‘Which is regrettable.’ Frederickson, whose company had suffered at the Teste de Buch fort because of Bampfylde’s cowardice, did not sound in the least regretful. Indeed his voice was positively gleeful in anticipation of Bampfylde’s death. ‘Shall we let the proceedings begin, Lieutenant?’ Without waiting for an answer he beckoned to Sharpe as Ford signalled to Bampfylde.
The two principals faced each other without speaking. Bampfyldc looked deathly pale to Sharpe, but quite sober. He was certainly not shaking. He looked angry, but any man who had been accused of gross cowardice should look angry.
Ford opened the wooden case and produced two duelling pistols. Bampfylde, because he had been challenged, had been offered the choice of weapons, and he had chosen a pair of long-barrelled French-made percussion pistols. Frederickson weighed them in his hands, inspected their hammers, then pulled the ramrod from one of the guns and probed both barrels. He was checking that neither pistol had concealed rifling in the rear part of their barrels. Both were smooth-bore. They were, so far as a craftsman’s high skill could make them, identical weapons.
The doctor was leaning forward in the carriage to watch the careful preparations. His coachman, swathed in a cloak, stood by the horses’ heads. Harper waited by the pine trees.
Ford loaded both pistols, carefully watched by Frederickson. The Lieutenant used fine black powder that was dispensed from a small measuring cup. Ford was nervous, his hand quivered, and some of the powder was wisped away by the wind, but he carefully took an extra pinch to compensate for the loss. The powder was tamped down with the ramrod, then each lead ball was wrapped in an oiled leather patch. Bullets, however carefully cast, were never quite of a perfect calibre, but the leather patch made the fit as true as was possible, and thus gave the pistols added accuracy. Greater accuracy would have been achieved if the weapons’ barrels had been rifled, but that was thought to be unsporting. The balls were rammed down the barrels, then the ramrod was struck with a brass hammer to make sure that the missiles were sitting hard against the powder charge.
Once the barrels were charged Ford opened a small tin case which contained the percussion caps. Each cap was a wafer of paper-thin copper enclosing a tiny charge of black powder. When the pistol’s hammer struck the copper wafer the hidden powder exploded to lance a tiny jet of flame down the touch-hole to the compacted charge in the barrel. Such guns were finicky, expensive, and much more reliable than the old-fashioned flintlock that was so prone to dampness. Ford carefully pressed the caps into the tiny recesses beneath the two hammers, then gently lowered the hammers so the guns were safe. Then, with a curiously diffident air, he offered both butts to Frederickson.
Frederickson, thus given the choice, looked at Sharpe. ‘Either,’ Sharpe said curtly. It was the first word either principal had spoken since they had met. Bampfylde glanced at Sharpe as the Rifleman spoke, then quickly looked away. The Naval officer was a plump young man with a smooth face, while Sharpe had a tanned, scarred skin and angular bones. A scar on the Rifleman’s left cheek distorted his mouth to give his face an unwitting look of mockery that only disappeared when he smiled.
Frederickson chose the right-hand gun. ‘Coats and hats, gentlemen, please,’ he said solemnly.
Sharpe had anticipated this ritual, yet it still seemed strange and clumsy as he threw down his shako, then as he took off the threadbare rifleman’s jacket. On thejacket’s sleeve was a dirty cloth badge; a wreath of oak leaves that proved he had once led a Forlorn Hope into a breach that had been savage with fire and steel. He gave the coat to Frederickson who, in return, handed the loaded pistol to Sharpe. The wind stirred Sharpe’s black hair that he irritably pushed away from his eyes.
Bampfylde shrugged off his boat-cloak, then undid the buttons of his blue and white jacket. Beneath it he wore a white silk shirt that was tucked into a sash about the waistband of his white uniform breeches. It was said to be easier, and thus much safer, to remove shreds of silk from a bullet wound, which was why many officers insisted on wearing silk into battle. Sharpe’s shirt was of stained linen.
Ford took Captain Bampfylde’s hat, cloak and jacket, then cleared his throat. ‘You will take ten paces, gentlemen, to my count -’ Ford was very nervous; he swallowed phlegm, then cleared his throat once more - ‘after which you will turn and fire. If satisfaction is not given with the first exchange, then you may insist on firing a second time, and so forth.’
