Sharpe's Gold

CHAPTER 14

Six horses had been in the village and for the first two miles, back along the same track they had come, the going was easy enough. The horses carried the packs of gold, the men climbed the slope, the rain hissed in their ears, and there was the elation of success, of being at least on the road home, but it could not last. The direct route westwards, the path they were using, was not the most sensible route. It was the obvious track, the one that El Catolico would search first, and it led straight towards Almeida and the burgeoning French army that was concentrating on the town. Sharpe felt the temptation to stay on the easy route, to make the march easier, but once the village was out of sight he turned the men north, up into the hills, and abandoned the horses. Lieutenant Knowles with three men took them on, further westward, and Sharpe hoped the continuing hoof-marks would delay the pursuit while the Company, astonished at the weight of the coins, struggled into the northern wasteland, up rocks and slopes that no horse could have climbed. The rain kept on steadily, soaking their uniforms, driving their tired, aching, sleepless bodies to new layers of discomfort.

Teresa seemed unafraid, as if she knew Sharpe would not kill her, and she refused the offer of a greatcoat with a disdainful shake of her head. She was cold, soaked through, humiliated by the rope round her neck, but Sharpe left it on because it would have been simple for her to run away, unencumbered, into the slippery rocks where the heavily laden men of the Light Company would never have caught her. Harper held the other end looped round his wrist.

'Where are you heading, sir? He had to shout over the rain.

'The ford at San Anton. You remember? The Major told us about it. Sharpe wondered where Kearsey was, what his reaction would be.

It took Knowles an hour and a half to catch up, his men worn out by the effort but glad to be back in the safety of the full Company. Knowles shook his head. 'Didn't see a thing, sir. Nothing.

Sharpe was not reassured. These hills could have been full of hidden watchers and the ploy of laying the false trail might not delay El Catolico for one minute, but as the day went on, and their tiredness became a numbness beyond pain, Sharpe let his hopes rise. They were walking a nightmare landscape on a plateau that was criss-crossed with ravines, streambeds, and rock. No horse would make fast time up here and Sharpe forced the men on pitilessly, cracking his anger like a whip, driving them north and west, through the relentless weather, kicking the men who fell, and carrying two of the packs of gold to prove to them it could be done.

Teresa watched it all, her mouth curved in an ironic smile, as her captors slipped, crashed painfully into the rocks, and blundered onwards in the storm. Sharpe prayed that the wind stayed in the north; he had lost all bearings and his only guide was the rain on his face. He stopped occasionally, let the men rest, and searched the wind-scoured plateau for the sign of a horseman. There was nothing, just the rain sweeping in slow curtains towards him, the bounce of drops from the rocks, and the grey horizon where air and stone became indistinguishable. Perhaps the ploy had worked, he thought, and El Catolico was searching miles away on the wrong road, and the longer they stayed undetected the more Sharpe dared to hope that the crude ploy of the false tracks had worked.

Every half hour or so the Company stopped and the men who had not been carrying the gold-filled packs took over from those who had. It was a painfully slow march. The packs chafed their shoulders, rubbed them raw, and the gold, far from being something from their wildest dreams, became a loathed burden that the men would happily have thrown away if Sharpe had not taken his position at the rear, driving them on, forcing the Company across the bleak plateau. He had no idea how far they had come, even what time of day it was, only that they must keep marching, putting distance between themselves and El Catolico, and his anger snapped when the Company suddenly stopped, dropped, and yelled at them, 'Get up!

'But, sir! Knowles, leading the Company, waved ahead. 'Look!

Even in the rain, in the crushing weather, it was a beautiful sight. The plateau suddenly ended, dropped to a wide valley through which meandered a stream and a track.

The Agueda. It had to be the river Agueda, off to the left, and the stream at the bottom of the valley flowed east to west to join the river where the track led to the ford. Sharpe's heart leapt. They had made it! He could see the road start again at the far side of the river; it was the ford at San Anton, and beside the track, on this side of the river, was an ancient fort on a rock bluff that once must have guarded the crossing. At this distance, he guessed a mile and a half, the walls looked broken, stubbled in the grey light, but the fortress had to mark the site of the ford. They had done it!

'Five minutes' rest!

The Company sat down, relieved, cheered up. Sharpe perched on a rock and searched the valley. Second by second his hopes revived. It was empty. No horsemen, no Partisans, nothing but the stream and the track going to the river. He took out his telescope, praying that the driving rain would not seep through the junctions of its cylinders, and searched the valley again. A second road, running north and south, ran this side of the river, but it, too, was empty. By God! They had done it!

