Sharpe 3-Book Collection 6: Sharpe's Honour, Sharpe's Regiment, Sharpe's Siege (37 page)

The wagons swarmed with people. Soldiers fleeing the city, drivers, camp-followers, all ran through the wagon park. Some began to slit the tarpaulins and drag boxes from the loads. Muskets fired as guards tried to protect the Emperor’s property, and then the guards realised that the Emperor had lost this property and whoever took it now might keep it. They joined the looters.

Thousands of French troops were streaming past the blocked wagons, trampling the crops and running eastwards. Generals rode with the cavalry, rehearsing the excuses they would make, while other men swerved into the wagons and searched desperately for wives and children.

King Joseph was in his carriage, fleeing towards the road block, and then there was the thunder of hooves, the sight of lifted sabres, and the first British cavalry, sent around the city, descended on the panicked, fleeing mob.

The King escaped only by abandoning his carriage. He scrambled from the right hand door as the British cavalry wrenched open the left. He abandoned his belongings and ran with his erstwhile subjects.

Women and children screamed. They did not know where their men were, only that the army had dissolved into a mob and they must run. Hundreds stayed in the baggage park, tearing the wagonloads down, not caring that the British cavalry were coming. Better to be rich for just a few minutes than eternally poor. From the city came the Spaniards, many with long knives ready for the slaughter.

Captain Saumier heard the shout for the army to go to Salvatierra and guessed that the city’s single eastern gate would already be cramming with desperate people. He shouted at the coachman to go for the north gate.

It was a sensible move. The narrow eastern streets were filled with carriages and wagons, with men shouting and women screaming in fear. Saumier would take La Marquesa through the northern gate and then turn east.

The wheels bounced on the cobbles, skidded at one corner, but the driver held the balance and cracked the long whip over the horses’ heads.

Saumier, his one good hand holding a pistol, leaned from the window and saw the city gate ahead. ‘Go on! Go on!’ His voice was loud over the harsh sound of the wheels and hooves, over the crack of the whip and the shouts of other fugitives. General Verigny had told Captain Saumier to protect this woman, and Saumier, who thought her more beautiful than any woman he had ever seen, hoped that his protection would merit a reward.

The carriage slowed to pass the narrow gate, a soldier tried to jump onto the step and Saumier hit the man with the brass butt of his pistol. The man fell under the wheel, screaming, the carriage leaped into the air, jarred down, and then it was through the archway and rattling down the street of houses that lay outside the wall. The coachman turned the horses eastwards at a crossroads, shouted at them, cracked the whip again, and the carriage picked up speed as Saumier leaned back on the upholstered cushions and pushed his pistol into his belt.

La Marquesa, her maid nervous beside her, looked at him. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Wherever we can, dear lady.’ Saumier was nervous. He could see the men running from the battle and could hear the heavy noise of the gun wheels coming from the plain. As the coach cleared the last houses of the northern suburb he leaned again from the window and was appalled by the chaos he saw. It was as if a whole army ran a panicked race. Then he heard the brakeshoes slap on the wheels, he lurched as the carriage slowed, and he looked ahead to see the massive jam of wagons, guns and carriages that blocked the eastern road. ‘Go round! Go round!’

The coachman pulled on the reins, bumping the carriage off the road and onto the verge. He shouted at the horses, cracking the whip above their ears, and the carriage seemed to surge and heave its way over the wet ground, yet whip the horses as he could, the coachman knew the carriage was slowing.

The rear of the coach dipped and Saumier, opening the door to lean out, saw people clinging to the baggage rack. He threatened them with his pistol, but their weight had slowed the carriage too much, the wheels were already sinking into the morass, and, slowly, finally, it stopped.

Saumier swore.

A dozen people were running towards the horses, knives drawn to cut the traces and use the animals for their own escape. He reached for La Marquesa, politeness forgotten, and pulled her out of the coach. ‘Come on!’

The maid was hunched into a corner, refusing to go out into the panicked mass of people. La Marquesa, made of sterner stuff, jumped onto the wet ground. Saumier saw she had a pistol. ‘Stop them!’

