Sharpes command, p.1
Sharpe's Command, page 1
SHARPE’S COMMAND
Richard Sharpe and the Bridge at Almaraz, May 1812
Bernard Cornwell
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2023
Copyright © Bernard Cornwell 2023
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Bernard Cornwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008496777
eBook Edition © August 2023 ISBN: 9780008496791
Version: 2023-08-28
Dedication
SHARPE’S COMMAND
ist Clemens Amann gewidmet
mit tausend Dank für
seine Großzügigkeit
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Historical Note
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Bernard Cornwell
About the Publisher
Map
CHAPTER 1
Sharpe was thinking about breakfast when he was hit.
The choice was between salt pork or salt beef, neither with any bread and both tough as boiled boot-leather. He was about to choose the pork when the shot sounded, but so far away that he thought it unimportant. He dismissed the distant shot as a hunter in the far hills, and almost immediately the hunter’s shot hit him.
It struck his upper left thigh, glanced harmlessly onto the metal scabbard of his heavy cavalry sword and dropped to the ground. He stumbled from the impact, cursed and rubbed his thigh, which would be bruised.
Sergeant Harper stooped to recover the ball. ‘Bloody fine shot, sir,’ he said.
‘Bloody stupid shot,’ Sharpe retorted. He was gazing north-east and could just see a puff of smoke drifting in the almost still air. The smoke came from the rocky crest of a hill that had to be almost half a mile away.
He rubbed his thigh. He knew he was lucky, indeed his men called him ‘Lucky Sharpe’, but still shooting a musket at a target a half mile away was stupid. The ball had been slowed by the air until it was almost spent and lacked the power to pierce even the cloth of his overalls. It had smarted and would leave a bruise, but that was a lot better than a lump of lead deep in his muscles. ‘Bloody Crapaud,’ he said angrily. ‘I’ll have some pork.’
‘Wasn’t a Frenchman,’ Harper said. He tossed the musket ball to Sharpe, who caught it one-handed. ‘That’s one of ours.’
The ball was still warm. It was smaller than a rifle bullet, but larger than the ball fired by a French musket. The difference in sizes was minute, but Sharpe had been a soldier for nineteen years. He had enlisted in the 33rd when he was sixteen and since then he had fought in Flanders, India, Portugal and now Spain. He had been promoted to Sergeant in 1799 and four years later had been commissioned as an officer. Now, in the spring of 1812 he was a Major and wore the green jacket of a rifleman. Nineteen years of battle and every one of them as an infantryman, Sharpe knew that Harper was right. The spent musket ball, fired at such a ridiculous range, was British.
‘Here comes Cupid,’ Harper said in warning.
‘Don’t call him that,’ Sharpe said irritably.
‘Everyone else does,’ Harper responded, ‘you do!’
‘Sir! Sir!’ Lieutenant Love stumbled in his hurry to reach Sharpe. ‘Are you hurt, sir? Is it serious?’
‘It’s nothing, Lieutenant,’ Sharpe said dismissively. ‘A spent round.’
‘So the French are barring the road,’ Lieutenant Love said, gazing at the distant skyline, ‘that is grievous news, sir.’
‘It’s not the bloody Crapauds,’ Sharpe said, ‘that was fired by a partida.’ He used the Spanish word for the guerrilla fighters who dogged the French all across Spain. He tossed the musket ball away and turned back to the trees where his men had spent the night. ‘Dan! See anything up there?’
Daniel Hagman gazed at the distant crest where the puff of smoke had thinned and was drifting eastwards, then suddenly a dozen eruptions of smoke showed along the rocky skyline. The balls went God knows where and the volley’s ragged sound arrived an instant later. ‘They don’t like us, Mister Sharpe,’ Hagman said, amused.
‘Oh my Lord almighty!’ Lieutenant Love had dived behind the nearest tree trunk. ‘Partidas? Really?’
