Бернард Корнуэлл - Sharpe's Escape

Bitch, Ferragus thought, stuck-up English bitch. "Forget my tea," he said and stalked from the kitchen.

And then, from far off, half heard, there was a noise like thunder. It rose and fell, faded to nothing, came again, and at its loudest the windows shook softly in their frames. Sarah stared into the yard and saw the cold gray mist and she knew it was not thunder she heard from so far away.

It was the French.

Because it was dawn and, at Bussaco, the guns were at work.

Sharpe slept badly. The ground was damp, it got colder as the night wore on and he was hurting. His damaged ribs stabbed like knives every time he moved, and when he finally abandoned sleep and stood in the pre-dawn darkness, he wanted to lie down again because of the pain. He fingered his ribs, wondering if the injury was worse than he feared. His right eye was swollen, tender to the touch and half shut.

"You awake, sir?" a voice called from nearby.

"I'm dead," Sharpe said.

"Mug of tea, then, sir?" It was Matthew Dodd, a rifleman in Sharpe's company who had been newly made up to corporal while Sharpe was away. Knowles had given Dodd the extra stripe and Sharpe approved of the promotion.

"Thanks, Matthew," Sharpe said and grimaced with pain as he stooped to collect some damp scraps of wood to help make a fire. Dodd had already used a steel and flint to light some kindling that he now blew into bright flame.

"Are we supposed to have fires, sir?" Dodd asked.

"We weren't supposed to last night, Matthew, but in this damned fog who could see one? Anyway, I need some tea, so get her going." Sharpe added his wood, then listened to the crack and hiss of the new flames as Dodd filled a kettle with water and threw in a handful of tea leaves that he kept loose in his pouch. Sharpe added some of his own, then fed the fire with more wood.

"Damp old morning," Dodd said.

"Bloody mist." Sharpe could see the fog was still thick.

"Be reveille soon," Dodd said, settling the kettle in the flames.

"Can't even be half past two yet," Sharpe said. Here and there along the ridge other men were lighting fires that made glowing, misted patches in the fog, but most of the army still slept. Sharpe had picquets out at the ridge's eastern edge, but he did not need to check them for another few minutes.

"Sergeant Harper said you fell down some steps, sir," Dodd said, looking at Sharpe's bruised face.

"Dangerous things, steps, Matthew. Especially in the dark when it's slippery."

"Sexton back home died like that," Dodd said, his gaunt face lit by the flames. "He went up the church tower to fasten a new rope on the big tenor bell and he slipped. Some said he was pushed, mind, because his wife was sweet on another man."

"You, Matthew?"

"Mister Sharpe!" Dodd said, shocked. "Not me, no!" The tea brewed quickly enough and Sharpe scooped some out with his tin mug and then, after thanking Dodd, went across the ridge top towards the French. He did not go down the slope, but found a small spur that jutted out close to the road. The spur, which protruded like a bastion from the ridge's top, extended out for a hundred paces before ending in a knoll crowned with a ragged jumble of scattered boulders and it was there he expected to find the sentries. He stamped his feet as he went, wanting to alert the picquets to his presence.

"Who's there? " The challenge came smartly enough, but Sharpe had expected it because Sergeant Read was doing duty.

"Captain Sharpe."

"Countersign, Captain?" Read demanded.

"A sip of hot tea, Sergeant, if you don't shoot me," Sharpe said. Read was a stickler for following the rules, but even a Methodist could be persuaded to ignore a missing password by an offer of tea.

"The password's Jessica, sir," he told Sharpe reprovingly.

"The Colonel's wife, eh? Mister Slingsby forgot to tell me." He handed Read the mug of tea. "Anything nasty about?"

"Not a thing, sir, not a thing."

Ensign Iliffe, who was nominally in charge of the picquet, though under standing orders to do nothing without his Sergeant's agreement, came and gawped at Sharpe.

"Good morning, Mister Iliffe," Sharpe said.

"Sir," the boy stammered, too scared to make conversation.

"All quiet?"

"I think so, sir," Iliffe said and stared at Sharpe's face, not quite sure he believed the damage he saw in the half light and much too nervous to ask what had caused it.

The eastern slope dropped into the fog and darkness. Sharpe crouched, wincing at the pain in his ribs, closed his eyes and listened. He could hear men stirring on the slope above him, the clang of a kettle, the crackle of small fires being revived. A horse thumped the ground with its foot and somewhere a baby cried. None of those sounds concerned him. He was listening for something from below, but all was quiet. "They won't come till dawn," he said, knowing that the French needed some light to find the track up the hill.

"And you think they will come, sir?" Read asked apprehensively.

"That's what their deserters say. How's your priming?"

"In this fog? I don't trust it," Read said, then frowned at Sharpe. "You hurt yourself, sir?"

"I fell down some steps," Sharpe said. "Wasn't watching out. You'd best blow the guns out at reveille," he went on, "and I'll warn the battalion. The six men of the picquet had stood guard on the rocky promontory through the darkness with loaded muskets and rifles. By now the damp air would have penetrated the priming in the lock pans and the odds were that the sparks would not light the powder. So, when the army was woken by bugle calls, the picquets would put a fresh pinch of dry powder in their pans and fire the musket to clear out the old charge and, if folk were not warned, they might think the shots meant the French had climbed through the fog. "Keep your eyes open till then," he said.

"We're being relieved at reveille?" Read asked anxiously.

"You can get a couple of hours' sleep after stand-to," Sharpe said. "But sharpen your bayonets before you put your heads down."

"You think… " Ensign Iliffe started the question, but did not finish it.

"I don't know what to expect," Sharpe answered him anyway, "but you don't face battle with a blunt blade, Mister Iliffe. Show me your saber."

Iliffe, as befitted an officer in a skirmishing company, wore a light cavalry saber. It was an old one, bought cheap back home, with a tarnished hilt and a worn leather grip. The Ensign gave the weapon to Sharpe who ran a thumb down its curved fore blade, then down the sharpened upper edge of the back blade. "Half a mile back," he told Iliffe, "there's a regiment of Portuguese dragoons, so when it's light go back there, find their smith, and give him a shilling to put an edge on that blade. You couldn't skin a cat with that saber." He gave the blade back, then half drew his own.

Sharpe, perversely, did not carry the light cavalry saber. Instead he wore a heavy cavalry sword, a long and straight-bladed weapon that was ill-balanced and too heavy, but a brutal instrument in a strong man's hands. It seemed sharp enough when he felt the fore blade, but he would still have a keener edge ground onto the sword. Money well spent, he reckoned.

He went back up to the ridge top and scrounged another mug of tea just a moment before the first bugle sounded. It was muffled, far off, for it came from the valley beneath, from the invisible French, but within a moment scores of bugles and trumpets were blasting the ridge with their clamor. "Stand to! Stand to!" Major Leroy shouted. He saw Sharpe through the mist. "Morning, Sharpe! Damned cold one, eh? What happened to summer?"

"I've told the picquets to empty their guns, sir."

"I won't be alarmed," Leroy said, then brightened. "Is that tea, Sharpe?"