Sharpe's Battle Part 20

"Yes, sir!"

Harris caught Sharpe's eye as the officer turned away. "Not one word, Harris,"

Sharpe said, thrusting the helmet into the rifleman's belly, "not one b.l.o.o.d.y word."

Captain Donaju stopped Sharpe as he walked away from the ramparts. "How do we fight without muskets?"

"I'll get you muskets, Donaju."

"How?"

"The same way a soldier gets everything that isn't issued to him," Sharpe said, "by theft."

That night not a single man deserted.

And next morning, though Sharpe did not recognize it at first, the trouble began.

"It's a bad business, Sharpe," Colonel Runciman said. "My G.o.d, man, but it's a bad business."

"What is, General?"

"You haven't heard?" Runciman asked.

"About the muskets, you mean?" Sharpe asked, a.s.suming that Runciman must be referring to his visit to the army headquarters, a visit that had ended in predictable failure. Runciman and Kiely had returned with no muskets, no ammunition, no blankets, no pipe clay, no boots, no knapsacks and not even a promise of money for the unit's back pay. Wellington's parsimony was doubtless intended to draw the fangs of the Real Compania Irlandesa, but it gave Sharpe horrid problems. He was struggling to raise the guardsmen's morale, but without weapons and equipment that morale was doomed. Worse still Sharpe knew he was close to enemy lines and if the French did attack then it would be no consolation to know that the Real Compania Irlandesa's defeat had been a part of Hogan's plans, not if Sharpe was himself involved in the debacle. Hogan might want the Real Compania Irlandesa destroyed, but Sharpe needed it armed and dangerous in case Brigadier Loup came calling.

"I wasn't talking about muskets, Sharpe," Runciman said, "but about the news from Ireland. You really haven't heard?"

"No, sir."

Runciman shook his head, making his jowls wobble. "It seems there are new problems in Ireland, Sharpe. d.a.m.ned bad business. b.l.o.o.d.y rebels making trouble, troops fighting back, women and children dead. River Erne blocked with bodies at Belleek. Talk of rape. Dear me. I really thought that '98 had settled the Irish business once and for all, but it seems not. The d.a.m.ned papists are making trouble again. Dear me, dear me. Why did G.o.d allow the papists to flourish? They try us Christians so sorely. Ah, well." Runciman sighed. "We'll have to break some skulls over there, just as we did when Tone rebelled in '98."

Sharpe reflected that if the remedy had failed in 1798 then it was just as likely to be ineffective in 1811, but he thought it tactful not to say as much. "It might mean trouble here, General," he said instead, "when the Irish troops hear about it?"

"That's why we have the lash, Sharpe."

"We might have the lash, General, but we don't have muskets. And I was just wondering, sir, exactly how a Wagon Master General orders his convoys about."

Runciman goggled at Sharpe, amazed at the apparently inappropriate question.

"Paper, of course, paper! Orders!"

Sharpe smiled. "And you're still Wagon Master General, sir, isn't that so?

Because they haven't replaced you. I doubt they can find a man to fill your shoes, sir."

"Kind of you to say so, Sharpe, most kind." Runciman looked slightly surprised at receiving a compliment, but tried not to show too much unfamiliarity with the experience. "And it's probably true," he added.

"And I was wondering, General, how we might divert a wagon or two of weapons up to the fort here?"

Runciman gaped at Sharpe. "Steal them, you mean?"

"I wouldn't call it theft, General," Sharpe said reproachfully, "not when they're being employed against the enemy. We're just re-allocating the guns, sir, if you see what I mean. Eventually, sir, the army will have to equip us, so why don't we antic.i.p.ate the order now? We can always catch up with the paperwork later."

Runciman shook his head wildly, dislodging the careful strands of long hair that he obsessively brushed over his balding pate. "It can't be done, Sharpe, it can't be done! It's against all precedence. Against all arrangements! d.a.m.n it, man, it's against regulations! I could be court-martialled! Think of the disgrace!" Runciman shuddered at the thought. "I'm astonished, Sharpe," he went on, "even disappointed, that you should make such a suggestion. I know you were denied a gentleman's breeding or even an education, but I had still expected better from you! A gentleman does not steal, he does not lie, he does not demean a woman, he honours G.o.d and the King. These attributes are not beyond you, Sharpe!"

