, due west, to the three-sided gibbet at Tyburn. The countryside, just two miles north up the Tottenham Court Road, was as remote as paradise. St Giles was a place of disease, starvation, and a future so dark that a man measured it in hours and took his pleasures accordingly. The gin-shops, the gutter, the floors of the common lodging houses were the places where men and women dissolved their desperation in drink, coupling, and finally in death that tipped most into the open sewer along with the night's harvest of dead babies. Without hope there was nothing but desperation
And these people were desperate. They must have known that revenge was coming, perhaps in the spring when the armies stirred from winter torpor, and until it came they numbed their desperation. They had drunk and were still drinking. Food lay on the broken stones, men lay with women, children picked their way through the couples to find bones that still had chewable meat or wineskins whose spigots they would suck on desperately. Close to the fire some of the bodies were naked, asleep, while further away they were covered in blankets and clothes. Some moved. One man was dead, blood black on his opened stomach. The noise was not from here, but from the hall and Sharpe could not see what was prompting the sound. He thought of the minutes ticking by, of Frederickson counting in the cold thorns.
He turned to the passageway and kept his voice low. 'We're going round the cloister, lads. Walk slowly. Go in twos and threes. There's a view you'll like as you go round.' Harper walked just behind Sharpe, both men clinging to the shadows by the wall. The huge Irishman watched the couples by the fire and his voice was cheerful. 'Just like the officers' mess on a Friday night, eh?’Every night, Patrick, every night.' And what, he wondered, was to stop his own men going to join those in the courtyard? To be offered drink and women instead of work and discipline was the avowed dream of every soldier, so why did they not just go now? Kill him and Harper and take their freedom? He did not know the answer. He just knew that he trusted them. And where, more importantly, were the hostages kept? He pushed open the doors that he passed, but the rooms were either empty or inhabited by sleeping people. None were guarded. Once a man growled in protest from the darkness and two women giggled. Sharpe closed the door. The flames of the great fire were warm on the left side of his face.
He turned the corner and now he could see into the great hall. A hundred men and as many women crowded the floor. There was a kind of platform at the far end, a raised dais, and a staircase went from the dais to a gallery above that spanned the width of the hall. Sharpe could see two doorways leading from the gallery into corridors or rooms behind. There was easy access to the gallery through the tall, empty windows. A man could simply step from the cloister onto the gallery.
The men and the women were shouting, the shouting orchestrated from the dais. There sat Hakeswill. He had a chair that rose high above his head, like a throne, a chair with decorated armrests. He was dressed in the priest's finery, the robes too short for him so that his boots were visible almost to his knees. Beside him, leaning on the armrest, Hakeswill’s hand about her waist, was a small, thin girl. She was dressed in brilliant red, a white scarf about her waist, long black hair falling below the scarf.
A woman stood on the dais. She was grinning. She was dressed in a shift over which she wore a vest and a shirt. She had a dress in her right hand and, to the crowd's roar, she hurled the dress towards a man in the crowd who caught it and waved. Hakeswill held up his hand. The face twitched. 'Shirt! Come on, then! How much? Shilling?'
It was an auction. She had sold the dress, presumably, and Sharpe saw two small grinning children picking up coins from the floor beneath the dais and carry them to an upturned shako. The shouts came from the hall, two shillings, three, and Hakeswill whipped them up and his eyes looked into the hat to see the takings.
They cheered and screamed as the shirt came off.
The vest went for four shillings. The coins rattled on the stones. Sharpe wondered how many minutes had passed.
The yellow face grinned. The hand jerked up and down on the small girl's ribcage. 'Her shift! Make it good. Ten shillings?' No one answered. 'You lousy bleeders! You think she's not as pretty as Sally? Christ! You paid her two quid, now come on!' He beat them up, higher and higher, and to a great cheer and thrown coins she peeled herself naked for one pound and eighteen shillings. She stood there grinning, hand on hip, and Hakeswill lurched upright and sidled towards her, his gold and white robes ridiculous in the flamelight, and his blue bright eyes leered at the people in the hall as he slid his right arm across the woman's shoulders. 'Now then. Who wants her? You're going to pay! Half to her, half to us, so come on!'
