Sharpe's Eagle (26 page)

"And how's the girl?" Hogan was sitting on the powdery stone.

"She's happy. Bored."

"That's the way of women. Never content. Will you be needing more money?"

Sharpe looked at the middle-aged Engineer and saw the concern in his eyes. Already Hogan had
lent Sharpe more than twenty guineas, a sum that was impossible for him to repay unless he was
lucky on the battlefield. "No. I'm all right for the moment."

Hogan smiled. "You're lucky." He shrugged. "God knows, Richard, she's a beautiful creature.
Are you in love?"

Sharpe looked over the parapet where the Spanish had filled Hogan's makeshift fortresses. "She
won't let me be."

"Then she's more sensible than I thought."

The afternoon passed slowly. Sharpe thought of the girl, bored in her room, and watched the
Spanish soldiers chop at the beeches and oaks to build their evening fires. Then, with a
suddenness that Sharpe had been waiting for, there were flashes of light far away in the hazy
trees and bushes that edged the plain to the east. It was the sun, he knew, reflecting from
muskets and breastplates. Sharpe nudged Hogan and pointed. "The French."

Hogan stood up and stared at them. "My God." He spoke quietly. "There's a good few of
them."

The infantry marched onto the far plain like a spreading dark stain on the grass. Sharpe and
Hogan watched Battalion after Battalion march into the pale fields, squad-ron after squadron of
cavalry, the small squat shapes of guns scattered in the formations, the largest army Sharpe had
ever seen in the field. The galloping figures of staff officers could be seen as they directed
the columns to their places ready for the next morning's advance and battle. Sharpe looked left
to the British lines that waited beside the Portina. The smoke from hundreds of camp fires wound
into the early evening air; crowds of men clustered by the stream and on the Medellin for a far
glimpse of their enemy, but the British force looked woefully small beside the massive tide of
men, horses and guns that filled the plain to the east and grew by the minute. Napoleon's brother
was there, King Joseph, and with him two full Marshals of France, Victor and Jourdan. They were
leading sixty-five Battalions of infantry, a massive force of the men who had made Europe into
Napoleon's property, and they had come to swat this small British army and send it reeling to the
sea. They planned to break it for ever to ensure that Britain never again dared to challenge the
Eagles on land.

Hogan whistled softly. "Will they attack this evening?"

"No." Sharpe scanned the far lines. "They'll wait for their artillery."

Hogan pointed into the darkening east. "They've got guns. Look, you can see them."

Sharpe shook his head. "Those are just the small ones they attach to each infantry Battalion.
No, the big bastards will be back on the road somewhere. They'll come in the night."

And in the morning, he thought, the French will open with one of their favourite cannonades,
the massed artillery hurling its iron shot at the enemy lines before the dense, drummed columns
follow the Eagles across the stream. French tactics were hardly subtle. Not for them the clever
manoeuvrings of turning an enemy's flank. Instead, again and again, they massed the guns and the
men and they hurled a terrifying hammer blow at the enemy line and, again and again, it worked.
He shrugged to himself. Who needed to be subtle? The guns and men of France had broken every army
sent against them.

There were shouts from behind him and he crossed the battlement and peered down at the gate
where Harper and his men were on guard. Lieutenant Gibbons was there with Berry, both mounted,
both shouting at Harper. Sharpe leaned over the parapet.

"What's the problem?"

Gibbons turned round slowly. It dawned on Sharpe that the Lieutenant was slightly drunk and
was having some difficulty in staying on his horse. Gibbons saluted Sharpe with his usual
irony.

"I didn't see you there, sir. So sorry." He bowed. Lieutenant Berry giggled. Gibbons
straightened up. "I was just telling your Sergeant here that you can go back to the Battalion
now, all right?"

"But you stopped on the way for refreshment?"

Berry giggled loudly. Gibbons looked at him and burst into a laugh himself. He bowed again.
"You could say so, sir."

