Sharpe's Gold (20 page)

The Brigadier sighed. 'I don't think it is, Captain.' Cox sat down wearily, pulled a sheet
of paper towards him, uncapped his ink, and took a fresh goose-quill. 'At ten o'clock
tomorrow morning, Captain, twenty-seventh August 1810.' He was writing quickly,
paraphrasing the formal order as the quill scratched on the paper. 'A detachment of my
troops will take charge of the bullion…' He paused; the room listened to the scrape of the
pen.'… Led by…" Cox looked round the room, found one of his officers. '… Colonel Barrios.'
Barrios nodded, a formal gesture. 'You, Colonel, will deliver the gold to Colonel
Jovellanos, who will be ready to leave at the north gate.' El Catolico nodded, clicked his
heels for attention. Cox looked up. 'Colonel?'

El Catolico smiled. His voice was at its silkiest. 'I was hoping to persuade you, sir,
to allow myself and some of my men to stay and help in your gallant defence."

Sharpe could not believe it. The bastard. He had as much intention of staying as Sharpe
had of handing over the gold.

Cox smiled, blinked with pleasure. 'That's uncommonly decent of you, Colonel.' He
gestured at the paper. 'Does it change anything?'

'Only that the gold, sir, could be handed to Senor Moreno, or one of my Lieutenants.'

'Of course, of course.' Cox dipped the quill, scratched out some words. 'To the Spanish
contingent of Colonel Jovellanos.' He raised an eyebrow to El Catolico. 'I think that
covers it.'

El Catolico bowed. 'Thank you, sir.' He shot a look of triumph at Sharpe. 'And, sir?' El
Catolico bowed again. 'Could the transfer be tonight?'

Sharpe held his breath, let it out slowly as Cox spoke. The Brigadier was frowning,
looking at the paper.

'Ten o'clock will do, Colonel.' Sharpe suspected he did not want to cross out the top
lines of the closely written order. Cox smiled at El Catolico, gestured at Sharpe. 'After
all, Captain Sharpe can hardly leave!'

El Catolico smiled politely. 'As you say, sir.'

So what was the bastard playing at? Why the suggestion that he might stay on? Sharpe
stared at the tall Spaniard, trying to fathom the motive. Could it be just to curry favour
with Cox? Sharpe doubted it; the Spaniard was getting most of what he wanted without
trying. Except that El Catolico did want one thing more. Sharpe thought of the dark hair on
the pillow, the slim body on the stiff, white linen sheets. The Spaniard wanted the girl, and
his revenge, and if it could not be tonight, then El Catolico would stay on till it was
accomplished.

Sharpe was suddenly aware that Cox had spoken his name. 'Sir?'

The Brigadier had pulled another sheet of paper forward. 'At ten o'clock tomorrow
morning, Captain, your Company will join my defences on the south wall.' The pen
splattered ink on the paper.

'Pardon, sir?'

Cox looked up from the paper, irritated. 'You heard me, Sharpe! You join the garrison.
Captain Lossow leaves. I don't need cavalry, but you stay. No infantry can hope to escape
now. Understand?'

God in heaven! 'Yes, sir.'

The cathedral clock began chiming. Kearsey put a hand on Sharpe's elbow. 'I'm sorry,
Sharpe.'

Sharpe nodded, listening to the bell. He was oblivious of Kearsey's concern, of El
Catolico's triumph, of Cox's preoccupation. Ten o'clock, and all not well. The decision
had been forced on him, but it was still his decision. The last echo of the last note died
flatly away, and Sharpe wondered if any bell would ever ring, ever again, in the
grey-starred, ill-starred fortress town.

'We're stuck. That's the problem. We're stuck.'

'Pardon, sir?' Sergeant Harper was waiting for Sharpe outside Cox's headquarters.

'Nothing.' Sharpe stood there, conscious of Patrick Harper's worried look. The Sergeant
probably thought that his wound was going bad, poisoning the blood and sending insane
vapours into his head. 'Are you alone?'

'No, sir. Private Roach, Daniel Hagman, and three Germans.'

Sharpe saw the others waiting in the shadows. The small, squat German Sergeant was there
and Harper jerked a thumb at him.

