Sharpe’s Rifles: The French Invasion of Galicia, January 1809. Bernard Cornwell
tiny village where they could find shelter, then the snow blanketed the view again. He shivered, and it seemed impossible that this was Spain.
Footsteps made him turn. Rifleman Harper ducked under the western door of the small house, saw Sharpe, and checked. He waved a hand at some fallen roof beams that were embedded in stones and turf. ‘Timber, sir,’ he explained his errand, ‘for the fire.’
‘Carry on.’ Sharpe watched as the Irishman took hold of the rotted timbers and snapped them clear of their obstructions. Harper seemed to resent being watched, for he straightened up and stared at the Lieutenant. ‘So what are we doing, sir?’
For a second Sharpe took offence at the surly tone, then realized that Harper was only asking what every man in the company wanted to know. ‘We’re going home.’
‘You mean England?’
‘I mean back to the army.’ Sharpe suddenly wished he faced this journey alone, unencumbered by resentful men. ‘We’ll have to go south. To Lisbon.’
Harper crossed to the doorway where he stooped to stare eastwards. ‘I didn’t think you meant Donegal.’
‘Is that where you come from?’
‘Aye.’ Harper watched the snow settle in the darkening valley. ‘Donegal looks something like this, so it does. Only this is a better land.’
‘Better?’ Sharpe was surprised. He was also obscurely pleased that the big man had deigned to have this conversation which made him suddenly more likeable.
‘Better?’ Sharpe had to ask again.
‘The English never ruled here. Did they, sir?’ The insolence was back. Harper, standing, stared down at the sitting Sharpe and there was nothing but scorn in his voice. ‘This is unsoiled country, so it is.’
Sharpe knew he had been lured into the question which had released this man’s derision. ‘I thought you were fetching timber.’
‘I was.’
‘Then fetch it and go.’
Later, after he had visited the shivering picquets, Sharpe went back to the barn and sat by the wall where he listened to the low voices of the men who gathered about Rifleman Harper. They laughed softly, letting Sharpe know that he was excluded from the company of soldiers, even of the damned. He was alone.
Murray died in the night. He did it without noise or fuss, just sliding decorously into death.
‘The lads want to bury him.’ Williams said it as though he expected Sharpe to disapprove.
Sharpe was standing in the barn’s doorway. ‘Of course.’
‘He said to give you this.’ Williams held out the big sword.
It was an awkward moment and Sharpe was aware of the men’s gaze as he took the cumbersome weapon. ‘Thank you, Sergeant.’
‘He always said it was better than a sabre in a fight, sir,’ Williams said. ‘Puts the fear of God into the bloody Frogs, it does. Right butcher’s blade, it is.’
‘I’m sure.’
The moment of intimacy, forged by the gift of the sword, seemed to give Williams confidence. ‘We were talking last night, sir.’
‘We?’
‘Me and the lads.’
‘And?’ Sharpe jumped from the barn’s raised doorway into a world made dazzling by new snow. The whole valley glittered under a pale sun that was threatened by thickening clouds.
The Sergeant followed him. ‘They’re not going, sir. Not going south.’ His tone was respectful, but very firm.
Sharpe walked away from the barn. His boots squeaked in the fresh snow. They also let in damp because, like the boots of the men he was supposed to command, they were torn, gaping, and barely held together with rags and twine; hardly the footwear of a privileged officer whom these frightened Riflemen would follow through the valley of the shadow of death. ‘And who made that decision, Sergeant?’
‘We all did, sir.’
‘Since when, Sergeant, has this army been a …’ Sharpe paused, trying to remember the word he had once heard at a mess dinner. ‘A democracy?’
Williams had never heard the word. ‘A what, sir?’
Sharpe could not explain what it meant, so tried a different approach. ‘Since when did Sergeants outrank Lieutenants?’
‘It isn’t that, sir.’ Williams was embarrassed.
‘Then what is it?’
The Sergeant hesitated, but he was being watched by men who clustered in the barn’s gaping entrance, and under their critical gaze he found courage and volubility. ‘It’s madness, sir. That’s what it is. We can’t go south in this weather! We’ll starve! And we don’t even know if there’s still a garrison at Lisbon.’
‘That’s true, we don’t.’
‘So we’ll go north, sir.’ Williams said it confidingly, as though he did Sharpe a great favour by the suggestion. ‘There are ports up there, sir, and we’ll find a boat. I mean the Navy’s still off the coast, sir. They’ll find us.’
‘How do you know the Navy’s there?’
Williams shrugged modestly. ‘It isn’t me who knows, sir.’
‘Harper?’ Sharpe guessed.
‘Harps! Lord no, sir. He’s just a bog-Paddy, isn’t he? He wouldn’t know nothing, sir. No, it’s Rifleman Tongue, sir. He’s a clever man. He can read. It was the drink that did him in, sir, you see. Only the drink. But he’s an educated man, sir, and he told us, see, how the Navy’s off the coast, sir, and how we can go north and find a boat.’ Williams, encouraged by Sharpe’s silence, gestured towards the steep northern hills. ‘It can’t be far, sir, not to the coast. Maybe three days? Four?’
Sharpe walked a few paces further from the barn. The snow was about four inches thick, though it had drifted into deeper tracts where the ground was hollowed. It was not too deep for marching, which was all Sharpe cared about this morning. The clouds were beginning to mist the sun as Sharpe glanced into the Sergeant’s face. ‘Has it occurred to you, Sergeant, that the French are invading this country from the north and east?’
‘Are they, sir?’
‘And that if we go north, we’re likely to march straight into them? Or is that what you want? You were quite ready to surrender yesterday.’
‘We might have to be a bit clever, sir. Dodge about a bit.’ Williams made the matter of avoiding the French sound like a child’s game of hide and seek.
Sharpe raised his voice so that every man could hear him. ‘We’re going south, Sergeant. We’ll head down this valley today and find shelter tonight. After that we turn south. We leave in one hour.’
‘Sir …’
‘One hour, Sergeant! So if you wish to dig a grave for Captain Murray, start now. And if you wish to disobey me, Sergeant Williams, then make the grave large enough for yourself as well. Do you understand me?’
Williams paused, wanting to offer defiance, but he quailed before Sharpe’s gaze. There was a moment of tension when authority trembled in the balance, then he nodded acceptance. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then get on with it.’
Sharpe turned away. He was shaking inside. He had sounded calm enough giving Williams his parting orders, but he was not at all certain those orders would be obeyed. These men had no habit of obeying Lieutenant Sharpe. They were cold, far from home, surrounded by 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