Sharpe's Escape (16 page)

"You're being offensive, Sharpe!" Slingsby protested.

"I mean to be."

"I take exception," Slingsby said stiffly. "I will not be insulted by your kind, Sharpe."

Sharpe smiled and it was not a pretty smile. "My kind, Slingsby? I'll tell you what I am, you sniveling little bastard, I'm a killer. I've been killing men for damn near thirty years. You want a duel? I don't mind. Sword, pistol, knives, anything you bloody well like, Slingsby. Just let me know when and where. But till then, shut your damned mouth and bugger off." He walked back to Perkins who had virtually stripped the French officer naked. "What did you find?"

"Cash, sir." Perkins glanced at an outraged Slingsby, then back to Sharpe. "And his scabbard, sir." He showed Sharpe the scabbard that was sheathed in blue velvet studded with small golden N's.

"They're probably brass," Sharpe said, "but you never know. Keep half the cash and share the other half."

All the Frenchmen had retreated now, except those who were dead or wounded. The voltigeurs who had held the rocky knoll had stayed, though, and those men had been reinforced by some of the survivors from the defeated columns, the rest of whom had stopped halfway down the ridge from where they just stared upwards. None had gone all the way back to the valley that was now clear of fog so that the French gunners could aim their shells which came up the hill, trailing wisps of smoke, to bang among the scatter of dead bodies. British and Portuguese skirmish companies were going down among the shell bursts to form a picquet line, but Sharpe, without any orders from Lawford or anyone else, took his own men to where the hill jutted out towards the boulder-strewn promontory held by the French. "Rifles," he ordered, "keep their heads down."

He let his riflemen shoot at the French who, armed with muskets, could not reply. Meanwhile Sharpe searched the lower slopes with his telescope, looking for a green-jacketed body among the drifts of dead French, but he could see no sign of Corporal Dodd.

Sharpe's riflemen kept up their desultory target practice. He sent the redcoats back a few paces so they would not be an inviting target for the French gunners at the foot of the slope. The rest of the British troops had also marched back, denying the enemy artillery a plain target, but the presence of the skirmish chain on the forward slope told the defeated enemy infantry that the volleys were still waiting just out of sight. None tried to advance and then, one by one, the French cannon fell silent and the smoke slowly drifted off the hill.

Then the guns started a mile to the north. For a few seconds it was just one or two guns, and then whole batteries opened and the thunder started again. The next French attack was coming.

Lieutenant Slingsby did not rejoin the company, going back to the battalion instead. Sharpe did not care.

He rested on the hillside, watched the French, and waited.

"THE LETTER," Ferragus instructed Sarah, "is to a Senhor Verzi." He paced up and down behind her, the floorboards creaking beneath his weight. The sound of the guns reverberated softly on the big window through which, at the end of a street that ran downhill, Sarah could just see the River Mondego. "Tell Senhor Verzi that he is in my debt," Ferragus ordered her.

The pen scratched. Sarah, summoned to write a second letter, had wrapped a scarf about her neck so that no skin was exposed between her hair and the blue dress's high embroidered collar.

"Tell him he may discharge all his debts to me with a favor. I require accommodation on one of his boats. I want a cabin for my brother's wife, children and household."

"Not too fast,
senhor
," Sarah said. She dipped the nib and wrote. "For your brother's wife, children and household," she said as she finished.

"I am sending the family and their servants to Lisbon," Ferragus went on, "and I ask, no, I require Senhor Verzi to give them shelter on a suitable vessel."

"On a suitable vessel," Sarah repeated.

"If the French come to Lisbon," Ferragus continued, "the vessel may carry them to the Azores and wait there until it is safe to return. Tell him to expect my brother's wife within three days of receipt of this letter." He waited. "And say, finally, that I know he will treat my brother's people as though they were his own." Verzi had better treat them well, Ferragus thought, if he did not want his guts punched into a liquid mess in some Lisbon alley. He stopped and stared down at Sarah's back. He could see her spine against the thin blue material. He knew she was aware of his gaze and could sense her indignation. It amused him. "Read me the letter."