A man was hacking at the silver trace chains of the horses. La Marquesa aimed at him, her teeth gritted, pulled the trigger, and the man screamed, blood spurting from his neck, and Captain Saumier, his own pistol thrust into his sling, finished the man’s work by hacking down with his sabre. He led the horse from the harness. ‘My Lady?’

‘Wait!’ She had climbed onto the driver’s seat, lifted the coachman’s bench, and now dragged a leather sack from the compartment beneath. She gestured Saumier to lead his horse closer, then, modesty gone and not caring who saw her legs, she slithered across from the driving perch onto the horse’s back. Saumier climbed up behind La Marquesa and shook the long driving rein with his good hand. Behind them, sabres raised, the British cavalry swept towards the road block. The coachman had taken another horse and galloped eastwards.

Saumier kicked back with his heels and the horse, frightened and lively, went into a gallop that took them past the stuck wagons. La Marquesa, mourning the fact that she had been forced to abandon all her belongings and her wealth, saw the soldiers and their women scattering silver dollars on the ground and scrambling at the wagons for more plunder. There were riches to be made here this day, but the British were coming fast from the west, and she would ride eastwards to safety. Saumier, the bandage on his eye flecked with mud thrown up by the hooves, took her to the north of the road and galloped onwards.

Pierre Ducos, in the stables of the French headquarters, had kept a swift, English horse taken from a captured officer. He had mounted it when disaster struck, had taken his precious papers, and was already a mile beyond the blockage on the road. He paused where the road climbed a small rise and looked behind.

A rabble swarmed towards him.

Soldiers, bloody soldiers! Trust the soldiers to lose a country which could have been kept by politics and guile. He smiled thinly. He did not feel any desperate sadness at defeat. He had become used to military defeat while in Spain. Wellington against the Emperor, he thought, that would be a battle worth seeing! Like ice meeting fire, or intelligence meeting genius.

He turned east again. He had planned for defeat, and now France would find its salvation in his plans. The fine intricate machine he had wrought, the Treaty of Valençay, would be needed after all. He smiled thinly, spurred his horse, and rode towards the greatness he had so long planned.

Saumier had chosen to go north of the road, well clear of the panic, but he had chosen wrong. A great ditch faced him, full of dirty water, but without a saddle and with the horse double-ridden, he knew he could not jump it. He slid from the horse’s back. ‘Stay there, my Lady.’

‘I’d not planned on leaving you, Captain.’

Saumier gripped the long driving reins with the fingers of his injured arm and walked to the ditch’s edge. He plumbed it with his sabre and found that it was shallow, but with a soft, treacherous bottom. ‘Sit tight, my Lady! Hold onto the collar!’

The horse was nervous so Saumier would have to lead it through the ditch. He stepped into the water and felt his boot sucked into the slimy mud. He slipped, held his balance, then tugged on the reins.

The horse nervously came forward. It put its head down and La Marquesa gripped the mane.

Saumier smiled at her with his yellow teeth. ‘Don’t frighten it, my Lady! Gently, now, gently!’

The horse stepped into the water.

‘Come on! Come on!’

A horseman took the ditch in one stride a few yards to Saumier’s left. The Frenchman looked up, fearing a British cavalryman, but the man wore no uniform. Saumier tugged on the reins again. ‘Come on, boy! Come on!’

La Marquesa screamed and Saumier looked up at her, ready to chide her for frightening the horse, then he saw why she had shouted in fear.

The horseman had stopped beyond the ditch. The man grinned at Saumier.

More horsemen were behind La Marquesa. One of them was a huge man with a beard that seemed to grow from every part of his face.

The bearded man came forward and smiled. From his belt he drew a pistol.

Saumier let go of the reins. He had his sabre drawn, but his boots were stuck in the filth at the ditch’s bottom.

El Matarife
still smiled. He had followed the carriage from the city and now he had found the woman he had been ordered to capture. She was to be taken to a nunnery, those were his brother’s orders, but
El Matarife
planned to give her one taste of the joys she would miss in the close confinement of a convent. He glanced at her, and she was more beautiful than a man could wish for, even screaming in horror at the sight of his face. The man in the ditch dropped his sabre and fumbled for the pistol in his holster.

El Matarife
pulled his trigger.

Captain Saumier jerked backwards, hands flying up and pistol falling.

