“I’ll take the men back, sir.”
Sharpe nodded. It occurred to him that Patrick Harper knew more of what was going on than Sharpe had assumed. Behind the careful words there was a concern that made Sharpe regret that he had not taken Harper more into his confidence. There was also a controlled anger in the Irishman. Your enemies, he was saying, are mine.
“Carry on, Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir. And sir?” Harper’s face was bleak. “You will let me know what happens?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
Sharpe and Hogan ran into the dark streets, slipping on the filth, pushing their way through the fugitives who were forcing the doors of wine-shops and private houses. Hogan panted to keep up with the Rifleman. It would be a bad night in Talavera, a night of looting, destruction, and rape. Tomorrow a hundred thousand men would march into a maelstrom of fire, and Hogan, catching a glimpse of Sharpe’s snarling face as he hurled two Spanish infantrymen out of his way, feared for the evil that seemed to be welling up in preparation for the morrow. Then they were in the quiet street where Josefina was living and Hogan peered up at the quiet windows, the closed shutters, and prayed that Richard Sharpe would not destroy himself with his huge anger.
Chapter 19
Sharpe’s boots crunched on broken plaster; he listened to the voices murmuring in the room, on the other side of the splintered door, and stared unseeing through a small window at the high ragged clouds which raced past the moon. Hogan sat on the top step of the steep stairs next to the sheets they had taken from Josefina’s bed. In the half light of the candles seeping through the doorway the sheets seemed to be patterned in red and white. There was a cry from the room. Sharpe spun round in irritation.
“What are they doing to her?”
Hogan hushed him. “The doctor’s bleeding her, Sharpe. He knows what he’s doing.”
“As if she hasn’t lost enough blood already!”
“I know, I know.” Hogan spoke soothingly. There was nothing he could say that would ease the turmoil in Sharpe’s head, to soften the blow or deflect the revenge which Hogan knew was being minutely plotted as the Rifleman paced up and down the tiny landing. The Engineer sighed and picked up a tiny plaster head. The house belonged to a seller of religious statues, and the stairs and corridors were stacked with his wares. When Gibbons and Berry had forced their way into the girl’s room they had trampled on twenty or thirty images of Christ, each with a bleeding heart, and the scraps of statues still littered the landing. Hogan was a peaceful man. He enjoyed his job, he liked the fresh challenges of each day, he was happy with his head full of angles and reentries, yardages and imperial weights; he liked company that laughed easily, drank generously, and would pass the time with stories of happiness past. He was no fighter. His war was fought with picks, shovels and powder, yet when he had burst with Sharpe into the attic room he had felt in himself a searing anger and lust for revenge. The mood had passed. Now he sat, saddened and quiet, but as he watched the tall Rifleman he knew that in Sharpe the mood was being refined and fed. For the twentieth time Sharpe stopped.
“Why?”
Hogan shrugged. “They were drunk, Richard.”
“That’s no answer!”
“No.” Hogan carefully replaced the broken head on the floor, out of reach of Sharpe’s pacing. “There isn’t an answer. They wanted revenge on you. Neither you nor the girl are important. It’s their pride… „ He tailed away. There was nothing to say, just the enormous sadness to feel and the fear of what Sharpe would do. Hogan regretted his first reaction to the girl; he had thought her calculating and cold, but as he escorted her from Plasencia to Oropesa, and from there to Talavera, he had been captivated by the charm, the easy laughter, and the honesty with which she planned a future away from a cloying past and a fugitive husband.
Sharpe was staring through the window at the clouds patterning the moon. “Do you think I’ll do nothing?”
“They’re terrified.” Hogan spoke flatly; he was afraid of what Sharpe might do. He thought of the line of Shakespeare: ‘Beauty provoketh fools’. Sharpe turned on him again. “Why?”
“You know why. They were drunk. Good God, man, they were so drunk they couldn’t even do that properly. So they beat her. It was all on the spur of the moment, and now? They’re terrified, Richard. Terrified. What will you do?”
“Do? I don’t know.” Sharpe spoke irritably and Hogan knew he was lying.