Sarah read and Ferragus gazed out of the window. Verzi would oblige him, he knew that, and so Major Ferreira's wife and family would be far away if the French came. They would escape the rape and slaughter that would doubtless occur, and when the French had settled, when they had slaked their appetites, it would be safe for the family to return.

"You sound certain the French will come,
senhor
," Sarah said when she had finished reading.

"I don't know whether they will or not," Ferragus said, "but I know preparations must be made. If they come, then my brother's family is safe; if they do not, then Senhor Verzi's services will not be needed."

Sarah sprinkled sand on the paper. "How long would we wait in the Azores?" she asked.

Ferragus smiled at her misapprehension. He had no intention of letting Sarah go to the Azores, but this was not the time to tell her. "As long as necessary," he said.

"Perhaps the French will not come," Sarah suggested just as a renewed bout of gunfire sounded louder than ever.

"The French," Ferragus said, giving her the seal, "have conquered every place in Europe. No one fights them now, except us. Over a hundred thousand Frenchmen have reinforced the armies in Spain. They have how many soldiers south of the Pyrenees? Three hundred thousand? Do you really believe, Miss Fry, that we can win against so many? If we win today then they will come back, even more of them."

He sent three men with the letter. The road to Lisbon was safe enough, but he had heard there was trouble in the city itself. The people there believed the British planned to abandon Portugal and so leave them to the French and there had been riots in the streets, so the letter had to be guarded. And no sooner was the letter gone than two others of his men came with more news of trouble. A
feitor
had arrived at the warehouse and was insisting the stores be destroyed.

Ferragus buckled on a knife belt, thrust a pistol into a pocket, and stalked across town. Many folk were in the streets, listening to the far-off gunfire as though they could tell from the rise and fall of the sound how the battle went. They made way for Ferragus, the men pulling off their hats as he passed. Two priests, loading the treasures of their church onto a handcart, made the sign of the cross when they saw him and Ferragus retaliated by giving them the devil's horns with his left hand, then spitting on the cobbles. "I gave thirty thousand
vinténs
to that church a year ago," Ferragus said to his men. That was a small fortune, close to a hundred pounds of English money. He laughed. "Priests," he sneered, "are like women. Give and they hate you."

"So don't give," one of his men said.

"You give to the church," Ferragus said, "because that is the way to heaven. But with a woman you take. That too is the way to heaven." He turned down a narrow alley and pushed through a door into a vast warehouse that was dimly lit by dusty skylights. Cats hissed at him, then scampered away. There were dozens of the beasts, kept to protect the warehouse's contents from rats. At night, Ferragus knew, the warehouse was a bloody battlefield as the rats fought against the hungry cats, but the cats always won and so protected the barrels of hard-baked biscuit, the sacks of wheat, barley and maize, the tin containers filled with rice, the jars of olive oil, the boxes of salt cod and the vats of salt meat. There was enough food here to feed Masséna's army all the way to Lisbon and enough hogsheads of tobacco to keep it coughing all the way back to Paris. He stooped to tickle the throat of a great one-eyed tom cat, scarred from a hundred fights. The cat bared its teeth at Ferragus, but submitted to the caress, then Ferragus turned to two of his men who were standing with the
feitor
who wore a green sash to show he was on duty. "What is the trouble?" Ferragus demanded.

A
feitor
was an official storekeeper, appointed by the government to make certain there were sufficient rations for the Portuguese army. Every sizable town in Portugal had a
feitor
, answerable to the Junta of Provisions in Lisbon, and Coimbra's storekeeper was a middle-aged, corpulent man called Rafael Pires who snatched off his hat when he saw Ferragus and seemed about to drop to one knee.

"Senhor Pires," Ferragus greeted him affably enough. "Your wife and family are well?"

"God be praised,
senhor
, they are."

"They are still here? You have not sent them south?"

"They left yesterday. I have a sister in Bemposta." Bemposta was a small place nearer to Lisbon, the kind of town the French might ignore in their advance.

"Then you are fortunate. They won't starve on the streets of Lisbon, eh? So what brings you here?"