He splashed into the ditch, his boots slowly sucking up from the bubbling mud.

He floated.

His blood drifted in the dirty water, spreading as he died, choking on ditch-water and blood.

El Matarife
smiled at La Marquesa, at the woman whose golden hair had been like a beacon in the havoc. ‘My Lady,’ he said. He began to laugh, the laugh getting louder and louder until it blotted out the screams of the chaos. ‘My Lady, my dear lady.’ He reached for her, dragged her belly-downwards over his saddle. She screamed, and he slapped her rump to keep her quiet, then headed back towards the wagons. As he had followed her carriage here he had seen the gold and silver scattered like leaves upon the ground. There would be time, he knew, to take some for himself before he delivered the golden whore to her new prison. He went into the chaos with his prisoner.

‘God save Ireland!’ Patrick Harper’s favourite oath, saved only for the things that truly astonished him, was hardly sufficient to describe what he saw as he crossed the shallow crest where the grass was still scorched from the French guns that had made the slaughter on the bridge. He tried another. ‘God save England, too.’

Sharpe laughed. The sight, for a few seconds, had taken his mind from La Marquesa.

Angel stared open-mouthed. An army was running a race. Thousands and thousands of Frenchmen, all order gone, ran between the river and the city, streaming eastwards, abandoning muskets, packs, anything that would slow them.

From Sharpe’s right, cavalry approached, British cavalry who stared and laughed at the tide of panicked men. Their Major came towards Sharpe and grinned. ‘It’s cruel to charge them!’

Sharpe smiled. ‘Do you have a glass, Major?’

The cavalryman offered Sharpe a small spyglass. The Rifleman opened it, trained it, and saw what he thought he had seen with his naked eye. The road was blocked. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of wagons that were stuck in the fields east of Vitoria. He could see carriages there, their windows red from the setting sun. There was a woman there, and a treasure there. He closed the glass and gave it back to the cavalryman. ‘You see those wagons, Major?’

‘Yes.’

‘There’s a god-damned fortune there. The gold of a bloody empire.’

The cavalryman stared at Sharpe as if he was mad, then slowly smiled. ‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m sure. It’s a king’s ransom.’

The cavalryman looked at Angel, ragged on his stolen horse, then at Harper, huge on his. ‘You think you can keep up with us?’

‘Think you can keep up with
us?’
Sharpe smiled. In truth he needed these Hussars to help cut through the panicked mass of fugitives who still streamed between them and the city.

The Major grinned, brushed at his moustaches and turned to look at his men. ‘Troop!’

The trumpeter challenged the sky, the troopers drew their sabres and walked the horses forward. The men were in ranks of ten, knee to knee. The Major drew his sabre and looked at Sharpe. ‘This is going to be better than a strong scent on a fine day!’ He looked at his trumpeter and nodded.

The trumpet sounded the gallop. There was no other way to go through the flood of fugitives and the Hussars shouted, raised their sabres, and plunged into the fleeing army.

If Sharpe had not been so concerned for the fate of La Marquesa he would have remembered that ride for ever. The Hussars cut into the French retreat like men going into a dark river, and, just as in a river, the current took them downstream. The French, seeing their enemy coming, parted before the horses and only those who could not move fast enough were cut down by the curved blades.

They went like steeplechasers. They crossed a small stream, hooves shattering water silver in the air, scrambled up a field bank, jumped a stone wall, and the men whooped like maniacs and the French split before them. The hooves hurled mud higher than the guidon that was held aloft by the standard bearer.

There were guns everywhere, abandoned field guns with blackened muzzles, their wheels mired in the soft earth. The cavalry rode in the middle of their enemies and not a hand was lifted against them.

There were carts overturned, mules running free, wounded men crawling eastwards, and everywhere there were women. They called for their men, for their husbands or lovers, and their voices were forlorn and hopeless.

The Major, breaking free of the French rout, cut his men towards the wagons. Sharpe shouted at Harper and Angel, pulled left, and reined Carbine in. He had stopped by a dark blue carriage, its wheels sunk into soft turf, its varnished panels spattered with mud. He stared at the coat of arms that was painted on the carriage door. He knew it. He had seen it first on another carriage in Salamanca’s splendid square.