Sharpe's Eagle (35 page)

"Is it worth money, sir?"

"I don't know." Out of habit Sharpe was reloading his rifle, and he grunted as he forced the
ramrod into the fouled barrel.

"But they'll reward us, sir, surely?"

Sharpe grinned at the Sergeant. "I'd think so. The Patriotic fund ought to be good for a
hundred guineas, who knows?" He slid the ramrod back into place. "Perhaps they'll just say "thank
you"." He bowed ironically to the Irishman. "Thank you, Sergeant Harper."

Harper bowed clumsily back. "It was a pleasure, Captain Sharpe." He paused. "The bastards had
better pay some-thing. I can't wait to see Simmerson's face when you give him this."

Sharpe laughed, he was looking forward to that mo-ment. He took the Eagle from Harper. "Come
on. We'd better find them."

Harper touched Sharpe's shoulder and froze, staring into the smoke above the stream. Sharpe
could see nothing. "What is it?"

"Don't you see it, sir?" Harper's voice was hushed, excited. "There! Damn! It's
gone."

"What, for God's sake, what?"

Harper turned to him. "Would you wait, sir? Two minutes?"

Sharpe grinned. "A bird?"

"Aye. The magpie with the blue tail. It went over the stream and it can't be far." Harper's
face was lit up, the battle suddenly forgotten, the capture of the Eagle a small thing against
the spotting of the rare bird he had yearned so long to see.

Sharpe laughed. "Go on. I'll wait here."

The Sergeant went silently towards the stream, leaving Sharpe in the drifting smoke among the
bodies. Once a horse trotted past, intent on its own business, its flank a sheet of blood, and
far off, behind the flames, Sharpe could hear bugles calling the living into ranks. He stared at
the Eagle, at the thunderbolt gripped in the claw, the wreath round the bird's neck, and felt a
fresh surge of elation at its capture. They could not send him to the West Indies now! Simmerson
could do his worst, but the man who brought back the first captured French Eagle was safe from
Sir Henry. He smiled, held the bird up so its wings caught the light, and heard the hoof beats
behind him.

His rifle was on the ground and he had to leave it as he rolled desperately to avoid Gibbons'
charge. The Lieuten-ant, curved sabre drawn, was wild-eyed and leaning from the saddle; the blade
hissed over Sharpe's head, he fell, kept rolling, and knelt up to see Gibbons reining in the
horse, turning it with one hand, and urging it forward. The Lieutenant was giving Sharpe no time,
even to draw his sword; instead he pointed the sabre like a lance and spurred forward so that the
blade would spear into Sharpe's stomach. Sharpe dropped and the horse went thundering beside him,
turned on its back legs, and Gibbons was high over him with the sabre stabbing downwards. Neither
man spoke. The horse whinnied, reared and lashed with its feet, and Sharpe twisted away as the
sabre jabbed down.

Sharpe swung with the Eagle, aiming for the horse's head, but Gibbons was too good a horseman
and he smiled as he easily avoided the wild blow. The Lieutenant hefted the sabre in his hand.
"Give me the Eagle, Sharpe."

Sharpe looked round. The loaded rifle was five yards away and he ran towards it, knowing it
was too far, hearing the hooves behind him, and then the sabre cut into his pack and threw him
flat on the ground. He fell on the Eagle, twisted to his right, and the horse was pirouetting
above him, the hooves like hammers above his face, and the sabre blade was a curve of light
behind the glinting horseshoes. He rolled again, felt a numbing blow as one of the hooves struck
his shoulder, but he kept rolling away from Gibbons' sabre. It was hopeless. The grass smelt in
his nostrils, the air was full of the flying hooves, the horse staying above him, treading beside
him; he waited for the blade to spike into him and pin him to the dry ground. He was angry with
himself, for being caught, for forgetting about Gibbons, and he wondered how long the Lieutenant
had stalked him through the smoke.

He could hardly move his right arm, the whole of it seemed paralysed by the blow from the
hoof, but he lunged up with the Eagle as if it was a quarterstaff, trying to force the hooves
away from his body. Damn that magpie! Couldn't Harper hear the fight? Then the sabre was over his
stomach and Gibbons' smiling face was above him, and the Lieutenant paused. "She felt good,
Sharpe. And I'll take that Eagle as well."

