Sharpe's Gold

CHAPTER 12

It was a nightmare journey and only Hagman's instincts, honed by years of poaching dark countryside, took the Riflemen safely back over the paths where they had been escorted earlier in the day. Sharpe wondered how Knowles, with the larger number of men, was surviving, but there were poachers not unlike Hagman in the Redcoats and there was no point in worrying. The Riflemen made good time, cursing through the rocks, stumbling on the streambeds, going faster than the less well-trained men of the South Essex could travel. The Rifles were the elite of the army, the best trained, the best equipped, the finest infantry of an army which boasted the best foot soldiers in the world, but none of their training, their vaunted self-reliance, had prepared them for the job of sneaking into Casatejada under the noses of suspicious Partisans.

Perversely the moon made an appearance as the green-jacketed men reached the final crest before the village. It sailed clear of the ragged cloud-edge and showed the village, innocent and silent, in the centre of the valley. The men dropped to the ground, pushed their rifles forward, but nothing moved in the moonlight except the barley rippling in the breeze and the maize clattering on its long stalks. Sharpe stared at the village, reliving the hopelessness of trying to get near it unseen, and tonight there would be no hope of persuading its defenders to light fires, dazzle themselves, and thus give the attackers an advantage. He stood up. 'Come on.

They made a wide circuit, round the southern end of the valley, moving fast in the moonlight and hoping that if their shadowed bodies were dimly seen against the dark background of the hills the sentries in the village would think that it was one of the wolf-packs that ran in the uplands. Twice on the journey the Riflemen had heard the wolves near them, once seen a ragged profile on a crest, but they had not been troubled. The cemetery was on the eastern side of the street and the Riflemen had to circle the village so they could approach from the darkness. Sharpe kept looking towards the east, fearing the first sliver of dawn, fearing the approach to the village. 'Down!

They dropped again, panting, in a field of half-cut barley that the French had trampled with their horses, criss-crossing the field so that, in the darkness, it was made of fantastic patterns and strangely shadowed curves. 'Come on. They wriggled forward, the hermitage a quarter-mile away with its bell-tower staring at them, picking paths through the stalks where the crop had been flattened and where standing clumps gave them cover. No one spoke; each man knew his job, and each knew, too, that the Spaniards, who talked to one another with white stones on hilltops, could have watched them for the last five miles. Yet why should they be suspicious? Sharpe was haunted by the question, by the possible answers, by the knife-edge on which he had balanced the Company.

Two hundred yards to go and he stopped, raised a hand, and turned to Hagman. 'All right?

The man nodded, grinned his toothless grin. 'Perfect, sir.

Sharpe looked at Harper. 'Come on.

Now it was just the two of them, creeping forward into the growing stench of the manure, listening for the tiny sounds that could betray an alert sentry. The barley, crushed and tortuous, grew almost to the wall of the graveyard, but as they twisted their way closer to the high white wall Sharpe knew they could not hope to climb it unseen. He let Harper wriggle alongside and put his mouth close to the Sergeant's ear.

'You see the bell-tower?"

Harper nodded.

'There has to be someone up there. We can't cross here. We'll be seen.

The Sergeant put out a hand and curved it to the left. Sharpe nodded. 'Come on.

The bell-tower, with its arches facing the four points of the compass, was the most obvious sentry post in the village. Sharpe could see nothing in the shadowed space at the top of the tower, but he knew a man was there, and as they crawled, the stalks of the barley deafening, he felt like a small animal creeping towards a trap. They reached the corner of the cemetery, stood against the wall with a false sense of relief, and then, hidden from the tower, edged slowly down its left-hand side towards the gate, the bushes, and the rank heap of manure.

Nothing stirred. It was as if Casatejada were deserted, and for a moment Sharpe let his mind dwell on the luxurious possibility that El Catolico had ridden with all his followers and that the village truly was empty. Then he remembered Ramon, who could not yet ride, and his sister, Teresa, who had stayed to look after him, and he knew that the village was lived in, was guarded, yet somehow they had reached the gate into the cemetery and no one had shouted, no one had clicked back the lock of a musket, and still the village had the blank look of a sleeping community. Sharpe peered through the wrought-iron gate. The graves were lit by the moon. It was quiet, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and suddenly the idea of sixteen thousand gold coins hidden in the grave was ridiculous. He twitched Harper's elbow, forcing the Sergeant into the thick shadow of the bushes by the gate.

