'No, sir.' Sharpe stood awkwardly. Sir Augustus Farthingdale had not seen fit to invite him to take a chair. Through the half open door of Farthingdale's sitting room, part of his expensive lodgings in the best part of town, Sharpe could see a dinner party. Silverware caught the light, scraped on china, and two servants stood deferentially beside a heavy sideboard.
'So you didn't see her.' Farthingdale grunted. He managed to convey that Sharpe had failed. Sir Augustus was not in uniform. He wore a dark red velvet jacket, its cuffs trimmed with lace, and his thin legs were tight cased in buckskin breeches above his tall polished boots. Above his waistcoat was draped a sash, washed blue silk, decorated with a heavy golden star. It was presumably some Portuguese order.
He sat down at a writing desk, lit by five candles in an elegant silver candelabra, and he toyed with a long handled paper knife. He had hair that could only be described as silver, silver cascading away from his high forehead to be gathered at the back by an old fashioned ribbon, black against the hair. His face was long and thin, with a touch of petulance about the mouth and a look of annoyance in his eyes. It was, Sharpe supposed, a good looking face, the face of a sophisticated middle-aged man who had money, intelligence, and a selfish desire to use both for his own pleasure. He turned towards the dining room. 'Agostino!’
’Sir?' An unseen servant answered.
'Shut the door!'
The wooden door was closed, cutting off the noise of mens' voices. Sir Augustus' eyes, unfriendly, looked Sharpe up and down. The Rifleman had just arrived back in Frenada and had not waited to straighten his uniform or wash the travel stains from his hands or face. Farthingdale's voice was precise and cold. 'The Marquess of Wellington is deeply concerned, Major Sharpe. Deeply.'
Farthingdale managed to convey that he and Wellington were on close terms, that he was vouchsafing a state secret to Sharpe. The paper-knife tapped the polished desk-top. 'My wife, Major, has the highest connections in the Portuguese court. You understand?'
'Yes, sir.'
'The Marquess of Wellington does not want our relationship with the Portuguese government jeopardized.'
'No, sir.' Sharpe resisted the impulse to tell Sir Augustus Farthingdale that he was a pompous idiot. It was interesting that Wellington had written, the letter doubtless posted north by one of the young cavalry officers who, by changing frequent horses, could cover sixty miles in a day. Wellington must be in Lisbon then, for the news could not have reached Cadiz in time for a reply tahave been received. And Farthingdale was pompous because even Sharpe knew that Wellington's concern would not be the Portuguese government. His concern would be the Spanish. The story of Adrados had spread like fire on a parched plain, feeding from the sensibilities of Spanish pride, and in the New Year the British army must march back into Spain. The army would buy its food from the Spanish; use Spanish labour to bake bread and drive mules, find forage and give shelter, and Pot-au-Feu and Hakeswill had jeopardized that co-operation. The poison of Adrados had to be lanced as one small step towards winning the war.
Yet Sharpe, who guessed he had known Wellington longer than Farthingdale, knew that there would be something else about Pot-au-Feu which would deeply disturb the General. Wellington believed that anarchy was always just a rabble-rouser's shout away from order, and order, he believed, was not just an essential but the supreme virtue. Pot-au-Feu had challenged that virtue, and Pot-au-Feu would have to be destroyed.
The paper-knife was put down on a pile of paper, perhaps Farthingdale's next book of Practical Instructions to Young Officers, and one immaculate knee was crossed over the other. Sir Augustus straightened the tassel of a boot. 'You say she has not been harmed?' There was a hint of worry beneath the polished voice.
'So Madame Dubreton assured us, sir.' A clock in the hallway struck nine. Sharpe guessed that most of the furnishings of these lodgings had been transported north just for Sir Augustus' visit. He and Lady Farthingdale had made their magnificent progress around the winter quarters of the Portuguese army and then stopped at Frenada on their way south so that Lady Farthingdale could visit the shrine of Adrados and pray for her mother who was dying. Farthingdale had preferred a day's rough shooting, but two young Captains had eagerly offered to escort his wife to the hills. Sharpe wished that Sir Augustus would show him a picture of his wife, but the Colonel did not evidently think that desirable.
'I have it in mind, Major, to lead the rescue of Lady Farthingdale?' Sir Augustus inflected the statement as a question, almost a challenge, but Sharpe said nothing. The Colonel dabbed the corner of his mouth with a finger, then inspected the fingertip as if something might have adhered to it. 'Tell me how possible a rescue is, Major?’It could be done, sir.'
