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

The Portuguese.’

      ‘A sad accident, as you say,’ Christopher said, ‘but all the same I must congratulate you on your swift capture of Oporto. It was a notable feat of arms.’

      ‘It would have been still more notable,’ Argenton observed, ‘if the opposition had been better soldiers.’

      ‘I trust your losses were not extravagant?’

      ‘A handful,’ Argenton said dismissively, ‘but half of our regiment was sent eastwards and they lost a good few men in an ambush by the river. An ambush’ – he looked accusingly at Christopher – ‘in which some British riflemen took part. I didn’t think there were any British troops in Oporto?’

      ‘There shouldn’t have been,’ Christopher said, ‘I ordered them south of the river.’

      ‘Then they disobeyed you,’ Argenton said.

      ‘Did any of the riflemen die?’ Christopher asked, mildly hoping that Argenton would have news of Sharpe’s death.

      ‘I wasn’t there. I’m posted to Oporto where I find billets, look for rations and do the errands of war.’

      ‘Which I am sure you discharge admirably,’ Christopher said smoothly, then led his guest into the farmhouse where Argenton admired the tiles about the dining-room hearth and the simple iron chandelier that hung above the table. The meal itself was commonplace enough: chicken, beans, bread, cheese and a good country red wine, but Captain Argenton was complimentary. ‘We’ve been on short rations,’ he explained, ‘but that should change now. We’ve found plenty of food in Oporto and a warehouse stuffed to the rafters with good British powder and shot.’

      ‘You were short of those too?’ Christopher asked.

      ‘We have plenty,’ Argenton said, ‘but the British powder is better than our own. We have no source of saltpetre except what we scrape from cesspit walls.’

      Christopher grimaced at the thought. The best saltpetre, an essential element of gunpowder, came from India and he had never considered that there might be a shortage in France. ‘I assume,’ he said, ‘that the powder was a British gift to the Portuguese.’

      ‘Who have now given it to us,’ Argenton said, ‘much to Marshal Soult’s delight.’

      ‘Then it is time, perhaps,’ Christopher suggested, ‘that we made the Marshal unhappy.’

      ‘Indeed,’ Argenton said, ‘indeed,’ and then fell silent because they had reached the purpose of their meeting.

      It was a strange purpose, but an exciting one. The two men were plotting mutiny. Or rebellion. Or a coup against Marshal Soult’s army. But however it was described it was a ploy that might end the war.

      There was, Argenton now explained, a great deal of dissatisfaction in Marshal Soult’s army. Christopher had heard all this before from his guest, but he did not interrupt as Argenton rehearsed the arguments that would justify his disloyalty. He described how some officers, all devout Catholics, were mortally offended by their army’s behaviour in Spain and Portugal. Churches had been desecrated, nuns raped. ‘Even the holy sacraments have been defiled,’ Argenton said in a horrified tone.

      ‘I can hardly believe it,’ Christopher said.

      Other officers, a few, were simply opposed to Bonaparte. Argenton was a Catholic monarchist, but he was willing to make common cause with those men who still held Jacobin sympathies and believed that Bonaparte had betrayed the revolution. ‘They cannot be trusted, of course,’ Argenton said, ‘not in the long run, but they will join us in resisting Bonaparte’s tyranny.’

      ‘I pray they do,’ Christopher said. The British government had long known that there was a shadowy league of French officers who opposed Bonaparte. They called themselves the Philadelphes and London had once sent agents in search of their elusive brotherhood, but had finally concluded that their numbers were too few, their ideals too vague and their supporters too ideologically divided for the Philadelphes ever to succeed.

      Yet here, in remote northern Portugal, the various opponents of Bonaparte had found a common cause. Christopher had first got wind of that cause when he talked with a French officer who had been taken prisoner on Portugal’s northern border and who had been living in Braga where, having given his parole, his only restriction was to remain within the barracks for his own protection. Christopher had drunk with the unhappy officer and heard a tale of French unrest that sprang from one man’s absurd ambition.

      Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, Marshal of France and commander of the army that was now invading Portugal, had seen other men who served the Emperor become princes, even kings, and he reckoned his own dukedom was a poor reward for a career that outshone almost all the Emperor’s other marshals. Soult had been a soldier for twenty-four years, a general for fifteen and a marshal for five. At Austerlitz, the greatest of all the Emperor’s victories so far, Marshal Soult had covered himself with glory, far outfighting Marshal Bernadotte who, nevertheless, was now Prince of Ponte Corvo. Jérôme Bonaparte, the Emperor’s youngest brother, was an idle, extravagant wastrel, yet he was King of Westphalia while Marshal Murat, a hot-headed braggart, was King of Naples. Louis Napoleon, another of the Emperor’s brothers, was King of Holland, and all those men were nonentities while Soult, who knew his own high worth, was a mere duke and it was not enough.

      But now the ancient throne of Portugal was empty. The royal family, fearing the French invasion, had fled to Brazil and Soult wanted to occupy the vacant chair. Colonel Christopher, at first, had not believed the tale, but the prisoner had sworn its truth and Christopher had talked with some of the other few prisoners who had been captured in skirmishes on the northern frontier and all claimed to have heard much the same story. It was no secret, they said, that Soult had royal pretensions, but the paroled officers also told Christopher that the Marshal’s ambitions had soured many of his own officers, who disliked the idea that they should fight and suffer so far from home only to put Nicolas Soult on an empty chair. There was talk of mutiny and Christopher had been wondering how he could discover whether that mutinous talk was serious when Captain Argenton approached him.

      Argenton, with great daring, had been travelling in northern Portugal, dressed in civilian clothes and claiming to be a wine merchant from Upper Canada. If he had been caught he would have been shot as a spy, for Argenton was not exploring the land ahead of the French armies, but rather trying to discover pliable Portuguese aristocrats who would encourage Soult in his ambitions, for if the Marshal was to declare himself King of Portugal or, more modestly, King of Northern Lusitania, then he first needed to be persuaded that there were men of influence in Portugal who would support that usurpation of the vacant throne. Argenton had been talking with such men and Christopher, to his surprise, discovered there were plenty of aristocrats, churchmen and scholars in northern Portugal who hated their own monarchy and believed that a foreign king from an enlightened France would be of benefit to their country. So letters were being collected that would encourage Soult to declare himself king.

      And when that happened, Argenton had promised Christopher, the army would mutiny. The war had to be stopped, Argenton said, or else, like a great fire, it would consume all Europe. It was a madness, he said, a madness of the Emperor who seemed intent on conquering the whole world. ‘He believes he is Alexander the Great,’ the Frenchman said gloomily, ‘and if he doesn’t stop then there will be nothing left of France. Who are we to fight? Everyone? Austria? Prussia? Britain? Spain? Portugal? Russia?’

      ‘Never Russia,’ Christopher said, ‘even Bonaparte is not that mad.’

      ‘He is mad,’ Argenton insisted, ‘and we must rid France of him.’ And the start of the process, he believed, would be the mutiny that would surely erupt when Soult declared himself a king.

      ‘Your army is unhappy,’ Christopher allowed, ‘but will they follow you into mutiny?’

      ‘I would not lead it,’ Argenton said, ‘but there are men who will. And those men want to take the army back to France and that, I assure you, is what most of the soldiers want. They will follow.’