Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe’s Devil - Napoleon and South America, 1820–1821

‘Are you saying that his own side killed him?’

Ardiles shook his head. ‘I think he was killed by the rebels. He was probably wounded in the ambush, his horse galloped into deep timber, and he fell off. His body’s still out there; ripped apart by animals and chewed by birds. The oddest part of the whole thing, to my mind, is why he was out there with such a small escort. There were only fifteen men with him!’

‘He was always a brave man.’ Sharpe, who had not heard just how small the escort had been, hid his surprise. Why would a Captain-General travel with such a tiny detachment? Even in country he thought safe?

‘Maybe more foolish than brave?’ Ardiles suggested. ‘My own belief is that he had an arrangement to meet the rebels, and that they double-crossed him.’

Sharpe, who had convinced himself that Don Blas had been murdered by his own people, found this new idea grotesque. ‘Are you saying he was a traitor?’

‘He was a patriot, but he was playing with fire.’ Ardiles paused, as though debating whether to say more, then he must have decided that his revelation could do no harm. ‘I tell you a strange thing, Englishman. Two months after Vivar arrived in Chile he ordered me to take him to Talcahuana. That means nothing to you, so I shall explain. It is a peninsula, close to Concepción, and inside rebel territory. His Excellency’s staff told Don Blas it was not safe to go there, but he scoffed at such timidity. I thought it was my chance to fight against Cochrane, so I went gladly. But two days north of Valdivia we struck bad weather. It was awful! We could not go anywhere near land; instead we rode out the storm at sea for four days. After that Don Blas still insisted on going to Talcahuana. We anchored off Punta Tombes and Don Blas went ashore on his own. On his own! He refused an escort. He just took a fowling-piece! He said he wanted to prove that a nobleman of Spain could hunt freely wherever His Spanish Majesty ruled in this world. Six hours later he returned with two brace of duck, and ordered me back to Valdivia. So what? you are asking. I will tell you what! I myself thought it was merely bravado. After all, he had made me sail for a week through waters patrolled by the rebel navy, but later I heard rumours that Don Blas had gone ashore to meet those rebels. To talk with them. I don’t know if that is true, but on my voyage home with the news of Don Blas’s disappearance, we captured a rebel pinnace with a dozen men aboard and two of them told me that the devil Cochrane himself had been waiting to meet Don Blas, but that after two days they decided he was not coming, and so Cochrane went away.’

‘You believed them?’

Ardiles shrugged. ‘Do dying men tell lies or truth? My belief, Englishman, is that they were telling the truth, and I think Don Blas died when he tried to resurrect the meeting with the rebels. But you believe Don Blas to be alive, yes?’

Sharpe hesitated, but Ardiles had favoured him with a revelation, and Sharpe’s truth was nowhere near so dangerous, so he told it. ‘No.’

‘So why are you here?’

‘Because I’ve been paid to look for him. Maybe I shall find his dead body?’ Because even that, Sharpe had decided, would give Louisa some small comfort. It would, at the very least, offer her certainty and if Sharpe could arrange to have the body carried home to Spain then Louisa could bury Don Blas in his family’s vault in the great cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.

Ardiles scoffed at Sharpe’s mild hopes. He waved northwards through the spitting sleet and the spume and the wild waves’ turmoil. ‘That’s a whole continent up there! Not an English farmyard! You won’t find a single body in a continent, Englishman, not if someone else has decided to hide it.’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘Because if my tale of carrying Don Blas to meet the rebels is right, then Don Blas was not just a soldier, but a soldier playing politics, and that’s a more dangerous pastime than fighting. Besides, if the Spanish high command decides not to help you, how will you achieve anything?’

‘By bribes?’ Sharpe suggested.

Ardiles laughed. ‘I wish you luck, Englishman, but if you’re offering money they’ll just tell you what you want to hear until you’ve no money left, then they’ll clean their knife blades in your guts. Take my advice! Vivar’s dead! Go home!’

Sharpe crouched against a sudden attack of wind-slathered foam that shrieked down the deck and smashed white against the helmsman and his companion. ‘What I don’t understand,’ Sharpe shouted when the sea had sucked itself out of the scuppers, ‘is why the rebels haven’t boasted about Don Blas’s death! If you’re a rebel and you kill or capture your enemy’s commander, why keep it a secret? Why not trumpet your success?’

‘You expect sense out of Chile?’ Ardiles asked cynically.

Sharpe ducked again as the wind flailed more salt foam across the quarterdeck. ‘Don Blas’s widow doesn’t believe it was the rebels who attacked her husband. She thinks it was Captain-General Bautista.’

Ardiles looked grimmer than ever. ‘Then Don Blas’s widow had best keep her thoughts to herself. Bautista is not a man to antagonize. He has pride, a memory, and a taste for cruelty.’

‘And for corruption?’ Sharpe asked.

Ardiles paused, as though weighing the good sense of continuing this conversation, then he shrugged. ‘Miguel Bautista is the prince of thieves, but that doesn’t mean he won’t one day be the ruler of Spain. How else do men become great, except by extortion and fear? I will give you some advice, Englishman.’ Ardiles’s voice had become fierce with intensity. ‘Don’t make an enemy of Bautista. You hear me?’

‘Of course.’ The warning seemed extraordinary to Sharpe; a testimony to the real fear that Miguel Bautista, Vivar’s erstwhile enemy, inspired.

Ardiles suddenly grinned, as though he wanted to erase the grimness of his last words. ‘The trouble with Don Blas, Englishman, was that he was very close to being a saint. He was an honourable man, and you know what happens to honourable men – they prove to be an embarrassment. This world isn’t governed by honourable men, but by lawyers and politicians, and whenever such scum come across an honest man they have to kill him.’ The ship shuddered as a huge wave smashed ragged down the port gunwale. Ardiles laughed at the weather’s malevolence, then looked again at Sharpe. ‘Take my advice, Englishman! Go home! I’ll be sailing back to Spain in a week’s time, which gives you just long enough to visit the chingana behind the church in Valdivia, after which you should sail home to your wife.’

‘The chingana ?’ Sharpe asked.

‘A chingana is where you go for a chingada ,’ Ardiles said unhelpfully. ‘A chingana is either a tavern that sells whores, or a whorehouse that sells liquor, and the chingana behind the church in Valdivia has half-breed girls who give chingadas that leave men gasping for life. It’s the best whorehouse for miles. You know how you can tell which is the best whorehouse in a Spanish town?’

‘Tell me.’

‘It’s the one where all the priests go, and this one is where the bishop goes! So visit the mestiza whores, then go home and tell Vivar’s wife that her husband’s body was eaten by wild pigs!’

But Sharpe had not been paid to go home and tell stories. He had taken Doña Louisa’s money, and he was far from home, and he would not go back defeated. He would find Don Blas, no matter how deep the forest or high the hill. If Don Blas still had form, then Sharpe would find it.

He had sworn as much, and he would keep his promise. He would find Don Blas.

Albatrosses ghosted alongside the Espiritu Santo ’s rigging. The frigate, Cape Horn left far behind her, was sailing before a friendly wind on a swirling current of icy water. Dolphins followed the frigate, while whales surfaced and rolled on either flank.