“What can you do, Richard? Call them out to a duel? That will ruin your career, you know that. Will you charge them with rape? For God’s sake, Richard, who’d believe you? The town’s full of bloody Spanish tonight, raping anything that moves! And everyone knows the girl was with Gibbons before you. No, Richard, you must think. You must think before you do anything.”
Sharpe turned on him and Hogan knew there could be no argument with that implacable face. “I’ll bloody murder them.”
Hogan sighed and rubbed his face with both hands. “I didn’t hear that. So you get hung? Shot? Beat the bones out of them if you must, but no more, Richard, no more.”
Sharpe did not answer and Hogan knew he was seeing in his mind the body they had found with the blood-soaked sheets. She had been raped and beaten and when they arrived the landlady was screaming at the girl. It had taken more money to silence the woman, find a doctor, and now they waited. Agostino peered up the stairs, saw Sharpe’s face, and went back to the front door where he had been told to wait. New sheets had been carried into the room, water, and Sharpe had listened to the landlady tidy up the floor, and he remembered the girl, bruised and bleeding, crawling among the broken saints and stained sheets.
The door opened, scrunching on the shards, and the landlady beckoned to them. The doctor was kneeling beside the bed and his eyes flicked warily at the two officers. Josefina lay on the bed, her black hair fanned on the pillow, but her eyes were tight shut. Sharpe sat beside her, saw the spreading yellow bruise on her unnaturally pale skin, and he took one of her hands that clutched at the fresh linen. She pulled away but he held on and her eyes opened.
“Richard?”
“Josefina. How are you?” It seemed a stupid thing to say but he could think of nothing else. She closed her eyes and the faintest smile came and went.
She opened her eyes again. “I’ll be all right.” There was a flash of the old Josefina, but as she spoke a tear ran from her eye and she sobbed and turned away from him. Sharpe turned to the doctor. “How is she?”
The doctor shrugged and looked hopelessly towards the landlady. Hogan intervened and rattled in his Spanish at the doctor. Sharpe listened to the voices and as he did he stroked the girl’s averted face. All he could think of was that he had failed her. He had promised to protect her and now this had happened, the worst, the unthinkable.
Hogan sat beside him. “She’ll be all right. She lost some blood.”
“How?”
Hogan closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them. “She was beaten, Richard. They were not gentle. But she’ll mend.”
Sharpe nodded. There was silence in the room but from the street outside Sharpe could hear the screams and shouts generated by the drunken Spanish soldiers. The girl turned back to him. She had stopped crying. Her voice was very low. “Richard?”
“Yes?”
“Kill them.” She spoke flatly. Hogan half shook his head but Sharpe bent down and kissed her by the ear.
“I will.”
As he straightened up he saw another half smile on the face, and then she forced it into a proper smile that went oddly with the tears. She squeezed his hand. “Will there be a battle tomorrow?”
“Yes.” Sharpe spoke as if the subject could be brushed away, as if it was not of importance.
“Be lucky.”
„I’ll come and see you afterwards.“ He smiled at her.
“Yes.” But there was no conviction in her voice. Sharpe turned to Hogan.
“You’ll stay?”
“Till daybreak
. I’m not needed till then. But you should go-„
Sharpe nodded. “I know.” He kissed her again, stood up, and put on his rifle and pack. Hogan thought’his face was as cruel as a face could be. The Engineer walked with him to the stairs.
“Be careful, Richard.”
“I will.”
Hogan put a hand on his shoulder to stop him moving. “Remember what you have to lose.”
Sharpe nodded again. “Bring me news when you can.”
Sharpe pushed his way into the street, ignoring the Spaniards, and as he walked towards the north he did not see the tall man in the blue coat with the white facings who watched from a doorway opposite Josefina’s lodgings. The man looked at Sharpe sympathetically, then up at the windows, and settled back into the doorway where he tried to make himself comfortable despite the broken arm with its splints and sling that would keep him from the battle tomorrow. He wondered what was happening on the second floor but he would soon know; Agostino would tell him all in exchange for a piece of gold.
