Бернард Корнуэлл - Sharpe's Escape

"We've come from Coimbra," Sharpe said, "and you, Lieutenant?"

"We're here to amuse the Frogs," Davies said. He was a very tall, very thin young man in a shabby uniform. "We come upstream on the tide, kill any Frogs foolish enough to appear on shore, and drift back down again."

"Where are we?" Sharpe asked.

"Three miles north of Alhandra. That's where your lines reach the river." He paused by a companionway. "There's a cabin below," he said, "and the ladies are welcome to it, but I must say it's damned poky. Damp as well."

Sharpe introduced Sarah and Joana who both elected to stay on the stern deck, which was cumbered by a vast tiller. The Squirrel had no wheel, and its quarterdeck was merely the after part of the maindeck which was crowded with seamen. Davies explained that his vessel was a twelve-gun cutter and that, though it could easily be managed by six or seven men, it needed a crew of forty to man its guns, "and even then we're short-handed," he complained, "and can only fire one side of guns. Still, one side is usually enough. Tea, yes?"

"And the loan of a razor?" Sharpe asked.

"And something to eat," Harper said under his breath, staring innocently up at the huge mainsail that was brailed onto a massive boom which jutted out over the diminutive white ensign.

"Tea, shave, breakfast," Davies said. "Stop gawking, Mister Braithwaite!" This was to a midshipman who was staring at Joana and Sarah and evidently trying to decide whether he preferred his women dark- or fair-haired. "Stop gawking and tell Powell we need breakfast for five guests."

"Five guests, sir, aye aye, sir."

"And might I beg you to keep an eye out for another boat?" Sharpe asked Davies. "I have a suspicion that five fellows are following us, and I want them stopped."

"That's my job," Davies said. "Stop anything that tries to float down river. Miss Fry? Might I bring you a chair? You and your companion?"

A breakfast was served on deck. There were thick white china plates heaped with bacon, bread and greasy eggs, and afterwards Sharpe blunted Davies's razor by scraping at the stubble on his chin. Davies's servant had brushed his green jacket, cleaned and polished his boots, and burnished his sword's metal scabbard. He leaned on the gunwale, feeling a sudden relief that the journey was over. In a matter of hours, he thought, he could be back with the battalion, and that spoiled his good mood, for he supposed he would be doomed to Lawford's continuing displeasure. The fog had thinned into a mist, and the tide was dropping, swirling past the Squirrel , which was anchored at bow and stern so that her small broadside pointed up river. Sharpe could see a chain of islands off the western bank, low-lying streaks of grassy sand that sheltered a smaller inshore channel, while down river, beyond a wide bend and just visible above the skeins of mist, Sharpe could see the masts of other ships. It was a whole squadron of gunboats, Davies said, posted to guard the flank of the defensive lines. Somewhere in the distance a cannon fired, its sound flat in the warming air.

"It's going to be a nice day for a change," Davies leaned on the gunwale beside Sharpe, "if this damn mist clears."

"I'm glad to be rid of the rain," Sharpe said.

"Rather rain than fog," Davies said. "Can't fire guns if you can't see the bloody target." He glanced up at the dim glow of the sun through the mist, judging the time. "We'll stay here for another hour," he said, "then drop down to Alhandra. We'll put you ashore there." He looked up at the union flag that stirred listlessly at the masthead. "Bloody south wind," he said, meaning that he could not sail down river, but would have to let the current take him.

"Sir!" There was a man at the crosstrees where the topmast met the mainmast. "Boat, sir!"

"Where away?"

The man pointed and Sharpe took out his glass and searched westwards and then, through a shimmer of mist, saw a small boat running down the inshore channel. He could only see the heads of the men in the boat. Davies was running down the deck. "Let go the after spring," he shouted, "man numbers one and two!"

The Squirrel swung on its bow anchor, the current hurrying her round until the guns bore and then the tension was taken up on the stern anchor line to steady the ship at a new angle. "Fire a warning shot when you can!" Davies ordered.

There was a pause as the Squirrel steadied, then the gun captain, who had been squinting down the barrel, leaped back and jerked his lanyard. The small cannon recoiled onto its breeching ropes and thick smoke clouded the gunwales. The second gun fired almost immediately, its round shot hissing above the low island to splash into the channel ahead of the fleeing boat.

"They ain't stopping, sir!" the man at the crosstrees called.

"Fire at them, Mister Combes! Directly at them!"

"Aye aye, sir!"

The next shot struck the island and bounced high over the fleeing boat which was traveling fast on the river's current and was helped by the ebbing tide. Sharpe doubted the gunfire would stop the boat. He scrambled a few rungs up the ratlines and used his telescope, but he could see little of the occupants who were obscured by the mist. Yet it had to be the Ferreira brothers. Who else could it be? And he thought, but could not be sure, that one of the men in the boat was unnaturally large. Ferragus, he thought.

"Lieutenant!" he called.

"Mister Sharpe?"

"There are two men in that boat who need to be captured. That's my duty." That was not really true. Sharpe's duty was to return to duty, not to prolong a feud, but Davies did not know that. "Can we borrow one of your boats to pursue them?"

Davies hesitated, wondering if granting such a request would contravene his standing orders. "The gunboats downstream will apprehend them," he pointed out.

"And they won't know they're wanted men," Sharpe said, then paused as the Squirrel's forward guns fired and missed again. "Besides, they're likely to slip ashore before they reach your squadron. And if that happens we need to be put ashore to follow them."

Davies thought for another second, saw that the fugitive boat had almost vanished in the mist, then turned on Midshipman Braithwaite. "The jolly boat, Mister Braithwaite. Look quick now!" He turned back to Sharpe who had regained the deck. "The ladies will stay here." It was not a question.

"We will not," Sarah answered firmly, and hefted her French musket. "We've come this far together and we'll finish it together."

For a second Davies looked as though he would argue, then decided life would be simpler if all his unbidden guests were off the Squirrel. The forward cannon fired a last time and smoke wreathed the deck. "I wish you joy," Davies said.

And they were over the side and in pursuit.

Marshal Andre Massena was feeling numb. He was saying nothing, just staring. It was shortly after dawn, the day after his first patrols had reached the new British and Portuguese works, and now he crouched behind a low stone wall on which his telescope rested and he slowly panned the glass along the hilltops to the south and everywhere he saw bastions, guns, walls, barricades, more guns, men, telegraph stations, flagpoles. Everywhere.

He had been planning the victory celebrations to be held in Lisbon. There was a fine large square beside the Tagus where half the army could be paraded, and the greatest problem he had anticipated was what to do with the thousands of British and Portuguese prisoners he expected to capture, but instead he was looking at an apparently endless barrier. He saw how the lower slopes of the opposite hills had been steepened, he saw how the enemy guns were protected by stone, he saw flooded approach routes, he saw failure.