Бернард Корнуэлл: Sharpe's Skirmish

"Sir?" The lanky Price had been resting in the shade of a wayside chapel built at the bridge's northern end and now jerked up as though he had been woken.

"I saw some strange uniforms among those vines, " Sharpe pointed south down the long white road which stretched towards the hills of the Sierra de Gredos. "The vineyard beside that white farmhouse, see it?"

Price peered. "The far vineyard, sir?" He asked in disbelief.

"The very far vineyard, " Sharpe confirmed. "Take the whole company and search for the bastards. Looked like a dozen of them."

Price frowned. "But if they see us coming, sir, they'll. ."

"Run away?" Sharpe asked. "I wouldn't run away from you, Harry, why should they? On your feet, all of you! You've got work! " He strode across the bridge, stirring the company who were dust-stained, sweat soaked and exhausted. They had been marched back from Wellington's advancing army for this duty and they had been on the roads for two long days and all they wanted now was to sleep, drink and sleep again. "Sergeant Huckfield!»

Sharpe called. "Form the company! Sharply, now! Don't want those rascals escaping!»

Lieutenant Price was standing on the bridge parapet to stare at the vines that lay at least two miles away across a dry landscape shimmering in the summer heat. "I don't see anyone there, sir. Maybe they were there, sir, but not now."

«Go!» Sharpe shouted. "Don't let the bastards get away! Hurry! At the double! " He watched the company leave, then turned to Harper. "Is that the fastest you can break those bottles, Sergeant?" Harper and his three men were fetching the bottles from the store room, then stacking them beside the wayside shrine which was a small stone building about ten foot square with a plaster Madonna inside, and only then carrying them one at a time to the bridge parapet. "A spavined cripple could break them faster than you, " Sharpe snapped.

"Maybe he could, sir, " the big Irishman said, "but you wouldn't be wanting us to be slipshod, now would you, Captain? Must do a thorough job, sir.

Have to make sure each one's properly broken." He tapped a bottle on the parapet. "And you wouldn't want broken glass on the road, sir, now would you."

"Just get on with it, " Sharpe snarled, then climbed back up to the fort's parapet where Tubbs was watching the Light Company march southwards.

"Did I hear you say that you saw uniforms, Sharpe?" Tubbs asked anxiously.

"Enemy? Surely not. Surely not here!»

"Didn't see a damn thing, Major, " Sharpe said. "But if they've got enough energy to make a protest, they've got energy to go for a march. Don't want them getting slack, do we?"

«No,» Tubbs said weakly, "no, we wouldn't want that." He turned to look at the small village of San Miguel de Tormes that stretched along the river's northern bank. It was not much of a place; a couple of dozen houses, a small church, an olive press and the inevitable tavern. Northwards was the plain which lay under a heat haze. A smear of white showed in the shimmering air just beyond a small grove of trees that straddled the Salamanca road. "Is that smoke, Sharpe?" Tubbs asked.

"Dust, sir, " Sharpe said.

"Dust?"

"Kicked up by boots, sir, or hooves."

"Dear me! " Tubbs looked alarmed and fetched a telescope from the tail-pocket of his blue coat.

"It won't be Frenchmen, sir, " Sharpe reassured the Major, "not on that road."

"They certainly don't look friendly, though, " Tubbs said anxiously, staring at a band of horsemen who had just emerged from the grove of cork oaks. There were some twenty men, most in wide-brimmed hats and all bristling with weapons. They had muskets slung on their shoulders or holstered in their saddles, and sabres and swords hanging by their stirrups. None was in uniform, though a few wore scraps of old French equipment. Tubbs shuddered. The Major did not consider himself an inexperienced man, indeed he reckoned he had seen more of the world than most folk, yet he had rarely seen such a murderous gang of cut-throats.

Besides the muskets and sword, the horsemen had pistols, knives and one rider even had a great axe slung beside his saddle, and as they drew nearer Tubbs could see that their faces were scarred, moustached, sun-darkened and unsmiling. "Guerilleros?" He suggested to Sharpe.

"Like as not, Major, " Sharpe agreed.

Tubbs sighed. "I know they're supposed to be on our side, Sharpe, but I can never truly trust them. Little more than bandits."

"That's true, sir."

"Cut-throats, rogues, criminals! They're not above slitting a British straggler's throat for the value of his equipment, Sharpe! They're not to be trusted!»

"So I've heard, sir."

The Major lowered his telescope and looked with horror at Sharpe. "You don't suppose, Sharpe, that the wine belongs to them, do you?"

"I doubt it, sir, " Sharpe said. The wine was French plunder, stolen from one of the local vineyards, and the wine's original owner had probably died when the frogs pillaged his property.

"My God, man! " Tubbs said, "but if the wine does belong to them, they'll be furious! Furious! Call your men back! " Tubbs stared at the retreating Light Company, then turned to gaze at the horsemen. "Suppose they want payment for the wine, Sharpe? What do we do?"

"Tell them to bugger off, sir."

"Tell them to. . Oh, my God! " Tubbs was alarmed because one of the riders had broken from the group and was now spurring towards the fortress. He raised his glass again, stared for a few heartbeats, then looked astonished. "Good Lord!»

"What is it, sir?" Sharpe asked calmly.

"It's a woman, Sharpe, a woman! And armed! " Tubbs was gazing at a thin-faced, good-looking young woman who trotted towards the small fortress with a gun on her back and a sword at her side. She swept off her hat as she approached, loosing a torrent of long black hair. "A woman!»

Tubbs exclaimed, "and rather beautiful."

"She's called La Aguja, sir, " Sharpe said, "which means 'the needle', and that ain't because she's handy with the cotton and thread, sir, but because she likes to kill with a stiletto."

"Kill with a. . you know her, Sharpe?"

"I'm married to her, Major, " Sharpe said, and went down the stairs to greet Teresa.

And reflected that, maybe, whatever they were, he was in the Elysian Fields after all.

Major Pierre Ducos was no more a proper Major than was Lucius Tubbs, but nor was he quite a civilian, though he wore civilian clothes. A policeman, perhaps? Yet that did not do justice to the exquisite subtlety of Ducos's mind, nor to the influence that he could wield. He was a small man, balding and slight, who wore thick spectacles. At first glance he might have been taken for a clerk, or perhaps a scholar, except that his sober clothes were too well tailored, and then there were his eyes. They might be short-sighted, but they were also as cold and green as a northern sea, suggesting that mercy and pity were qualities long discarded by Major Pierre Ducos. Pity, Ducos considered, was an emotion fit only for women, while mercy was the prerogative of God, and the Emperor deserved sterner virtues. The Emperor needed efficiency, dedication and intelligence, and Ducos supplied all three, which was why he had the Emperor's ear. He might be a mere Major, but Marshals of France worried about Ducos's opinion, because that opinion could go straight to Napoleon himself.

And Napoleon had sent Ducos to Spain because the Marshals were failing.

They were being beaten! They were losing eagles! The armies of France, faced by a rabid pack of Spanish peasants and a despicable little British army, were being trounced. Ducos's responsibility was to analyse those defeats and inform the Emperor what should be done, but no one in Spain knew that was the limit of Ducos's instructions. They just knew that Ducos had the Emperor's ear, and if Ducos, having made his analysis, then suggested a remedy, the Marshals were inclined to listen to him.