Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe’s Gold

The valley settled in peace. The sun burned down on the grass, turning it a paler brown, and still, on the northern horizon, the great cloud bank loomed. There would be rain in a couple of days, Sharpe thought, and then he went back to the route he had planned in his head, down the slope to the road that led to the ford at San Anton, proceed to the big rock that would be a natural marker and then follow the edge of the barley field as far as the stunted fruit trees. Beyond the trees was another barley field that would give good cover and from there it was just fifty yards of open ground to the cemetery and the hermitage. And if the hermitage were locked? He dismissed the idea. A dozen men in the Company had once earned a living by opening up locks they had no right to be near; a lock was no problem, but then there was the task of finding the gold. Kearsey had said it was in the Moreno vault, which should be easy enough to find, and he let his imagination play with the idea of finding the gold in the middle of the night, just two hundred yards from a French regiment, and bringing it safely back to the gully by daybreak. Harper lay beside him, thinking the same thoughts.

‘They won’t move out the village, sir. Not at night.’

‘No.’

‘Be a bit difficult finding our way.’

Sharpe pointed to the route he had planned. ‘Hagman will lead.’

Harper nodded. Daniel Hagman had an uncanny ability to find his way in the darkness. Sharpe often wondered how the old poacher had ever been caught, but he supposed that one night the Cheshireman had drunk too much. It was the usual story. Harper had one more objection. ‘And the Major, sir?’ Sharpe said nothing and Harper nodded. ‘As you say, sir. A pox on the bloody Major.’ The Irish Sergeant grinned. ‘We can do it.’

Sharpe lay in the westering sun, looking at the valley, following the course he had planned until he agreed. It could be done. A pox on Kearsey. He imagined the vault as having a vast stone lid; he saw it, in his mind, being heaved back, to reveal a heap of gold coins that would save the army, defeat the French, and he wondered again why the money was needed. He would have to take all the Company, post a string of guards to face the village, preferably Riflemen, and the gold would have to go in their packs. What if there was more than they could carry? Then they must carry what they could. He wondered about a diversion, a small group of Riflemen in the southern end of the valley to distract the French, but he rejected the idea. Keep it simple. Night attacks could go disastrously wrong and the smallest complication could turn a well-thought plan into a horrid mess that cost lives. He felt the excitement grow. They could do it!

At first the trumpet was so faint that it hardly penetrated Sharpe’s consciousness. Rather it was Harper’s sudden alertness that stirred him, dragged his mind from the gold beneath the Moreno vault, and made him curse as he looked at the road disappearing to the north-east. ‘What was that?’

Harper stared at the empty valley. ‘Cavalry.’

‘North?’

The Sergeant nodded. ‘Nearer to us than the Partisans were, sir. Something’s happening up there.’

They waited, in silence, and watched the valley. Knowles climbed up beside them. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Don’t know.’ Sharpe’s instinct, so dormant this morning, was suddenly screaming at him. He turned and called to the sentry on the far side of the gully. ‘See anything?’

‘No, sir.’

‘There!’

Harper was pointing to the road. Kearsey was in sight, cantering the roan towards the village and looking over his shoulder, and then the Major turned off the road, began covering the rough ground towards the slopes where the Partisans had disappeared in a hidden entry to one of the twisted valleys that spilled into the main valley.

‘What the devil?’

Sharpe’s question was answered as soon as he had spoken. Behind Kearsey was a regiment, rank upon rank of horsemen in blue and yellow, each one wearing a strange, square yellow hat, but that was not their oddest feature. Instead of swords the enemy were carrying lances, long, steel-tipped weapons with their red and white pennants, and as the Major turned off the road the lancers kicked in their heels, dropped their points and the race was on. Knowles shook his head. ‘What are they?’

‘Polish lancers.’

Sharpe’s voice was grim. The Poles had a reputation in Europe: nasty fighters, effective fighters. These were the first he had encountered in his career. He remembered the moustachioed Indian face behind the long pole, the twisting, the way the man had played with him, and the final thrust that had pinned Sergeant Sharpe to a tree and held him there till the Tippoo Sultan’s men had come and pulled the needlesharp blade from his side. He still carried the scar. Bloody lancers.

‘They won’t get him, sir.’ Knowles sounded very sure.

‘Why not?’

‘The Major explained to me, sir. Marlborough’s fed on corn and most cavalry horses are grass-fed. A grass-fed horse can’t catch a corn-fed horse.’

Sharpe raised his eyebrows. ‘Has anyone told the horses?’

The lancers were catching up, slowly and surely, but Sharpe suspected Kearsey was saving the big horse’s strength. He watched the Poles and wondered how many regiments of cavalry the French had thrown up into the hills to wipe out the guerrilla bands. He wondered how long they would stay.

Sharpe had snapped his glass open, found Kearsey, and saw the Major look over his shoulder and urge Marlborough to go faster. The big roan responded, widening the gap from the nearest lancers, and Knowles clapped his hands. ‘Go on, sir!’

‘They must have caught him crossing the road, sir,’ Harper said.

Marlborough was taking the Major out of trouble, stretching the lead, galloping easily. Kearsey had not even bothered to unsheath his sabre and Sharpe was just relaxing when suddenly the big horse reared up, twisted sideways, and Kearsey fell.

‘What the –’

‘Bloody nightjar!’ Harper had seen a bird fly up, startled, right beneath the horse’s nose. Sharpe wondered, irrelevantly, how the Irishman could possibly have identified the bird at such a distance. He focused the glass again. Kearsey was on his feet, Marlborough was unhurt, and the little man was reaching up desperately to put his foot in the stirrup. The trumpet sounded again, the sound delayed by the distance, but Sharpe had already seen the lancers spurring their horses, reaching out with their nine-foot weapons, and he gritted his teeth as Kearsey seemed to take an age in swinging himself into the saddle.

‘Where’s El Católico?’ Knowles asked.

‘Miles away.’ Harper sounded gloomy.

The horse went forward again, Kearsey’s heels raking back, but the lancers were desperately close. The Major turned the roan downslope towards the village, letting his speed build up before turning back, but his horse seemed winded or frightened. The roan’s head tossed nervously, Kearsey urged it, and at the moment when Sharpe knew the lancers must catch him the Major realized it as well. He circled back, sword drawn, and Knowles groaned.

‘He might do it yet.’ Harper spoke gently, as if to a nervous recruit on the battlefield.

Four lancers were closest to the Major. He spurred towards them, singled one out, and Sharpe saw the sabre, point downwards, high in Kearsey’s hand. Marlborough had calmed, and as the lancers thundered in, Kearsey touched the spurs, the horse leaped forward, and the Major had turned the right-hand lance to one side, swivelled his wrist with the speed of a trained swordsman, and one Pole lay beheaded on the ground.

‘Beautiful!’ Sharpe was grinning. Once a man got past the razor tip of a lance he was safe.