Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe’s Havoc - The Northern Portugal Campaign, Spring 1809

‘The pretty widow,’ the cook said, then sighed. ‘But we have not seen her in a month. A pity. He should have married her.’ She had a chickpea soup on the stove and she ladled some into a bowl, cut some cold mutton and put it on a tray with the soup, red wine and a small loaf of newly baked bread. ‘Tell the Colonel the meal will be ready for his guest this afternoon.’

‘His guest?’ Luis asked, bemused.

‘One guest for dinner, he told us. Now hurry! Don’t let that soup get cold. You go up the stairs and turn right.’

Luis carried the tray upstairs. It was a fine house, well built and handsome, with some ancient paintings on the walls. He found the door to his master’s bedroom ajar and Christopher must have heard the footsteps for he called out that Luis should come in without knocking. ‘Put the food by the window,’ he ordered.

Christopher had changed his clothes and now, instead of wearing the black breeches, black boots and red tailcoat of an English officer, he was in sky-blue breeches that had black leather reinforcements wherever they might touch a saddle. The breeches were skin tight, made so by the laces that ran up both flanks from the ankles to the waist. The Colonel’s new jacket was of the same sky blue as the breeches, but decorated with lavish silver piping that climbed to curl around the stiff, high red collar. Over his left shoulder was a pelisse, a fake jacket trimmed with fur, while on a side table was a cavalry sabre and a tall black hat that bore a short silver cockade held in place by an enamelled badge.

And the enamelled badge displayed the tricolour of France.

‘I said you would be surprised,’ Christopher remarked to Luis who was, indeed, gaping at his master.

Luis found his voice. ‘You are …’ he faltered.

‘I am an English officer, Luis, as you very well know, but the uniform is that of a French hussar. Ah! Chickpea soup, I do so like chickpea soup. Peasant food, but good.’ He crossed to the table and, grimacing because his breeches were so tightly laced, lowered himself into the chair. ‘We shall be sitting a guest to dinner this afternoon.’

‘So I was told,’ Luis said coldly.

‘You will serve, Luis, and you will not be deterred by the fact that my guest is a French officer.’

‘French?’ Luis sounded disgusted.

‘French,’ Christopher confirmed, ‘and he will be coming here with an escort. Probably a large escort, and it would not do, would it, if that escort were to return to their army and say that their officer met with an Englishman? Which is why I wear this.’ He gestured at the French uniform, then smiled at Luis. ‘War is like chess,’ Christopher went on, ‘there are two sides and if the one wins then the other must lose.’

‘France must not win,’ Luis said harshly.

‘There are black and white pieces,’ Christopher continued, ignoring his servant’s protest, ‘and both obey rules. But who makes those rules, Luis? That is where the power lies. Not with the players, certainly not with the pieces, but with the man who makes the rules.’

‘France must not win,’ Luis said again. ‘I am a good Portuguese!’

Christopher sighed at his servant’s stupidity and decided to make things simpler for Luis to understand. ‘You want to rid Portugal of the French?’

‘You know I do!’

‘Then serve dinner this afternoon. Be courteous, hide your thoughts and have faith in me.’

Because Christopher had seen the light and now he would rewrite the rules.

Sharpe stared ahead to where the dragoons had lifted four skiffs from the river and used them to make a barricade across the road. There was no way round the barricade which stretched between two houses, for beyond the right-hand house was the river and beyond the left was the steep hill where the French infantry approached, and there were more French infantry behind Sharpe, which meant the only way out of the trap was to go straight through the barricade.

‘What do we do, sir?’ Harper asked.

Sharpe swore.

‘That bad, eh?’ Harper unslung his rifle. ‘We could pick some of those boys off the barricade there.’

‘We could,’ Sharpe agreed, but it would only annoy the French, not defeat them. He could defeat them, he was sure, because his riflemen were good and the enemy’s barricade was low, but Sharpe was also sure he would lose half his men in the fight and the other half would still have to escape the pursuit of vengeful horsemen. He could fight, he could win, but he could not survive the victory.

There really was only one thing to do, but Sharpe was reluctant to say it aloud. He had never surrendered. The very thought was horrid.

‘Fix swords,’ he shouted.

His men looked surprised, but they obeyed. They took the long sword bayonets from their scabbards and slotted them onto the rifle muzzles. Sharpe drew his own sword, a heavy cavalry blade that was a yard of slaughtering steel. ‘All right, lads. Four files!’

‘Sir?’ Harper was puzzled.

‘You heard me, Sergeant! Four files! Smartly, now.’

Harper shouted the men into line. The French infantry who had come from the city were only a hundred paces behind now, too far for an accurate musket shot though one Frenchman did try and his ball cracked into the whitewashed wall of a cottage beside the road. The sound seemed to irritate Sharpe. ‘On the double now!’ he snapped. ‘Advance!’

They trotted down the road towards the newly erected barricade which was two hundred paces ahead. The river slid grey and swirling to their right while on their left was a field dotted with the remnants of last year’s haystacks which were small and pointed so that they looked like bedraggled witches’ hats. A hobbled cow with a broken horn watched them pass. Some fugitives, despairing of passing the dragoons’ roadblock, had settled in the field to await their fate.

‘Sir?’ Harper managed to catch up with Sharpe, who was a dozen paces ahead of his men.

‘Sergeant?’

It was always ‘Sergeant’, Harper noted, when things were grim, never ‘Patrick’ or ‘Pat’. ‘What are we doing, sir?’

‘We’re charging that barricade, Sergeant.’

‘They’ll fillet our guts, if you’ll pardon me saying so, sir. The buggers will turn us inside out.’

‘I know that,’ Sharpe said, ‘and you know that. But do they know that?’

Harper stared at the dragoons who were levelling their carbines across the keels of the upturned skiffs. The carbine, like a musket and unlike a rifle, was smoothbore and thus inaccurate, which meant the dragoons would wait until the last moment to unleash their volley, and that volley promised to be heavy for still more of the green-coated enemy were squeezing onto the road behind the barricade and aiming their weapons. ‘I think they do know that, sir,’ Harper observed.

Sharpe agreed, though he would not say so. He had ordered his men to fix swords because the sight of fixed bayonets was more frightening than the threat of rifles alone, but the dragoons did not seem to be worried by the menace of the steel blades. They were crowding together so that every carbine could join the opening volley and Sharpe knew he would have to surrender, but he was unwilling to do it without a single shot being fired. He quickened his pace, reckoning that one of the dragoons would fire at him too soon and that one shot would be Sharpe’s signal to halt, throw down his sword and so save his men’s lives. The decision hurt, but it was the only option he had unless God sent a miracle.

‘Sir?’ Harper struggled to keep up with Sharpe. ‘They’ll kill you!’

‘Get back, Sergeant,’ Sharpe said, ‘that’s an order.’ He wanted the dragoons to fire at him, not at his men.

‘They’ll bloody kill you!’ Harper said.