The two Lieutenants urged their horses under the gateway and started up the road to the
British lines to the north. Sharpe watched them go.

"Bastards."

"Do they give you problems?" Hogan was sitting on the parapet again.

Sharpe shook his head. "No. Just insolence, remarks in the mess, you know." He wondered about
Josefina. Hogan seemed to read his thoughts. "You're thinking about the girl?"

Sharpe nodded. "Yes. But she should be all right." He was thinking out loud. "She keeps the
door locked. We're on the top floor and I can't see how they'd find us." He turned to Hogan and
grinned. "Stop worrying about it. They've done nothing so far; they're cowards. They've given
up!"

Hogan shook his head. "They would kill you, Richard, with as little regret as putting down a
lame horse. Less regret. And as for the girl? They'll try to hurt her, too."

Sharpe turned back to the spectacle on the plain. He knew Hogan was right, knew that too much
was unsettled, but the game was not in his hands; everything must wait for the battle. The French
troops had flooded the end of the plain, they flowed round woods, trees, farms, coming ever
forward towards the stream and the Medellin Hill. They darkened the plain, filled it with a tide
of men flecked with steel, and still they came; Hussars, Dragoons, Lancers, Chasseurs, Grenadiers
and Voltigeurs, the follow-ers of the Eagles, the men who had made an Empire, the old
enemy.

"Hot work tomorrow." Hogan shook his head as he watched the French.

"It will be." Sharpe turned and called to Harper. "Come here!" The big Irish Sergeant
scrambled up the broken wall and stood beside the two officers. The first of thousands of fires
sparkled in the French lines. Harper shook his massive head.

"Perhaps they'll forget to wake up tomorrow."

Sharpe laughed. "It's the next morning they have to worry about."

Hogan shaded his eyes. "I wonder how many more armies like that we'll have to meet before it's
done."

The two Riflemen said nothing. They had been with Wellesley the year before when he defeated
the French at Rolica and Vimeiro, yet this army was ten times bigger than the French force at
Rolica, three times larger than Junot's army at Vimeiro, and twice the size of the force they had
thrown out of Portugal in the spring. It went on like the dragon's teeth. For every Frenchman
killed another two or three marched from the depots, and when you killed them then a dozen more
came, and so it went on. Harper grinned. "There's no point in worrying our-selves by looking at
them. The man knows what he's doing."

Sharpe nodded. Wellesley would not be waiting behind the Portina stream if he thought the next
day could bring defeat. Of all the British Generals he was the only one trusted by the men who
carried the guns; they knew he understood how to fight the French and, most important, when not
to fight them. Hogan pointed.

"What's that?"

Three-quarters of a mile away French horsemen were firing their carbines. Sharpe could see no
target. He watched the puffs of smoke and listened to the faint crackle.

"Dragoons."

"I know that!" Hogan said. "But what are they firing at?"

"Snakes?" During his walks up the Portina Sharpe had noticed small black snakes that wriggled
mysteriously in the dank grass by the stream. He had avoided them but he supposed it was possible
they lived out on the plain as well, and the horsemen were merely amusing themselves with target
practice. It was evening and the flames from the carbine muzzles sparkled brightly in the dusk.
It was strange, Sharpe thought, how often war could look pretty.

"Hello." Harper pointed down. "They've woken up our brave allies. Looks like a bloody ants'
nest."

Below the wall the Spanish infantry had become excited. Men left the fires and lined
themselves behind the earth and stone walls and laid muskets over the felled and piled trunks
Hogan had placed in the gateways. Officers stood on the wall, their swords drawn, there was
shouting and jostling, men pointing at the distant Dragoons and their twinkling
muskets.

Hogan laughed. "It's so good to have allies."

The Dragoons, too far away to be seen clearly, went on firing at their unseen targets. Sharpe
guessed it was just horseplay. The French were oblivious of the panic they were causing in the
Spanish ranks. Every Spanish infantry-man had crowded to the breastworks, their backsides
illuminated by the fires, and their muskets bristled towards the empty field. The officers barked
out commands and to Sharpe's horror he watched as the hundreds of muskets were loaded.

