Sharpe’s Eagle: The Talavera Campaign, July 1809. Bernard Cornwell
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Hogan stepped into the room. He looked, in his blue coat and white trousers, like a naval officer and he claimed his uniform had been mistaken for a Frenchman’s so often that he had been fired on more by his own side than by the enemy. He was an Engineer, one of the tiny number of Military Engineers in Portugal, and he grinned as he took off his cocked hat and nodded at Sharpe’s leg. ‘The warrior restored? How’s the leg?’
‘Perfect, sir.’
‘Sergeant Harper’s maggots, eh? Well, we Irish are clever devils. God knows where you English would be without us.’ Hogan took out his snuff box and inhaled a vast pinch. As Sharpe waited for the inevitable sneeze he eyed the small, middle-aged Captain fondly. For a month his Riflemen had been Hogan’s escort as the Engineer had mapped the roads across the high passes that led to Spain. It was no secret that any day now Wellesley would take the army into Spain, to follow the River Tagus that was aimed like a spear at the capital, Madrid, and Hogan, as well as sketching endless maps, had strengthened the culverts and bridges which would have to take the tons of brass and wood as the field artillery rolled towards the enemy. It had been a job well done in agreeable company, until it rained and the rifles wouldn’t fire and the crazy-eyed French Hussar had nearly made a name for himself by his mad solo charge at the Riflemen. Somehow Sergeant Harper had kept the damp out of his firing pan and Sharpe still shivered when he thought of what might have happened if the rifle had not fired.
The Sergeant collected the pieces of his rifle lock as if he was about to leave but Hogan held up his hand. ‘Stay on, Patrick. I have a treat for you; one that even a heathen from Donegal might like.’ He took a dark bottle out of his haversack and raised an eyebrow to Sharpe. ‘You don’t mind?’
Sharpe shook his head. Harper was a good man, good at everything he did, and in their three years’ acquaintanceship Sharpe and Harper had become friends, or at least as friendly as an officer and a Sergeant could be. Sharpe could not imagine fighting without the huge Irishman beside him, the Irishman dreaded fighting without Sharpe, and together they were as formidable a pair as Hogan had ever seen on a battlefield. The Captain set the bottle on the table and pulled the cork. ‘Brandy. French brandy from Marshal Soult’s own cellars and captured at Oporto. With the compliments of the General.’
‘From Wellesley?’ Sharpe asked.
‘The man himself. He asked after you, Sharpe, and I said you were being doctored or would have been with me.’
Sharpe said nothing. Hogan paused in his careful pouring of the liquid. ‘Don’t be unfair, Sharpe! He’s fond of you. Do you think he’s forgotten Assaye?’
Assaye. Sharpe remembered all right. The field of dead outside the Indian village where he had been commissioned on the battlefield. Hogan pushed a tin cup of brandy across the table to him. ‘You know he can’t make you into a Captain of the 95th. He doesn’t have the power!’
‘I know.’ Sharpe smiled and raised the cup to his lips. But Wellesley did have the power to send him home where promotion might be had. He pushed the thought away, knowing the nagging insult of his rank would soon come back, and was envious of Hogan who, being an Engineer, could only gain promotion by seniority. It meant that Hogan was still only a Captain, even in his fifties, but at least there was no jealousy and injustice because no man could buy his way up the ladder of promotion. He leaned forward. ‘So? Any news? Are we still with you?’
‘You are. And we have a job.’ Hogan’s eyes twinkled. ‘And a wonderful job it is, too.’
Patrick Harper grinned. ‘That means a powerful big bang.’
Hogan nodded. ‘You are right, Sergeant. A big bridge to be blown into the next world.’ He took a map out of his pocket and unfolded it on to the table. Sharpe watched a calloused finger trace the River Tagus from the sea at Lisbon, past Abrantes where they now sat, and on into Spain to stop where the river made a huge southwards loop. ‘Valdelacasa,’ Hogan said. ‘There’s an old bridge there, a Roman one. The General doesn’t like it.’
Sharpe could see why. The army would march on the north bank of the Tagus towards Madrid and the river would guard their right flank. There were few bridges where the French might cross and harass their supply lines and those bridges were in towns, like Alcantara, where the Spanish kept garrisons to protect the crossings. Valdelacasa was not even marked. If there was no town there would be no garrison and a French force could cross and play havoc in the British rear. Harper leaned over and looked at the map.
‘Why isn’t it marked, sir?’
Hogan made a contemptuous noise. ‘I’m surprised the map even marks Madrid, let alone Valdelacasa.’ He was right. The Tomas Lopez map, the only one available to the armies in Spain, was a wondrous work of the Spanish imagination. Hogan stabbed his finger down on to the map. ‘The bridge is hardly used, it’s in bad repair. We’re told you can hardly put a cart across, let alone a gun, but it could be repaired and we could have “old trousers” up our backsides in no time.’ Sharpe smiled. ‘Old trousers’ was the Rifles’ strange nickname for the French and Hogan had adopted the phrase with relish. The Engineer lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘It’s a strange place, I’m told, just a ruined convent and the bridge. They call it El Puente de los Malditos.’ He nodded as if he had made his point.
Sharpe waited a few seconds and sighed. ‘All right. What does it mean?’
Hogan smiled triumphantly. ‘I’m surprised you need to ask! It means “The Bridge of the Accursed”. It seems that, years ago, all the nuns were taken out of the convent and massacred by the Moors. It’s haunted, Sharpe, stalked by the spirits of the dead!’
Sharpe leaned forward to peer more closely at the map. Give or take the width of Hogan’s finger the bridge must be sixty miles beyond the border and they were that far from Spain already. ‘When do we leave?’
‘Now there’s a problem.’ Hogan folded the map carefully. ‘We can leave for the frontier tomorrow but we can’t cross until we’re formally invited by the Spanish.’ He leaned back with his cup of brandy. ‘And we have to wait for our escort.’
‘Escort!’ Sharpe bridled. ‘We’re your escort.’
Hogan shook his head. ‘Oh, no. This is politics. The Spanish will let us blow up their bridge but only if a Spanish Regiment goes along with us. It’s a question of pride, apparently.’
‘Pride!’ Sharpe’s anger was obvious. ‘If you have a whole Regiment of Spaniards then why the hell do you need us?’
Hogan smiled placatingly. ‘Oh, I need you. There’s more, you see.’ He was interrupted by Harper. The Sergeant was standing at the window, oblivious of their conversation, and staring into the small square.
‘That is nice. Oh, sir, that can clean my rifle any day of the week.’
Sharpe looked through the small window. Outside, on a black mare, sat a girl dressed in black; black breeches, black jacket, and a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed her face but in no way obscured a beauty that was startling. Sharpe saw a wide mouth, dark eyes, coiled hair the colour of fine powder and then she became aware of their scrutiny. She half smiled at them and turned away, snapped an order at a servant holding the halter of a mule, and stared at the road leading from the plaza towards the centre of Abrantes. Hogan made a small, contented noise. ‘That is special. They don’t come out like that very often. I wonder who she is?’
‘Officer’s wife?’ Sharpe suggested.
Harper shook his head. ‘No ring, sir. But she’s waiting for someone, lucky bastard.’
And a rich bastard, thought Sharpe. The army was collecting its customary tail of women and children who followed the Regiments to war. Each Battalion was allowed to take sixty soldiers’ wives to an overseas war but no one could stop other women joining the ‘official’ wives; local girls, prostitutes, seamstresses and washerwomen, all making their living from the army. This girl looked different. There was the smell of money and privilege about her as if she had run away from a rich Lisbon home. Sharpe presumed she was the lover of a rich officer, as much a