Sharpe's Battle Part 4

"They will if I find them there."

Loup shook his head sadly. "You are so quick with your threats, Captain. But fight me and I think you will learn caution. But for now? Give me my men and we shall ride away."

Sharpe paused, thinking, then finally shrugged and turned. "Sergeant Harper!"

"Sir?"

"Bring the two Frogs out!"

Harper hesitated as though he wanted to know what Sharpe intended before he obeyed the order, but then he turned reluctantly towards the houses. A moment later he appeared with the two French captives, both of whom were still naked below the waist and one of whom was still half doubled over in pain. "Is he wounded?" Loup asked.

"I kicked him in the b.a.l.l.s," Sharpe said. "He was raping a girl."

Loup seemed amused by the answer. "You're squeamish about rape, Captain

Sharpe?"

"Funny in a man, isn't it? Yes, I am."

"We have some officers like that," Loup said, "but a few months in Spain soon cures their delicacy. The women here fight like the men, and if a woman imagines that her skirts will protect her then she is wrong. And rape is part of the horror, but it also serves a secondary purpose. Release soldiers to rape and they don't care that they're hungry or that their pay is a year in arrears. Rape is a weapon like any other, Captain."

"I'll remember that, General, when I march into France," Sharpe said, then he turned back towards the houses. "Stop there, Sergeant!" The two prisoners had been escorted as far as the village entrance. "And Sergeant!"

"Sir?"

"Fetch their trousers. Get them dressed properly."

Loup, pleased with the way his mission was going, smiled at Sharpe. "You're being sensible, good. I would hate to have to fight you in the same way that I fight the Spanish."

Sharpe looked at Loup's pagan uniform. It was a costume, he thought, to scare a child, the costume of a wolfman walking out of nightmare, but the wolfman's sword was no longer than Sharpe's and his carbine a good deal less accurate than Sharpe's rifle. "I don't suppose you could fight us, General," Sharpe said, "we're a real army, you see, not a pack of unarmed women and children."

Loup stiffened. "You will find, Captain Sharpe, that the Brigade Loup can fight any man, anywhere, anyhow. I do not lose, Captain, not to anyone."

"So if you never lose, General, how were you taken prisoner?" Sharpe sneered.

"Fast asleep, were you?"

"I was a pa.s.senger on my way to Egypt, Captain, when our s.h.i.+p was captured by the Royal Navy. That hardly counts as my defeat." Loup watched as his two men pulled on their trousers. "Where is Trooper G.o.din's horse?"

"Trooper G.o.din won't need a horse where he's going," Sharpe said.

"He can walk? I suppose he can. Very well, I yield you the horse," Loup said magniloquently.

"He's going to h.e.l.l, General," Sharpe said. "I'm dressing them because they're still soldiers, and even your lousy soldiers deserve to die with their trousers on." He turned back to the settlement. "Sergeant! Put them against the wall! I want a firing squad, four men for each prisoner. Load up!"

"Captain!" Loup snapped and his hand went to his sword's hilt.

"You don't frighten me, Loup. Not you nor your fancy dress," Sharpe said. "You draw that sword and we'll be mopping up your blood with your flag of truce.

I've got marksmen up on that ridge who can whip the good eye out of your face at two hundred yards, and one of those marksmen is looking at you right now."

Loup looked up the hill. He could see Price's redcoats there, and one greenjacket, but he plainly could not tell just how many men were in Sharpe's party. He looked back to Sharpe. "You're a captain, just a captain. Which means you have what? One company? Maybe two? The British won't entrust more than two companies to a mere captain, but within half a mile I have the rest of my brigade. If you kill my men you'll be hunted down like dogs, and you will die like dogs. I will exempt you from the rules of war, Captain, just as you propose exempting my men, and I will make sure you die in the manner of my

Spanish enemies. With a very blunt knife, Captain."

Sharpe ignored the threat, turning towards the village instead. "Firing party ready, Sergeant?"

"They're ready, sir. And eager, sir!"

Sharpe looked back to the Frenchman. "Your brigade is miles away, General. If it was any closer you wouldn't be here talking to me, but leading the attack.

Now, if you'll forgive me, I've got some justice to execute."

"No!" Loup said sharply enough to turn Sharpe back. "I have made a bargain with my men. You understand that, Captain? You are a leader, I am a leader, and I have promised my men never to abandon them. Don't make me break my promise."

"I don't give a b.u.g.g.e.r about your promise," Sharpe said.

Loup had expected that kind of answer and so shrugged. "Then maybe you will give a b.u.g.g.e.r about this, Captain Sharpe. I know who you are, and if you do not return my men I will place a price on your head. I will give every man in

Portugal and Spain a reason to hunt you down. Kill those two and you sign your own death warrant."

Sharpe smiled. "You're a bad loser, General."

"And you're not?"

Sharpe walked away. "I've never lost," he called back across his shoulder, "so

I wouldn't know."

"Your death warrant, Sharpe!" Loup called.

Sharpe lifted two fingers. He had heard that the English bowmen at Agincourt, threatened by the French with the loss of their bowstring fingers at the battle's end, had first won the battle and then invented the taunting gesture to show the overweening b.a.s.t.a.r.ds just who were the better soldiers. Now Sharpe used it again.

Then went to kill the wolfman's men.

Major Michael Hogan discovered Wellington inspecting a bridge over the River

Turones where a force of three French battalions had tried to hold off the advancing British. The resulting battle had been swift and brutal, and now a trail of French and British dead told the skirmish's tale. An initial tide line of bodies marked where the sides had clashed, a dreadful smear of bloodied turf showed where two British cannon had enfiladed the enemy, then a further scatter of corpses betrayed the French retreat across the bridge which their engineers had not had time to destroy. "Fletcher thinks the bridge is

Roman work, Hogan," Wellington greeted the Irish Major.

"I sometimes wonder, my Lord, whether anyone has built a bridge in Portugal or

Spain since the Romans." Hogan, swathed in a cloak because of the day's damp chill, nodded amicably to his Lords.h.i.+p's three aides, then handed the General a sealed letter. The seal, which showed the royal Spanish coat of arms, had been lifted. "I took the precaution of reading the letter, my Lord," Hogan explained.

"Trouble?" Wellington asked.

"I wouldn't have bothered you otherwise, my Lord," Hogan answered gloomily.