Sharpe's Battle

'Of course it bloody does,' Sharpe snapped. 'That's how you and I live. We're practical men, Pat, not bloody dreamers! We believe in the Baker rifle, the Tower musket and twenty-three inches of bayonet. You can leave superstitions to women and children, and these things' — he slapped the newspaper — 'are worse than superstitions. They're downright lies!' He looked at Donaju. 'Your job, Captain, is to go to your men and tell them that they're lies. And if you don't believe me then you ride down to the camps. Go to the Connaught Rangers and ask their new recruits. Go to the Inniskillings. Go wherever you like, but be back here by dusk. And in the meantime, Captain, tell your men they've got a full day of musket training. Loading and firing till their shoulders are raw meat. Is that clear?'

The men from the Real Companпa Irlandesa nodded reluctantly. Sharpe had won the argument, at least until the evening when Donaju returned from his reconnaissance. Father Sarsfield took the paper from Sharpe. 'Are you saying this is a forgery?' the priest asked.

'How would I know, Father? I'm just saying it isn't true. Where did you get it?'

Sarsfield shrugged. 'They're scattered throughout the army, Sharpe.'

'And when did you and I ever see a newspaper from America, Pat?' Sharpe asked Harper. 'And funny, isn't it, that the first one we ever see is all about Britain being bloody to Ireland? It smacks of mischief to me.'

Father Sarsfield folded the paper. 'I think you're probably right, Sharpe, and praise be to God for it. But you won't mind, will you, if I ride with Captain Donaju today?'

'It isn't up to me what you do, Father,' Sharpe said. 'But for the rest of you, let's get to work!'

Sharpe waited while the delegation left. He motioned Harper to stay behind, but Father Sarsfield also lingered for Sharpe's attention. 'I'm sorry, Sharpe,' the priest said.

'Why?'

Sarsfield flinched at Sharpe's harsh tone. 'I imagine you do not need Irish problems intruding on your life.'

'I don't need any damn problems, Father. I've got a job to do, and the job is to turn your boys into soldiers, good soldiers.'

Sarsfield smiled. 'I think you are a rare thing, Captain Sharpe: an honest man.'

'Of course I'm not,' Sharpe said, almost blushing as he remembered the horrors done to the three men caught by El Castrador at Sharpe's request. 'I'm not a bloody saint, Father, but I do like to get things done. If I spent my damn life dreaming dreams I'd still be in the ranks. You can only afford dreams if you're rich and privileged.' He added the last words viciously.

'You speak of Kiely,' Sarsfield said and started walking slowly back along the ramparts beside Sharpe. The skirts of the priest's soutane were wet with the dew from the ragweed and grass that grew inside the fort. 'Lord Kiely is a very weak man, Captain,'

Sarsfield went on. 'He had a very strong mother' — the priest grimaced at the memory—'and you would not know, Captain, what a trial to the church strong women can be, but I think they can be even more of a trial to their sons. Lady Kiely wanted her son to be a great Catholic warrior, an Irish warrior! The Catholic warlord who would succeed where the Protestant lawyer Wolfe Tone failed, but instead she drove him into drink, pettiness and whoring. I buried her last year' — he made a quick sign of the cross — 'and I fear her son did not mourn her as a son should mourn his mother nor, alas, will he ever be the Christian she wanted him to be. He told me last night that he intends to marry the Lady Juanita and his mother, I think, will be weeping in purgatory at the thought of such a match.' The priest sighed. 'Still, I didn't want to talk to you about Kiely. Instead, Captain, I beg you to be a little patient with us.'

'I thought I was being patient with you,' Sharpe said defensively.

'With us Irish,' Father Sarsfield explained. 'You are a man with a country, Captain, and you don't know what it's like to be an exile. You cannot know what it is like to be listening to the harps beside the waters of Babylon.' Sarsfield smiled at the phrase, then shrugged. 'It's like a wound, Captain Sharpe, that never heals, and I pray to God that you never have to feel that wound for yourself

Sharpe felt a stab of embarrassed pity as he looked into the priest's kindly face. 'Were you never in Ireland, Father?'

