Sharpe’s Rifles: The French Invasion of Galicia, January 1809. Bernard Cornwell

Murray was propped against a pile of packs inside the barn. He offered Sharpe a feeble smile. ‘What will you do?’

      ‘Sergeant Williams thinks I should take you to a French surgeon.’

      Murray grimaced. ‘I asked what you wanted to do.’

      Sharpe sat beside the Captain. ‘Rejoin.’

      Murray nodded. He was cradling a mug of tea, a precious gift from one of the Riflemen who had hoarded the leaves in the bottom of his ammunition pouch. ‘You can leave me here.’

      ‘I can’t …’

      ‘I’m dying.’ Murray made a deprecatory shrug to show that he wanted no sympathy. His wound was not bleeding over-much, but the Captain’s belly was swelling blue to show that there was bleeding inside. He nodded towards the other three badly wounded men, all of them with great sword cuts on their faces or chests. ‘Leave them too. Where will you go? The coast?’

      Sharpe shook his head. ‘We’ll never catch the army now.’

      ‘Probably not.’ Murray closed his eyes.

      Sharpe waited. It had started to rain again and a leak in the stone roof dripped insistently into the fire. He was thinking of his options. The most inviting choice was to attempt to follow Sir John Moore’s army, but they were retreating so fast, and the French now controlled the road that Sharpe must take, and thus he knew he must resist that temptation for it would only lead into captivity. Instead he must go south. Sir John had marched from Lisbon, and a few troops had been left to protect the Portuguese capital, and perhaps that garrison still existed and Sharpe could find it. ‘How far is Lisbon?’ he asked Murray.

      The Captain opened his eyes and shrugged. ‘God knows. Four? Five hundred miles?’ He flinched from a stab of pain. ‘It’s probably nearer six hundred on these roads. D’you think we’ve still got troops there?’

      ‘We can at least find a ship.’

      ‘If the French don’t get there first. What about Vigo?’

      ‘The French are more likely to be there than Lisbon.’

      ‘True.’ The Light Division had been sent to Vigo on a more southerly road. Only a few light troops, like these Riflemen, had been retained to protect Sir John Moore’s retreat. ‘Maybe Lisbon would be best.’ Murray looked past Sharpe and saw how the men were brushing and oiling their rifle locks. He sighed. ‘Don’t be too hard on them.’

      ‘I’m not.’ Sharpe was instantly defensive.

      Murray’s face flickered with a smile. ‘Were you ever commanded by an officer from the ranks?’

      Sharpe, smelling criticism, bridled for an instant, then realized that Murray was trying to be helpful. ‘No, sir, never.’

      ‘The men don’t like it. Stupid, really. They believe officers are born, not made.’ Murray paused to take a breath that made him shudder with pain. He saw Sharpe about to enjoin him to silence, but shook his head. ‘I haven’t got much time. I might as well use what there is. Do you think I’m being damnably rude?’

      ‘No, sir.’

      Murray paused to sip at his tea. ‘They’re good lads.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘But they have an odd sense of what’s proper. They expect officers to be different, you see. They want them to be privileged. Officers are men who choose to fight, they aren’t forced to it by poverty. Do you understand that?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘They think you’re really one of them; one of the damned, and they want their officers to be touched by something more than that.’ Murray shook his head sadly. ‘It isn’t very good advice, is it?’

      ‘It’s very good,’ Sharpe lied.

      The wind sighed at the corners of the stone barn and flickered the flames of the small fire. Murray smiled sadly. ‘Let me think of some more practical advice for you. Something that will get you to Lisbon.’ He frowned for an instant, then turned his red-rimmed eyes to Sharpe. ‘Get Patrick Harper on your side.’

      Sharpe turned to glance at the men who were crowded at the barn’s far end. The big Irishman seemed to sense that his name had been mentioned for he offered Sharpe a hostile glance.

      ‘He’s a troublemaker, but the men listen to him. I tried to make him a Chosen Man once,’ Murray instinctively used the Rifle’s old term for a Corporal, ‘but he wouldn’t have it. He’d make a good Sergeant. Hell! Even a good officer if he could read, but he won’t have any of it. But the men listen to him. He’s got Sergeant Williams under his thumb.’

      ‘I can manage Harper.’ Sharpe said the words with a false conviction. In the short time that he had been with this Battalion, Sharpe had often noticed the Irishman, and he had seen for himself the truth of Captain Murray’s assertion that he was a natural leader. Men crowded to Harper’s campfire, partly to relish his stories, and partly because they wanted his approval. To the officers he liked the Irishman offered a humorous allegiance, while to those he disliked he offered nothing but scorn. And there was something very intimidating about Rifleman Harper; not just because of his size, but because of his air of knowing self-reliance.

      ‘I’ve no doubt Harper thinks he can manage you. He’s a hard man,’ Murray paused, then smiled, ‘but he’s filled with sentimentality.’

      ‘So he has a weakness,’ Sharpe said harshly.

      ‘Is that a weakness?’ Murray shrugged. ‘I doubt it. But now you’ll think I’m weak. When I’m dead, you see,’ and again he had to shake his head to stop Sharpe interjecting, ‘when I’m dead,’ he repeated, ‘I want you to take my sword. I’ll tell Williams you’re to have it.’

      Sharpe looked at the Heavy Cavalry sword that was propped in its metal scabbard against the wall. It looked an awkward and clumsy weapon, but Sharpe could not make any such objection to the gift now. ‘Thank you.’ He said it awkwardly. He was not used to receiving personal favours, nor had he learned to be gracious in accepting them.

      ‘It isn’t much of a sword,’ Murray said, ‘but it’ll replace the one you lost. And if the men see you carrying it …’ he was unable to finish the sentence.

      ‘They’ll think I’m a real officer?’ The words betrayed Sharpe’s resentment.

      ‘They’ll think I liked you,’ Murray spoke in gentle correction, ‘and that will help.’

      Sharpe, reproved by the tone in the dying man’s voice, again muttered his thanks.

      Murray shrugged. ‘I watched you yesterday. You’re good in a fight, aren’t you?’

      ‘For a Quartermaster?’

      Murray ignored the self-pity. ‘You’ve seen a lot of battles?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘That wasn’t very tactful of you,’ Murray smiled, ‘new Lieutenants aren’t supposed to be more experienced than their seniors.’ The Captain looked up at the broken roof. ‘Bloody silly place to die, isn’t it?’

      ‘I’m going to keep you alive.’

      ‘I suspect you can do many things, Lieutenant Sharpe, but you’re not a miracle worker.’

      Murray slept after that. All the Riflemen rested that day. The rain was insistent and, in mid-afternoon, turned to a heavy, wet snow which, by nightfall, was settling on the shoulders of the closest hills. Hagman had snared two rabbits, thin fare, but something to flavour the few beans and scraps of bread that the men had hoarded in their knapsacks. There were no cooking cauldrons, but the men used tin mugs as saucepans.

      Sharpe left the barn at dusk and went to the cold shelter of the ruined farmhouse to watch the night fall. It was not much of a house, merely four broken stone walls that