"What the hell are they doing?" He listened to the rattle of ramrods being thrust down
barrels, watched as officers raised their swords. "Watch this," Hogan said. "You might learn a
thing or two."

No order was given. Instead a single musket fired, its ball thrumming uselessly into the
grass, and it was fol-lowed by the biggest volley Sharpe had ever heard. Thousands of muskets
fired, gouted flame and smoke, a rolling thunder assailed them, the sound seemed to last for ever
and mingled with it came the yells of the Spaniards. The fire and lead poured into the empty
field. The Dragoons looked up, startled, but no musket ball would carry even a third of the
distance towards them so they sat their horses and watched the fringe of musket smoke drift into
the air.

For a second Sharpe thought the Spanish were cheering their own victory over the innocent
grass but suddenly he realised the shouts were not of triumph, but of alarm. They had been scared
witless by their own volley, by the thunder of ten thousand muskets, and now they ran for safety.
Thousands streamed into the olive trees, throwing away muskets, trampling the fires in their
panic, screaming for help, heads up, arms pumping, running from their own noise. Sharpe shouted
down to his men on the gate.

"Let them through!"

There was no point in trying to stop the panic. Sharpe's dozen men would have been swamped by
the hundreds of Spanish who crowded into the gate and streamed into the town. Others circled
north towards the roads that led eastwards, away from the French. They would loot the baggage
parks, raid the houses in town, spread alarm and confusion but there was nothing to be done.
Sharpe watched Spanish cavalry use their swords on the fugitive infantry. They would stop some of
them, perhaps by morning they might collect most of them, but the bulk of the Spanish infantry
had evaporated, scared, defeated by a handful of Dragoons three-quarters of a mile away. Sharpe
began laughing. It was too funny, too idiotic, somehow exactly fitting for this campaign. He saw
the Spanish cavalry slash furiously at the infantry, forcing groups of them back to the line, and
far away he heard the bugles call more Spanish horse into the hunt. On the plain the French fires
formed lines of light, thousands and thousands of flames marking the enemy lines, and not one of
the men round those fires would know they had just routed several thousand Spanish infantry.
Sharpe col-lapsed on the wall and looked at Harper.

"What is it you say, Sergeant?"

"Sir?"

"God save Ireland? Not a chance. He's got his hands full coping with Spain."

The noise and panic subsided. There were a handful of men left in the grove, others were being
driven back by the Spanish cavalry, but Sharpe guessed it would take the horsemen all night to
round up the fugitives and force them back to the breastworks, and even then thousands would
escape to spread rumours of a great French victory outside Talavera. Sharpe stood up. "Come on,
Sergeant, time we were getting back to the Battalion."

A voice called up from the street. "Captain Sharpe! Sir!"

One of the Riflemen was gesticulating and, next to him, stood Agostino, Josefina's servant.
Sharpe felt his carefree mood disappear to be replaced with an awful dread. He scrambled down the
broken stonework, Harper and Hogan behind him, and strode across to the two men. "What is
it?"

Agostino burst into Portuguese. He was a tiny man who normally said little but watched all
from his wide, brown eyes. Sharpe held up his hand for quiet. "What's he saying?"

Hogan knew enough Portuguese. The Engineer licked his lips. "It's Josefina."

"What about her?" Sharpe had the inklings of disaster, a cold feeling of evil. He let Hogan
take his elbow and walk him, with Agostino, away from the listening Riflemen. Hogan asked more
questions, let the small servant talk, and finally turned to Sharpe. His voice was low. "She's
been attacked. They locked Agostino in a cupboard."

"They?" He already knew the answer. Gibbons and Berry.

Sergeant Harper crossed to them, his manner formal and correct. "Sir!"

"Sergeant?" Sharpe forced the hundreds of jostling fears down so that he could listen to
Harper.

"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 infantry-men 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.