Pires fidgeted with his hat. "I have orders,
senhor
."

"Orders?"

Pires gestured with his hat at the great heaps of food. "It is all to be destroyed,
senhor
. All of it."

"Who says so?"

"The Captain-Major."

"And you take orders from him?"

"I am directed to do so,
senhor
."

The Captain-Major was the military commander of Coimbra and its surrounding districts. He was in charge of recruiting and training the
ordenança
, the "armed inhabitants," who could reinforce the army if the enemy came, but the Captain-Major was also expected to enforce the government's decrees.

"So what will you do?" Ferragus asked Pires. "Eat it all?"

"The Captain-Major is sending men here," Pires said.

"Here?" Ferragus's voice was dangerous now.

Pires took a breath. "They have my files,
senhor
," he explained. "They know you have been buying food. How can they not know? You have spent much money,
senhor
. I am ordered to find it."

"And?" Ferragus asked.

"It is to be destroyed," Pires insisted and then, as if to show that he was helpless in this situation, he invoked a higher power. "The English insist."

"The English," Ferragus snarled. "
Os ingleses por mar
," he shouted at Pires, then calmed down. The English were not the problem. Pires was. "You say the Captain-Major took your papers?"

"Indeed."

"But he does not know where the food is stored?"

"The papers only say how much food is in the town," Pires said, "and who owns it."

"So he has my name," Ferragus asked, "and a list of my stores?"

"Not a complete list,
senhor
." Pires glanced at the massive stacks of food and marvelled that Ferragus had accumulated so much. "He merely knows you have some supplies stored and he says I must guarantee their destruction."

"So guarantee it," Ferragus said airily.

"He will send men to make sure of it,
senhor
," Pires said. "I am to bring them here."

"So you don't know where the stores are," Ferragus said.

"I am to make a search this afternoon,
senhor
, every warehouse in the city!" Pires shrugged. "I came to warn you," he said in helpless appeal.

"I pay you, Pires," Ferragus said, "to keep my food from being taken at a thief 's price to feed the army. Now you will lead men here to destroy it?"

"You can move it, perhaps?" Pires suggested.

"Move it!" Ferragus shouted. "How, in God's name, do I move it? It would take a hundred men and twenty wagons."

Pires just shrugged.

Ferragus stared down at the
feitor
. "You came to warn me," he said in a low voice, "because you will bring the soldiers here, yes? And you do not want me to blame you, is that it?"

"They insist,
senhor
, they insist!" Pires was pleading now. "And if our own troops don't come, the British will."

"
Os ingleses por mar
," Ferragus snarled, and he used his left hand to punch Pires in the face. The blow was swift and extraordinarily powerful, a straight jab that broke the
feitor
's nose and sent him staggering back with blood pouring from his nostrils. Ferragus followed fast, using his wounded right hand to thump Pires in the belly. The blow hurt Ferragus, but he ignored the pain because that was what a man must do. Pain must be endured. If a man could not take pain then he should not fight, and Ferragus backed Pires against the warehouse wall and systematically punched him, left and right, each blow traveling a short distance, but landing with hammer force. The fists drove into the
feitor
's body, cracking his ribs and breaking his cheekbones, and blood spattered on Ferragus's hands and sleeves, but he was oblivious of the blood just as he was oblivious of the pain in his hand and groin. He was doing what he loved to do and he hit even harder, silencing the
feitor
's pathetic screams and yelps, seeing the man's breath come bubbling and pink as his huge fists crunched the broken ribs into the lungs. It took awesome strength to do this. To kill a man with bare hands without strangling him.

Pires slumped against the wall. He no longer resembled a man, though he lived. His visible flesh was swollen, bloody, pulpy. His eyes had closed, his nose was destroyed, his face was a mask of blood, his teeth were broken, his lips were split to ribbons, his chest was crushed, his belly was pounded, yet still he managed to stay upright against the warehouse wall. His ruined face looked blindly from side to side, then a fist caught him on the jaw and the bone broke with an audible crack and Pires tottered, groaned and fell at last.