Sharpe 3-Book Collection 3: Sharpe's Trafalgar, Sharpe's Prey, Sharpe's Rifles (109 page)

‘On your feet!’ Harper bawled at the Riflemen.

Sharpe began to run. ‘Follow me! Hurry! Come on!’ He cursed himself for not seeing the truth earlier. It was so God-damned simple! Why had the French moved the supplies into the palace? And why had Colonel Coursot stacked grain and hay in the cellars? A cellar was no place to store forage a day or so before it was to be distributed! And there was the business of a thousand horsemen. Even a soldier as experienced as Harper had stared at the Dragoons and been impressed by their numbers. Men often saw a horde where there was only a small force, and how much easier it was for a civilian to make that mistake in the middle of the night. Sharpe ran even harder. ‘Come on! Hurry!’

For the city was almost lost.

The cathedral’s nave was plainer than the exterior of the building might suggest, but the plainness did not detract from the magnificence of its pillared height. Beyond the long nave, the domed transepts, and the screen was a sanctuary as sumptuous as any in Christendom, and still sumptuous even though the French had torn away the silverwork, wrenched down the statues, and ripped the triptychs from their frames. Behind the altar was an empty void, the space of God, that this dusk was lit by the scarlet rays of the setting sun which slashed through the cathedral’s dusty and smoky interior.

Beneath the altar and above the crypt where the saint lay buried, the opened strongbox stood before the altar.

From the top of the dome which covered the meeting of transepts and aisle, a great silver bowl hung from ropes. It smoked with incense that filled the huge church with a sweet and musty smell. A thousand candles added their smoke to make the shrine a place of mystery, scent, shadows and hope; a place for a miracle.

Two hundred people knelt in the transepts. There were priests and soldiers, monks and merchants, scholars and friars; the men who could carry a message throughout Spain that Santiago Matamoros lived. They would tell an invaded people that the due obeisance had been made, the proper words said, and that the great gonfalon, which had once flared above the massacre of pagans, had been unfurled again.

It was as if Drake’s Drum was at last beaten, or the soil of Avalon erupted in a violent darkness to release a band of woken knights, or as if Charlemagne, roused from his sleep of centuries, drew his battle-sword again to drive away the enemies of Christ. All nations had their legend, and this night, in the great ringing vault of the cathedral, Spain’s legend would be stirred from a thousand years of silence. The candles shivered in a cold wind as the robed priests bowed before the altar.

As they bowed, one of the cathedral’s western doors banged open as though a violent wind had snatched the wood and crashed it against stone. Feet pounded on paving. The soldiers who knelt before the altar twisted towards the sound and reached for their swords. Louisa, kneeling veiled beside Blas Vivar, gasped. The priests checked their words to see who had dared to interrupt the invocations.

Vivar stood. Sharpe had burst into the cathedral and now appeared beneath the Gate of Glory. The Spaniard ran down the long nave. ‘Why are you here?’ There was outrage in his voice.

Sharpe, wild-eyed, did not reply. He stared about the cathedral as though expecting to find enemies. He saw none, and turned back to the western doors.

Vivar reached out a hand to stop the Rifleman. ‘Why aren’t you at the barricades?’

‘He was holding his sabre in his right hand!’ Sharpe said. ‘Don’t you understand? His right hand! Colonel de l’Eclin’s left-handed!’

Vivar stared uncomprehendingly. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘There are three hundred of the bastards out there,’ Sharpe’s voice rose to echo from the tall stone of the nave, ‘only three hundred! And none to the south. So where are the rest? Did you look behind the sacks in the cellars?’

Vivar said nothing. He did not need to.

‘Did you search the cellars?’ Sharpe insisted.

‘No.’

‘That’s why your brother’s there! That’s why they wanted a truce! That’s why they saved the supplies! That’s why they had the place prepared! Don’t you see? De l’Eclin is in the palace! He’s been there all day, laughing at us! And he’s coming here!’

‘No!’ Vivar’s tone did not imply disagreement, only horror.

‘Yes!’ Sharpe pulled himself from Vivar’s grasp. He ran back through the Gate of Glory, oblivious of its majesty, and tore open the cathedral’s outer doors.

A shout of triumph and a trumpet’s peal of victory turned him back. Sharpe saw, dim through the smoke and incense, a flag unfurl. Not an old, threadbare, motheaten flag which crumbled to the air, but a new and glorious white banner of shining silk, crossed with red; the gonfalon of Santiago, and as it spread, so the bells began to ring.

