Sharpe's Gold (24 page)
The South Essex, shorn of its Light Company, was up north and soon, Sharpe knew, they
must march to join it. One battle more, Hogan had said, with any luck and a fair wind, and
then the army would march south to the safety of its Lines, and Colonel Lawford had greeted
him with open arms and waved a despatch at Sharpe.
'Reinforcements, Richard! They're on their way! You can bring them up from Lisbon!
Officers, Sergeants, two hundred and seventy men! Good news!'
The ships had still not come, beating down from Plymouth on the journey that could take
seven days or seven weeks, and Sharpe was content to wait. He slid, with relief, off the
horse and gave Hogan the reins.
'I'll see you tomorrow?'
The Major nodded, scribbled on a piece of paper. 'That's her address.'
Sharpe smiled his thanks, turned, but Hogan called after him.
'Richard!'
'Sir?'
'We needed that gold. Well done.'
Sixteen thousand coins, two hundred and fifty stolen by El Catolico, a thousand to
Teresa, fourteen thousand to the General, and the rest was being spent by the Light
Company and the Germans as if money were issued with the rations. Sharpe had ordered
them to get drunk, to find their women, and if any provost asked where the money came from
they were referred to Sharpe, and somehow they did not want to argue with the tall, scarred
Rifleman who simply told them it was stolen. There was even money in Sharpe's name in
London, held by the agents, Messrs Hopkinson and Son of St Alban's Street, Knowles's
agents, and Sharpe wondered, as he walked towards the address Hogan had given him, just
what a four per cent stock was. The Lisbon office had laughed politely when he told them it
was stolen. He had not given them all the coins.
The house looked rich, and he imagined Hardy using the big front door that was answered
by Agostino, Josefina's servant, who now wore a fancy powdered wig and a coat that was
all buttons and lace.
'Sir?'
Sharpe pushed him out of the way, strode into a marble hall with palms, rugs, and
latticed screens. He thought of Teresa, pushed the thought away because he wanted her, and
thought how she would have despised the scent that filled the hallway.
He went into a huge room that opened through archways on to a terrace high above the
Tagus. Orange trees framed the view, their scent mingling with the smell of perfume.
'Josefina!'
'Richard!'
She was in an archway, the evening light round her body so he could not see her face. 'What
are you doing?'
'Visiting you.'
She came forward, plumper than he remembered, and smiled at him. She touched his face
with a finger, looked his uniform up and down, and made a face of disapproval.
'You can't stay.'
'Why not.'
She gestured outside. 'He was first."
He looked at her, remembering her differently, and he would have left if Patrick
Harper had not already claimed the dark-haired maid at the American Hotel. Instead, he
walked on to the terrace where a languid cavalry Lieutenant sat with a glass of wine.
The Lieutenant looked up. 'Sir.'
'How much did you pay?'
'Richard!' She was behind him, pulling at him. Sharpe laughed.
'Lieutenant?'
'Damn you, sir!' The Lieutenant stood up, the wine quivering in the glass.
'How much did you pay?'
'Damn your eyes, sir! I'll call you out!'
Josefina was laughing now, enjoying herself. Sharpe smiled. 'You can. The name's
Sharpe. In the meantime, get out!'
'Sharpe?' The Lieutenant's expression had fallen.
'Out.'
'But, sir…'
Sharpe drew the sword, the great steel sword. 'Out!'
'Madame!' The Lieutenant bowed to Josefina, put down his wine, glanced once at Sharpe,
and was gone. She hit him, lightly.
'You shouldn't have done that.'
'Why not?' He pushed the sword back into the scabbard.
She pouted. 'He was rich and generous.'
He laughed, opened his new ammunition pouch, the black leather still stiff, and threw the
thick gold coins on to the patterned tiles.
'Richard! What is it?'
'Gold, you fool.' The convoy could take another month for all he cared. He tossed more
coins, thick as butter. 'Josefina's gold, your gold, our gold, my gold.' He laughed again,
pulled her towards him. 'Sharpe's gold.'
Almeida's garrison surrendered after the explosion of August 27th, 1810. The event
was much as described in Sharpe's Gold. The magazine in the cathedral blew up and destroyed,
beside the cathedral itself, the castle, five hundred houses, and part of the
fortifications. It was estimated that more than five hundred of the garrison died.
Brigadier Cox wanted to continue the defence but bowed to the inevitable and surrendered
the next day.
It must have been one of the biggest explosions of the pre-nuclear world. (Certainly
not the biggest. A year before, in 1809, Sir John Moore deliberately exploded four
thousand barrels of powder to keep them from falling into French hands at Corunna.) A year
later the French added to the destruction. They, in turn, were besieged in Almeida and
abandoned its defence after blowing up part of the walls; their garrison of fourteen
hundred men successfully escaped through the much larger British besieging force.
Despite its misfortunes the town's defences are still impressive. The main road no longer
passes through Almeida; instead it runs a few miles to the south, but the town is just half an
hour's drive from the border post at Vilar Formoso. The awesome defences are repaired and
intact, surrounding what is now a shrunken village, and on the top of the hill it is easy to
see where the explosion occurred. Nothing was rebuilt. A graveyard marks the site of the
cathedral; the castle moat is a square, stone-faced ditch; granite blocks still litter the
area where they fell, and wild flowers grow where once there were houses and streets.
No one, conveniently for a writer of fiction, knows the precise cause of the
catastrophe, but the accepted version, pieced together from the stories of survivors, is
that a leaking keg of gunpowder was rolled from the cathedral and an exploding French shell
ignited the accidental powder train, which fired back to musket ammunition stored by
the main door. This, in turn, flashed down to the main magazine, and so the greatest obstacle
between Massena and his invasion of Portugal was gone. One Portuguese soldier, very close
to the cathedral, saved his life by diving into a bread oven, and now his presence of mind
has been borrowed by Richard Sharpe. The most unlikely stories often turn out to be the
truth.
The Lines of Torres Vedras existed and truly were one of the great military
achievements of all time. They can still be seen, decrepit for the most part, grassed over, but
with a little imagination Massena's shock can be realized. He had pursued the British army
from the border to within a day's march of Lisbon, had survived Wellington's crushing
victory at Busaco on the way, but surely, so close to Portugal's capital, he must have
thought his job done. Then he saw the lines. They were the furthest point of retreat for the
British in the Peninsula; they were never to be used again, and four years later
Wellington's superb army marched over the Pyrenees into France itself.
Sharpe’s Gold is, sadly, unfair to the Spanish. Some Partisans were as self-seeking as
El Catolico, but the large majority were brave men who tied up more French troops than did
Wellington's army. The Richard Sharpe books are the chronicles of British soldiers and, with
that perspective, the men who fought the 'little war' have suffered an unfair distortion.
But at least, by the autumn of 1810, the British army is safe behind its gigantic Lines and
the stage is set for the next four years: the advance into Spain, the victories, and the
ultimate conquest of France itself.
Richard Sharpe and Patrick Harper will march again.