‘Really,’ Sharpe said flatly, then looked back to Hagman. ‘Say hello back to them, Dan.’
‘A pleasure,’ Hagman said. He lay on his back, propped his rifle barrel between his feet and sighted along the barrel. Sharpe saw him edge the weapon a touch to the left and knew Hagman was compensating for the small wind. ‘Want the bugger dead, Mister Sharpe?’
‘I want them scared.’
‘Scared it is,’ Hagman said and pulled the trigger.
The rifle’s sound was crisper than a musket and, unlike a musket, its bullet would be lethal at a half mile. ‘I reckon he needs new britches, Mister Sharpe,’ Hagman said, standing and fishing a new cartridge from his pouch.
‘But aren’t the partidas on our side?’ Lieutenant Love had crept out from his sheltering tree, ‘Are they not our allies?’
‘They are, Lieutenant, but those buggers don’t know which side we’re on.’
Lieutenant Love peered anxiously at the distant skyline where small drifts of powder smoke showed against the sky. ‘They suspect we may be French?’ Love sounded disbelieving.
‘That’s what the buggers think, Lieutenant.’
‘But …’ Love began.
‘They think the British wear red,’ Sharpe interrupted him. He led sixteen men, all but one of them riflemen wearing the dark green jacket of the 95th Rifles, while Lieutenant Love sported the dark blue coat of the Royal Artillery. ‘They think you’re a Crapaud officer and the rest of us are dragoons. Crapaud dragoons wear green.’
‘But dragoons have horses, sir!’
‘Dragoons are mounted infantry,’ Sharpe said, ‘or supposed to be.’
‘Then we’re in a pickle, sir,’ Love said. He straightened and stared belligerently down the long road which climbed to the far ridge. ‘There’s no cover between us and that hilltop! How can we approach without being slaughtered? Oh, if only I had a nine-pounder!’
‘You don’t,’ Sharpe said with a deal more asperity than he had intended, but in truth Lieutenant Courtney deVere Love was wearing Sharpe’s patience thin, a patience already scraped almost bare by this journey deep into enemy-held Spain. Another fusillade of musketry sounded, though none of the balls came close to Sharpe or his men.
‘I have a thought, sir?’ Love said eagerly, holding the hilt of his light cavalry sabre.
‘Try me,’ Sharpe said.
‘I have a spare white shirt, sir,’ Love explained eagerly. ‘Allow me to fix it to my sabre’s tip and it will serve as a flag of truce.’
‘You think the partidas will honour a flag of truce?’
‘They are supposedly Christians!’ Love said fiercely. ‘Even if they are Romanists.’
‘Lieutenant,’ Sharpe forced himself to sound patient, ‘I don’t care if they’re a band of bloody Methodists. If you walk out there waving a white flag they’ll take it as a sign of weakness and wait for you to get in range and then kill you.’
‘Surely not, sir! Aren’t these the very fellows we’ve been sent to meet?’
‘Probably,’ Sharpe allowed, ‘but they don’t know that. And they see a blue uniform and they’ll use you for target practice. And you’re a big fellow.’ Lieutenant Love was at least a foot taller than Sharpe, though hardly big because he was as thin as a ramrod. ‘I’d hate to lose you,’ Sharpe added unconvincingly.
Lieutenant Love looked crestfallen, ‘Then what do we do?’
‘Whatever Mister Sharpe suggests,’ Harper said firmly.
‘We go round the buggers,’ Sharpe said, ‘but first we pull back into the trees.’
‘But I need to inspect that road,’ Love pleaded, pointing to where the road climbed the ridge where the muskets still fired, their bullets either falling far short or fl icking through the leaves of the low scrubby trees that grew in a shallow valley where a dry streambed led east.
‘You will inspect the damn road,’ Sharpe said, then ordered his men back into the cover of the trees. Their disappearance prompted an end to the desultory and useless musket fire from the distant ridge.
