Sharpe’s Rifles. Bernard Cornwell

the enemy, and convinced that a journey north would take them to safety far faster than a journey to the south. They knew their own army had been outmanoeuvred and driven into retreat, and they had seen the remnants of the Spanish armies that had been similarly broken and scattered. The French spread victorious across the land, and these Riflemen were bereft and frightened.

      Sharpe was also frightened. These men could call the bluff of his tenuous authority with a terrifying ease. Worse, if they perceived him as a threat to their survival, then he could only expect a blade in the back. His name would be recorded as an officer who had died in the débâcle of Sir John Moore’s retreat, or perhaps his death would not even be noticed by anyone for he had no family. He was not even sure he had friends any more, for when a man was lifted from the ranks into the officers’ mess he left his friends far behind.

      Sharpe supposed he should turn back to impose his will on the makeshift company, but he was too shaken, and unwilling to face their resentment. He persuaded himself that he had a useful task to perform in the ruined farmhouse where, with a horrid feeling that he evaded his real duty, he took out his telescope.

      Lieutenant Richard Sharpe was not a wealthy man. His uniform was no better than those of the men he led, except that his threadbare officer’s trousers had silver buttons down their seams. His boots were as ragged, his rations as poor, and his weapons as battered as any of the other Riflemen’s equipment. Yet he possessed one object of value and beauty.

      It was the telescope; a beautiful instrument made by Matthew Burge in London and presented to Sergeant Richard Sharpe by General Sir Arthur Wellesley. There was a brass plate recording the date of the battle in India where Sharpe, a redcoat then, had saved the General’s life. That act had also brought a battlefield commission and, staring through the glass, he now resented that commission. It had made him a man apart, an enemy to his own kind. There had been a time when men crowded about Richard Sharpe’s campfire, and sought Richard Sharpe’s approval, but no longer.

      Sharpe gazed down the valley to where, in the dusk’s snowstorm, he thought he had seen the grey smear of smoke from a village’s fires. Now, through the finely ground lenses, he saw the stone buildings and small high arch of a church’s bell tower. So there was a village just a few hours’ march away and, however poor, it would have some hoarded food; grain and beans would be buried in wax-sealed pots and hams hanging in chimneys. The thought of food was suddenly poignant and overwhelming.

      He edged the telescope right, scanning the glaring brilliance of the snow. A tree hung with icicles skidded across the lens. A sudden movement made Sharpe stop the slewing glass, but it was only a raven flapping black against a white hillside. Behind the raven a churned line of footsteps showed where men had slithered down the hill into dead ground.

      Sharpe stared. The tracks were fresh. Why had the picquets not raised an alarm? He moved the glass to look at the shallow trench in the snow that marked the line of the goat track and he saw that the picquets were gone. He swore silently. The men were already in mutiny. God damn them! He slammed the tubes of the spyglass shut, stood, and turned.

      He turned to see Rifleman Harper standing in the hovel’s western doorway. He must have approached with a catlike stealth, for Sharpe had heard nothing. ‘We’re not going south,’ the Irishman said flatly. He seemed somewhat startled that Sharpe had moved so suddenly but his voice was implacable.

      ‘I don’t give a damn what you think. Just get out and get ready.’

      ‘No.’

      Sharpe laid the telescope on his haversack that he had placed with his new sword and battered rifle on the window-sill of the ruined house. There was a choice now. He could reason and cajole, persuade and plead, or he could exercise the authority of his rank. He was too cold and too hungry to adopt the laborious course, and so he fell back on rank. ‘You’re under arrest, Rifleman.’

      Harper ignored the words. ‘We’re not going, sir, and that’s that.’

      ‘Sergeant Williams!’ Sharpe shouted through the door of the hovel that faced towards the barn. The Riflemen stood in an arc about the shallow grave they had scooped in the snow. They watched, and their stillness was evidence that Harper was their emissary and spokesman this morning. Williams did not move.

      ‘Sergeant Williams!’

      ‘He’s not coming,’ Harper said. ‘It’s very simple, sir. We’re not going south. We’ll go north to the coast. We talked about it, so we did, and that’s where we’re going. You can come or stay. It’s all the same to us.’

      Sharpe stood very still, disguising the fear that pricked his skin cold and churned in his hungry belly. If he went north then he tacitly agreed with this mutiny, he accepted it, and with that acceptance he lost every shred of his authority. Yet if he insisted on going south he was inviting his own murder. ‘We’re going south.’

      ‘You don’t understand, sir.’

      ‘Oh, I do. I understand very well. You’ve decided to go north, but you’re scared to death that I might go south on my own and reach the Lisbon garrison. Then I report you for disobedience and mutiny. They’ll stand you by your own grave, Harper, and shoot you.’

      ‘You’ll never make it to the south, sir.’

      ‘What you mean, Harper, is that you’ve been sent here to make sure I don’t survive. A dead officer can’t betray a mutiny, isn’t that right?’

      Sharpe could see from the Irishman’s expression that his words had been accurate. Harper shifted uneasily. He was a huge man, four inches taller than Sharpe’s six feet, and with a broad body that betrayed a massive strength. Doubtless the other Riflemen were content to let Harper do their dirty work, and perhaps only he had the guts to do it. Or perhaps his nation’s hatred of the English would make this murder into a pleasure.

      ‘Well?’ Sharpe insisted. ‘Am I right?’

      Harper licked his lips, then put his hand to the brass hilt of his bayonet. ‘You can come with us, sir.’

      Sharpe let the silence drag out, then, as though surrendering to the inevitable, he nodded wearily. ‘I don’t seem to have much choice, do I?’

      ‘No, sir.’ Harper’s voice betrayed relief that he would not have to kill the officer.

      ‘Bring those things.’ Sharpe nodded at his haversack and weapons.

      Harper, somewhat astonished to receive the peremptory order, nevertheless bent over to pick up the haversack. He was still bending when he saw he had been tricked. Harper began to twist away but, before he could protect himself, Sharpe had kicked him in the belly. It was a massive kick, thumping deep into the hard flesh, and Sharpe followed it with a two-handed blow that slammed down onto the back of Harper’s neck.

      Sharpe was amazed that the Irishman could even stand. Another man would have been winded and stunned, but not him. He shook his head like a cornered boar, staggered backwards, then succeeded in straightening himself to receive Sharpe’s next blows. The officer’s right fist slammed into the big man’s belly, then his left followed.

      It was like hitting teak, but the blows hurt Harper. Not enough. The Irishman grunted, then lurched forward. Sharpe ducked, hit again, then his head seemed to explode like a cannon firing as a huge fist slammed into the side of his skull. He butted his head forward and felt it smash on the other man’s face, then his arms and chest were being hugged in a great, rib-cracking embrace.

      Sharpe raised his right foot and raked his heel down Harper’s shin. It must have hurt, but the grip did not lessen and Sharpe had no weapon left but his teeth. He bit the Irishman’s cheek, clamping his teeth down, tasting the blood, and the pain was enough to force Harper to release his huge embrace to hit at the officer’s head.

      Sharpe was faster. He had grown up in a rookery where he had learned every trick of cheating and brutality. He punched Harper’s throat, then slammed a boot into his groin. Any other man would have been blubbing by now, shrivelling away from the pain, but Harper just seemed to shudder, then bored in again with his overwhelming strength.