Sharpe’s Battle: The Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, May 1811. Bernard Cornwell
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tell, over the whole known world. Alexander had done it, why not Bonaparte?
And it would begin, with a little cunning from Ducos and his most secret agent, on the banks of the Coa near the fortress of Almeida.
‘This is a chance, Sharpe, upon my soul it is a chance. A veritable chance. Not many chances come in a man’s life and a man must seize them. My father taught me that. He was a bishop, you see, and a fellow doesn’t rise from being curate to bishop without seizing his chances. You comprehend me?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Colonel Claud Runciman’s massive buttocks were well set on the inn bench while before him, on a plain wooden table, were the remnants of a huge meal. There were chicken bones, the straggling stalks of a bunch of grapes, orange peel, rabbit vertebrae, a piece of unidentifiable gristle and a collapsed wineskin. The copious food had forced Colonel Runciman to unbutton his coat, waistcoat and shirt in order to loosen the strings of his corset and the subsequent distending of his belly had stretched a watch chain hung thick with seals tight across a strip of pale, drum-taut flesh. The Colonel belched prodigiously. ‘There’s a hunchbacked girl somewhere about who serves the food, Sharpe,’ Runciman said. ‘If you see the lass, tell her I’ll take some pie. With some cheese, perhaps. But not if it’s goat’s cheese. Can’t abide goat’s cheese; it gives me spleen, d’you see?’ Runciman’s red coat had the yellow facings and silver lace of the 37th, a good line regiment from Hampshire that had not seen the Colonel’s ample shadow in many a year. Recently Runciman had been the Wagon Master General in charge of the drivers and teams of the Royal Wagon Train and their auxiliary Portuguese muleteers, but now he had been appointed liaison officer to the Real Compañía Irlandesa.
‘It’s an honour, of course,’ he told Sharpe, ‘but neither unexpected nor undeserved. I told Wellington when he made me Wagon Master General that I’d do the job as a favour to him, but that I expected a reward for it. A fellow doesn’t want to spend his life thumping sense into thick-witted wagon drivers, good God, no. There’s the hunchback, Sharpe! There she is! Stop her, Sharpe, there’s a kind fellow! Tell her I want pie and a proper cheese!’
The pie and cheese were arranged and another wine-skin was fetched, along with a bowl of cherries, to satisfy the last possible vestiges of Runciman’s appetite. A group of cavalry officers sitting at a table on the far side of the yard were making wagers on how much food Runciman could consume, but Runciman was oblivious of their mockery. ‘It’s a chance,’ he said again when he was well tucked into his pie. ‘I can’t tell what’s in it for you, of course, because a chap like you probably doesn’t expect too much out of life anyway, but I reckon I’ve got a chance at a Golden Fleece.’ He peered up at Sharpe. ‘You do know what real means, don’t you?’
‘Royal, sir.’
‘So you’re not completely uneducated then, eh? Royal indeed, Sharpe. The royal guard! These Irish fellows are royal! Not a pack of common carriers and mule-drivers. They’ve got royal connections, Sharpe, and that means royal rewards! I’ve half an idea that the Spanish court might even give a pension with the Order of the Golden Fleece. The thing comes with a nice star and a golden collar, but a pension would be very acceptable. A reward for a job well done, don’t you see? And that’s just from the Spanish! The good Lord alone knows what London might cough up. A knighthood? The Prince Regent will want to know we’ve done a good job, Sharpe, he’ll take an interest, don’t you see? He’ll be expecting us to treat these fellows proper, as befits a royal guard. Order of the Bath at the very least, I should think. Maybe even a viscountcy? And why not? There’s only one problem.’ Colonel Runciman belched again, then raised a buttock for a few seconds. ‘My God, but that’s better,’ he said. ‘Let the effusions out, that’s what my doctor says. There’s no future in keeping noxious effusions in the body, he tells me, in case the body rots from within. Now, Sharpe, the fly in our unguent is the fact these royal guards are all Irish. Have you ever commanded the Irish?’
