of them. It’s a tumultuous place, I fear, with frequent earthquakes, but fascinating despite its dangers.’ Marquinez’s servant brought cigars, and Marquinez hospitably offered a burning spill to Harper. ‘So you’re staying with Mister Blair?’ he asked when the cigars were well lit. ‘Poor Blair! His wife refused to travel here, thinking the place too full of dangers! Still, if you keep Blair filled with gin or brandy he’s a happy enough man. Your Spanish is excellent, permit me to congratulate you. So few of your countrymen speak our language.’

‘We both served in Spain,’ Sharpe explained.

‘You did! Then our debt to you is incalculable. Please, seat yourselves. You said you had a letter of introduction?’

Marquinez took and read Doña Louisa’s letter which did not specifically describe Sharpe’s errand, but merely asked any Spanish official to offer whatever help was possible. ‘Which of course we will offer gladly!’ Marquinez spoke with what seemed to be a genuine warmth. ‘I never had the pleasure of meeting Don Blas’s wife. He died, of course, before she could join him here. So very tragic, and such a waste. He was a good man, even perhaps a great man! There was something saintly about him, I always thought.’ The last compliment, uttered in a very bland voice, somehow suggested what an infernal nuisance saints could be. Marquinez carefully folded the letter’s pendant seal into the paper then handed it back to Sharpe with a courtly flourish. ‘And how, sir, might we help you?’

‘We need a permit to visit Puerto Crucero where we want to exhume Don Blas’s body, then ship it home.’ Sharpe, encouraged by Marquinez’s friendliness, saw no need to be delicate about his needs.

Marquinez smiled, revealing teeth as white and regular as a small child’s. ‘I see no extraordinary difficulties there. You will, of course, need a permit to travel to Puerto Crucero.’ He went to his table and riffled through his papers. ‘Did you sail out here on the Espiritu Santo?’

‘Yes.’

‘She’s due to sail back to Spain in a few days and I see that she’s ordered to call at Puerto Crucero on her way. There’s a gold shipment ready, and Ardiles’s ship is the safest transport we have. I see no reason why you shouldn’t travel down the coast in the Espiritu Santo and, if we’re fortunate, you might even take the body back to Europe in her hold!’

Sharpe, who had been prepared by Blair for every kind of official obstructiveness, dared not believe his good fortune. The Espiritu Santo could indeed solve all his problems, but Marquinez had qualified his optimism with one cautious word that Sharpe now echoed as a tentative query. ‘Fortunate?’

‘Besides the permit to travel to Puerto Crucero,’ Marquinez explained, ‘you will need a permit to exhume Don Blas’s body. That permit is issued by the church, of course, but I’m sure the Bishop will be eager to satisfy the Dowager Countess of Mouromorto. However, you should understand that sometimes the church is, how shall I say? Dilatory?’

‘We came prepared for such difficulties,’ Sharpe said.

‘How so?’ The question was swift.

‘The church must have charities dear to its heart?’

‘How very thoughtful of you.’ Marquinez, relieved that Sharpe had so swiftly understood the obstacle, offered his guests a dazzling smile and Sharpe wondered how a man kept his teeth so white. Marquinez then held up a warning hand. ‘We mustn’t forget the necessary licence to export a body. There is a disease risk, you understand, and we have to satisfy ourselves that every precaution has been taken.’

‘We came well prepared,’ Sharpe said dourly. The requirements, so far as he could see, were two massive bribes. One to the church which, in Sharpe’s experience, was always greedy for cash, and the other to the army authorities to secure the travel permit and for the licence to export a body, which licence, Sharpe suspected, had just been dreamed up by the inventive Marquinez. Doña Louisa, Sharpe thought, had understood Chile perfectly when she had insisted on sending him with the big chest of coins. Sharpe smiled at the charming Marquinez. ‘So when, señor, may we expect a travel permit? Today?’

‘Oh, dear me, no!’ Marquinez frowned, as though Sharpe’s suggestion of such haste was somehow unseemly.

‘Soon?’ Sharpe pressed.

‘The decision is not mine,’ Marquinez said happily.

‘Our affairs will surely not be of interest to Captain-General Bautista?’ Sharpe said with what he hoped was a convincing innocence.