'Once, my son, years ago. Long years ago, but if I live a thousand years that one brief stay will always seem like yesterday.' He smiled ruefully, then hitched up his damp soutane. 'I must join Donaju for our expedition! Think about my words, Captain!' The priest hurried away, his white hair lifting in the breeze.

Harper joined Sharpe. 'A nice man, that,' Harper said, nodding at the priest's receding back. 'He was telling me how he was in Donegal once. Up in Lough Swilly. I had an aunt who lived that way, God rest her poor soul. She was in Rathmullen.'

'I never was in Donegal,' Sharpe said, 'and I'll probably never get there, and frankly, Sergeant, right at this moment I don't care. I've got enough bloody troubles without the bloody Irish going moody on me. We need blankets, food and money which means I'm going to have to get Runciman to write another of his magic orders, but it won't be easy because the fat bugger's scared shitless of being court-martialled. Lord bloody Kiely's no bloody help. All he does is suck brandy, dream about bloody glory and trail around behind that black-haired whore like a mooncalf.' Sharpe, despite Sarsfield's advice about patience, was losing his temper. 'The priest is telling me to feel sorry for you all, Hogan wants me to kick these lads in the teeth and there's a fat Spaniard with a castrating knife who thinks I'm going to hold Loup down while he cuts off his bloody balls. Everyone expects me to solve all their bloody problems, so for God's sake give me some bloody help.'

'I always do,' Harper said resentfully.

'Yes, you do, Pat, and I'm sorry.'

'And if the stories were true—' Harper began.

'They're not!' Sharpe shouted.

'All right! All right! God save Ireland.' Harper blew out a long breath, then there was an awkward silence between the two men. Sharpe just glowered to the north while Harper clambered down into a nearby gun embrasure and kicked at a loosened stone. 'God knows why they built a fort up here,' he said at last.

'There used to be a main road down there.' Sharpe nodded to the pass which lay to the north. 'It was a way to avoid Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, but half the road got washed away and what's left of it can't take modern guns so it's no use these days. But the road eastwards is still all there, Pat, and Loup's bloody brigade can use it. Down there' — he pointed to the route as he spoke—'up this slope, over these walls and straight down on us and there's bugger all here to stop them.'

'Why would Loup do that?' Harper asked.

'Because he's a mad, brave, ruthless bugger, that's why. And because he hates me and because kicking the lights out of us would be a cheap victory for the bastard.' Sharpe had become preoccupied by the threat of a night raid by Loup's brigade. He had first thought of the raid merely as a means of frightening Colonel Runciman into signing his fraudulent wagon orders, but the more Sharpe had thought about it, the more likely such a raid seemed. And the San Isidro Fort was hopelessly ill prepared for such an attack. A thousand men might have been able to hold its degraded ramparts, but the Real Companпa Irlandesa was far too small a unit to offer any real resistance. They would be trapped within the vast, crumbling walls like rats in a terrier's fighting ring. 'Which is just what Hogan and Wellington want,' Sharpe said aloud.

'What's that, sir?'

'They don't bloody trust your Irishmen, see? They want them out of the way and I'm supposed to help get rid of the buggers, but the trouble is I like them. Damn it, Pat. If Loup comes we'll all be dead.'

'You think he's coming?'

'I bloody well know he's coming,' Sharpe said fervently, and suddenly the vague suspicions hardened into an utter certainty. He might have just made a vigorous proclamation of his practicality, but in truth he relied on instinct most of the time. Sometimes, Sharpe knew, the wise soldier listened to his superstitions and fears because they were a better guide than mere practicality. Good flat hard sense dictated that Loup would not waste valuable effort by raiding the San Isidro Fort, but Sharpe rejected that good sense because his every instinct told him there was trouble coming. 'I don't know when or how he'll come,' he told Harper, 'but I'm not trusting a palace guard to serve picquet. I want our boys up here.' He meant he wanted riflemen guarding the fort's northern extremity. 'And I want a night picquet too, so make sure a couple of the lads get some sleep today.'

Harper gazed down the long northern slope. 'You think they'll come this way?'

'It's the easiest. West and east are too steep, the southern end is too strong, but a cripple could waltz