‘You’re happy with your station?’ Frederickson asked Bampfylde who gave a start at being thus addressed, then looked around the bluff as if seeking a safer place to fight.
‘I am content,’ he said after a pause.
‘Major?’ Frederickson asked Sharpe.
‘Content.’ The butt of the pistol was made of crosshatched walnut. The gun felt heavy and unbalanced in Sharpe’s hand, but that was only because he was not used to such weapons. It was undoubtedly a gun of great precision.
‘If you’ll turn, gentlemen?’ Ford’s voice was shaking.
Sharpe turned so that he was staring out to sea. The freshening wind had begun to fleck the slaty swell with rills of white foam. The wind, he noted, was coming straight into his face so he would not have to aim the pistol off to compensate for a cross-breeze.
‘You may cock your weapons,’ Frederickson said. Sharpe pulled back the hammer and felt it click into place. He was besieged by a sudden worry that the percussion cap would fall out of its recess, but when he looked he saw that the wafer’s copper edges were so crimped by the tight fit that the cap was effectively wedged tight.
‘Ten paces, gentlemen,’ Ford announced. ‘One. Two ...’
Sharpe walked his normal paces. He held the gun low. He did not think he had shown any fear to Bampfylde, but his belly was like knotted ice and a muscle was trembling in his left thigh. His throat was dry as dust. He could see Harper out of the corner of his eye.
‘Seven. Eight.’ Ford had raised his voice so it would carry above the sound of the sea wind. Sharpe was close enough to the bluff’s edge to see the French lobstermen pulling on long oars to escape the sucking undertow at the cliff’s ragged base.
‘Nine,’ Ford shouted, then a perceptible and nervous pause before the last word, ‘ten.’
Sharpe took the last pace, then turned his back to the Atlantic wind. Bampfylde was already raising his pistol. He looked very near to Sharpe who suddenly seemed unable to raise his right arm. He was thinking of Jane who he knew was waiting in horrid suspense, then he jerked his arm into motion because Bampfylde’s pistol was already nothing but a round black hole pointing straight between Sharpe’s eyes.
He watched the black hole and suddenly felt the warm calm of battle. The reassurance was so unexpected, yet so familiar, that he smiled.
And Bampfylde fired.
Flame pierced at Sharpe through the billowing smoke, but he had already heard the ball go past his head with a crack like a leather whip snapped hard. The bullet could not have been more than six inches from his left ear, and Sharpe wondered if both pistols pulled to the right. He waited, wanting the smoke of Bampfylde’s pistol to dissipate in the wind. He was still smiling, though he did not know it. Bampfylde, doubtless from nerves, had fired too quickly and thus had wasted his shot. Sharpe now had all the time he needed to take revenge for the men who had died in the fortress of Teste de Buch.
The wind shredded the smoke, revealing a Bampfylde who stood in profile to Sharpe. The Naval Captain was sucking in his belly to make his body into a smaller target. Sharpe had the blade of the pistol’s foresight outlined against the white silk shirt, and now he lined the back notch with the blade foresight, then he edged the pistol a fraction to the left just in case the weapon did pull to the right. He would aim low, for most guns fired high. If this one did not fire high then he would give Bampfylde a belly wound. That would kill, but slowly; as slowly as some of Sharpe’s men had died after Bampfylde had abandoned them behind the enemy’s lines.
His finger curled round the trigger. T
he smoke was entirely gone from Bampfylde now and was nothing more than a tenuous scrap of distant mist that was being whirled high off the bluffs edge to sail inland.
‘Fire, damn you!’ Bampfylde blurted the words aloud, and Sharpe, who had been about to fire, saw that the Naval Captain was visibly shaking.
‘Fire, God damn you!’ Bampfylde called again, and Sharpe knew he had won utterly, for he had reduced this proud man to a quivering coward. Sharpe had accused Bampfylde of cowardice, and now he was proving the allegation.
‘Fire!’ Bampfylde called the word in despair.
Sharpe lowered the pistol’s muzzle to compensate for the upward pull, then fired.
