Sharpe 3-Book Collection 4. Bernard Cornwell
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sleep does for a man, sir.’
‘Damn you, too.’
The Colonel would dearly have liked to rest his battalion, but the brown-jacketed Portuguese troops were starting work and it was unthinkable that the South Essex should collapse while others laboured, and so he ordered each company to start on the piles. ‘You can send men to make tea,’ he suggested to his officers, ‘but breakfast must be eaten as we work. Mister Sharpe, good morning.’
‘Good morning, sir.’
‘I hope you have had time to consider your predicament,’ Lawford said, and it took a deal of courage to say it for it stirred up an unhappy situation, and the Colonel would have been much happier if Sharpe had simply volunteered to apologize and so clear the air.
‘I have, sir,’ Sharpe said with a surprising willingness.
‘Good!’ Lawford brightened. ‘And?’
‘It’s the meat that’s the problem, sir.’
Lawford stared incomprehensibly at Sharpe. ‘The meat?’
‘We can shoot the rum barrels, sir,’ Sharpe said cheerfully, ‘throw the grain and flour into the river, but the meat? Can’t burn it.’ He turned and stared at the huge barrels. ‘If you give me a few men, sir, I’ll see if I can find some turpentine. Soak the stuff. Even the Frogs won’t eat meat doused in turpentine. Or souse it in paint, perhaps?’
‘A problem for you,’ Lawford said icily, ‘but I have battalion business to do. You have quarters for me?’
‘The tavern on the corner, sir,’ Sharpe pointed, ‘all marked up.’
‘I shall see to the paperwork,’ Lawford said loftily, meaning he wanted to lie down for an hour, and he nodded curtly at Sharpe and, beckoning his servants, went to find his billet.
Sharpe grinned and walked down the vast piles. Men were slitting grain sacks and levering the tops from the meat barrels. The Portuguese were working more enthusiastically, but they had reached the city late at night and so managed to sleep for a few hours. Other Portuguese soldiers had been sent into the narrow streets to tell the remaining inhabitants to flee, and Sharpe could hear women’s voices raised in protest. It was still early. A small mist clung to the river, but the west wind had gone round to the south and it promised to be another hot day. The sharp crack of rifles sounded, startling birds into the air, and Sharpe saw that the Portuguese were shooting the rum barrels. Closer by, Patrick Harper was stoving in the barrels with an axe he had filched. ‘Why don’t you shoot them, Pat?’ Sharpe asked.
‘Mister Slingsby, sir, he won’t let us.’
‘He won’t let you?’
Harper swung the axe at another barrel, releasing a flood of rum onto the cobbles. ‘He says we’re to save our ammunition, sir.’
‘What for? There’s plenty of cartridges.’
‘That’s what he says, sir, no shooting.’
‘Work, Sergeant!’ Slingsby marched smartly down the row of barrels. ‘You want to keep those stripes, Sergeant, then set an example! Good morning, Sharpe!’
Sharpe turned slowly and examined Slingsby from top to bottom. The man might have marched all night and slept in a field, yet he was perfectly turned out, every button shining, his leather gleaming, the red coat brushed and boots wiped clean. Slingsby, uncomfortable under Sharpe’s sardonic gaze, snorted. ‘I said good morning, Sharpe.’
‘I hear you got lost,’ Sharpe said.
‘Nonsense. A detour! Avoiding wagons.’ The small man stepped past Sharpe and glared at the light company. ‘Put your backs into it! There’s a war to win!’
‘For Christ’s sake come back,’ Harper said softly.
Slingsby swivelled, eyes wide. ‘Did you say something, Sergeant?’
‘He was talking to me,’ Sharpe said, and he stepped towards the smaller man, towering over him. He forced Slingsby back between two heaps of crates, taking him to where no one from the battalion could overhear. ‘He was talking to me, you piece of shit,’ Sharpe said, ‘and if you interrupt another of my conversations I’ll tear your bloody guts out of your arsehole and wrap them round your bleeding throat. You want to go and tell that to the Colonel?’
Slingsby visibly quivered, but then he seemed to shake off Sharpe’s words as though they had never been spoken. He found a narrow passage between the crates, slipped through it like a terrier pursuing a rat, and clapped his hands. ‘I want to see progress!’ he yapped at the men.
Sharpe followed Slingsby, looking for trouble, but then he saw that the Portuguese troops were from the same battalion that had taken the rocky knoll, for Captain Vicente was commanding the men shooting at the rum barrels and that was diversion enough to save Sharpe from more foolishness with Slingsby. He veered away and Vicente saw him coming and smiled a welcome, but before the two could utter a greeting, Colonel Lawford came striding across the cobbled quay. ‘Sharpe! Mister Sharpe!’
Sharpe offered the Colonel a salute. ‘Sir!’
‘I am not a man given to complaint,’ Lawford complained, ‘you know that, Sharpe. I am as hardened to discomfort as any man, but that tavern is hardly a fit billet. Not in a city like this! There are fleas in the beds!’
‘You want somewhere better, sir?’
‘I do, Sharpe, I do. And quickly.’
Sharpe turned. ‘Sergeant Harper! I need you. Your permission to take Sergeant Harper, sir?’ he asked Lawford who was too bemused to question Sharpe’s need of company, but just nodded. ‘Give me half an hour, sir,’ Sharpe reassured the Colonel, ‘and you’ll have the best billet in the city.’
‘Just something adequate,’ Lawford said pettishly. ‘I’m not asking for a palace, Sharpe, just something that’s barely adequate.’
Sharpe beckoned Harper and walked over to Vicente. ‘You grew up here, yes?’
‘I told you so.’
‘So you know where a man called Ferragus lives?’
‘Luis Ferreira?’ Vicente’s face mingled surprise and alarm. ‘I know where his brother lives, but Luis? He could live anywhere.’
‘Can you show me his brother’s house?’
‘Richard,’ Vicente warned, ‘Ferragus is not a man to…’
‘I know what he is,’ Sharpe interrupted. ‘He did this to me.’ He pointed to his fading black eye. ‘How far is it?’
‘Ten minutes’ walk.’
‘Will you take me there?’
‘Let me ask my Colonel,’ Vicente said, and hurried off towards Colonel Rogers-Jones who was sitting on horseback and holding an open umbrella to shade him from the early sun.
Sharpe saw Rogers-Jones nod to Vicente. ‘You’ll have your billet in twenty minutes, sir,’ he told Lawford, then plucked Harper’s elbow so that they followed Vicente off the quays. ‘That bastard Slingsby,’ Sharpe said as they went. ‘The bastard, bastard, bastard, bastard.’
‘I’m not supposed to hear this,’ Harper said.
‘I’ll skin the bastard alive,’ Sharpe said.
‘Who?’ Vicente asked, leading them up narrow alleys where they were forced to negotiate knots of unhappy folk who were at last readying themselves to leave the city. Men and women were bundling clothes, hoisting infants onto their backs and complaining bitterly to anyone they saw in uniform.
‘A bastard called Slingsby,’ Sharpe said, ‘but we’ll worry about him later. What do you know about Ferragus?’
‘I know most folk are frightened of him,’