‘A few, sir.’
‘Well, I’ve commanded dozens of the rogues. Ever since they amalgamated the Train with the Irish Corps of Wagoners, and there ain’t much about the Irish that I don’t know. Ever served in Ireland, Sharpe?’
‘No, sir.’
‘I was there once. Garrison duty at Dublin Castle. Six months of misery, Sharpe, without a single properly cooked meal. God knows, Sharpe, I strive to be a good Christian and to love my fellow man, but the Irish do sometimes make it difficult. Not that some of them ain’t the nicest fellows you could ever meet, but they can be obtuse! Dear me, Sharpe, I sometimes wondered if they were gulling me. Pretending not to understand the simplest orders. Do you find that? And there’s something else, Sharpe. We’ll have to be politic, you and I. The Irish’ – and here Runciman leaned awkwardly forward as though confiding something important to Sharpe – ‘are very largely Romish, Sharpe. Papists! We shall have to watch our theological discourse if we’re not to unsettle their tempers! You and I might know that the Pope is the reincarnation of the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, but it won’t help our cause if we say it out loud. Know what I mean?’
‘You mean there’ll be no Golden Fleece, sir?’
‘Good fellow, knew you’d comprehend. Exactly. We have to be diplomatic, Sharpe. We have to be understanding. We have to treat these fellows as if they were Englishmen.’ Runciman thought about that statement, then frowned. ‘Or almost English, anyway. You came up from the ranks, ain’t that right? So these things might not be obvious to you, but if you just remember to keep silent about the Pope you can’t go far wrong. And tell your chaps the same,’ he added hastily.
‘A fair number of my fellows are Catholics themselves, sir,’ Sharpe said. ‘And Irish.’
‘They would be, they would be. A third of this army is Irish! If there was ever a mutiny, Sharpe …’ Colonel Runciman shuddered at the prospect of the papist redcoats running wild. ‘Well, it doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?’ he went on. ‘So ignore their infamous heresies, Sharpe, just ignore them. Ignorance is the only possible cause for papism, my dear father always said, and a burning at the stake the only known cure. He was a bishop, so he understood these matters. Oh, and one other thing, Sharpe, I’d be obliged if you didn’t call me Colonel Runciman. They haven’t replaced me yet, so I’m still the Wagon Master General, so it ought to be General Runciman.’
‘Of course, General,’ Sharpe said, hiding a smile. After nineteen years in the army he knew Colonel Runciman’s type. The man had purchased his promotions all the way to lieutenant colonel and there got stuck because promotion above that rank depended entirely on seniority and merit, but if Runciman wanted to be called General then Sharpe would play along for a while. He also sensed that Runciman was hardly likely to prove a difficult man so there was small point in antagonizing him.
‘Good fellow! Ah! You see that scrawny chap who’s just going?’ Runciman pointed to a man leaving the inn through its arched entrance. ‘I swear he’s left half a skin of wine on his table. See it? Go and snaffle it, Sharpe, there’s a stout fellow, before that hunchbacked girl gets her paws on it. I’d go myself, but the damn gout is pinching me something hard today. Off you go, man, I’m thirsty!’
Sharpe was saved the indignity of scavenging the tables like a beggar by the arrival of Major Michael Hogan who waved Sharpe back towards the wreckage of Runciman’s luncheon. ‘Good afternoon to you, Colonel,’ Hogan said, ‘and it’s a grand day too, is it not?’ Hogan, Sharpe noticed, was deliberately exaggerating his Irish accent.
‘Hot,’ Runciman said, dabbing with his napkin at the perspiration that dripped down his plump cheeks and then, suddenly conscious of his naked belly, he vainly tried to tug the edges of his corset together. ‘Damnably hot,’ he said.
‘It’s the sun, Colonel,’ Hogan said very earnestly. ‘I’ve noticed that the sun seems to heat up the day. Have you noticed that?’
‘Well, of course it’s the sun!’ Runciman said, confused.
‘So I’m right! Isn’t that amazing? But what about winter, Colonel?’