‘Will they follow us?’ Lieutenant Love asked nervously.
‘Not if they’ve got a lick of sense,’ Sharpe said. ‘They think they’ve driven us off and they’ll wait to make sure we don’t come back. And they reckon they’re in a perfect defensive place. Which they are.’
‘So …’ Lieutenant Love began.
‘So we push them off the ridge,’ Sharpe said. He was leading his men eastwards along the rocky bed of the dry stream. It fell, still shrouded by trees, into a much wider and deeper valley that ran south to north. Sharpe turned northwards, first going to the valley’s bottom where a stream foamed over rocks. ‘Keep your head down, Lieutenant,’ he told Love.
‘Down?’
Sharpe was following the stream northwards which meant that the ridge where the muskets had been fired lay to his left. The valley was deep enough to hide that ridge and Sharpe did not want the men there to see any motion in the valley. ‘You’re tall,’ he told Love. ‘If you can see the ridge’s crest then men up there can see you.’
‘Ah!’ Lieutenant Love half crouched. ‘You plan to go round them, sir?’
‘I plan to teach the buggers not to waste ammunition,’ Sharpe said grimly. The fact that the fools had shot British ammunition had persuaded him they were partisans, and probably the very partisans he had been sent to meet, though there was still a remote chance that the muskets had been fired by the French. Sharpe had been assured that he could expect to meet no Frenchmen on these barren hills. There was indeed plenty of French infantry, but they were in forts that were still six or seven miles away, and reports from the partidas indicated that they only left their strong forts to forage, and even that rarely. But even an occasional French forage party would not be armed with British muskets, which meant the shots must have been fired by the guerrilleros, the Spanish partisans who hated the French and waged a cruel and galling war against the occupiers. ‘We just have to find the buggers and convince them we’re on their side,’ Sharpe said.
He led his men a half mile northwards. ‘I never did get my breakfast,’ he said to Sergeant Harper.
‘I ate it,’ the big Irishman said, ‘that’s why I joined this bloody army, to get fed.’
‘I hope it choked you.’
‘Seemed a pity to waste it,’ Harper said, grinning.
Sharpe looked back along his file of resting men. ‘Dan! Here!’
Daniel Hagman, a poacher from Cheshire, came to Sharpe’s side. ‘Mister Sharpe?’
‘The ridge is up there,’ Sharpe pointed westwards, ‘I want you to have a look-see, Dan.’
‘Pleasure, Mister Sharpe.’
‘You want my glass?’
‘No need.’
‘Off you go.’
Hagman began scrambling up the valley’s steep side. ‘Can I go with him, sir?’ Lieutenant Love asked eagerly.
‘Wait here, Lieutenant. Rest.’
‘I really do need to see that road, sir,’ Love appealed.
‘You’ll see it, Lieutenant. Within an hour you’ll walk it.’
‘I do pray so, sir.’
‘Pray on, Lieutenant,’ Sharpe said curtly, then looked up to see that Daniel Hagman had settled beside a rock and was gazing intently upwards.
‘Wait here, Pat, I’ll be back,’ Sharpe said, then looked at Love. ‘Stay with Sergeant Harper, Lieutenant.’
‘Of course, sir,’ the Lieutenant said meekly.
Sharpe clambered up the slope, keeping to the grass so that the metal scabbard of his heavy cavalry sword did not clash against a rock. He climbed the last few paces slowly and carefully, then dropped beside Hagman and eased his rifle over a clump of coarse foliage.
‘Forty-three horses, Mister Sharpe,’ Hagman said, ‘and the buggers are on the ridge above.’
Sharpe could see them above, a line of men stretching away from him high on the rocky ridge. The men were ragged and dressed mostly in old Spanish uniforms that were much patched and faded by the sun. To their north, behind the ridge, a group of horses were picketed. He looked back to the men, all of whom had muskets. ‘They still think we’re south of them.’
