Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe’s Christmas

Even at the time the request seemed a bit odd to me. Sharpe, bless him, is not a man of peace. Goodwill? Yes, to those he likes, but he and Christmas are not a natural fit. It is a season, after all, when we enjoin peace on earth, it is about shepherds and babies, angels and wonder, gifts and feasting, while Sharpe is about struggle. The mismatch is almost total, but I was intrigued by the request and tried to write a tale which, while not ignoring Sharpe’s belligerent nature, nevertheless acknowledged the Christmas spirit.

For those who like to know where these stories fit into the larger scheme of Sharpe’s career, Sharpe’s Christmas falls after Sharpe’s Regiment . It is set in 1813, towards the end of the Peninsular War, but the story was written shortly after I had finished Sharpe’s Tiger , which tells of the Mysore War in India in 1799. Many of the references in Sharpe’s Christmas hark back to the events of 1799 when Sharpe briefly (and with official blessing) served in the small French force that was attempting to repel the British attack on Seringapatam, and one of the pleasures of writing it was to reintroduce Colonel Gudin, the Frenchman who was one of the first officers to spot the young Richard Sharpe’s potential.

I am most grateful to CeCe Motz, my irreplaceable assistant, who had the tiresome task of converting old newspaper pages into computer files so I could rewrite them. And I am also grateful to the Daily Mail , ever a lively newspaper, who commissioned this tale in the first place. The printed book, Sharpe’s Christmas , is available via www.bernardcornwell.net. It contains an additional story, Sharpe’s Ransom , which will be available as an ebook in 2012.

The two soldiers crouched at the edge of the field. One of them, a dark-haired man with a scarred face and hard eyes, eased back the cock of his rifle, aimed the weapon, but then, after a few seconds, lowered the gun. “Too far away,” he said softly.

The second man was even taller than the first and, like his companion, wore the faded green jacket of the 95 thRifles, but instead of a Baker rifle he carried a curious volley gun of seven barrels, each of half-inch bore and fired by a single flintlock. It was a murderous weapon, with a kick like an angry mule, but the man looked strong enough to use it. “No good trying with this,” he whispered, hefting the huge gun. “Only works at close range.”

“If we get too close they’ll run,” the first man suggested.

“Where can they run to?” the second man asked. His accent was of Ulster. “It’s a field, so it is. They can’t run away!”

“So we just walk up and shoot him?”

“Unless you want to strangle the sod, sir. Shooting’s quicker.”

Major Richard Sharpe lowered his rifle’s flint. “Come on, then,” he said, and the two men stood and walked gingerly towards the three bullocks. “You think they’ll charge us, Pat?” Sharpe asked.

“They’re gelded, sir!” Sergeant Major Patrick Harper offered. “Got about as much spunk as three blind mice.”

“They look dangerous to me,” Sharpe said. “They’ve got horns.”

“But they’re missing their other equipment, sir,” Harper said. “They can’t sing the low notes, if you follow me.” He pointed to one of the bullocks. “He’s got some rare fine fat on him, sir. He’ll roast just lovely.”

The chosen bullock, unaware of its fate, watched the two men. “I can’t just shoot it!” Sharpe protested.

“You bayoneted all those goats in Portugal, sir,” Harper pointed out, remembering a time when they had been stripping the countryside bare in front of a French advance, “so what’s different?”

“I hate goats.”

“But this is Christmas dinner, sir,” Harper encouraged his commanding officer. “Proper roast beef, sir, plum pudding and wine. We’ve got the plums and we’ve got the wine, so all we need is the beef and the suet.”

“Where do you get suet?”

“Off the bullock, of course,” Harper said with all the scorn of a country-raised man talking to someone from the city. “It’s white and tasty, sir, and stacked around the kidneys, so it is, but you’d best shoot the poor beast first. It’s kinder.”

Sharpe walked closer to the animal. It had large brown sad eyes that watched Sharpe with an expression of gentle fatalism. Sharpe cocked the rifle and the bullock blinked at the strange noise. Sharpe began to raise the weapon, then lowered it again. “I can’t do it, Pat.”

“One shot, sir. Imagine it’s a Frenchman.”

Sharpe lifted the rifle, cocked it and aimed straight between the bullock’s eyes. The animal still gazed at him. “You do it,” Sharpe said to Harper, lowering the gun.

“With this?” Harper held up the volley gun. “I’ll blow its bloody head off!”

“We don’t want its head, do we?” Sharpe said. “Just its rumps and suet. So go on, do it.”

“It’s not very accurate, sir, not a volley gun. It’s grand for killing Frogs, so it is, but not for slaughtering cattle. And I like the brains, I do. My ma used to fry them in a bit of butter and it tasted lovely. I don’t want to spatter brains across half of Spain. Best use your rifle.”

“So have the rifle,” Sharpe said, offering the weapon.

Harper gazed at the rifle for a second, but did not take it. “The thing is, sir,” the huge Irishman said, “that I drank a drop too much last night. My hands are shaky, see? Best that you do it, sir.”

Sharpe hesitated. The Light Company had set their hearts on a proper Christmas dinner: bloody roast beef, gravy thick enough to choke a rat and a brandy-soaked pudding clogged with plums and suet. “It’s daft, isn’t it?” he said. “I wouldn’t think twice if it was a Frog. It’s only a bloody cow.”

“It’s a bullock, sir.”

“What’s the difference?”

“You can’t milk this one, sir.”

“Right,” Sharpe said, and aimed the rifle again. “Just hold still,” he ordered the bullock, then crept a half pace closer so that the gun’s blackened muzzle was only a few inches from the coarse black hair between the beast’s sad eyes. “I shot a tiger once,” he said.

“Did you now, sir?” Harper said, without showing much interest. “So just imagine that beast is a tiger and shoot it.”

Sharpe gazed into the beast’s eyes. He had put wounded horses out of their misery and had shot enough hares, rabbits and foxes in his time, but somehow he could not squeeze the trigger, and then he was saved from having to shoot at all because a small, high and eager voice bailed him from the field’s far side. “Mister Sharpe, sir! Mister Sharpe!”

Sharpe lowered the rifle’s cock, then turned to see Ensign Charles Nicholls running over the grass. Nicholls had only just arrived in Spain and went everywhere at a tumultuous pace as if he feared the war might get away from him. “Slow down, Mister Nicholls,” Sharpe said.

“Yes, sir, I will, sir,” Ensign Nicholls said, not slowing his pace at all. “It’s Colonel Hogan, sir,” he said as he reached Sharpe, “he wants you, sir. He says it’s the Frogs, sir, and he says we’ve got to stop some Frogs, sir, and it’s urgent.”

Sharpe slung the rifle on his shoulder. “We’ll do this later, Sergeant Major,” he said.

“Yes, sir, of course we will.”

The bullock watched the men go, then lowered its head to the grass. “Were you going to shoot it, sir?” Nicholls asked excitedly.

“What do you think I was going to do?” Sharpe asked the boy. “Strangle it?”

“I couldn’t shoot one, sir,” Nicholls admitted. “I’d feel too sorry for it.” He gazed at Sharpe and Harper in admiration, and no wonder, for there were no two men in Wellington’s army more admired or feared. It had been Sharpe and Harper who had taken the French Eagle at Talavera, who had stormed through the breach of blood at Badajoz and cut the great road at the rout of Vitoria, and Nicholls hardly dared believe he was in their batallion. “You think we’re going to fight, sir?” he asked eagerly.