Sharpe’s pistol did not pull up at all, but had a slight tendency to fire leftwards, rather than right, and the result, instead of a belly shot, was to sear the ball through both cheeks of Bampfylde’s bottom. It ripped his white naval breeches open, then scored bloody gouges in his flesh. Bampfylde squealed like a stuck pig and lurched forward. He dropped his pistol, fell to his knees and Sharpe felt the exultation of a job well done. He could see blood bright on the white breeches. The doctor was running clumsily with his black bag, but Ford was already kneeling beside the wounded Bampfylde. ‘It’s only a flesh wound, sir.’
‘He’s broken my back!’ Bampfylde hissed the words as evidence of his pain.
‘He’s creased your arse.’ Frederickson was grinning.
Ford looked up at Frederickson. ‘You agree honour is served, sir?’
Frederickson was finding it hard not to laugh. ‘Eminently served, Lieutenant. I bid you good day.’
The doctor knelt beside the Naval Captain. ‘A flesh wound, nothing more. It will only need a bandage. There’ll be some bruising and soreness. You’re a lucky man.’
Ford translated for the distraught Bampfylde, but the Naval Captain was not listening. Instead he was staring through angry and shameful tears at the black-haired Rifleman who had come to stand over him. Sharpe said nothing, but just tossed down the smoking pistol and walked away. He had failed to kill the man, which angered him, but honour had been served on the dead of the Teste dc Buch. He had eaten his grass before breakfast, and now Sharpe must cement his fragile peace with Jane, send her away with his love, then go back to the place he knew the best and feared the most: the battlefield.
Bordeaux still belonged to the Emperor, though for how long no one could tell. The river wharfs were empty, the warehouses bare and the city’s coffers dry. A few men still proclaimed their loyalty to Napoleon, but most longed for the peace that would revive trade and, as a symbol of that longing, they made themselves white cockades that were the badge of France’s royal house. At first the cockades were kept hidden, but as each day passed more were worn in open defiance of the Bonapartist troops that remained. Those imperial defenders were few, and pitifully weak. Some crippled veterans and pensioners manned the river forts, and a half battalion of young infantrymen guarded the prefecture, but all the good troops had marched south and east to reinforce Marshal Soult and, encouraged by their absence, the hungry city grumbled with disaffection and rebellion.
On a March morning, brisk with a cold wind and wet with rain that swept from the Atlantic, a single wagon arrived at the city’s prefecture. The wagon held four heavy crates and was escorted by a troop of cavalrymen who, oddly, were commanded by an infantry Colonel. The wagon stopped in the prefecture’s yard and its Dragoon escort, on weary and muddied horses, slouched empty-eyed in their saddles. They wore their hair in cadenettes; small pigtails which hung beside their cheeks and were a mark of their élite status.
The infantry Colonel, elderly and scarred, climbed slowly from his saddle and walked to the porticoed entrance where a sentry presented his musket. The Colonel was too weary to acknowledge the sentry’s salute, but just pushed through the heavy door. The cavalry escort was left under the command of a Dragoon Sergeant who had a face that was the texture of knife-slashed leather. He sat with his heavy straight-bladed sword resting across his saddle bow and the nervous sentry, trying not to catch the Sergeant’s hostile eyes, could see that the edge of the dulled blade was brightly nicked from recent battle.
‘Hey! Pigface!’ The Sergeant had noted the sentry’s surreptitious interest.
‘Sergeant?’
‘Water. Fetch some water for my horse.’
The sentry, who was under orders not to stir from his post, tried to ignore the command.
‘Hey! Pigface! I said get some water.’
‘I’m supposed to stay ...’
The sentry went silent because the Sergeant had drawn a battered pistol from a saddle holster.
The Sergeant thumbed back the pistol’s heavy cock. ‘Pigface?’
The sentry stared into the pistol’s black muzzle, then fled to get a bucket of water while, upstairs, the infantry Colonel had been directed into a cavernous room that had once been gracious with marble walls, a moulded plaster ceiling, and a polished boxwood floor, but which was now dirty, untidy and chill despite the small fire that burned in the wide hearth. A small bespectacled man was the room’s only occupant. He sat hunched over a green malachite table on which a slew of papers curled between the wax-thick stumps of dead candles. ‘You’re Ducos?’ the infantryman demanded without any other greeting.
‘I am Major Pierre Ducos.’ Ducos did not look up from his work.