'The Marquess of Wellington,' again the annoying circumlocution of Wellington's full title, 'wishes it to be done.’We'd need to know which of the buildings she's in, sir. There's a Castle, a Convent, and a whole village, sir.'
'Do we know?'
'No, sir.' Sharpe did not want to speculate here. That could wait till he saw Nairn.
The eyes looked at Sharpe with hostility. Sir Augustus' expression implied that Sharpe had failed utterly. He sighed. 'So. I have lost my wife, five hundred guineas, at least I'm glad to see you still have my watch.'
'Yes, sir. Of course, sir.' Sharpe undipped the chain reluctantly. He had never owned a watch, indeed he had often been scathing about them, saying that any officer who needed a machine for telling the time of day did not deserve to wear a uniform, but now he felt that the possession of this timepiece, albeit borrowed, lent him a certain air of success and property; something proper to a Major. 'Here, sir.' He handed it to Sir Augustus who opened the lid, checked that both hands and the glass were still there, and who then slid open a drawer of the desk and put the watch away. Then the long slim fingers wiped delicately against each other. 'Thank you, Major. I am sorry this has been so fruitless an experience. Doubtless we will meet at Major General Nairn's headquarters meeting in the morning.' He stood up, his movements precise as a cat.
'Good night, Major.'
'Sir.'
Orders for Sharpe to attend the headquarters the following morning waited at his lodgings. Orders and a bottle of brandy, donated by Nairn, with a scrawled letter saying that if Sharpe had got back on time then he would need the contents of this bottle. Sir Augustus had not even offered him a glass of water, let alone a glass of wine, and Sharpe shared the bottle with Lieutenant Harry Price and let vent to his feelings about velvet-clad civilians who thought they were Colonels. Price smiled happily. 'That's my ambition, sir. A velvet coat, a young wife full of juice, and all the heroes like you saluting me.'
'May it happen for you, Harry.'
'May all the dreams come true, sir.' Price had been sewing a patch onto his red jacket. Like most of the South Essex he wore a red coat; only Sharpe and his few Riflemen who had survived the Retreat to Corunna and then been formed into the South Essex's Light Company kept their prided Green coats. Green coats! Of course! Green bloody coats!
'What is it, sir?' Price was holding the bottle upside down, hoping for a miracle.
'Nothing, Harry, nothing. Just an idea.'
'Then God help someone, sir.'
Sharpe held the idea, and with it a second thought, and took them both to the headquarters in the morning. It had clouded in the night, light cold rain falling for most of the morning, and the table in the hallway outside the room where Nairn waited was heaped with coats, cloaks, scabbards and damp hats. Sharpe added his own to the pile, propped the rifle against the wall where an orderly promised to keep watch over it.
Nairn, Farthingdale, Sharpe and one unknown Lieutenant Colonel made up the meeting. Nairn, for once, had eschewed his dressing gown and wore the dark green facings and gold lace of one of the Highland Regiments. Sir Augustus was resplendent in the red, black and gold of the Princess Royal's Dragoons, his cavalry spurs tearing at the carpet. The Lieutenant Colonel was a Fusilier, his red coat faced in white, and he nodde
d warmly at Sharpe. Nairn made the introductions. 'Lieutenant Colonel Kinney. Major Sharpe.'
'Your servant, Sharpe, and it's an honour.' Kinney was big, broad faced, with a ready smile. Nairn looked at him and smiled.
'Kinney's a Welshman, Sharpe, so don't trust him further than you can throw a cat.'
Kinney laughed. 'He's been like that ever since my lads rescued his Regiment at Barossa.'
Sir Augustus coughed pointedly in protest at the Celtic badinage, and Nairn glanced at him from beneath his huge eyebrows.
'Of course, Sir Augustus, of course. Sharpe! Your story, man?'
Sharpe told it all and was only interrupted once. Nairn looked at him incredulously. 'Took her bodice off! Threw her at you?'
'Yes, sir.'
'And you did it up again?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Extraordinary! Go on!'
When Sharpe had finished, Nairn had a sheet of paper covered with notes. A fire crackled in the hearth. The rain was soft on the window. Somewhere in the town a Sergeant Major screamed at his men to form column of fours on the centre files. The Major General leaned back. 'This Frenchman, Sharpe. Dubreton. What's he going to do?'
'He'd like to mount a rescue, sir.'
‘Will he?'
