Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe’s Company - The Siege of Badajoz, January to April 1812

The men themselves were confident, looking forward to Badajoz because the casualties at Ciudad Rodrigo had been blessedly light. The South Essex, like the rest of the army, thought that if they could storm the breaches at Ciudad Rodrigo for only sixty dead, then they would slice through the defences of Badajoz for a similarly light loss. Teresa listened to them and had shaken her head. ‘They don’t know Badajoz.’ Perhaps, Sharpe thought, it was as well that they did not.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Badajoz!’

They stopped three days in Portalegre, letting a rain-storm hammer overhead that had made the roads treacherous and a river crossing impassable. They were the only battalion in town, living in comfort, but Sharpe could see from the doorposts of the houses how frequently the army had used this road. The Commissary marked the doors with chalk; thus SE/L/6 meant that six men of the South Essex’s Light Company were to be billeted in that particular house, but each house had a jumble of such fading marks that spoke of the years of this war. The marks told of English Regiments, Irish, Welsh, Scottish, German, Portuguese, and there were even strange markings left by the French battalions. Only when Badajoz was taken would the war move again into Spain and leave Portalegre to its customary peace.

Sharpe and Teresa slept in an inn, the Battalion’s headquarters, and for Sharpe the three days were a period of contentment, perhaps his last before they would meet again, if they did, inside high, dark fortress walls. Teresa was leaving soon, riding on ahead to Badajoz, to the small, sick baby. She had to leave before the British arrived at the city and its gates were shut.

‘Why Badajoz?’ Sharpe asked the question again, lying in the Portalegre attic as the afternoon rained itself into a soaking night.

‘I had family there. I didn’t want her born at home.’

He knew why! Because his daughter was a bastard, with the mark of shame on her. ‘But they know, don’t they?’

She shrugged. ‘They know, but they don’t see what they know, so they pretend they do not know.’ She shrugged again. ‘And my father’s brother is a rich man, they’re childless, and they look after her well.’

Antonia was ill. Teresa did not know what was the matter, nor indeed did the doctors, but the child was small, did not hold her food, and the sisters in the convent had said that the child would die.

Teresa shook her head. ‘She will not.’ It was said with grim determination; no child of hers would give up easily its hold on life.

‘And she has black hair?’ Sharpe was enthralled by any scrap of information.

‘You know she has, I have told you a hundred times. Long, black hair, and she was born with it, then it all fell out, and now it is coming back. And she has a little nose. Not like mine, and not bent like yours.’

‘Perhaps she isn’t mine.’

She hit him, laughing. ‘She’s yours. She scowls, like this.’ And she screwed up her face in imitation of Sharpe and growled at him so that he pulled her down on to the bed and they lay in silence, the rain slapping at the window, and he wondered what lay ahead on the greasy, stony road.

‘Perhaps we should marry?’

She did not reply at first. She lay beside him and listened to the rain, to voices downstairs, and then the clatter of hooves in the stableyard. ‘Someone’s travelling.’

He said nothing.

She traced the scar on his cheek. ‘Would you live in Casatejada?’

He still lay silent. To be a stranger in a strange land? To be Teresa’s man, dependant on her for survival? He sighed. ‘Maybe. After the war.’

She smiled, knowing the answer to be meaningless. This was the fourth year of fighting the French in Spain, and still the country was occupied by the enemy. No one could remember a time of peace. Before they fought France, the Spanish had fought against the English until their fleet sailed to utter defeat at Trafalgar, sunk or captured with the French fleet. There was no peace beyond the borders. Russia, Austria, Italy, Prussia, Denmark, Egypt, India, war everywhere, until now even the Americans were talking of war as if the young nation wanted to prove it could stand with the old world in a game that had racked the globe for two decades. It was a war fought on three continents, on all the oceans, and some men believed this was the final war, the ending of everything, the withering destruction foretold in the Bible. God only knew when it would end. Perhaps only when the last Frenchman, still dreaming of ruling the world, was hammered and battered into the blood-soaked mud.

Teresa kissed him. ‘After the war, Richard.’

Her hand lay over the pocket in his shirt and she pushed in her fingers to draw out the gold locket which contained Jane Gibbons’s picture. Sharpe had stolen the locket from her murdered brother. Teresa clicked it open and mocked him with her smile. ‘You met her, in England?’

‘Yes.’

‘She’s pretty.’

‘I suppose so.’

He tried to take the locket from her, but she closed strong fingers on it.

‘You suppose so! She is pretty, isn’t she?’

‘Yes, very.’

She nodded, satisfied. ‘You’ll marry her.’ He laughed, thinking of the impossibility of the idea, but she shook her head. ‘You will, I can tell. Otherwise why do you carry this?’

He shrugged. ‘Superstition? It keeps me alive.’

She frowned at him and crossed herself; forehead, belly, nipple to nipple, an extravagant cross to warn off a demon. ‘What’s she like?’

Sharpe pulled a blanket over Teresa; her only dress was drying by the small fire. ‘She’s slim, she smiles a lot. She’s very rich and she’ll marry a very rich man.’ He grinned at her. ‘She’s soft. Comfortable.’

Teresa dismissed the implied criticism; anyone who had the chance to live in soft comfort was a fool to refuse. ‘How did you meet her?’

Sharpe was feeling uncomfortable and tried to change the subject, but she insisted. ‘Tell me, how?’

‘She wanted to know how her brother died.’

Teresa laughed. ‘And you told her?’

‘Not the truth. I told her he was killed by the French, fighting bravely.’

She laughed again. She knew the story; how Lieutenant Gibbons had tried to kill Sharpe and how Patrick Harper had bayoneted the Lieutenant. Sharpe thought back to the small, dark church in Essex, the blonde girl listening to his stumbling story, and the white marble stone that mocked the truth about her vicious, selfish, and sadistic brother.

To the memory of Lieutenant Christian Gibbons, a Native of this Parish, who Volunteered 4 February, 1809, from the Militia of this County into the Regiment of the South Essex, then United with the British Army in the Wars against Tyranny in Spain. He Distinguished Himself on the Field of Talavera where, by Night and by Day, the Attacks of the Enemy were Routed. Such was his Intrepidity that, having Endured the Assault of the Outnumbering Enemy, He and His Company Attacked and Captured a Standard of the French, the First such Glory to be Gained by our Armies in Spain. While thus Confirming his Courage and Spirit, he met a Hero’s Death on the 28th Day of July, 1809, in the Twenty-Fifth Year of his Age. This Monument is erected as a Just Tribute to so much Heroism and Worth by Sir Henry Simmerson, Commander of the Victorious Regiment, and by His Fellow Parishioners. AD. 1810.

Sharpe had laughed to himself, not just because Sir Henry had managed to claim a marble credit for the capture of the Eagle, which had happened after Sir Henry had been relieved of command, but because the whole stone was a lie. Gibbons had been nowhere near the Eagle when Sharpe and Harper had fought their way through the enemy battalion, but the marble would still be there, surmounted by its carved pile of weapons, when the truth had long been forgotten. There was a knock on the door. ‘Who is it?’