Sharpe hurried up the track that led away from the town between the Portina stream and the Spanish lines. The frightened infantry were being forced back into their positions, but even as he hurried through the trees he could hear the occasional musket shot from the town, the shouting, the coinage of Talavera’s night of fear and rape. The moon had disappeared behind a bank of clouds but the lights of the Spanish fires showed the path and he half ran as he headed north towards the Medellin Hill. To his right the sky was glowing a deep red where the thousands of French fires were reflected in the air. He should have been concerned for the morning; he knew it would be the greatest battle he had ever fought, yet his mind was dominated by the need to find Berry and Gibbons. He came to the Pajar, the tiny hill that marked the end of the Spanish lines and the place where the Portina bent to his right and, from running behind the Spanish troops, the stream now flowed in front of the British position. He saw the shapes of the field guns Wellesley had placed on the small hill, and part of his mind registered how the fire of those guns would sweep protectively in front of the Spanish lines and deflect the massive French attack onto the British lines. But tomorrow was another battle.
The track melted away into the grass. He could see the scattered fires of the British but he had no idea which was the South Essex. They were positioned at the Medellin Hill, he knew that, so he ran by the stream, tripping over tussocks of grass, splashing through patches of marsh, keeping the silvered Portina as his guide to the Medellin. He was alone in the darkness. The British fires were far off to his left, the French even further to the right, the two armies still and quiet. Something was wrong. The old instinct prickled him and he stopped, sank to one knee and searched the darkness ahead. In the night the Medellin Hill looked like a long, low ridge pointing at the French army. It was the key to Wellesley’s left flank; if the French assaulted the hill they could turn and crush the British between the Medellin and Talavera. Yet there were no fires on the ridge. He could see a bright smear of flames at the western end, furthest from the enemy, but on the side facing the town, and on the half of the flat summit nearest the enemy there were no lights. He had thought the South Essex to be bivouacking on the gentle slope that faced him but it was black and empty. He listened. There were the sounds of the night, the noises from the town that had faded to a dull murmur, the wind in the grass, insects, the splashing of the stream, and the far-off sounds of a hundred thousand men crouching by fires waiting for morning. Behind him the small Pajar hill was bright with fires, the guns silhouetted against the white wall of the farmhouse on its crest, but in front it was dark and quiet. He stood up and walked softly on, his instincts alive to a danger he could not define, his mind searching for clues in the darkness and from the murmured sounds of the night. Why had he not been challenged? There should be picquets on the line of the Portina, sentries huddled against the chill wind looking towards the enemy, but no-one had stopped him and asked his business. He kept by the stream until the black loom of the Medellin was above him, then turned left and began to climb the slope. By daylight it looked a gentle slope but as he climbed with his pack and rifle the ground felt steep and each step made the muscles at the back of his legs ache. Tomorrow, he thought, this is precisely where the French columns will come. They will march up this slope, heads down, while the guns crack iron shot into their ranks and the muskets wait in silence at the crest.
Halfway up the slope he stopped and turned round. On the far side of the stream was another hill, similar in shape to the Medellin but lower and smaller. On its level top Sharpe could see the fires of the French, the flitting shadows of his enemy, and he turned and hurried on up the hill. His mind was still alerted to danger, to a threat he did not understand, but continually he thought of the girl’s black hair fanned on the pillow, of her hand gripping the sheet, of the blood stains, her terror in the attic when the two men had burst in. He had no idea what he could do. Gibbons and Berry were probably safe in the company of Simmerson and his cronies. Somehow he must flush them out, get them into the darkness, and he pushed himself to go faster.