'That's Helmet, sir.'

'You mean Helmut?'

'That's what I said, sir. He's a one-man army. Are you all right, sir?'

'Yes.'

Sharpe still stood on the steps, his escort waiting below, and fingered a piece of his
sword's silver-wire hilt-wrapping that had worked itself loose. He made a mental note to
have it soldered flat when they were back with the Battalion, and then marvelled that the
mind could dwell on such a triviality at a moment like this.

Harper coughed. 'Are you ready, sir?'

'What? Yes.' He still did not move. He stared at the cathedral.

Patrick Harper tried again. 'Home, sir?'

'No. Over there.' He pointed at the cathedral.

'Yes, sir. Anything you say, sir.'

They walked across the Plaza, lit by the moon, and Sharpe pulled his thoughts back to the
present.

'Is the girl all right?'

Harper nodded. 'Lovely, sir. She's fought all day.'

'Fought?'

The Irishman grinned. 'Helmet taught her how to use a sabre."

Sharpe laughed. It sounded like Teresa. He looked at the small German Sergeant and smiled
at the man's curious walk: the legs bent apart like a lyre-frame, the stocky, immensely
strong body scarcely moving as the legs pushed it forward.

Harper saw Sharpe's change of mood. 'We reckon you could just point Helmet at anything,
sir, and he'd chew his way through. Houses, walls, regiments. They'd all have a wee hole,
just his shape, straight through them.' Harper laughed. 'Bloody good with a sabre.'

Sharpe thought of the girl, knew that El Catolico had another score to settle, more
personal than the gold, and was glad of his escort, of Harper with his seven-barrelled
gun. 'What happened at the house today?'

Harper laughed. 'Not a lot, sir. They turned up for the gold, so they did, and first we
couldn't speak the Portuguese and then Mr Lossow couldn't understand their English, and
then Helmet growled a bit, chewed up some furniture, and the lads put on their spikes, and
the Portuguese went home.'

'Where's the girl now?"

'Still there, sir.' Harper grinned at him, reassuringly. 'Down in the kitchen with the
lads, having her weapons training. She'd make a good recruit."

'And Mr Knowles?'

'Enjoying himself, sir. All round defence, sir, and keep your eyes open, and Air Knowles
doing the rounds every ten minutes. They won't get in. What's happening to us, sir?'

Sharpe shrugged, looked up at the dark windows of the houses. 'We're supposed to hand the
gold over tomorrow. To El Catolico.'

'And are we, sir?'

'What do you think?'

Harper grinned, said nothing, and then one of the Germans crouched, sabre held up, and
the group stopped. One of the few Portuguese civilians left in the town, hurrying from an
alleyway, shrank into the wall and babbled incoherently at the odd group of soldiers
who bristled with swords and guns and were looking at him as if sizing him for
slaughter.

'All right,' Sharpe said. 'On we go.'

By the cathedral doors Sharpe could see the dark shapes of sentries guarding the
ammunition. He crossed to them, his escort's heels echoing over the vast stone square, and
the Portuguese guards snapped to attention, saluted, as Sharpe turned to the three
Germans.

'Stay here.' Helmut nodded. 'Hagman, Roach. Stay with them. Come on, Sergeant.'

He stared over the Plaza before opening the small door that pierced the huge wooden gate
into the cathedral. Was there a dark shape on the far side? Hovering by a corner of an
alleyway? He suspected the Partisans were scouting the town, looking for him, but
nothing would happen till they reached the dark warren of streets down the hill. He went
inside.

The candles had come into their own, throwing small, wavering pools of yellow light on
patches of the great stone vault. The tiny red glow of the eternal presence flickered at
the far end, and Sharpe waited while Harper dipped a casual finger and crossed
himself.

The Irishman stepped alongside Sharpe. 'What are we doing, sir?'

'I don't know.' Sharpe chewed his bottom lip, stared at the small lights, then walked
towards the cluster of lanterns that marked the steps to the vault. More sentries stiffened
as they approached and Sharpe waved them down. 'Slippers, Sergeant.'

