Sharpe 3-Book Collection 4: Sharpe’s Escape, Sharpe’s Fury, Sharpe’s Battle. Bernard Cornwell
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He lifted the trapdoor, letting out a gust of foul-smelling air. Something dead was down in the blackness. A rat? He peered down, saw steps going into darkness, but the shadows suggested there was a cellar down there, and once he was at the base of the steps he could fire up the stone stairway. Ferragus and his men would have to brave that fire to approach, and they would be reluctant to do that. And perhaps there was a way out of the cellar?
There were footsteps on the warehouse’s far side, then more sounds from the top of the stacks. Ferragus had learned quickly and sent men to take the high ground and Sharpe knew he was trapped properly now and the cellar was the only option left. ‘Down,’ he ordered, ‘all of you. Down.’
He went last, clumsily closing the trapdoor behind him, letting the heavy timber down slowly so that Ferragus might not realize his enemies had gone to earth. It was pitch black at the foot of the steps, and so foul-smelling that Sarah gagged. Flies buzzed in the dark. ‘Load the volley gun, Pat,’ Sharpe said, ‘and give me the rifles.’
Sharpe crouched on the steps, one rifle in his hands, two beside him. Anyone opening the trapdoor now would be silhouetted against the warehouse’s dim light and would fetch a bullet for their pains. ‘If I fire,’ he whispered to Harper, ‘you have to reload the rifle before the volley gun.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Harper could have reloaded a rifle blindfolded in Stygian darkness.
‘Jorge?’ Sharpe asked, and the answer was a hiss, betraying Vicente’s pain. ‘Feel your way round the walls,’ Sharpe said, ‘see if there’s a way out.’
‘Major Ferreira was up there,’ Vicente said, sounding reproachful.
‘He’s as bad as his brother,’ Sharpe said. ‘He was planning to sell the Frogs some bloody flour, Jorge, only I stopped it, so then he set me up for a beating at Bussaco.’ He had no proof of that, of course, but it seemed obvious. Ferreira had persuaded Hogan to invite Sharpe to supper at the monastery, and must have let his brother know that the rifleman would be alone on the dark path afterwards. ‘Just feel round the walls, Jorge. See if there’s a door.’
‘There are rats,’ Vicente said.
Sharpe took his folding knife from his pocket, took out the blade, and whispered Sarah’s name. ‘Take this,’ he said, and felt for her hand. He put the knife’s handle into her fingers. ‘Be careful,’ he warned her, ‘it’s a knife. I want you to cut a strip off the bottom of your dress and see if you can bandage Jorge’s shoulder.’
He thought she might protest at mangling her only dress, but she said nothing and a moment later Sharpe heard the ripping sound as she slashed and tore at the silk. Sharpe crept a small way up the stairs and listened. There was silence for a while, then the sudden bang of a pistol and another bang, virtually instantaneous, as the ball hammered into the trapdoor. The ball stuck there, not piercing the heavy timber. Ferragus was announcing that he had found Sharpe, but plainly the big man was unwilling to lift the hatch and rush the cellar, for there was another long silence. ‘They want us to think they’ve gone,’ Sharpe said.
‘There’s no way out,’ Vicente announced.
‘There’s always a way out,’ Sharpe said. ‘Rats get in, don’t they?’
‘But there are two dead men here,’ Vicente sounded disgusted. The smell was overpowering.
‘They can’t hurt us,’ Sharpe said in a whisper, ‘not if they’re dead. Take your jacket and shirt off, Jorge, and let Miss Fry bandage you.’
Sharpe waited. Waited. Vicente was hissing in pain and Sarah made soothing noises. Sharpe went closer to the hatch. Ferragus was not gone, he knew, and he wondered what the man would do next. Open the hatch and pour a pistol volley down? Take the casualties? Sharpe doubted it. Ferragus was hoping the fugitives would be deceived into thinking the warehouse was empty and would make their own way up the steps, but Sharpe would not fall for that. He waited, listening to the scrape of Harper’s ramrod shoving down the seven bullets.
‘Loaded, sir,’ Harper said.
‘Let’s hope the bastards come, then,’ Sharpe said, and Sarah gave a sharp intake of breath that he ignored, then there was a sudden, weighty thump that sounded as loud as a cannon firing and Sharpe flinched back, expecting an explosion, but the thump was followed by silence. Something heavy had been placed on the hatch. Then there was another thump, and another, followed by a heavy scraping sound and then a whole succession of bangs and scrapes. ‘They’re weighting down the hatch,’ Sharpe said.
‘Why?’ Sarah asked.
‘They’re trapping us here, miss, and they’ll come back for us when they’re good and ready.’ Ferragus, Sharpe reckoned, did not want to attract more attention to his warehouse by starting another firefight while there were still British and Portuguese troops in the city. He would wait till the army was gone and then, in the time before the French arrived, he would bring more men, more guns and unseal the cellar. ‘So we’ve got time,’ Sharpe said.
‘Time to do what?’ Vicente asked.
‘Get out, of course. All of you, fingers in your ears.’ He waited a few seconds, then fired the rifle up the stairs. The bullet buried itself in the trapdoor. Sharpe’s ears were ringing as he found a new cartridge, bit off the bullet, spat it out, and then primed the rifle. ‘Give me your hand, Pat,’ he said, then put the rest of the cartridge, just the paper and powder, into Harper’s palm.
‘What are you doing?’ Vicente asked.
‘Being God,’ Sharpe said, ‘and making light.’ He felt inside his jacket and found the copy of The Times that Lawford had given to him and he tore the newspaper in half, put half back inside his jacket and screwed the other half into a tight spill that he laid on the floor.
‘Ready, sir.’ Harper, who had guessed what Sharpe wanted, had twisted the cartridge paper into a tube in which he left most of the powder.
‘Find the lock,’ Sharpe told him, and waited as Harper explored the rifle Sharpe was holding.
‘Got it, sir,’ Harper said, then held the spill close by the shut frizzen.
‘Glad you came with me today, Pat?’
‘Happiest day of my life, sir.’
‘Let’s see where we are,’ Sharpe said, and he pulled the trigger, the frizzen flew open as the flint struck it to drive the sparks downwards, there was a flare as the powder in the pan caught fire and Harper had the cartridge paper in just the right place, for a spark went into the tube and it fizzed up, suddenly bright, and Sharpe snatched up the newspaper spill and lit one end. Harper was licking his burned fingers as Sharpe let the tightly rolled paper flare up. He had about one minute now before the newspaper burned out, but there was little to see except the two bodies at the back of the cellar, and they were a foul sight, for the rats had been at the men, chewing their faces to the skulls and excavating their swollen bellies that were now crawling with maggots and thick with flies. Sarah twisted into a corner and vomited while Sharpe examined the rest of the cellar, which was about twenty feet square and stone-floored. The ceiling was of stone and brick, supported by arches made with narrow bricks.
‘Roman work,’ Vicente said, looking at one of the arches.
Sharpe looked up the stairwell, but its sides were of solid stone. The newspaper guttered and he dropped it on the lowest step and looked around one more time as the flames flickered low.
‘We’re trapped,’ Vicente said gloomily. He had torn open his shirt and his left shoulder was now clumsily bandaged, but Sharpe could see blood on his skin and on the torn edges of the shirt. Then the flames went out and the cellar returned to darkness. ‘There’s no way out,’ Vicente said.
‘There’s always a way out,’ Sharpe insisted. ‘I was trapped in a room in Copenhagen once, but I got out.’
‘How?’ Vicente asked.
‘Chimney,’ Sharpe said, and shuddered at the memory