Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe’s Revenge - The Peace of 1814

Beyond the stream, and beyond the dark loom of some further woods, there was a glimmering smear of light in the night sky. Only one thing could make a light such as that: the flames of an army’s bivouac fires reflecting off low clouds. The two Rifle officers were looking towards the French.

‘They’re camped around Toulouse,’ Frederickson said.

‘Toulouse?’ Sharpe repeated vaguely.

‘It’s a French city, though I wouldn’t expect anyone as exalted as a staff officer to know that. It’s also the place where Marshal Soult doubtless hopes to stop us, unless the war ends first.’

‘Perhaps it’s all wishful thinking.’ Sharpe took the bottle of wine that Frederickson offered him. ‘Boney’s escaped from disaster before.’

‘There’ll be peace,’ Frederickson said firmly. ‘Everyone’s tired of the fighting.’ He paused. ‘I wonder what the devil we’ll all do in peacetime?’

‘Rest,’ Sharpe said.

‘In your Dorset home?’ Frederickson, knowing that Jane had gone home to purchase a country property, was amused. ‘And after a month of it you’ll be wishing to hell that you were back here in the rain, wondering just what the bastards are planning, and whether you’ve got enough ammunition for the morning.’

‘Have you?’ Sharpe asked with professional concern.

‘I stole four cartridge boxes from Taplow’s quarter-master.’ Sweet William fell silent as a billow of wind stirred the furled and tethered mill-sails.

Sharpe gazed towards the French encampment. ‘Is it a big city?’

‘Big enough.’

‘Fortified?’

‘I would imagine so.’ Frederickson took the wine bottle back and tipped it to his mouth. ‘And I imagine it will be a bastard of a city to take.’

‘They all are,’ Sharpe said drily. ‘Do you remember Badajoz?’

‘I doubt I’ll ever forget it,’ Frederickson said, though nor would any man who had fought across that ditch of blood.

‘We took that at Eastertime,’ Sharpe said, ‘and next week is Easter.’

‘Is it, by God?’ Frederickson asked. ‘By God, so it is.’

Both men fell silent, both wondering whether this would be their last Easter. If peace was a promise, then it was a promise barred by that great red smear of light for, unless the French surrendered in the next few days, then a battle would have to be fought. One last battle.

‘What will you do, William?’ Sharpe took the bottle and drank.

Frederickson did not need the question explained. ‘Stay in the army. I don’t know another life and I don’t think I’d be a good tradesman.’ He fumbled with flint and steel, struck a spark to his tinder box, then lit a cheroot. ‘I find I have a talent for violence,’ he said with amusement.

‘Is that good?’ Sharpe asked.

Frederickson hooted with laughter at the question. ‘Violence solved your problem with bloody Bampfylde! If you hadn’t fought the bugger then you can be certain he’d even now be making trouble for you in London. Violence may not be good, my friend, but it has a certain efficiency in the resolution of otherwise insoluble problems.’ Frederickson took the bottle. ‘I can’t say I’m enamoured of a peacetime army, but there’ll probably be another war before too long.’

‘You should get married,’ Sharpe said quietly.

Frederickson sneered at that thought. ‘Why do condemned men always encourage others to join them on the gallows?’

‘It isn’t like that.’

‘Marriage is an appetite,’ Frederickson said savagely, ‘and once you’ve enjoyed the flesh, all that’s left is a carcass of dry bones.’

‘No,’ Sharpe protested.

‘I do hope it isn’t true,’ Frederickson toasted Sharpe with the half empty wine bottle, ‘and I especially hope it isn’t true for all of my dear friends who have pinned their hopes of peacetime happiness on something as wilfully frail as a wife.’

‘It isn’t true,’ Sharpe insisted, and he hoped that when he returned to headquarters he would find a letter from Jane.

But there was none, and he remembered their arguments before the duel and he wondered whether his own peacetime happiness had been soured by his stubbornness.

And in the morning the brigade was ordered to advance eastwards. Towards Toulouse.

In finding Sergeant Challon, Major Pierre Ducos had unwittingly found his perfect instrument. Challon liked to have a woman in his bed, meat at his table, and wine in his belly, but most of all Challon liked to have his decisions made for him and he was ready to reward the decision maker with a dogged loyalty.

It was not that Challon was a stupid man; far from it, but the Dragoon Sergeant understood that other men were cleverer than himself, and he quickly discovered that Pierre Ducos was among the cleverest he had ever known. That was a comfort to Challon, for if he was to survive his treachery to the Emperor’s cause, then he would need cleverness.

The nine horsemen had travelled eastwards from Bordeaux. Their route took them far to the north of where Marshal Soult retreated in front of the British army, and far to the south of where the Emperor protected Paris with a dazzling display of defensive manoeuvres. Ducos and his men rode into the deserted uplands of central France. They lived well on their journey. There was money for an inn room each night, and money for those men who wanted whores, and money for food, and money for spare horses, and money for good civilian clothes to replace the Dragoons’ uniforms, though Ducos noted that each man saved his green uniform coat. That was pride; the same pride that made the Dragoons wear their hair long so that, one day, they might again plait it into the distinctive cadenettes . Their possession of money also made the nine men ride circumspectly, for the forests were full of dangers, yet by avoiding the main roads they travelled safely around the places where hungry brigands laid desperate ambushes.

Ducos, Sergeant Challon, and three of the troopers were Frenchmen. One of the other Dragoons was a German; a great hulking Saxon with eyes the colour of a winter’s sky and hands that, despite the loss of two fingers on his right hand, could still break a man’s neck with ease. There was a Pole who sat dark and quiet, yet seemed eager to please Ducos. The other two Dragoons were Italians, recruited in the early heady days of Napoleon’s career. All spoke French, all trusted Challon and, because Challon trusted Ducos, they were happy to offer allegiance to the small bespectacled Major.

After a week’s eastward travel Ducos found a deserted upland farm where for a few days the nine men lay up in seclusion. They were not hiding, for Ducos was happy to let the Dragoons ride to the nearby town so long as they fetched him back whatever old newspapers were available. ‘If we’re not hiding,’ one of the Italians grumbled to Challon, ‘then what are we doing?’ The Italians disliked being stranded in the primitive comforts of the turf-roofed farmhouse, but Challon told them to be patient.

‘The Major’s sniffing the wind,’ Challon said, and Ducos was indeed sniffing the strange winds that blew across France, and he was beginning to detect a danger in them. After two weeks in the farm Ducos told Challon of his fears. The two men walked down the valley, crossed an uncut meadow and walked beside a quick stream. ‘You realize,’ Ducos said, ‘that the Emperor will never forgive us?’

‘Does it matter, sir?’ Challon, ever the soldier, had a carbine in his right hand while his eyes watched the forest’s edge across the stream. ‘God bless the Emperor, sir, but he can’t last for ever. The bastards will get him sooner rather than later.’

‘Did you ever meet the Emperor?’ Ducos asked.

‘Never had that honour, sir. I saw him often enough, of course, but never met him, sir.’