‘That’s the way they’re looking,’ Hagman said. ‘Spaniards.’
‘Aye, they’re guerrilleros. Probably the ones we’re sent to meet.’
‘So I shouldn’t shoot at them again?’
‘Best not, Dan.’
Sharpe spent some minutes staring at the hill above him and reckoned he could climb up the southern edge of the ridge’s flank and stay out of sight of the men lining the long skyline. ‘I’m waiting to see if they bugger off,’ he told Dan.
‘I think they’re half asleep, Mister Sharpe.’
‘I’ll give them a few minutes.’ Sharpe suspected these were the men he had been sent to contact, but rather than startle them and provoke more musket fire he would prefer to wait till they had withdrawn and he could contact them more peaceably. ‘Have a nap, Dan,’ he said, ‘I’ll watch. Just don’t snore.’
He waited.
‘What’s he waiting for?’ Lieutenant Love asked.
‘He’s putting them to sleep, sir,’ Harper said.
‘Sleep?’
‘Easier to kill when they’re asleep.’
‘Kill!’ Love sounded outraged. ‘Those men are probably our allies!’
‘Aye, sir, but they shot at Mister Sharpe, and no one does that without getting a good kicking.’
‘He must forgive their mistake!’
‘He’s not a very forgiving officer, sir.’
‘If Major Sharpe causes harm to our allies, I will be forced to make a report.’
‘Won’t do any good, sir.’
‘Sergeant—’ Love began.
‘The thing is, sir,’ Harper interrupted him, ‘Mister Sharpe is in Nosey’s good books.’
‘Nosey? Oh, you mean Lord Wellington.’
‘Whenever Nosey’s in trouble, sir, he sends for Mister Sharpe, on account that Mister Sharpe is a devil.’
‘A devil?’ Love sounded shocked.
‘You’ve not seen him fight, sir. He’s a bloody savage in a fight.’
Lieutenant Love looked troubled. ‘I’ve no doubt he’s effective, Sergeant, but essentially this is a reconnaissance and a diplomatic mission to allies. It calls for subtlety and forbearance.’
‘But they sent us, sir, and essentially that means they want someone properly buggered.’
‘Do watch your language, Sergeant.’
‘Of course, sir, bloody sorry, sir.’
‘We come, we look, and we go,’ Love said, ‘no need for picking unnecessary fights.’
‘They have exploring officers to do the looking, sir, but Nosey picked Mister Sharpe, and that means he expects someone to get hurt. Probably wants it.’
‘But our orders are to come, look and leave without the enemy realising we’re here.’
‘We’ll do the reconnaissance, sir, don’t you worry about that, but Mister Sharpe will let the enemy know we’re here.’
‘He’ll disobey orders?’ Love sounded incredulous.
‘He’s Mister Sharpe, sir, and that’s what he does. He’s the best soldier in our army, sir, which is why Nosey likes him.’
Love shook his head. ‘Intelligence tells us there are at least a thousand French troops not far from here. And we are sixteen men. Major Sharpe is not a fool.’
‘No he’s not,’ Harper agreed, ‘and it makes me feel sorry for the Crapauds because they don’t know he’s coming. And he is coming, sir, right now.’ Harper nodded up the hillside where Sharpe was scrambling back down towards the stream. ‘Lord Wellington’s devil himself, sir.’
Sharpe gathered his men on the stream bank. ‘You filled your canteens?’ he asked and, when they all nodded, he jerked his head up the slope to where Hagman lay. ‘We’re going up there, lads,’ he said. ‘Single file. Sergeant Harper and I lead, Sergeant Latimer and Lieutenant Love at the rear.’ From the corner of his eye Sharpe saw Love about to protest, so hurried on. ‘We go silent!’ He stressed the word. ‘Make sure your rifle butts don’t hit a rock, and be bloody sure they’re not cocked. The idiots at the top of the hill are supposed to be on our side so we keep them alive.’