'Come on! He clapped his hands, pulled men up and pushed them on. 'To the river! We cross tonight! Well done!

The rain still fell, blinding the men as they stumbled down the slope, but they had made it! They could see their goal, feel pride in an achievement, and tomorrow they would wake up on the west bank of the Agueda and march to the Coa. There were British patrols on the far bank, to be sure not as many as there were French, but the river Agueda marked some kind of limit, and after a day's effort like this they needed that limit. They almost ran the last part of the slope, splashed through the stream, boots crunching on its gravel bed, and then stamped on to the wet track as if it were a paved highway in the centre of London. The ford was a mile ahead, trees on both banks, and the Company knew that once they crossed they could rest, let the tiredness flow, and shut their eyes against the grey horror of the day and its journey.

'Sir. Harper spoke quietly, with a desperate resignation. 'Sir. Behind.

Horsemen. Bloody horsemen. Partisans who had ridden not over the plateau but up the direct road from Casatejada and who now appeared on the track behind them. Teresa smiled, gave Sharpe a look of victory, and he ignored it. He called wearily to the Company to halt.

'How many, Sergeant?

There was a pause. 'Reckon it's just a small party.

Sharpe could see no more than twenty or thirty horsemen, standing in the rain just three hundred yards behind the Company. He took a deep breath.

'They can't hurt us, lads. Bayonets. They won't charge bayonets!

There was something strangely comforting about the sound of the blades scraping from the scabbards, the sight of the men crouching with bent knees as they fixed on the long blades, to be doing something that was aimed at their enemy instead of the muscle-racking tramp through the rain. The band of horsemen came forward, spurred into a trot, and Sharpe stood with his men in the front rank.

'We'll teach them to respect the bayonet! Wait for it! Wait for it!

The Partisans had no intention of charging the small Company. The horsemen split into two groups and galloped either side of the bedraggled soldiers, almost ignoring them. El Catolico was there, a smile of triumph on his face, and he swept off his hat in an ironic gesture as he went past, thirty yards away and untouchable. Teresa jerked towards him, but Harper held her firm, and she watched as the horsemen went on towards the fortress and the river. Sharpe knew what they were doing. The Company would be blocked in, trapped in the valley, and El Catolico would wait until the rest of the Partisans, summoned from the south, came to his support.

He wiped rain from his face. 'Come on. There was nowhere to go, so the best thing was to go on. Perhaps El Catolico could be threatened, a bayonet at Teresa's throat, but in Sharpe's mind he could envisage only failure, defeat. El Catolico had never been fooled. They must have known Sharpe had gone north, and while the Company struggled over the foul uplands the Spaniard had brought his followers along the easy road. Sharpe cursed himself for a fool, for an optimistic fool, but there was nothing to be done. He listened to the boots scuffing on the wet surface, the hiss of the rain, the splashing of the ever-rising stream, and he let his eyes look at the far, shrouded hills across the river, then at the stone of the small fort that had been built, centuries before, to protect the upland valleys from marauders crossing from Portugal, and then he looked right, farther north, at the spur of the hills that almost reached the river, and saw, on the blurred horizon, the shape of a horseman who had a strange, square hat.

'Down! Down! Down!

Something, an instinct, a half-perceived blur, told him the French patrol had only just arrived on the skyline. He forced the men down, into the streambed, burying the Light Company into cover. They scrambled behind the shallow turf-bank, wet faces looking to him for explanation, receiving none as he pushed them down.

El Catolico was much, much slower. Sharpe, lying next to Harper and the girl, watched the Partisans ride towards the ford, and it was not until the French lancers were moving, trotting almost sedately down the slope, that the grey figure wheeled, waved his arm, and the Partisans urged their tired mounts into a gallop. The Spaniards rode back into the valley, scattering as they picked their own course, and the lancers, a different regiment from the Poles', chose their targets and went for them with levelled blades and spurts of bright water from their hooves. Sharpe, peering between tufts of grass, could see twenty lancers, but, looking back to the northern skyline, he saw more appear, and then a group at the place where the hills almost met the river, and he realized that a full French regiment was there, coming south, and as he tried to find rhyme or reason in their presence he saw the girl jerk the rope free, scrabble backwards, and she was up, white dress brilliant in the murk, and running south towards the hills, to where El Catolico and his men were desperately fleeing. He pushed Harper down.

'Stay there!