‘The Captain-General is interested in all our visitors, especially those who have been notable soldiers.’ Marquinez bowed to Sharpe, whose fame had been described in Louisa’s letter of introduction. ‘Tell me,’ Marquinez went on, ‘were you at Waterloo?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I am sure the Captain-General will want to meet you. General Bautista is an aficionado of the Emperor. He would, I think, be delighted to hear of your experiences.’ Marquinez beamed delightedly, as if a mutual treat awaited his master and Sharpe. ‘Such a pleasure to meet you both!’ Marquinez said, then ushered them back to the guardroom. ‘Such a pleasure,’ he said again.

‘So how did it go?’ Blair asked when they returned.

‘Very well,’ Sharpe said. ‘All things considered it couldn’t have gone much better.’

‘That means you’re in trouble,’ Blair said happily, ‘that means you’re in trouble.’

That night it rained so heavily that the town ditch flooded with earth-reddened water which, in the moonlight, looked like blood. Blair became drunk. He bemoaned that his wife was still in Liverpool and commiserated with Sharpe and Harper that their wives were, respectively, in France and Ireland. ‘You live in bloody France?’ Blair kept asking the question as though to dilute the astonishment he evidently felt for Sharpe’s choice of a home. ‘Bloody funny place to live, I mean if you’ve been fighting the buggers. It must be like a fox moving in with the rabbits!’

Sharpe tried to talk of more immediate matters, like Captain-General Bautista and his fascination for Napoleon, but Blair did not want to talk about the Spanish commander. ‘He’s a bastard. A son of a whore bastard, and that’s all there is to say about him.’ It was clear that Blair, despite his privileged status as a diplomat, feared the Spanish commander.

‘Are you saying he’s illegitimate?’ Sharpe asked disingenuously.

‘Oh, Christ, no.’ Blair glanced at the servants as though fearing they had suddenly learned English and would report this conversation to Bautista’s spies. ‘Bautista’s a younger son, so he needs to make his own fortune. He got his posting here because his father is a minister in Ferdinand VII’s government, and he greased his son a commission in the artillery and an appointment in Chile, because this is where the money is. But the rest Bautista did for himself. He’s capable! He’s efficient and a hard worker. He’s probably no soldier, but he’s no weakling. And he’s making himself rich.’

‘So he’s corrupt?’

‘Corrupt!’ Blair mocked the word. ‘Of course he’s corrupt. They’re all corrupt. I’m corrupt! Everyone here knows the bloody war is lost. It’s only a question of time before the Spaniards go and the Chileans can bugger up their own country instead of having someone else to do it for them, so what Bautista and his people are doing is making themselves rich before someone takes away the tray of baubles.’ Blair paused, sipped, then leaned closer to Sharpe. ‘Your friend Vivar wasn’t corrupt, which is why he made enemies, but Bautista, he’s a coming man! He’ll make his money then go home and use that money to buy himself office in Madrid. Mark my words, he’ll be the power in Spain before he’s fifty.’

‘How old is he now?’

‘He’s a youngster! Thirty, no more.’ Blair, clearly deciding he had said enough about the feared Bautista, pushed his glass to the end of the table for a servant girl to fill with a mixture of rum and wine. ‘If you want a whore, Colonel,’ Blair went on, ‘there’s a chingana behind the church. Ask for the girl they call La Monja!’ Blair rolled his eyes heavenwards to indicate what exquisite joys awaited Sharpe and Harper if they followed his advice. ‘She’s a mestiza.’

‘What’s a mestiza?’ Harper asked.

‘Half-breed, and that one’s half a woman and half a wildcat.’

‘I’d rather hear about Bautista,’ Sharpe said.

‘I’ve told you, there’s nothing to tell. Man’s a bastard. Cross him and you get butchered. He’s judge, jury and executioner here. He’s also horribly efficient. You want some more rum?’

Sharpe glanced at the two Indian girls who, holding their jugs of wine and rum, stood expressionless at the edge of the room. ‘No.’

‘You can have them, too,’ Blair said hospitably. ‘Help yourselves, both of you! I know they look like cows, but they know their way up and down a bed. No point in employing them otherwise. They can’t cook and their idea of cleaning a room is to rearrange the dirt, so what else are they good for? And in the dark you don’t know they’re savages, do you?’