Bernard Cornwell - Crackdown

I let go of his hand. “Good luck, Maggot.”

“And to you, my friend!” He began running towards Donna’s Chinook, then paused to shout back at me. “Tell Ellen I’ll be glad to be the best man at your wedding! We’ll have a blast!”

I laughed and turned away. The incoming helicopter had thumped on to the runway and its rotors were slowing to a halt. The drifting dust was touched red-gold by the rising sun. I saw that the first reporters had spilt on to this southern part of the island, and some were now heading towards me. It was time for me to add my corroborating testimony to the senator’s instant legend. George Crowninshield; the winning warrior of the drug war, the senator who dared to act, the man to lead a nation in its crusade against the drugs that had threatened his own children. I could almost see the senator’s halo as he strode about the island with the reporters and at the head of his newly arrived herd of aides and press secretaries.

Then a voice called from behind me and I turned, and I forgot the senator, and I forgot the reporters, and I forgot the Maggot, because Ellen had arrived on the lone helicopter, and her hair was red-gold like the new sun and her beauty brought a lump to my throat as I walked towards her. I held my arms outstretched, and she was running towards me, and I could see tears in her eyes and I knew she was happy, and I was just as happy; then we clumsily met, we clasped, we were laughing, and the embrace skewered a white-hot pain in my arm, but it did not matter.

“They wouldn’t let me come,” she said in breathless explanation, “because they said I might tell the truth to the press people, and I said if they didn’t bring me I’d certainly tell the truth, the whole bloody truth, to the whole damned world, so here I am.” She was laughing and crying. “Are you all right, Nick?”

“I am now,” I said, “I am now.” I heard voices strident behind me, and knew the press were almost on top of us. I kissed Ellen. “I want to make you a promise,” I told her.

“Go on.”

“I will always tell you the truth.”

“Dear Nick,” she said. “Why do you think I’m here?” Her hands were warm in mine. A flash bulb cracked its brightness as she laid her head on my shoulder.

“Mr Breakspear! What happened?” A dozen voices demanded of me.

I turned and stared at the reporters. They were sweating and eager, hounds pressing on their kill. Sun-guns dazzled us, and microphones hedged us about. The journalists shouted insistent questions; demanding to know how I had met the senator, and did my father know I was here, and what had actually happened, and who was the girl with me, and how did I get the injury? But they went silent when I raised a hand. “I shall tell you the truth!” I made the promise in a stentorian voice, the voice of a marine sergeant shouting above the sound of a half-gale thrashing a parade ground, “and I shall tell you nothing but the truth.” The senator had been momentarily forgotten by the press and his face showed pure horror at the prospect of my veracity. One of his newly arrived aides was thrusting through the crush of reporters in an effort to reach and silence me, but I had my audience now and I would not waste it. “Our revels now are ended,” I said, but this time in the glorious voice of Sir Tom himself, the voice the old fraud had employed in his famous production of The Tempest at Stratford in ’79, the voice that one critic had described as being like a golden-throated trumpet calling to the heart of a world’s perplexity. “These our actors,” I went on,As I foretold you, were all spirits, andAre melted into air, into thin air;And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,The solemn temples, the great globe itself,Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolveAnd, like this insubstantial pageant faded,Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuffAs dreams are made on—

I stopped abruptly, obedient to Sir Tom’s adage always to leave the little darlings panting for more, and then I bowed, and then I laughed, and then I walked away. Ellen, her arm in my good arm, was laughing with me. The senator looked like a man reprieved from death, but not sure why. The equally puzzled reporters swarmed after me, shouting their questions, but I had nothing more to say. The isle was full of noises, but I had none to add, nor did I care what the world made of me, nor of Ellen, for we were bound for the long seas where high stars would guide us and a good boat would carry us, together and for ever.

BERNARD CORNWELL is the author of the acclaimed and bestselling Saxon Tales, which include The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman, Lords of the North , and Sword Song , as well as the Richard Sharpe novels, the Grail Quest series, the Nathaniel Starbuck Chronicles, the Warlord Chronicles, and many other novels, including Stonehenge and Gallows Thief . He lives with his wife on Cape Cod.

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The Saxon Tales

THE LAST KINGDOM *

THE PALE HORSEMAN *

LORDS OF THE NORTH *

SWORD SONG *

The Sharpe Novels (in chronological order)

SHARPE’S TIGER *

Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Seringapatam, 1799

SHARPE’S TRIUMPH *

Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Assaye, September 1803

SHARPE’S FORTRESS *

Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Gawilghur, December 1803

SHARPE’S TRAFALGAR *

Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805

SHARPE’S PREY *

Richard Sharpe and the Expedition to Copenhagen, 1807

SHARPE’S RIFLES

Richard Sharpe and the French Invasion of Galicia, January 1809

SHARPE’S HAVOC *

Richard Sharpe and the Campaign in Northern Portugal, Spring 1809

SHARPE’S EAGLE

Richard Sharpe and the Talavera Campaign, July 1809

SHARPE’S GOLD

Richard Sharpe and the Destruction of Almeida, August 1810

SHARPE’S ESCAPE *

Richard Sharpe and the Bussaco Campaign, 1810

SHARPE’S FURY *

Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Barrosa, March 1811

SHARPE’S BATTLE *

Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro, May 1811

SHARPE’S COMPANY

Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Badajoz, January to April 1812

SHARPE’S SWORD

Richard Sharpe and the Salamanca Campaign, June and July 1812

SHARPE’S ENEMY

Richard Sharpe and the Defense of Portugal, Christmas 1812

SHARPE’S HONOUR

Richard Sharpe and the Vitoria Campaign, February to June 1813

SHARPE’S REGIMENT

Richard Sharpe and the Invasion of France, June to November 1813

SHARPE’S SIEGE

Richard Sharpe and the Winter Campaign, 1814

SHARPE’S REVENGE

Richard Sharpe and the Peace of 1814

SHARPE’S WATERLOO

Richard Sharpe and the Waterloo Campaign, 15 June to 18 June 1815

SHARPE’S DEVIL *

Richard Sharpe and the Emperor, 1820–21

The Grail Quest Series

THE ARCHER’S TALE *

VAGABOND *

HERETIC *

The Nathaniel Starbuck Chronicles

REBEL *

COPPERHEAD *

BATTLE FLAG *

THE BLOODY GROUND *

The Warlord Chronicles

THE WINTER KING

THE ENEMY OF GOD

EXCALIBUR

The Sailing Thrillers

STORMCHILD *

SCOUNDREL *

WILDTRACK *

CRACKDOWN *

Other Novels

STONEHENGE, 2000 B.C.: A NOVEL *

GALLOWS THIEF *

A CROWNING MERCY *

THE FALLEN ANGELS *

REDCOAT *

* Published by HarperCollinsPublishers.

CRACKDOWN. Copyright © 1990 by Bernard Cornwell. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.