'I don't like it, he whispered. There was no point in trying to dissect his fears; a soldier had to trust instinct and the moment he tried to pin it down it would vanish like smoke in a mist. 'You stay here. I'll go in. If anyone interferes with me use that damned gun.

Patrick Harper nodded. He had unslung the seven-barrelled gun and he pulled back the flint, slowly and evenly, so that the heavily greased pawl slid silently into place. The Sergeant shared his officer's apprehension, though whether it was the sight of the empty graveyard in the thin moonlight or that their enemies mockingly watched them he was not sure. He watched Sharpe jump for the top of the wall, not trusting the hinges of the gate, and then he looked into the hills and saw the faintest edge on the horizon, the harbinger of dawn, and felt a chill breeze disturb the thick stench of the manure. He heard Sharpe's scabbard scrape on the stones. There was a thump as he hit the ground; then Harper was alone, in the thick cover of the bush, and gripping the stock of the killer gun.

Sharpe crouched inside the graveyard, his ears ringing with the noise he had made as he dropped over the wall. He had been a fool! He should have slipped his sword and rifle through the bars of the gate, but he had not thought of it, and he had made a noise like a lover fleeing from a returning husband as he slithered and bumped his way over the high stone barrier. But nothing moved; nothing sounded except a curious deep background sighing where the wind passed through the bell-tower and caressed the huge metal instrument. Across the graveyard he could see the wall sepulchres, little boxes in the thin light, and he thought of the putrefaction dripping down the mortar, and the bodies that lay in this yard, and then he was on his belly and crawling between the graves towards the spot, across the yard, where the fresh grave waited for him. He could be seen, he knew, from the bell-tower as he made his way across, but the die was cast, there was no going back, and he could only hope that the man in the tower was sleeping, his head on his chest, while the enemy sneaked in beneath. His belt buckle, crossbelt, and buttons all snagged on the dry earth as he crawled towards the heap of earth. The grave did look suspicious, he decided, higher than the others and somehow more neatly sculptured into a squared ridge of pale soil. He had smeared his face with a mixture of dirt and spittle, but he dared not look up, much as he wanted to, to see if a face was leaning out of the archway.

In the stillness, he cursed his stupidity. Should he have marched straight in, bayonets fixed, and insisted on digging up the grave? If he had been certain he could have done that, instead of coming like a thief in the night, but nothing was certain. A suspicion, that was all, a flimsy, damned suspicion that was buttressed by nothing more than Patrick Harper's insistence that a man would not be buried on a Sunday. He suddenly remembered that the Sergeant's middle name was Augustine and he grinned, senselessly, as at last he came up beside the object he had marched so far and hard to explore.

Nothing moved. The bell moaned gently, but there were no other sounds. It would have been easy to think that he was utterly alone, completely unseen, but his instinct was still sending danger signals that he could do nothing about. He began to dig, awkwardly, lying flat with a crooked arm and dragging back handfuls of earth from the grave. It was harder than he had thought. Every handful of dry earth and flinty stone brought down a miniature landslide from the top of the ridge, and each time it seemed that the noise was deafening, but he dared do nothing except keep scrabbling at the grave while the muscles of his arm, bent unnaturally, shrieked with agony. Once he thought he heard a noise, a foot on stone, but when he froze there was nothing. He looked up, saw the tinge of grey light that limited his time, and he dug deeper, forcing his hand into the soil and trying to make a tunnel down to whatever was buried in this hard, shallow land. The light was improving, disastrously, and what before had been mere humped shadows in the moonlight could now be seen as distinct, ornate gravestones. He could even read the writing on the nearest stone — Maria Uracca — and the carved angel that guarded her rest seemed to leer at him in the thin light. He risked a look upwards, throwing caution away, but there was nothing to be seen in the arched opening at the top of the tower, except for the grey, dim shape of the bell. He pushed his hand in harder, still meeting nothing but soil and stone, and enlarged the crater he had made, which looked as if a dog had been scrabbling for a bone. Then there was a voice, clear and distinct, somewhere in the village, and he knew there was no more time. The voice had not sounded alarmed, just someone getting up, but there was no point in trying to hide any more. He knelt up and used both hands, pulling back the soil, delving down to whatever was in the grave. And there it was. Sackcloth. He scraped more frantically, the soil caving in on the patch of sacking, and his mind whipped ahead to the thought of gold coins in thin sacks, buried six inches below the surface. He cleared the patch again, could see the sacking clearly, and he thrust at it with stiff fingers, splitting it, forcing his hand into the coins. But there were no coins. Just the filthy, desperate, rotten smell of corpse, and a horrifying slime on his fingers, a gagging in his throat, and he knew instantly that this body, shrouded in plain, brown cloth, was not Captain Hardy but El Catolico's servant, who, for a reason he would never know, had been undisturbed by the marauding Frenchmen. Failure, utter, complete, total failure, the end of a thousand hopes, and fingers covered in rotting tissue. And no gold.