The girl stumbled on the far bank of the stream, lost her balance, turned and saw Sharpe coming. She seemed to panic, for she ran downstream, past a wide bend in the water, and turned south again. They must see her! Sharpe shouted at her to get down, but the wind snatched away the words and he forced himself on, getting closer, and leapt at her. He crashed into her as she turned to look where he was and his weight drove her into the gravel beside the stream. She fought at him, snarling, her fingernails scratching at his eyes, but he bore" her down, his weight crushing her, took her wrists and forced them apart, ground them into the small sharp stones, and used all his strength to keep them still. She kicked at him and he hooked his legs over hers, hammered them down, not caring if he hurt her, thinking only of the eight feet ten inches of lance that could pin them both like wriggling insects. The stream ran cold round his ankles and he knew that Teresa must be lying in water to her waist, but there was no time to care about that because there were hooves near, and he thrust down his head, cracking her forehead, as a horse splashed by them in the stream.

He looked up, saw Jose, the man who had escorted them to the river, shouting down at the girl, his words lost in the whipping rain; then the Partisan's elbows and heels moved, the horse spurred into a frantic gallop, and Sharpe saw three lancers, their mouths open in the gaping, silent scream of a cavalry charge, galloping across to trap the Spaniard.

Jose twisted, slashed at his horse, found level ground and put his head down, but the lancers were too close. Sharpe watched, saw a Frenchman rise in his stirrups, draw back his lance, and lunge forward so the lance had all the rider's weight behind the steel point that rammed into Jose's back. He arched, screamed into the wind, fell with the pelting rain, and his hands fumbled at his spine to pull at the great spear that was ridden over him. The other two lancers leaned into the dying man, thrust down as they slowed their horses, and Sharpe heard the snatch of a laugh on the wind.

Teresa took a breath, twisted violently, and Sharpe knew she was about to scream. She had not seen Jose's death, knew only that El Catolico was near, and there was only one thing for Sharpe to do. His legs were across hers, hooking hers flat, his hands were on her wrists, so he jammed his mouth on top of hers and forced her head down. She bit at him; their teeth clashed jarringly, but he twisted his mouth so that his was at a right angle to hers and, using his teeth, forced her down into the gravel. One eye glared at him, she jerked beneath him, twisted, but his weight smothered her and, very suddenly, she lay still.

The voice was close; it seemed almost on top of them, and she could hear, as he could, the crunch of hooves in the gravel.

'Jean!

There was a shout from further away, more hooves, and the girl lay utterly still. Sharpe could see the sudden fear in her eye, feel her heart beating beneath his chest, her breath suddenly checked in his mouth. He raised his mouth, with its bloodied lip, from hers, turned his head, infinitely slowly, so that he could see all her face, and whispered, 'Lie still. Still.

She nodded, almost imperceptibly, and Sharpe let go of her wrists, though his hands stayed on top of them. The rain seethed down, smashed on his back, dripped from his hair and shako on to her face. The voice came again, still shouting, and Sharpe heard through the hissing rain the creak of saddlery and the snorting of a horse. Her eyes stayed on his. He dared not look up, though he desperately wanted to see how close the lancer was, and he saw her eyes flick upwards and back to his and there was a new fear in them. She must have seen something; the Frenchman could not be far, looking not for a couple lying in a stream but for horsemen who had scattered into the rainstorm. Her hand gripped at his; she jerked with a tiny movement of her head as if to tell him that the Frenchman was close, but he shook his head very slowly, and then, telling himself that a raised head increased the chance of discovery, he lowered his head towards her. The hooves crunched again. The Frenchman laughed, shouted something at his friends, and she kept her eyes open as Sharpe kissed her. She could have moved, but she did not; her eyes still watched as her tongue explored his cut lip, and Sharpe, looking at the huge, dark eyes, thought that she was watching him because what was happening to her was so unbelievable that only the evidence of her eyes could confirm it. He watched her, too.

The lancer shouted again, much closer, and then there was a reply, mocking and imperative, suggesting that the closest lancer had been deceived: a bird, perhaps, in the streambed, or a running rabbit, and he was being called back. Sharpe could hear the horses' hooves crashing in the streambed, and once, by a break in the wind, the sound seemed so close that the girl's eyes widened in fear, and then the sound receded, the voices faded, and she shut her eyes, kissed him fiercely, and, almost in the same movement, thrust his head away. The three lancers were going, their horses' wet rumps glistening, and Sharpe let out a sigh of relief, and of regret.

'They've gone.

She began to move, but he shook his head. 'Wait!

She turned her head, raised it so that her cheek touched his, and she hissed when she saw what was at the end of the valley: a convoy, with rows of ox-carts whose ungreased axles screamed piercingly through the foul weather, and either side of the plodding carts were the shapes of more horsemen, sabres and lances, escorting the carts southwards towards the Almeida road. It could take an hour for the convoy to pass, but at least it had driven away El Catolico and his men, and Sharpe realized, with one of the sudden bursts of elation that had punctuated the sense of growing failure for the last week, that as long as the Light Company was not discovered they should safely reach the ford when the French had gone. He looked at the girl.