Bids came and to some the woman stuck out her tongue, others she laughed, and Hakeswill egged them on. A consortium of Frenchmen bought her in the end, their price four pounds, and they came to fetch her and the crowd cheered louder as one of them carried the woman sitting on his shoulders towards the fire in the courtyard.
Hakeswill calmed them with long arms. 'Who's next?' Names were shouted, women pushed forward by their men. Hakeswill drank from a bottle, his face twitched on its long neck, and the small girl still clung solemnly to him. A group of men began chanting. 'A prisoner! A prisoner!' The chant was taken up, shortened. 'Prisoner! Prisoner! Prisoner!'
'Now, lads, now! You know what the Marshal says!’Prisoner! Prisoner! Prisoner!' The women were screaming with the men, spitting the words like bile from their mouths. 'Prisoner! Prisoner! Prisoner!'
Hakeswill let them chant, his eyes knowing on them. He raised a hand. 'You know what the Marshal says! They're our precious little ones, the prisoners! We can't touch them, oh no! That's the Marshal's orders. Now! If the bastards come! Ah. Then you can have them, I promise.' The crowd roared at him, protesting, and he let them roar before he held up the hand again. The thin girl clung to him, her left hand tight on the embroidered vestment. 'But!' the crowd silenced slowly. 'But! As it's Christmas we might have a look at one. Yes? Just one? Not to touch! No, no! Just to check she's all there? Yes.'
They roared their approval and the yellow face with its lank, grey hair twitched at them while the toothless mouth gaped in silent laughter. People drifted in from the courtyard, attracted by the new noise. Sharpe turned and saw the faces of his men pale in the cloister, anxious, and he wondered how long they had been. It must be near the quarter hour.
Hakeswill’s left hand was twined in the long black hair of the girl. He twisted it and pointed at a man. 'Go and tell Johnny to fetch one.' The man started towards the staircase that led from the dais, but Hakeswill stopped him as he was climbing onto the platform. He turned to his audience, his face grinning. 'Which one do you want?'
The crowd erupted again, but Sharpe had seen enough. The hostages were behind one of the two doorways that led from the gallery. He turned to his men and his voice was urgent, drowned to all but them by the cacophony in the hall. 'We go to the gallery. We walk as far as the windows. Drop your coats here.' His own greatcoat was unbuttoned. 'Even numbers go into the right doorway, odd numbers go into the left. Sergeant Rossner?'
'Sir?'
'Take two men and keep the bastards from the stairs. First man to find the hostages, shout! Now enjoy this, lads.'
Sharpe walked down the northern side of the cloister, sure that he must be visible because the windows into the hall made it seem as if the pavement was suspended in mid-air. He put one hand on Harper's sleeve. 'Fire as we go in, Patrick. Straight into the bloody hall.'
'Sir.'
Their boots were loud. Their uniforms, divested of coats, green in the firelight. The voices screamed and chanted below drowning the sound of the Riflemens' boots. Nemesis was coming to Adrados.
One window, two windows, three windows, and Hakeswill's voice, sounding close, shouted above the din. 'You can't have the Portuguesy! D'you want the English bitch? The one married to the Froggy? D'you want her?'
They screamed assent, the voices bellowing in excitement, and Sharpe saw two armed men walk from the right hand doorway and cross to the gal
lery's balustrade. One glanced at the men on the cloister, thought nothing of what he saw and leaned beside his companion to grin down at the bedlam below. The man who had been sent to fetch one of the hostages began climbing the stairs.
Sharpe touched Harper's arm again. 'Take the two on the gallery.'
'Yes, sir.'
The Riflemen were bunched now. Sharpe looked at them. 'Draw swords.' Some would fight with the sword-bayonets fixed on their rifles, some would prefer to use them as short stabbing weapons. He nodded at Harper. 'Fire.'
Harper filled the window space, the gun squat in his hands, his face broad and hard, and then he touched the trigger and the explosion of the seven barrels echoed in the hall and the two armed men were thrown sideways, ragged and twitching, while Harper was thrown back by the massive kick. Sharpe's sword was in his hand, he went through the smoke in the window space, and the long blade was red steel in the firelight.