There was a small pile of ammunition by the head of the steps, put there for the
soldiers who came to fetch it for the ramparts to save them the bother of pulling on the
felt slippers. Sharpe guessed that about twenty men would work the magazine, bringing up
the barrels, living their days in the damp, cold air of the cathedral's underworld.
Harper saw Sharpe staring at an opened bale of cartridges.

'There's more by that door, sir.'

'More?'

Harper nodded, pointed at a door that flanked the great processional gates. 'There,
sir. Bloody great pile of cartridges. Did you want some?'

Sharpe shook his head, peered into the gloom, and saw that against the door there were a
dozen bales of the paper cartridges. He guessed they were placed so that infantry
battalions could replenish swiftly without getting in the way of the men who brought up
the huge powder kegs. He turned back to the crypt. Planks had been laid down the stairs, two
feet apart, so that the barrels could be rolled up easily.

'Come on.'

They went down the stairs, into the intermittent light of the horn lanterns, and Sharpe
saw that the rest of the garrison's supply of small arms ammunition was now stacked
either side of the vault, forming a corridor to the leather-curtained steps of the deep
crypt. He padded down the corridor and knelt by the curtain. Two thicknesses of stiff
leather, weighted at the bottom, a precaution in case there was a small explosion in the
first vault. The stiff leather could soak up a minor blast, protect the massive dump of
gunpowder beneath, and Harper watched, astonished, as Sharpe drew his sword and cut off
the weights, clenching his teeth as he sawed through the leather.

'What the hell, sir?'

Sharpe looked up at him. 'Don't ask. Where are the sentries?'

'Upstairs.' The Sergeant knelt beside him. 'Sir?'

Sharpe stopped the desperate cutting, looked at the broad, friendly face. 'Don't you
trust me?'

Harper was offended, even hurt, and he bent past Sharpe, took hold of the torn part of
the curtain in one hand, the upper leather in the other, and pulled. As a demonstration of
strength it was remarkable, the veins standing out in his neck, his whole body rigid with
effort as the double-thick leather peeled apart, silently and slowly, and Sharpe helped it
with the sword blade until, after thirty seconds, Harper leaned back with a grunt and in
his hand was the separated bottom two inches of the curtain with its heavy lead weights
sewn into the hem.

'Of course I bloody trust you. Just tell me.' The Irishman's anger was real.

Sharpe shook his head. 'I will. Later. Come on.'

Upstairs, taking off the slippers, Sharpe nodded at the candles.

'Funny keeping them alight.'

Harper shook his head. 'They're a hell of a way from the vault, sir.' His voice showed that
he was slightly mollified, still insulted, but ready to be friendly. 'Anyway. It's what
they call insurance, isn't it?'

'Insurance?'

'Sure.' The huge head nodded. 'A few prayers never did any army any harm.' He stood up.
'Where now, sir?'

To a bakery. The soldiers, British and German, were mystified as Sharpe traced a
gutter away from the cathedral to a building not far from the north gate. He tried the door,
but it was well locked, and Harper gestured him to one side.

'Helmet? Door.'

The German Sergeant nodded, moved ponderously at the barrier, grunted as he hit it,
and then turned with what passed as a smile as the wood splintered away in front of him.

'Told you, sir,' Harper said. 'Any provosts about?'

'If there are any, kill them,' Sharpe said.

'Sir! You hear that, Helmet? Kill the provosts!'

It was pitch black inside but Sharpe felt his way over the floor, past a table that must
once have been the counter for the shop, and found huge brick ovens, cold now, hunched at the
back of the bakery. He went back to the street, empty of Portuguese provosts or
patrols.

They climbed the shallow ramp to the first wall and stopped by the battlements. Sentries
lined the rampart, bunched near the gleaming batteries that had been dug into the wall's
heart and, in front of them, crouched like grey fingers, were the outer defences, gently
sloping, deceptive, filled with Portuguese troops whose fires cast strange glows on the
deep ditches that were unseen by the enemy. Further out, beyond the dark strip of earth
that was cleared of cover so that the defenders could tear the heart out of an assault,
Sharpe could see French fires, some half hidden, and from the far darkness came the
occasional ring of a pickaxe, the thump of earth being pried loose.