'They have twice as far to go as us, sir.' The French and British were wintering well apart.
Nairn grunted. 'We must do it first. A rescue, then smoke those scum out of their holes.' He tapped a piece of paper. 'That's what the Peer wants, that's what we'll give him. What would you need to rescue the women, Sharpe?'
'Sir!' Sir Augustus leaned forward. 'I was hoping I might be entrusted with the rescue.'
Nairn looked at Sir Augustus and stretched the silence out till it was painful. Then. 'That's noble of you, Sir Augustus, very creditable. Still, Sharpe's been there, let Sharpe give us his ideas first, eh?'
It was time for the first of the two ideas, a slim idea in the light of morning, but he would try it. 'We can rescue them, sir, as long as we know where they are. If we do, sir, then I only see one way. We must travel by night so we can approach unseen, lay up all day as close as we can, and attack the next night. It would have to be done by Riflemen, sir.'
'Riflemen!' Nairn bridled, Kinney smiled. 'Why do you think only Riflemen! D'you think no one else can fight in this army?'
'Because I saw many uniforms there, sir, but I didn't see one Rifleman. On that night anyone not in a green uniform is an enemy.'
Nairn grunted. 'But you didn't see all of his men.’
’No, sir.' Sharpe was placatory, yet all of them knew that less men deserted from the Rifles than from other Regiments. Nairn glanced at Sir Augustus' red, black and gold. 'Riflemen, then. What else?'
There was one other thing, but it would all be in vain unless Sharpe knew in which building the hostages were kept. He said as much and Nairn smiled slowly, mischievously. 'But we do know.'
'We do?' Sharpe was surprised, remembered to add, 'sir?’We do, we do.' Nairn grinned at them. Kinney waited. Sir Augustus looked annoyed. 'Perhaps you'd care to enlighten us, sir?'
'My duty and my pleasure, Sir Augustus.' Nairn closed his eyes, leaned far back, and raised his right hand dramatically. His voice was declamatory. 'Line after line my gushing eyes o'erflow, Led through a something-something woe: Now warm in love!' He had raised his voice to a triumphant shout on the word 'love', now he lowered it conspiratorially, his eyes opening. ' ... Now with'ring in my bloom, Lost in a convent's solitary gloom!'
Nairn grinned impishly. 'Alexander Pope. From Heloise and Abelard. A sad tale of a young man gelded in his prime. That's what comes of too much love. So! They're in the Convent. She's a clever lassie, that Frenchman's wife.' Kinney leaned forward. 'How many Riflemen?’
’Two Companies, sir?'
Kinney nodded. 'Can they hold the Convent overnight?'
Sharpe nodded back. 'Yes, sir.’
’So you'd need relief in the morning, yes?'
'Yes, sir.'
Kinney looked at Nairn. 'It's as we discussed, sir. One small group to go in and secure the ladies, and a Battalion to come up in the morning to punish the men. There's one thing worries me, though.'
Nairn raised an eyebrow. 'Go on.'
'They may be deserters, but I think we can assume they are not fools. If you go in at night.' He was looking at Sharpe, Sir Augustus' request utterly forgotten or ignored. 'If you go in, Major, don't you think they'll be expecting something of the sort? There'll be sentries, there'll be a picquet line. It's a risk, Sharpe, and though I don't mind a risk, you might find that they have enough time to take their vengeance on the ladies.'
Sir Augustus nodded, seeming to have changed his mind about the desirability of any rescue. 'I agree with Kinney.'
Nairn looked at Sharpe. 'Well, Major?'
'I had thought of that, sir.' He smiled. This was the second idea, the better idea. 'I thought of going in on Sowan's Night.'
Nairn grinned. Automatically he corrected Sharpe. 'Sowan's Nicht! I like it, man! I like it! Sowan's Nicht! The bastards will all be flat on their backs with the drink!'
Sowan's Nicht, the Scottish name for Christmas Eve, the night when any soldier could expect to get hopelessly, helplessly drunk. In England it was the night for Frumenty, a lethal drink of husked wheat grain boiled in milk and then liberally soused with rum and egg-yolks to be drunk until insensate. Christmas Eve.
Kinney nodded, smiling. 'We were the first to be caught by that trick, we might as well use it ourselves.' He was referring to the Christmas Eve of 1776 when George Washington caught the garrison of Trenton unawares, the defenders believing that no war would be waged over Christmas. Then Kinney shook his head. 'But.'