And, at the same instant, the sledgehammers drove down the planking which had locked the French into the palace. The bells rang for a miracle, and the French, as they had always intended, broke their truce.

French Dragoons attacked from either side of the palace. They must have come from the rear gates of the building, where the stables lay, and as the infantry debouched from the central door, the horsemen burst into the western plaza. The only obstacle to their charge was the low barricade where a handful of dismounted Cazadores fired a ragged volley, then fled.

‘Sergeant! Caltrops!’ Sharpe shoved Harper towards the cathedral’s southern flank and, seizing two of the sacks himself, shouted at his men to follow him to the northern plaza.

Cavalry could not climb the intricate flights of steps at the cathedral’s western front. Instead the Dragoons planned to surround the shrine, so that no one inside could escape. ‘Rifles! Hold your fire! Hold your fire!’ Sharpe knew there was no point in wasting a volley. Instead the caltrops must hold up this first French onslaught.

It was a threateningly high jump from the platform on the cathedral’s façade to the plaza, but Sharpe had no time to use the steps. He jumped, falling so heavily that a stab of pain shot up from his left ankle. The pain had to be ignored for defeat was as close as a Dragoon’s sword reach. His men followed him, grunting as they dropped to the flagstones.

Sharpe dragged the sacks north. He could see the horsemen to his left and he knew he had only seconds to spread the vicious spikes across the gap beneath the bridge which led to the bishop’s palace. ‘That way! Wait for me!’ he shouted at his Riflemen, then swung the first sack so that the caltrops clattered and fanned across the narrow space. ‘Join me, Sergeant!’ Sharpe shouted at Harper, but his voice was drowned by the shouts of the French and the scream of their war trumpets. He seized the second sack and shook it loose. The metal spikes rolled and fell, scattering to block the narrow passage.

Harper had disappeared. Sharpe turned and ran after his men. The bells were clanging overhead. A trumpet was shrieking its defiance at the sky. He did not know if the Sergeant was safe, or whether he had blocked the entrance to the plaza at the cathedral’s southern flank.

‘Form line! Two ranks!’ Sharpe shouted at his desk. Beyond them, in a tumble of panic, men fled from the cathedral’s western transept.

The first horse pierced itself on a spike. The iron went into the frog of its hoof, and then more horses came. They reared, screamed, and lunged in desperation from the pain. Men fell from saddles. A horse, made frantic with agony, bolted back across the plaza. Another reared so high that it toppled backwards and its rider shouted as he fell under the horse’s collapsing body.

‘Hold your fire!’ The Riflemen had formed a line fifteen yards short of the caltrops. It was a race now. The French infantry would be climbing the western steps to flood into the cathedral. It would take at least a minute for them to reach the door from the transept and erupt behind Sharpe’s back. Some of them, seeing the agony of the horses, had come to kick the iron spikes away. They were led by a Sergeant. ‘Hagman?’ Sharpe said. ‘Kill that bastard!’

‘Sir.’ Hagman knelt, aimed, and fired. The Sergeant somersaulted backwards in a jet of blood from his chest. The infantry noticed the Riflemen for the first time. ‘Fire!’ Sharpe shouted.

The volley was small, but it drove more chaos and pain into the narrow space. ‘Reload!’ There was no point in shouting at the greenjackets to hurry. They knew as well as Sharpe how fragile was the balance between survival and death in this darkening city, and to shout them to speed would merely fluster them.

Sharpe turned. The last of Vivar’s congregation was running down the steps. A Spanish officer carried the gonfalon that had been hastily drawn into shining loops. Two priests gathered up their skirts and ran eastwards. Louisa appeared on the steps and Sharpe saw two Cazadores bring her a horse. Vivar pulled himself into his own saddle and drew his sword. ‘They’re in the cathedral!’ he shouted at Sharpe.

‘Steady, lads. Fix swords!’ As the bayonets were drawn, Sharpe looked around for Harper, but the Irishman was still nowhere to be seen. There were screams within the city. Trumpets were shrill in the evening air. It would be cold tonight. A frost would silver the flagstones where the French would take their revenge for the insults of this day.

‘Steady now, lads!’ The caltrops had delayed the enemy and his men were reloaded, but a mass of mounted Frenchmen still waited beyond the spikes that were being frantically cleared by infantry. Carbine bullets cracked above the Riflemen, but the Dragoons fired from the saddle and aimed too hurriedly. Sharpe knew he only had seconds. He cupped his hands. ‘Sergeant! Sergeant Harper!’

‘Retire, Lieutenant!’ Vivar shouted at Sharpe.