He jumped, startled by a sudden report, and realized that the Portuguese were sending
the occasional missile in the hope of disturbing the French engineers. Night was when
the batteries were dug, trenches extended, but the time was not yet right for the
Portuguese troops to sally out of the defences and raid the French works in the night-time
assault of bayonets in enemy trenches. The French were not close enough yet. A siege worked
to a timetable, understood by both sides, and this was just the beginning when the
besiegers' ring was not yet complete and the fortress town was at the height of its strength
and pride.

He led the way on the rampart's top to the north gate, and Harper watched his Captain
stare moodily down at the sentries, the vast gate, the companies of infantry who lived
between the granite traps to guard the entrance of the town.

Harper guessed what was in Sharpe's mind. 'No way out, sir.'

'No.' The last small chance gone. 'No. Back to the house.'

They went down steps and found a street that went towards the lower town and Sharpe stayed
away from the dark houses with their blind windows and shut-up doors. Their boots rang cold
on the cobbles, as they peered into alleyways, up the cross streets, and once or twice
Harper thought he saw a shadow that was too irregular to be part of a building, but he
could not be sure. Almeida was quiet, eerie. Sharpe drew his sword.

'Sir?' Harper's voice was worried. 'You wouldn't be planning, would you, to…'

They had forgotten the rooftops, but Helmut, alerted by a sound, had turned, looked up,
and the man who dropped on him screamed terribly as the sabre pierced him. Sharpe went right,
Harper left, and the street was suddenly full of men with swords, dark clothes, and the
dying man's pathetic whimpers. Hagman was using his bayonet, backed against a wall and
letting El Catolico's men come to him, and Sharpe, by the same wall, twisted desperately
to one side as a rapier blade came at him and missed his waist by inches. He parried a
second man with the sword, remembered El Catolico calling it a butcher's weapon, and,
forsaking technique for anger he hacked with it once and felt the edge hit something, bite,
and slide free. He turned back to the first attacker, but Roach was there, massive and
ponderous, pounding the life from the man with his rifle-butt, and Sharpe twisted back,
flickered his sword out in a blind lunge and felt it parried, pushed aside, and he leaped
back, knowing the attack was coming, tripped on the dead man and fell backwards.

The fall saved his life. The seven-barrelled gun, held against the far wall, fizzed as
the spark lit the pan and then blasted a channel clear across the street. The sound,
magnified by the close walls, rang in Sharpe's head, but he saw three men staggering, one
down, and Roach pulled him to his feet and he went forward, into the confusion of the
blast, and chopped down on one man, kicked a second, and suddenly the four British were
together, across the street, and the Spanish were caught between them and the three men of
the King's German Legion.

The Germans had done well. The sabre was their weapon and they fought the swordsmen with
their own skills. Sharpe knew he had to learn the art of the sword but this was no time to try.
He hacked forward, his left arm hurting but the right chopping diagonally down, left and
right, pushing opponents to either side, where Roach and Hagman bayoneted them, and the
Partisans, their surprise gone, began to run, to slip past the Germans and escape into
the night.

Helmut growled. With these odds there was no point in trying to kill, and he had small
chance of beating the long rapiers with their delicate finesse. He used his curved sabre in
short, economic strokes, going for the eyes, always the eyes, because a man will run
before he loses his sight, and Helmut sent his attackers reeling, one after the other,
hands clasped to their faces and blood showing between the fingers. The Spanish had had
enough; they ran, but the short Sergeant dropped his sabre, grabbed one by the arm, hugged him
like a bear, and then, quickly releasing him, swung him against a wall with all his force.
It sounded like a sack of turnips falling from the top of a barn on to a stone floor.

Harper grinned at him, wiped blood from his sword-bayonet. 'Very nice, Helmet.'

There was a shout from down the street, the flare of torches, and the six men whirled
round, weapons raised, but Sharpe ordered them to wait. A Portuguese patrol, muskets ready,
pounded towards them, and Sharpe saw the officer leading with a drawn sword. The officer
stopped, suspicion on his face, and then grinned, spread his arms, and laughed.