'Good morning. The voice was mocking, even and steady, and Sharpe spun round to see El Catolico standing in the door of the hermitage. The Spanish officer was in shadow, but there was no mistaking the long uniform cuffs beneath the grey cloak, the slim sword, or the silken voice. 'Good morning, Captain Sharpe. Were you hungry?

Sharpe stood up, conscious of the filth on his uniform. He bent down to pick up his rifle, but checked as he saw a musket barrel point at him from behind El Catolico, and suddenly, on quiet feet, a dozen men were in a line either side of the Spaniard who still looked at Sharpe with a mocking eye.

'Do you often dig up corpses, Captain Sharpe?

There was nothing to say. He let the rifle stay on the ground and straightened up.

'I asked if you often dug up corpses, Captain.

The tall man walked a few more feet into the cemetery. Sharpe wiped the filth from his right hand on his overall trousers. Why the devil had Harper not appeared? Had they found him, too? Sharpe had heard nothing, no footsteps, no creaking door, but he had been scraping at the soil and the noise had been enough to cover El Catolico's quiet approach to the back door of the hermitage.

The Spaniard chuckled, waved a hand in one of his elegant gestures. 'You're not going to answer my question. I suppose you are searching for the gold? Am I right? Sharpe said nothing and El Catolico's voice became insistent. 'Am I right?

'Yes.

'You have a voice! El Catolico turned and spoke to one of his men, waited, and turned back holding a spade. 'Then dig, Captain. Dig. We never had time to bury Carlos properly. We did it in a hurry last Saturday night, so you can do us a service. He threw the spade at Sharpe, the blade catching the light, and it thumped into the soil next to the Rifleman's feet.

Sharpe did not move. Part of him damned Harper, unfairly, for the suspicions about a Sunday burial, but he knew that he would have come back anyway. And where was the big Irishman? He could not have been captured, not without a struggle that would have been audible a mile away, and Sharpe felt the faintest stirring of hope.

El Catolico took a step forward. 'You won't dig?

The tall Spaniard chopped down with his left hand and Sharpe saw the musket barrel come up, heard the bang, saw the stab of flame in the gout of smoke, and the ball flattened itself on the wall behind him. Had the bastards cut Harper's throat? There was no hope of a rescue from Hagman; Sharpe had drummed it into the group that they were not to come into the village unless summoned. Damn everything! And Knowles would lumber into the same trap, and everything, every last bloody thing, had collapsed around him because he had been too clever. He picked up the spade — there was no choice — and he thrust its blade into the earth beside the body, and his mind, refusing to take the finality of utter defeat, still hoped that beneath the rotting corpse he might find bags of gold. Beneath the body was flinty soil, full of sharp rocks, hard-packed and jarring as he thrust down with the spade.

El Catolico laughed. 'Have you found your gold, Captain? He turned to his men, spoke in quick Spanish, and they laughed at the Englishman, mocked the Rifle Captain with the dirty face who was being forced to dig a grave like a peasant.