The Riflemen followed him, screaming like the devils of hell come to this feast as Sharpe had ordered them to scream, and Sharpe led the way towards the right hand door, all waiting done, all nervousness dispelled because the fight was on and there was nothing now but to win. This was the Sharpe who had saved Wellington's life at Assaye, who had hacked through the ranks to take the Eagle with Harper, who had gone, maddened, into the breach at Badajoz. This was the Sharpe whom Major General Nairn had only been able to guess at as he looked at the quiet, dark-haired man across the rug in Frenada.
A man appeared in the doorway, startled, his musket raised with bayonet fixed. It was a French musket and the man raised it higher in desperation as he saw the Rifle officer, but he had no hope, and Sharpe shouted his challenge as the right foot stamped forward, the blade followed, twisted, steel running with light reflected from the candles in the passageway beyond, and the sword was in the Frenchman's solar plexus and Sharpe twisted it again, kicked at his victim, and the blade was free and he could step over the screaming, dying man.
God, but there was joy in a fight. Not often in battle, but in a fight when the cause was good, and Sharpe was in the passageway, the tip of his sword dark, and he could hear the Riflemen behind him, and then a door opened spilling more light and a man peered nervously out, foolishly out, because Sharpe was on him before he understood that revenge had come and the great cavalry sword slid beneath his jawbone and he gagged, jerked back, and Sharpe was in the doorway and again the sword came forward and the man clutched at the blade which was in his throat and Sharpe could smell the foul smell that a sword drew from a man, and then his weapon was free and he was in the room with two men who fumbled with muskets, shook their heads in fear, and Sharpe bellowed at them, jumped the dead man, and the sword was a flail above the table that separated him from his enemies. Blood flew from the sword tip as it circled, and then it bit, and Sharpe could see a Rifleman going the other way about the table, a grin of maniacal joy on his face, and the second enemy backed away, back until he was hard against another door, and the Rifleman drove rifle and sword-bayonet in a blow that would have pierced stone so that the blade tip buried itself hard in the wood of the door. The enemy folded over it, bubbling and crying, and a second Rifleman, a German, finished him off with far less force and more efficiency.
The man Sharpe's sword had hit in the face screamed beneath the table. Sharpe ignored him. He turned to the room of Riflemen. 'Load! Load!'.
Three men in a room, armed, guarding a door. This had to be a guardroom. He reached past the pinned, bleeding figure, and tried the handle to the door. It was locked. Behind him he could hear shouts, the banging of muskets, but he ignored it. He pressed the catch, twisted, and the rifle came free of the bayonet that still nailed the dead man to the door, and then he had space to stand in front of the door, raise his heel, and smash it forward. The door shuddered. He did it again, a third time, and then the door banged open, wood splintering at the old lock, and the corpse was still attached to the wood by the twenty-three inch bayonet as it swung open and Sharpe entered.
Screams, screams of fear, and Sharpe stood in the doorway, his sword bloody, his cheek smeared with the blood of the man he had killed in the guardroom door, and he saw the women huddled against the far wall. He lowered his sword. The blood was fresh on his green uniform, glistening in the candlelight, dripping onto the rug that furnished this prison room. One woman was not hiding her face. She was protecting another woman whose face was buried in her side, beneath the encircling, protective arm, and the face was proud, thin, topped by the piled blonde hair. Sharpe made a half bow. 'Madame Dubreton?'
Two Riflemen crowded in behind Sharpe, curious, and he turned on them. 'Get out! There's a fight! Join it!'
Madame Dubreton frowned. 'Major? Major Sharpe, is it?'
'Yes, Ma'am.'
'You mean?' She was still frowning, still disbelieving.
'Yes, Ma'am. This is a rescue, Ma'am.' He wanted to leave them, to go back and see how his men were faring, but he knew these women must be terrified. One of them was sobbing hysterically, staring at his uniform, and Madame Dubreton snapped at her in French. Sharpe tried a smile to lessen their shock. 'You will be returned to your husbands, Ma'am. I'd be grateful if you would translate that for me. And if you'd excuse me?'
'Of course.' Madame Dubreton still looked as if she were in shock.
'You are safe now, Ma'am. All of you.'
The woman whose face had been hidden in Madame Dubreton's side pulled herself free. She had black hair, lustrous hair, and she pushed it away from her face as she turned hesitatingly towards Sharpe.