'Will you be still?

She nodded. He asked again, she nodded again, and he slowly eased himself off her and lay down beside her. She turned over on to her stomach and the wet dress clung to her and he remembered the sight of her naked body, its shadowed, slim beauty, and he reached out a hand and took the rope at her neck, turning it so he found the knot, and fumbling at it with wet fingers. The tight, sodden rope yielded slowly, but it was off and he dropped it to the gravel.

'I'm sorry.

She shrugged as if it was no matter. There was a chain round her neck and Sharpe, his hand already close, pulled it, to find a square locket, made of silver. She watched, her dark eyes utterly expressionless, as he put a thumbnail under the catch and it sprang open. There was no picture and she gave the hint of a smile because she understood that he had expected one. The inside of the lid was engraved: my love to you. J. It took him a few seconds to realize that Joaquim, El Catolico, would never have inscribed a piece of silver in English, and he knew, with a sick certainty, that it had belonged to Hardy. 'J' for Josefina, and he looked at the silver ring, engraved with an eagle, that she had bought before Talavera, before Hardy, and with a superstition he did not understand he touched the locket on to the ring.

'He's dead, isn't he?

For a moment her face did not move, but then she nodded. Her eyes dropped to the ring on his finger, back to his face.

'The gold?

'Yes?

'You go to Cadiz?

It was Sharpe's turn to think, to watch her eyes through the rain dripping from the peak of his shako. 'No.

'You keep it?

'I think so. But to fight the French, not to take home. I promise.

She nodded and turned to watch the French convoy. Guns, coming from the French Army of the North, and going to Almeida. Not field guns or even siege artillery but Bonaparte's favourite eight-inch howitzers, with obscene little muzzles that squatted like cooking-pots in their wooden beds and which could throw explosive shells high into the air to fall into the packed houses of a besieged town. There were carts as well, presumably with ammunition, and all pulled by slow oxen who were prodded with long goads and thrashed by irate cavalrymen. Their progress was not helped by the wind getting under the canvas covers of the carts, whipping the ropes free so that the tarpaulins flapped and writhed like pinioned bats, and the cavalrymen, doubtless cursing the war, fought to cover the precious powder-kegs from the unending rain. The solid axles, turning with the wheels, screeched over the sodden valley. Sharpe could feel the rain beating on his back, the water in the stream rising to his knees, and he knew that the river would be rising as well, and that with every passing moment his chance of crossing the ford was receding. The water would be too deep. He turned to the girl again.

'How did Hardy die?

'El Catolico. She gave the answer readily enough and Sharpe knew that her loyalty was changing. It was not the kiss.

'Why does he want the gold?

She shrugged as though it were a stupid question. 'To buy power.

For a moment Sharpe wondered if she meant soldiers, and then saw she had spoken the truth. The Spanish armies were gone; the government, if it could be called a government, was in faraway Cadiz, and El Catolico had an unparalleled chance to build his own empire. From the hills of Old Castile he could fashion a fiefdom that would rival that of the ancient barons who had built the fortresses that dotted the border area. For a ruthless man the whole country of Spain was one big opportunity. He was still staring at the girl.

'And you?

'I want the French dead. The words were spoken with a terrible vehemence. 'All of them.

'You need our help.

She looked at him very steadily, not liking the truth, but finally nodded. 'I know.

He kept his eyes open and leaned forward, kissed her again as the rain lashed at them and the stream soaked them and the carts of the French convoy screeched in their ears. She shut her eyes, put a hand behind his head, held him, and he knew it was not a dream. He wanted her.

She pulled away, smiled at him for the first time. 'You know the river rises?

He nodded. 'Can we cross?

She glanced at the stream, shook her head. 'If the rain stops tonight? Yes. Sharpe had seen the extraordinary speed with which rivers, in these dry hills, rose and fell. She nodded at the fort. 'You can spend the night there.

'And you?

She smiled again. 'Can I leave?

He felt a fool. 'Yes.

'I'll stay. What's your name?

'Richard.

She nodded. She looked again at the fortress.

'You will be safe. We use it. Ten men can stop the entrance.

'And El Catolico?

She shook her head. 'He's frightened of you. He'll wait till tomorrow, when his men come.

Rain lashed across the valley, ran' from rock and grass and swelled the stream as the wind tore at the landscape. Half in the water, half out, they waited for the convoy to pass, and for what the next day would bring. The war would have to wait.