'Joaquim? Teresa's voice, and suddenly she was there, dressed in a long white dress, and she stood beside her man, put her arm through his, and asked what was happening. Sharpe heard her laughter as El Catolico explained.

'Dig, Captain, dig! The gold! You must have the gold! El Catolico was enjoying himself.

Sharpe threw down the spade. 'There is no gold.

'Ah! El Catolico's face showed mock horror; his hands flew up, releasing the girl, and he translated to his men. He turned back, ignoring their laughter. 'Where are your men, Captain?

'Watching you.

It was a feeble answer and El Catolico treated it with the contempt it deserved. He laughed. 'You were seen crawling to the grave, Captain, all alone and in the darkness. But you're not alone, are you?

'No. And I didn't expect to find you here.

El Catolico bowed. 'An unexpected pleasure, then. Teresa's father is leading the ambush. I decided to come back.

'To protect your gold? It was a futile attempt, but everything was futile now.

El Catolico put an arm round Teresa's shoulders. 'To protect my treasure, Captain. He translated again, and the men laughed. The girl's face stayed enigmatic as ever. El Catolico waved a hand at the gate. 'Go, Captain. I know your men are near. Go home, little gravediggcr, and remember one thing.

'Yes?

'Watch your back. Very carefully. It's a long road. El Catolico laughed, watched Sharpe bend down to retrieve his rifle. 'Leave the rifle, little gravedigger. It will save us picking it up from the road.

Sharpe picked it up, slung it defiantly on his shoulder, and swore uselessly at the Spaniard. El Catolico laughed, shrugged, and gestured again at the gate.

'Go, Captain. The French have the gold, as I told you. The French.

The gate was not locked; it could have been opened easily, but Patrick Harper, with the blood of Irish heroes in his veins, chose to stand back and kick it with one enormous foot. It exploded inwards, the hinges tearing from the dry mortar, and there he stood, six feet four inches of grinning Irishman, filthy as a slaughterer, and with seven barrels held in one hand that pointed casually at El Catolico and his men.

'Top of the morning! And how's our lordship this morning?

Sharpe was rarely given a glimpse of Harper's imitation of what the rest of the world thought of as Irish mannerisms, but this was obviously a rich performance. The dreadful shroud of failure vanished because Sharpe knew, with an absolute certainty, that Patrick Harper was boiling with good news. There was the grin, the jigging walk, and the inane words that bubbled from the huge soldier.

'And a fine morning it is, to be sure, your honour. He was looking at El Catolico. 'I wouldn't move, your grace, not while I've got the gun on you. It could go off with a desperate bang, so it could, and take the whole of your precious head off. He glanced at Sharpe. 'Morning, sir! Excuse my appearance.

Sharpe smiled, began to laugh with the relief of it. Harper was disgusting, covered with glistening and decaying muck, and the Sergeant grinned through the mask of manure.

'I fell in the shit, sir. Only one thing about the Sergeant was not smothered in manure — the gun — and that, despite his excitement, was held very steadily on El Catolico. The Irishman glanced quickly again at Sharpe. 'Would you mind calling the lads, sir?

Sharpe drew the whistle from its holster on his leather crossbelt and blew the signal that would bring the Riflemen running to the village. Harper still looked steadily at El Catolico. 'Thank you, sir. This was his moment, his victory, and Sharpe was not going to spoil it for him.

The Sergeant smiled at El Catolico. 'You were saying, your holiness, that the French have the gold?

El Catolico nodded, said nothing. Teresa looked defiantly at Harper, then at Sharpe, who now pointed his rifle at the small group of Partisans.

'The French have the gold. Her voice was firm, her tone almost contemptuous of the two men with the guns. The Spaniards had guns, but none of them dared move while the vast muzzle of the seven-barrelled gun stared at them from the flank. Teresa repeated herself. 'The French have the gold.

'That's good, miss, so it is. Harper's voice was suddenly gentle. 'Because what you don't know about, as my old mother used to say, you won't miss. And look what I found in the dung-heap. He grinned at them all, raised his free hand, and from it, trickling in a glittering cascade, fell thick gold coins. The grin became wider.

'The Good Lord, said Patrick Augustine Harper, 'has been kind to me this morning.