Sharpe went to the door of Runciman's quarters. The Colonel's day parlour was the old guard room in one of the gatehouse towers and, with the fortress's ancient gates propped open, the doorway offered a stunning view south. Sharpe leaned on a doorpost. "What happened, General," he asked when Runciman's sermon had petered out, "when a wagon went missing? You must have lost some wagons to thieves?"

"A few, very few. Hardly one. Two, maybe. A handful, possibly."

"So then-" Sharpe began.

Colonel Runciman held up a hand to interrupt him. "Don't suggest it, Sharpe! I am an honest man, a G.o.d-fearing man, and I won't contrive to cheat His

Majesty's exchequer of a wagonload of muskets. No, I won't. I have never dealt in untruths and I shall not start now. Indeed, I expressly forbid you to continue talking of the matter, and that is a direct order, Sharpe!"

"Two wagonloads of muskets," Sharpe offered the correction, "and three ammunition carts."

"No! I have already forbidden you to speak of the matter, and that is an end of it. You will say no more!"

Sharpe took out the penknife he used to clean the fouling off his rifle's lock. He unfolded the blade and ran his thumb along the edge. "Brigadier Loup knows we're here now, General, and he's going to be upset about that young fellow that Kiely's wh.o.r.e killed. It wouldn't surprise me if he tried to take revenge. Let's see now? A night a.s.sault? Probably. And he's got two full battalions of infantry and each and every one of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds will be trying to earn the reward Loup's put on my head. If I was Loup I'd attack from the north because the walls have virtually disappeared there, and I'd have the dragoons waiting down there to cut off the survivors." Sharpe nodded down the steep approach road, then chuckled. "Just imagine it, can't you? Being hunted down in the dawn by a pack of grey dragoons, each of them with a newly sharpened castrating knife in his sabretache. Loup doesn't give quarter, you see. He's not known for taking prisoners, General. He just pulls out the knife, yanks down your breeches and slices off your-"

"Sharpe! Please! Please!" A wan Runciman stared at Sharpe's penknife. "Do you have to be so graphic?"

"General! I'm raising a serious matter! I can't hold off a brigade of

Frenchmen with my handful of riflemen. I might do some damage if the Irish boys had muskets, but without muskets, bayonets and ammunition?" Sharpe shook his head, then snapped the blade shut. "It's your choice, General, but if I was the senior British officer in this fort then I'd find a way to get some decent weapons up here as fast as possible. Unless, of course, I wanted to be singing the high notes in the church choir when I got back to Hamps.h.i.+re."

Runciman gaped at Sharpe. The Colonel was sweating now, overwhelmed by a vision of castrating Frenchmen running wild inside the crumbling fort. "But they won't give us muskets, Sharpe. We tried! Kiely and I tried together! And that awkward man General Valverde pleaded for us as well, but the

Quartermaster General says there's a temporary shortage of spare weapons. He hoped General Valverde might persuade Cadiz to send us some Spanish muskets."

Sharpe shook his head at Runciman's despair. "So we have to borrow some muskets, General, till the Spanish ones arrive. We just need to divert a wagon or two with the help of those seals you've still got."

"But I can't issue orders to the wagon train, Sharpe! Not any longer! I have new duties, new responsibilities."

"You've got too many responsibilities, General," Sharpe said, "because you're too valuable a man, but really, sir, you shouldn't be worrying yourself over details. Your job is to look after the big decisions and let me look after the small." Sharpe tossed the penknife in the air and caught it. "And let me look after the c.r.a.pauds if they come, sir. You've got better things to do."

Runciman leaned back in his folding chair, making it creak dangerously. "You have a point, Sharpe, you do indeed have a point." Runciman shuddered as he contemplated the enormity of the crime. "But you think I am merely antic.i.p.ating an order rather than breaking one?"

Sharpe stared at the Colonel with feigned admiration. "I wish I had your mind,

General, I really do. That's a brilliant way of putting it. "Antic.i.p.ating an order." I wish I'd thought of that."

Runciman preened at the compliment. "My dear mother always maintained I could have been a lawyer," he said proudly, "maybe even Lord Chancellor! But my father preferred me to take an honest career." He pulled some empty papers across his makes.h.i.+ft desk and began writing orders. From time to time the horror of his conduct made him pause, but each time Sharpe snapped the small blade open and shut and the noise prompted the Colonel to dip his quill's tip into the inkwell.

And next day four ox-drawn wagons with puzzled drivers and beds loaded with weapons, ammunition and supplies arrived at the San Isidro Fort.

And the Real Compania Irlandesa was armed at last.