The slope levelled out onto the plateau. Far off he could see the fires of the British, and he ran slowly towards them, the pack bumping awkwardly, the rifle flapping at his side. He had still not been challenged. He was approaching the army from the direction of the enemy and there were no sentries, no line of picquets in the darkness, as if the army had forgotten about the French just the other side of the Portina. Two hundred yards from the line of fires he stopped and crouched low on the grass. He had found the South Essex. They were on the edge of the hill, and he could see the bright yellow facings of their uniforms glowing in the light of the flames. He searched the fires, saw the green uniforms of his Riflemen, and went on looking as though, from this distance, he might see the figures of his enemies. His anger was turning into frustration. He had walked and run more than a mile to find the Battalion, yet he knew that there was nothing he could do. Gibbons and Berry would be sitting round a fire with the officers, secure from his revenge. Hogan was right. He would throw his career away if he fought them, yet he had made a promise to Josefina, and he did not know how to keep the promise. And tomorrow he must try to keep the earlier promise to Lennox. He tugged the great sword from its scabbard and laid its tip on the grass in front of him. The blade shone dully in the light of the fires; he stared at the length of steel and felt the sting of tears in his eyes as he remembered the girl’s body lying teasingly and naked along its flat blade. That had been only this afternoon. Now he cursed the fate that had led to this night, to the promises he could not keep. He thought of the girl, of the men clawing at her, and he looked up at the fires and felt his helplessness. It was better, he knew, to give it all up, to walk into the light of the fires and concentrate on tomorrow but how was he to face Gibbons or Berry and see the triumph on their faces without swinging the blade at them?
He turned round and stared at the far horizon and the red glow of the French fires that lined the edge of the hill with a faint light. There were rabbits moving on the crest of the hill he had climbed, he could see their small shapes bobbing, and suddenly he froze. Had there been sentries there he had missed? They were not rabbits. He could see the silhouettes of men, he had mistaken their heads for rabbits, but as they climbed over the crest he could see a dozen men, carrying guns, heading towards him. He lay flat on the grass, gripping the sword, and stared at the dim glow of the skyline. He put his ear to the ground and heard what he had feared to hear, the faint thump of marching feet, and he raised his head and kept looking as the dozen men turned into a misshapen mass. He remembered telling Hogan that the French would not attack at night, yet he suspected he was seeing just that; a night attack on the Medellin. The dozen men would be some of the skirmishers, the French Voltigeurs, and the solid mass was a French column climbing the hill in the silence of night. But how to be sure? It could as easily be a British Battalion moving in the dark, finding a new place to camp, but th
is late at night? He wriggled forward on knees and elbows, keeping his body close to the earth so that whoever was coming in the dark would not see him silhouetted in the fires. The sword rustled on the grass, he seemed to be making a deafening sound, but the men walked on towards him. He stopped when they stopped, and he watched them kneel. He was almost sure they were Voltigeurs, the skirmish line that had been sent ahead to flush out the sentries, and now that they were in sight of their targets they were waiting for the column so that the attack should crash home in unison. Sharpe held his breath. The kneeling men were calling softly to each other and he wanted to hear the language.
French. He turned his head and stared at the fires marking the British line. No-one moved there, the men were sitting staring at the flames, waiting for the morning and completely unaware that their enemy had found the plateau of the Medellin undefended and were about to attack. Sharpe had to warn the British, but how? A single rifle shot would be put down to a nervous sentry seeing shadows in the night; he could not shout that far, and if he turned and ran, then he would not reach the British fires much before the French. There was only one way. That was to provoke the French into firing a volley, a rattle of musketry that would startle the British, warn them of danger and make them form a crude line. He gripped the sword, noted the nearest shadow of a kneeling Voltigeur, then scrambled to his feet and sprinted towards the enemy. The man looked up as Sharpe neared him and put a finger to his lips. Sharpe screamed, a curdling yell of anger and challenge, and chopped sideways with the sword. He did not wait to see if he had caused any damage but ran on, wrenching the blade free, screaming at the next man. This one stood up, shouted a question, and died with the blade in his belly. Sharpe went on shouting. He tugged the sword free, whirled it in the air so that it sang, spotted movement to his left and ran at yet another Voltigeur. The suddenness of his attack had startled them; they had no idea how many men were among them, or where they came from. Sharpe saw two skirmishers together, their bayonets levelled at him, but he screamed, they faltered, and he cut at one man as he swerved past and disappeared in the night.