Madame Dubreton helped her upright. 'Major Sharpe? This is Lady Farthingdale.'
Lucky Farthingdale was the thought of a half second, then utter disbelief, and the girl with the black hair saw Sharpe, her eyes widened, and then she screamed. Not in terror, but in some kind ofjoy, and she leaped across the room, running to him, and her arms were about his neck, her face pressed against his bloodied cheek, and her voice in his ear. 'Richard!. Richard! Richard!'
Sharpe caught Madame Dubreton's eyes and he half smiled. 'We've met, Ma'am.'
'So I see.'
'Richard! God, Richard! You? I knew you'd come!' She pulled back from him, keeping her arms about his neck, and her mouth was as hopelessly generous as he had ever remembered, and her eyes as tempting as a man could want, and even this ordeal had not taken the mischief from her face. 'Richard?'
'I have to go and fight a battle.' The noise was loud outside, orders and shots, screams and the clash of steel.
'You're here?'
He wiped at the blood on her cheek. 'I'm here.' He pulled her arms from about his neck. 'Wait here. I'll be back.' She nodded, eyes bright, and he grinned at her. 'I'll be back.'
God in his heaven! He had not seen her for two years, but here she was, as beautiful as ever, the high-class whore who had at last become a Lady. Josefina.
Chapter 9
He left one man guarding the hostages. Two each stood post in the passageways, the rest protected the stairway and the entrance to the gallery through the windows opening to the cloister. Smoke already clotted the gallery, Riflemen were slamming ramrods into fired barrels, others crouched waiting for a target. Harper was reloading the seven-barrelled gun. He looked up at Sharpe, grinned quickly, and held up four fingers. Sharpe raised his voice.
'We've got the women, lads!'
They cheered, and Sharpe made a swift count. All his men were there, all seemingly unwounded. He watched a Rifleman bring his gun into his shoulder, aim swiftly, and a bullet spun into the cloister. There was a yelp from the far side, then a ragged volley of muskets, the balls going high. One struck an iron ring, suspended as a chandelier, old and rusty on its chains, and the four yellow candles fluttered as the ball struck. Sharpe moved to the stairhead.
Three bodies lay on the stairs, thrown back by rifle fire. The German Sergeant, Rossner, his face blackened by the powder from his rifle pan, looked happily at Sharpe. 'They run, sir.'
They did, too. The de
serters and their women were screaming and shouting, pushing and scrambling, going into the courtyard of the cloister. Sharpe looked for Hakeswill, but the big man in his priest's vestments had disappeared in the crush. Rossner gestured with his rifle down the stairs. 'We go down, sir?'
'No.' Sharpe was worried about Frederickson's men. He would rather that the main force of Riflemen found the advance party concentrated, so that no one shot a man of his own side in the confusion and the shadows. He went back to the windows where Harper waited hopefully with the big gun reloaded. 'Frederickson?'
'Not yet, sir.'
Someone was shouting in the courtyard, bellowing for order, someone who had, perhaps, realized that the attackers were few in number and that a concentrated counter-attack could overwhelm them. Sharpe stared at the far side of the upper cloister. He could see no men there in the firelight, the rifles had made it an unhealthy place, but then it was suddenly filled with running figures, shouting for aid, and Sharpe pushed down a rifle that was brought up to fire. 'Hold it!'
Women and children were fleeing, which meant Frederickson's men must be in the outer cloister, and Sharpe bellowed at the men who guarded the windows. 'Watch out for Captain Frederickson!'
Then there were dark figures in the entrance way of the upper cloister, figures that took immediate cover as they emerged into the wide-open space of the cloister, and Sharpe shouted again. 'Rifles! Rifles! Rifles!' He stepped through the window, out onto the cloister where the firelight illuminated his uniform. 'Rifles! Rifles!' A musket flamed below, the ball ricocheting off the balustrade into the night. 'Rifles! Rifles!'
'See you, sir!' A man with a curved sabre standing across the cloister. Riflemen were going left and right, clearing the upper gallery, and Frederickson came with them towards Sharpe.
Sweet William looked dreadful. He had taken the patch from his eye, and the false teeth from his mouth. It was a face from a nightmare, a face that would terrify any child, but it was a face that was smiling as he approached Sharpe. 'Do we have them, sir?’