Gibbons seemed to laugh at him, the Lieutenant's mouth stretching and stretching, and still he
did not stab down-wards. His eyes widened and Sharpe began to move, away from the sabre, climbing
to his feet, and he saw the blood coming from Gibbons' throat and falling, slowly and thickly, on
the sabre. Sharpe was still moving, the Eagle swinging, and the wing of the French trophy smashed
into Gibbons' mouth, breaking the teeth, forcing back the head, but the Lieutenant was dead. The
Eagle had forced him back, but the body toppled towards Sharpe and in its back, through the ribs,
was a bayonet on a French musket. Sergeant Harper stood on the far side of the horse and grinned
at Sharpe.

Gibbons' body slumped beside the horse and Sharpe stared at it, at the bayonet and strange
French musket that had been driven clean into the lungs and was stuck there, swaying above the
body. He looked at Harper.

"Thank you."

"My pleasure." The Sergeant was grinning broadly, as if he had been pleased to see Sharpe
scrambling for his life. "It was worth being in this army just to do that."

Sharpe leaned on the Eagle's staff, catching his breath, appalled at the closeness of death.
He shook his head at Harper. "The bastard nearly got me!" He sounded aston-ished, as if it had
been unthinkable for Gibbons to prove the better fighter.

"He would have had to finish me off first, sir." It was said lightly enough, but Sharpe knew
the Sergeant had spoken the truth, and he smiled in acknowledgement and then went to pick up his
rifle. He turned again. "Patrick?"

"Sir?"

"Thank you."

Harper brushed it off. "Just make sure they give us more than a hundred guineas. It's not
every day we capture a bloody Eagle."

Gibbons was not carrying much: a handful of guineas, a watch broken by his fall, and the
expensive sabre that they would be forced to leave behind. Sharpe joined Harper and, kneeling by
the crumpled body, he thrust his hand into Gibbons' collar and found what he had half expected: a
gold chain. Most soldiers carried something valuable round their necks and Sharpe knew that,
should he die, some enemy would find the bag of coins round his own neck. Harper glanced up. "I
missed that."

It was a locket and inside, a girl's picture. She was blonde, like Gibbons, but her lips were
full where his were thin. Her eyes, despite the smallness of the miniature, seemed to look out of
the gold case with amusement and life. Harper leaned over. "What does it say, sir?"

Sharpe read the words inscribed inside the open lid.

"God keep you. Love, Jane."

Harper whistled very softly. "She's a pretty one, sir. Must be his sister."

Sharpe took the locket and pushed it into his cartridge pouch and then glanced once more at
the dead man with the blood glistening on his thin face. Did she know what kind of man her
brother was?

"Come on, Sergeant."

They walked over the grass, stamping through the flames, until they saw the solitary yellow
colour of the South Essex. Lieutenant Knowles saw them first, shouted, and suddenly the Light
Company were round them, slapping their backs, speaking words they could not hear and pushing
them towards the group of horsemen by the colour. Sharpe looked past a beaming Forrest to see
Lawford. "Sir?"

Lawford laughed at Sharpe's surprise. "I understand you have the honour to command my Light
Company?"

"Yours?"

Lawford raised his eyebrows. He was exquisite with silver lace. "Do you disapprove, Captain
Sharpe?"

Sharpe grinned and shook his head. "Sir Henry?"

Lawford shrugged his elegant shoulders. "Shall we just say that Sir Henry suddenly felt a
burning desire to return to the good Burghers of Paglesham."

Sharpe wanted to laugh. He had kept the promise to Lennox, but he knew the real reason he had
hacked his way to the French Eagle was to save his own career, and had it all been unnecessary?
Denny's death, the killing of so many others, just so he would not go to the West Indies? The
trophy was low at his side, hidden in the press of men, but he dragged it clear so that the
gilded statuette suddenly flashed in the light. He handed it up to Lawford. "The Battalion's
missing colour, sir. It was the best Ser-geant Harper and I could do."

Lawford stared at the two men, at the tiredness beneath the powder stains, at the lines on
their faces grooved with blood from scalp wounds, and at the black patches where bayonets had
sprung blood into their green jackets. He took the Eagle, disbelieving, knowing it was the one
thing that would restore the Battalion's pride, and hoisted it high into the air. The South
Essex, so long scorned by the army, saw it and cheered, slapped each other's backs, hoisted their
muskets triumphantly into the air, and cheered until other Battalions stopped to see what the
noise was about.

