Sharpe’s Gold. Bernard Cornwell

The ropes kept breaking and all a General could do was tie a knot and keep going. A rope was unravelling, here and now, an important one, and Sharpe watched the fingers drum on the edge of the table. The eyes came up to Sharpe again, flicked to Lawford.

      ‘Colonel?’

      ‘Sir?’

      ‘I am borrowing Captain Sharpe from you, and his Company. I doubt whether I need them for more than one month.’

      ‘Yes, my lord.’ Lawford looked at Sharpe and shrugged.

      Wellington stood again. He seemed to be relieved, as if a decision had been made. ‘The war is not lost, gentlemen, though I know my confidence is not universally shared.’ He sounded bitter, angry with the defeatists whose letters home were quoted in the newspapers. ‘We may bring the French to battle, and if we do we will win.’ Sharpe never doubted it. Of all Britain’s generals this was the only one who knew how to beat the French. ‘If we win we will only delay their advance.’ He opened a map, stared at it blankly, and let it snap shut again into a roll. ‘No, gentlemen, our survival depends on something else. Something that you, Captain Sharpe, must bring me. Must, do you hear? Must.’

      Sharpe had never heard the General so insistent. ‘Yes, sir.’

      Lawford coughed. ‘And if he fails, my lord?’

      The wintry smile again. ‘He had better not.’ He looked at Sharpe. ‘You are not the only card in my hand, Mr Sharpe, but you are … important. There are things happening, gentlemen, that this army does not know about. If it did it would be generally more optimistic.’ He sat down again, leaving them mystified. Sharpe suspected the mystification was on purpose. He was spreading some counter-rumours to the defeatists, and that, too, was part of a general’s job. He looked up again. ‘You are now under my orders, Captain Sharpe. Your men must be ready to march this night. They must not be encumbered with wives or unnecessary baggage, and they must have full ammunition.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘And you will be back here in one hour. You have two tasks to perform.’

      Sharpe wondered if he was to be told what they were. ‘Sir?’

      ‘First, Mr Sharpe, you will receive your orders. Not from me but from an old companion of yours.’ Wellington saw Sharpe’s quizzical look. ‘Major Hogan.’

      Sharpe’s face betrayed his pleasure. Hogan, the engineer, the quiet Irishman who was a friend, whose sense Sharpe had leaned on in the difficult days leading to Talavera. Wellington saw the pleasure and tried to puncture it. ‘But before that, Mr Sharpe, you will apologize to Lieutenant Ayres.’ He watched for Sharpe’s reaction.

      ‘But of course, sir. I had always planned to.’ Sharpe looked shocked at the thought that he might ever have contemplated another course of action and, through his innocently wide eyes, wondered if he saw a flicker of amusement behind the General’s cold, blue gaze.

      Wellington looked away, to Lawford, and with his usual disarming speed suddenly became affable. ‘You’re well, Colonel?’

      ‘Thank you, sir. Yes.’ Lawford beamed with pleasure. He had served on Wellington’s staff, knew the General well.

      ‘Join me for dinner tonight. The usual time.’ The General looked at Forrest. ‘And you, Major?’

      ‘My pleasure, sir.’

      ‘Good.’ The eyes flicked at Sharpe. ‘Captain Sharpe will be too busy, I fear.’ He nodded a dismissal. ‘Good day, gentlemen.’

      Outside the headquarters the bugles sounded the evening and the sun sank in magnificent crimson. Inside the quiet room the General paused a moment before plunging back into the paperwork that must be done before the dinner of roast mutton. Hogan, he thought, was right. If a miracle were needed to save the campaign, and it was, then the rogue he had just seen was the best man for the job. More than a rogue: a fighter, and a man who looked on failure as unthinkable. But a rogue, thought Wellington, a damned rogue all the same.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Sharpe had spent the hour between leaving and returning to Wellington’s headquarters conjuring all kinds of quixotic answers to the mystery of what he was supposed to bring back to the General. Perhaps, he had thought as he stirred the Company into activity, it would be a new French secret weapon, something like the British Colonel Congreve’s rocket system, of which there were so many tales but so little evidence. Or, more fanciful still, perhaps the British had secretly offered refuge to Napoleon’s divorced Josephine, who might have smuggled herself to Spain to become a pawn in the high politics of the war. He was still wondering as he was shown into a large room of the headquarters, to find a reception committee, formal and strained, flanking a wretchedly embarrassed Lieutenant Ayres.

      The unctuous young Major smiled at Sharpe as though he were a valued and expected guest. ‘Ah, Captain Sharpe. You know the Provost Marshal, you’ve met Lieutenant Ayres, and this is Colonel Williams. Gentlemen?’ The Major made a delicate gesture as if inviting them all to sit down and take a glass of sherry. It seemed that Colonel Williams, plump and red-veined, was deputed to do the talking.

      ‘Disgraceful, Sharpe. Disgraceful!’

      Sharpe stared a fraction of an inch over Williams’s head and stopped himself from blinking. It was a useful way of discomfiting people, and, sure enough, Williams wavered from the apparent gaze and made a helpless gesture towards Lieutenant Ayres.

      ‘You imperilled his authority, overstepped your own. A disgrace!’

      ‘Yes, sir. I apologize!’

      ‘What?’ Williams seemed surprised at Sharpe’s sudden apology. Lieutenant Ayres was squirming with uneasiness, while the Provost Marshal seemed impatient to get the charade done. Williams cleared his throat, seemed to want his pound of flesh. ‘You apologize?’

      ‘Yes, sir. Unreservedly, sir. Terrible disgrace, sir. I utterly apologize, sir, regret my part very much, sir, as I’m sure Lieutenant Ayres does his.’

      Ayres, startled by a sudden smile from Sharpe, nodded hastily and agreed. ‘I do, sir. I do.’

      Williams whirled on his unfortunate Lieutenant. ‘What do you have to regret, Ayres? You mean there’s more to this than I thought?’

      The Provost Marshal sighed and scraped a boot on the floor. ‘I think the purpose of this meeting is over, gentlemen, and I have work to do.’ He looked at Sharpe. ‘Thank you, Captain, for your apology. We’ll leave you.’

      As they left, Sharpe could hear Colonel Williams interrogating Ayres as to why he should have any regrets, and Sharpe let a grin show on his face which widened into a broad smile as the door opened once more and Michael Hogan came into the room. The small Irishman shut the door carefully and smiled at Sharpe.

      ‘As graceful an apology as I expected from you. How are you?’

      They shook hands, pleasure on both their faces. The war, it turned out, was treating Hogan well. An engineer, he had been transferred to Wellington’s staff, and promoted. He spoke Portuguese and Spanish, and added to those skills was a common sense that was rare. Sharpe raised his eyebrows at Hogan’s elegant, new uniform.

      ‘So what do you do here?’

      ‘A bit of this and the other.’ Hogan beamed at him, paused, then sneezed violently. ‘Christ and St Patrick! Bloody Irish Blackguard!’

      Sharpe looked puzzled and Hogan held out his snuff-box. ‘Can’t get Scotch Rappee here, only Irish Blackguard. It’s like sniffing grapeshot straight up the nostrils.’

      ‘Give it up.’

      Hogan laughed. ‘I’ve tried; I can’t.’ His eyes watered as another sneeze gathered force. ‘God in heaven!’

      ‘So