‘My name is Colonel Maillot.’ Maillot seemed almost too tired to speak as he opened his sabretache and took out a scaled dispatch that he placed on the table. Maillot deliberately placed the dispatch on top of the paper upon which Ducos was writing.
Pierre Ducos ignored the insult. Instead he lifted the dispatch and noted the red seal that bore the insignia of a bee. Other men might have shown astonishment at receiving a missive with the Emperor’s private seal, but Ducos’s attitude seemed to express irritation that the Emperor should aggravate him with further work. Nor, as other men would have done, did Ducos immediately open the dispatch, but instead he insisted on finishing the work that the Colonel had interrupted. ‘Tell me, Colonel,’ Ducos had an extraordinarily deep voice for such a puny man, ‘what would your judgement be on a General of Brigade who allows his command to be defeated by a handful of vagabonds?’
Maillot was too tired to express any judgement, so said nothing. Ducos, who was writing his confidential report to the Emperor on the events at the Teste de Buch fort, dipped his nib in ink and wrote on. It was a full five minutes before Ducos deigned to close his inkwell and slit open the Emperor’s dispatch. It contained two sheets of paper that he read in silence, and afterwards, in obedience to an instruction contained on one of the sheets, he threw the other on to the fire. ‘It’s taken you long enough to reach me.’
The words were ungracious, but Maillot showed no resentment as he walked to the fire and held chilled hands to the small warmth generated by the burning page. ‘I’d have been here sooner, but the roads are hardly safe, Major. Even with a cavalry escort one has to beware bandits.’ He said the last word mockingly for both men knew that the ‘bandits’ were either deserters from Napoleon’s armies or young men who had fled into the countryside to avoid conscription. What Maillot did not say was that his wagon had been attacked by such bandits. Six of the Dragoons had died, including Maillot’s second-in-command, but Maillot had counter-attacked, then released the surviving Dragoons to pursue and punish the brigands. Maillot was a veteran of the Emperor’s wars and he would not be insulted by mere vagabonds.
Ducos unhooked the spectacles from his ears and wiped the round lenses on a corner of his blue jacket. ‘The consignment is safe?’
‘Downstairs. It’s in an artillery wagon that’s parked in the yard. The escort need food and water, and so do their horses.’
Ducos frowned to show that he was above dealing with such humdrum requirements as food and water. ‘Do the escort know what is in the wagon?’
‘Of course not.’
‘What do they think it is?’
Maillot shrugg
ed. ‘Does it matter? They simply know they have fetched four unmarked crates to Bordeaux.’
Ducos lifted the dispatch’s remaining sheet of paper. ‘This gives me authority over the escort, and I insist upon knowing whether they can be trusted.’
Maillot sat in a chair and stretched out his long, weary and mud-spattered legs. ‘They’re commanded by a good man, Sergeant Challon, and they’ll do nothing to cross him. But can they be trusted? Who knows? They’ve probably guessed what’s in the crates by now, but so far they’ve stayed loyal.’ He stifled a yawn. ‘What they’re more concerned about now is food and water.’
‘And you, Colonel?’ Ducos asked.
‘I need food and water, too.’
Ducos grimaced to show that his question had been misunderstood. ‘What do you do now, Colonel?’
‘I return to the Emperor, of course. The consignment is your responsibility. And if you’ll forgive me, I’m damned glad to be shot of it. A soldier should be fighting now, not acting as a baggage-master.’
Ducos, who had just been given the responsibilities of a baggage-master, restored the polished spectacles to his face. ‘The Emperor does me great honour.’
‘He trusts you,’ Maillot said simply.
‘As he trusts you,’ Ducos returned the compliment.
‘I’ve been with him many years.’
Ducos glanced at the grey-haired Maillot. Doubtless Maillot had been with the Emperor for many years, but he had never been promoted above the rank of Colonel. Other Frenchmen had risen from the ranks to command whole armies, but not this tall, scarred veteran with his doggedly trustworthy face. In brief, Ducos decided, this Maillot was a fool; one of the Emperor’s loyal mastiffs; a man for errands; a man without imagination. ‘Bordeaux is not a safe place,’ Ducos said softly, almost as if he was speaking to himself, ‘the mayor has sent a message to the English, asking them to come here. He thinks I don’t know of the message, but I have a copy on this table.’