Sharpe’s Havoc: The Northern Portugal Campaign, Spring 1809. Bernard Cornwell

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      SHARPE’S

      HAVOC

      Richard Sharpe and the campaign in northern Portugal, Spring 1809

      BERNARD CORNWELL

      Copyright

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2003

      Copyright © Bernard Cornwell 2003

      Map © Ken Lewis

      Bernard Cornwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      Ebook Edition © July 2009 ISBN: 9780007338689

      Version: 2017-05-06

      This novel is a work of fiction.

      The incidents and some of the characters portrayed in it, while based on real historical events and figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Sharpe’s Havoc is for William T. Oughtred who knows why

      ‘This book has the same combination of thorough research and narrative drive that distinguished its predecessors. A gripping read’

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      Table of Contents

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Epigraph

       Map

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Historical Note

       Sharpe’s Story

       About the Author

       The SHARPE Series (in chronological order)

       The SHARPE Series (in order of publication)

       Also by Bernard Cornwell

       About the Publisher

      CHAPTER ONE

      Miss Savage was missing.

      And the French were coming.

      The approach of the French was the more urgent crisis. The splintering noise of sustained musket fire was sounding just outside the city and in the last ten minutes five or six cannonballs had battered through the roofs of the houses high on the river’s northern bank. The Savage house was a few yards down the slope and for the moment was protected from errant French cannon fire, but already the warm spring air hummed with spent musket balls that sometimes struck the thick roof tiles with a loud crack or else ripped through the dark glossy pines to shower needles over the garden. It was a large house, built of white-painted stone and with dark-green shutters closed over the windows. The front porch was crowned with a wooden board on which were gilded letters spelling out the name House Beautiful in English. It seemed an odd name for a building high on the steep hillside where the city of Oporto overlooked the River Douro in northern Portugal, especially as the big square house was not beautiful at all, but quite stark and ugly and angular, even if its harsh lines were softened by dark cedars which would offer welcome shade in summer. A bird was making a nest in one of the cedars and whenever a musket ball tore through the branches it would squawk in alarm and fly a small loop before returning to its work. Scores of fugitives were fleeing past the House Beautiful, running down the hill towards the ferries and the pontoon bridge that would take them safe across the Douro. Some of the refugees drove pigs, goats and cattle, others pushed handcarts precariously loaded with furniture, and more than one carried a grandparent on his back.

      Richard Sharpe, Lieutenant in the second battalion of His Majesty’s 95th Rifles, unbuttoned his breeches and pissed on the narcissi in the House Beautiful’s front flower bed. The ground was soaked because there had been a storm the previous night. Lightning had flickered above the city, thunder had billowed across the sky and the heavens had opened so that the flower beds now steamed gently as the hot sun drew out the night’s moisture. An howitzer shell arched overhead, sounding like a ponderous barrel rolling swiftly over attic floorboards. It left a small grey trace of smoke from its burning fuse. Sharpe looked up at the smoke tendril, judging from its curve where the howitzer had to be emplaced. ‘They’re getting too bloody close,’ he said to no one in particular.

      ‘You’ll be drowning those poor bloody flowers, so you will,’ Sergeant Harper said, then added a hasty ‘sir’ when he saw Sharpe’s face.