Sharpe’s Enemy: The Defence of Portugal, Christmas 1812. Bernard Cornwell
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Captains put down their wine cups, buttoned their jackets and pulled their belts into place. One, a plump young man, frowned because the Colonel had shouted at them in front of the grinning privates.
The Colonel let his horse walk two steps closer to the pair of Captains. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Here, sir?’ The taller, thinner Captain smiled. ‘Just visiting, sir.’
‘Just visiting, eh?’ The face twitched again. The Colonel had a strangely long neck hidden by a cravat that he pinned high on his throat. ‘Just the two of you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And Lady Farthingdale, sir,’ added the plump one.
‘And Lady Farthingdale, eh?’ The Colonel mimicked the Captain’s plummy voice, then he screamed at them in sudden vehemence. ‘You’re a bloody disgrace, that’s what you are! I hate you! Christ’s belly, I hate you!’
The street was suddenly silent in the winter sunshine. The soldiers that had gathered either side of the Colonel’s horse grinned at the two Captains.
The taller Captain wiped the spittle flung from the Colonel’s mouth off his red jacket. ‘I must protest, sir.’
‘Protest! You puking horror! Smithers!’
‘Colonel?’
‘Shoot him!’
The plump Captain grinned, as if a joke had been made, but the other flung an arm up, flinched, and as Smithers, grinning, levelled and fired his musket so did the Colonel bring out an ornate chased pistol and shoot the plump Captain in the head. The shots echoed in the street, the smoke drifted in two distinct clouds above the fallen bodies, and the Colonel laughed before standing in his stirrups. ‘Now, lads, now!’
They cleared the inn first, stepping over the corpses whose blood was spattered on the lintel of the door, and the muskets crashed in the building, bayonets hunted the men into corners and killed them, and the Colonel waved the hundred men who had been waiting at the eastern end of the village into the street. He had not wanted to start this quickly, he had wanted to get half his men up to the Convent first, but these bloody Captains had forced his hand and the Colonel screamed at them, urged them on, and led half his force towards the big, square, blank-walled Convent.
The women in the Convent had not heard the shots fired five hundred yards to the east. The women were crowded in the upper cloister, waiting their turn to shuffle into the chapel on their knees, and the first they knew that the war had at last come in its horror to Adrados was when the red-coated men appeared in the gateway, bayonets levelled, and the screaming began.
Other men were clearing the village houses, one by one, while yet more streamed across the valley towards the castle. The Spanish garrison had been drinking in the village, only a handful were at their posts, and they assumed that British uniforms belonged to their allies and further assumed that these British soldiers could explain the uproar in the village. The Spaniards watched the redcoats come across the rubble of the castle’s fallen east wall, shouted questions at them, and then the muskets fired, the bayonets came, and the garrison died in the mediaeval ramparts. One Lieutenant killed two of the redcoats. He fought with skill and fury, drove more of the invaders back, and he escaped over the fallen wall and ran through the thorn bushes to the watchtower on its hill to the east. He hoped he would find a handful of his men there, but he died in the thorns, shot by a hidden marksman, and the Spanish Lieutenant never knew that the men who had captured the watchtower were dressed not in British red, but in French blue. His body rolled under a thorn bush, crushing the old brittle bones of a raven left by a fox.
There were screams in the street. Men died who tried to protect their homes, children screamed as their fathers died, as their homes were forced open. The musket shots dotted the breeze with small white clouds.
More men came from the east, men in uniforms as varied as the Battalions that had fought for Portugal and Spain in the four years of war in the Peninsula. With the men came women and it was the women who killed children in the village, shooting them, knifing them, keeping only those who could work. The women squabbled over the cottages, arguing who would have what, sometimes crossing themselves as they passed a crucifix nailed on the low stone walls. It did not take long to destroy Adrados.
In the Convent the screams had become constant as the English soldiers hunted through the two cloisters, the hall, the empty rooms, and the crammed chapel. The priest had run to the door, pushing his way through the women, and now he was held, quivering, as the redcoats sorted out their prize. Some women were pushed out of the building, the lucky ones, women too diseased or too old, and some were killed with the long bayonets. Inside the chapel the soldiers took the ornaments from the altar, picked through the gifts that were piled in the narrow space behind it, and then smashed open the cupboard that held the Mass vessels. One soldier was pulling on the white and gold finery the priest kept for Easter. He walked round the church blessing his comrades who pulled women onto the floor. The chapel sounded with sobs, screams, men’s laughter, and the tearing of cloth.
The Colonel had ridden his horse into the upper cloister and waited, a grin on his face, and watched his men. He had sent two men he could trust into the chapel and they appeared now, holding a woman between them, and the Colonel looked at her, licked his lips, and his face twitched in its spasms.
Everything about her was rich, from her clothes to her hair, a richness that spoke of money enhancing beauty. Her hair was black and full, falling in waves either side of a face that was generous and provocative. She had dark eyes that looked at him fearlessly, a mouth that seemed as if it smiled a lot, and her clothes were covered with a dark cloak trimmed in lavish silver fur. The Colonel smiled. ‘Is that her?’
Smithers grinned. ‘That’s ’er, sir.’
‘Well, well, well. Isn’t Lord Farthingdale a lucky bastard, then. Get her bloody cloak off, let’s have a look at her.’
Smithers reached for the fur-edged hood at the back of the cloak, but she pushed the men away, undid the clasp at her neck and slowly took the cloak from her shoulders. She had a full body, in the prime of her youth, and there was something tantalizing to the Colonel in her absence of fear. The cloister stank of fresh blood, echoed with screaming women and children, yet this rich, beautiful woman stood there with a calm face. The Colonel smiled again with his toothless mouth. ‘So you’re married to Lord Farthingdale, whoever he is?’
‘Sir Augustus Farthingdale.’ She was not English.
‘Oh, dear me. I begs your Ladyship’s pardon.’ The Colonel gave his cackling laugh. ‘Sir Augustus. General, is he?’
‘Colonel.’
‘Like me!’ The yellow face twitched as he laughed. ‘Rich, is he?’
‘Very.’ She stated it as a fact.
The Colonel dismounted clumsily. He was tall, with a huge belly, and an ugliness that was truly remarkable. His face twitched as he approached her. ‘You’re no bloody English lady, are you now?’
She still seemed utterly unafraid. She covered her dark riding habit with her fur-edged cloak and even gave a tiny smile. ‘Portuguese.’
The blue eyes watched her closely. ‘How do I know you’re telling the bleeding truth, then? What’s a Portuguesey doing married to Sir Augustus Farthingdale, eh?’
She shrugged, took from her left hand a ring, and tossed it to the Colonel. ‘Trust that.’
The ring was of gold. On its bevelled face was a coat of arms, quartered, and the Colonel smiled as he looked at it. ‘How long have you been married, Milady?’
This time she did smile, and the soldiers watching grinned with desire. This was the Colonel’s prize, but the Colonel could be generous when he wished it. She pushed black hair away from her olive skin. ‘Six months, Colonel.’
‘Six months. Still got the shine on it, has it?’ He cackled. ‘How much will Sir Augustus pay to have you back as a bedwarmer?’