'But?' Nairn asked.
Kinney seemed to subside, the hope of repeating Washington's trick going. 'Christmas Day, sir, when you want my men to relieve Major Sharpe. It's scarce five days away, sir.' He shook his head. 'I can do it! I can have the men there, but I don't much like going empty handed. I'd have a thought to an extra ration issue, sir, and if the French are likely to be poking themselves into the place then I'd be glad of a full spare issue of cartridge.' He could be talking, Sharpe knew, of up to a thousand pounds of dried beef and over forty thousand cartridges. Kinney's face grew more dubious. 'All the mules are gone, sir. They'd take a week to get back here from winter pasture.' The mules, like the British cavalry, were mostly wintering in the plumper land near the sea.
Nairn growled to himself, made marks on his paper. 'You could get there without mules?'
'Of course, sir. But what if the French do come?’
’They're not there to fight us, are they? They're there to capture this Pot-au-Feu!'
Kinney nodded. 'And if they have a chance of killing off a prime Battalion as extra pickings?'
'Aye, aye, aye.' Nairn was disgruntled. 'I dare say you're right. New Year's Eve, Sharpe?'
Sharpe smiled. 'I'd rather Christmas Eve, sir.' He looked at Kinney. 'Would seven horse drawn wagons help? Plus a good few pack-horses? All fit, all ready to march?'
'Help? Good God, man, of course they'd help! They'd suffice! And how, pray, do you work this miracle?'
Sharpe looked back to Nairn. 'The Rocket troop, sir. I'm sure the Prince Regent would be delighted if they were found some warlike employment.'
'God's teeth, Sharpe!' Nairn smiled at him. 'Two weeks ago I promote you from Captain, now you're presuming to tell me what would please His Royal Highness!' He looked at Kinney. 'The suggestion of the Prince of Wales' plenipotentiary pleases you then, Colonel?'
'It does, sir.'
Nairn grinned happily at Sir Augustus Farthingdale. 'It looks as if your wife will be safely in your arms within the week, Sir Augustus!'
Sir Augustus flinched slightly, but bowed his head. 'Indeed it does, sir, and I'm grateful. I would still like to go with the rescue force, sir.'
'You would, eh?' Nairn frowned, not understanding the request. 'I mean no offence, Sir Augustus, 'pon my word none at
all! But might you not think that such exploits are best left to hotter heads! We cooler brains must wait in patience, write our books!'
Sir Augustus gave a thin smile. 'You mean older heads, sir?'
'Older! Wiser! Cooler! And do you truly fancy climbing a bloody hill in the dead of night, laying up all day in the freezing cold, and then keeping up with fellows like Sharpe the next night? I admire the sentiment, Sir Augustus, I do truly, but I beg you to reconsider the request.'
The thin face with its handsome mane of hair looked down towards the table. Perhaps, Sharpe thought, he was thinking of that cold day that would be Christmas Eve. Sharpe did not want the man there and he dared to mutter a comment that might help Sir Augustus to withdraw a request that Nairn could scarce refuse. 'We'll not be taking any horses, sir, none at all.'
The head snapped up. 'I can march, Major, if I have to!'
'I'm sure, sir.'
'My concern is for Lady Farthingdale. She is a delicate lady, of good family. I would not like to think of her treated...' he paused. 'I would like to offer her my protection, sir.'
'Good God, Sir Augustus!' Nairn stopped. The inference of Farthingdale's words was that Lady Farthingdale, having survived capture by Pot-au-Feu, would be at risk from Sharpe's men. Nairn shook his head. 'She'll be safe, Sir Augustus, she'll be safe! You can ride up with Kinney in the morning, yes, Kinney?'
The Welsh Colonel did not look overjoyed, but he nodded. 'Yes, sir. Of course, sir.'
'And you'll be arriving at dawn, Sir Augustus!'
Sir Augustus nodded, leaned back. 'Very well. I shall ride with the Fusiliers.' He looked with his unfriendly gaze at Sharpe. 'I can be assured that Lady Farthingdale will be treated with every respect?'
The words implied an outrageous insult, but Sharpe supposed that they also implied an outrageous jealousy that perhaps an older man would feel for a younger wife. He chose to give a civil answer. 'Of course, sir.' He turned to Nairn, one question left. 'Do we have the Riflemen, sir?'
Nairn smiled, mischievously again, and in reply he pushed a letter across to Sharpe. 'Third paragraph down, Major. They're already on their way.'