Above them, on the Medellin, General Hill heard the excitement and trained a telescope onto
the Battalion that had so nearly lost the battle. He caught the Eagle in the lens and his mouth
dropped open. ,I'll be damned! Bless my soul! The strangest thing. The South Essex have captured
an Eagle!"

There was a dry laugh beside him, and Hill turned to see Sir Arthur Wellesley.
"Sir?"

"I'll be damned too, Hill. That's only the third time I've ever heard you swear." He took the
glass from Hill and looked down the slope. "God damn it! You're right! Let's go and see this
strange bird."

The wine was dark red in the crystal glasses, the deep polished table shone from a score of
candles in their silver holders, the paintings whose ancient varnish reflected the circle of
light showed grave and eminent ancestors of the Spanish family in whose Talavera mansion Sir
Arthur Wellesley was host to a dinner party. Even the food was fairly equal to the occasion. In
the week since the battle the supply situation had worsened, the Spanish promises unfulfilled,
and the troops were on meagre half-rations. Wellesley, as befitted a General, had done better
than most, and Sharpe had sipped a slightly watered down chicken soup, enjoyed jugged hare, eaten
amply of Wellesley's favourite mutton, and listened to his fellow guests grumble about the diet
as they drank unending bottles of wine. "Daddy` Hill was there, rubicund and happy, continually
smiling at Sharpe, shaking his head and saying, "Bless me, Sharpe, an Eagle." Robert Crauford sat
opposite Sharpe; Black Bob, whom Sharpe had not seen since the retreat to Corunna. Crauford had
missed the Battle of Talavera by one day even though he had marched his crack Light Division
forty-two miles in twenty-six hours to catch up with Wellesley. Among the troops he had brought
from England were the First Battalion of the 95th Rifles, and Sharpe had already been generously
entertained by their mess in celebration of his feat. They had done more than that. They had
presented him with a new uniform and he sat at Wellesley's table resplendent in smart green
cloth, black leather, and silver trappings. He had kept his old uniform. Tomorrow, when the army
marched again, he would prefer to wear the bloodstained cavalry overalls and the comfortable
French boots rather than this immac-ulate uniform and fragile shoes.

Black Bob Crauford was in good form. He was the sternest disciplinarian in the army, a tyrant
of excessive rages, loved and hated by his troops. Few Generals asked more of their men, or
received it, and if his demands were backed up by savage punishments then at least the men knew
Crauford's justice was even-handed and impartial. Sharpe remembered seeing Crauford catch a
company officer being carried piggy-back across an ice cold stream in the northern
mountains.

"Drop him, sir! Drop him!" the General shouted from the dry safety of his horse to the
astonished private and, to the delight of the suffering troops, the officer was dumped
unceremoniously into the waist-high water. Now Crauford fixed Sharpe with a cynical eye and
thumped the table, rattling the silverware. "You were lucky, Sharpe, lucky!"

"Yes, sir."

"Don't you "yes sir" me." Sharpe saw Wellesley watching with an amused eye. Crauford pushed a
bottle of red wine towards Sharpe. "You lost damn near half your company! If you hadn't come back
with the Eagle you would have deserved to have been broken right back to private again. Aren't I
right?"

Sharpe inclined his head. "You are, sir."

Crauford leaned back, satisfied, and raised his glass to the Rifleman. "But it was damn well
done, all the same."

There was laughter round the table. Lawford, a confec-tion of silver and lace, and confirmed,
at least temporarily, as Commanding Officer of the South Essex, leaned back and put two more
opened bottles on the table. "How's the excellent Sergeant Harper?"

Sharpe smiled. "Recovering, sir."

"Was he wounded badly?" Hill leaned forward into the candlelight, his round, farmer's face
suffused with con-cern. Sharpe shook his head. "No, sir. The Sergeant's mess of the First
Battalion were kind enough to celebrate with him. I believe he proposed the theory that one man
from Donegal could drink as much as any three Englishmen."

Hogan slapped the table. The Irish Engineer was cheerfully drunk and he raised his glass to
Wellesley. "We Irishmen are never beaten. Isn't that so, sir?"

Wellesley raised his eyebrows. He had drunk even less than Sharpe. "I never count myself an
Irishman, Captain Hogan, though perhaps I share that characteristic with them."

"Damn that, sir," Crauford growled. "I've heard you say that just because a man is born in a
stable it doesn't make him into a horse!"