‘Sergeant Harper!’

‘Bastard!’ The voice came from the top of the steps that led into the southern transept. Sharpe whipped round. After distributing his caltrops, Harper must have known he could not reach Sharpe by running across the cathedral’s western front. Instead he had taken the short cut through the cathedral and now appeared with a French officer in his left hand. ‘Bastard!’ The Irishman was in a fury. ‘He tried to kill me, the bastard!’ He kicked the Frenchman, hit him, then turned and flung the man back into the cathedral’s darkness. Vivar, seeing more shapes beyond the doors, fired a pistol into the transept.

‘Sir!’ Hagman warned that the last caltrops were being cleared.

‘Present!’ Sharpe shouted. ‘I thought I’d lost you!’ he called out to Harper.

‘Bugger tried to stick a sword into me! In a church, God damn it! A cathedral. Can you credit it, sir?’

‘Jesus Christ! I thought I’d lost you!’ Sharpe’s relief at Harper’s survival was heartfelt.

‘Sir!’ Hagman warned again.

Dragoons and infantry were mixed together in the charge that was funnelled into the narrow space beneath the bridge. Swords were lifted, men shouted their war cry, and the French spurred to vengeance. ‘Fire!’ Sharpe called.

The volley flayed into the narrow space, tumbling horses in blood and pain. A fallen sword clanged and scraped across the stone. The horsemen who followed hacked with their swords to clear a passage through the wounded and dying. Infantry appeared at the top of the cathedral’s southern steps.

‘Run!’ Sharpe bellowed.

Then was the chaos of flight. The Riflemen sprinted across the plaza to the dubious refuge of a narrow street. Louisa was gone ahead and Vivar, surrounded by a knot of his scarlet-coated elite, shouted at Sharpe to follow her. The Cazadores would stay to meet the French attack.

The Riflemen ran. The retreat from the city had become a mad scramble in the dusk, a plunge downhill through the tight medieval streets. Sharpe led his men into a small plaza decorated with a well and a stone cross. The exits from the plaza were jammed with refugees and he halted his men, formed them into ranks, and allowed the rear rank to tap load their rifles. The men poured in powder, spat the bullet after, then hammered the rifle butt on the ground in the hope that the impact would jar the bullet down. ‘Present!’

The rifles, their muzzles weighted with sword bayonets, came up. They could not fire yet, for their aim was blocked by the handful of Cazadores who tried to delay the French Dragoons. Swords clashed in the street with a sound like cracked bells. A Spaniard, blood streaming from his face, spurred away from the fight. A Dragoon screamed as his belly was ripped with a sword.

‘Major!’ Sharpe shouted to Vivar that the rifles were ready.

Vivar slashed at a Frenchman, then turned away from the riposte. ‘Go! Lieutenant! Go!’

‘Major!’

A Cazador went down under a French blade. Vivar lunged to wound the Frenchman. It seemed to Sharpe that the Spaniard must be overwhelmed when suddenly a rush of volunteers in their brown tunics erupted behind the Dragoons and attacked them with knives, hammers, muskets, and swords. Vivar wrenched his horse around and shouted at his men to retreat.

Sharpe had backed his own Riflemen to the eastern edge of the small plaza and now he split them to let the Spaniards through. The volunteers did not want to retreat but Vivar beat them back with the edge of his sabre. Sharpe waited till the plaza was clear and the first enemy appeared at its far side. ‘Rear rank! Fire!’

The volley was feeble, but it checked the French rush.

‘Back!’ Sharpe drew his sword, knowing he had cut it too fine.

The Riflemen followed Vivar into the next street. It was darker now as the day slipped towards a winter’s night. Muskets fired from the windows above Sharpe, but the small volley could not prevent the French from flooding into the narrow street.

‘Behind you!’ Harper called.

Sharpe turned. He screamed his challenge and swung the heavy blade at a horse’s face. The beast swerved, the pigtailed Dragoon chopped down, but Sharpe had parried quickly and the two swords clanged together. Harper lunged with his bayonet to the horse’s chest and the animal reared, blocking the street, and Sharpe slashed at one of its fetlocks. His sword must have broken bone for, as the horse came down, it collapsed. The Dragoon tried to chop at Sharpe as he fell, but the Rifleman’s sword was hissing up, driven with all his strength, and the steel sliced into the cavalryman’s neck. Blood spurted in a sudden spray that spattered from the gutter to ten feet high on the whitewashed wall of the alley. The broken-legged and screaming horse blocked the street. ‘Run!’ Sharpe shouted.