Sharpe's Devil

'He's been my enemy long enough, but I felt privileged to be there. I even liked him!'

'That's because you're English! Your women weren't raped by those French bastards, and your children weren't killed by them!' Ardiles stared balefully into the trough of a scummy wave that roared under the Espiritu Santos counter. 'So what did you talk about when you were alone with him?”

'Waterloo.'

'Just Waterloo?' Ardiles seemed remarkably suspicious.

'Just that,' Sharpe said, with an air of irritation, for it was none of Ardiles's business what he and a stricken Emperor had discussed.

Ardiles, sensing he had offended Sharpe, changed the subject by waving a hand toward the cabins where Ruiz's artillery officers sheltered from the storm in their vomit-rinsed misery. 'What do you think of officers who don't share their men's discomforts?'

Sharpe believed that officers who abandoned their men were officers on their way to defeat, but tact kept him from saying as much to the sardonic Ardiles, so instead he made some harmless comment about being no expert on Spanish shipping arrangements.

'I think such officers are bastards!' Ardiles had to shout to be heard over the numbing sound of the huge seas. 'The only reason they sailed on this ship is because the voyage will be six or eight weeks shorter! Which means they can reach the whorehouses of Valdivia ahead of their Sergeants,' Ardiles spat into the scuppers. 'They're good whorehouses, too. Too good for these bastards.'

'You know Chile well?' Sharpe asked.

'Well enough! I've visited twice a year for three years. They use my ship as a passenger barge! Instead of letting me look for Cochrane and beating the shit out of him, they insist that I sail back and forth between Spain and Valdivia! Back and forth! Back and forth! It's a waste of a good ship! This is the largest and best frigate in the Spanish Navy and they waste it on ferrying shit like Ruiz!' Ardiles scowled down into the frigate's waist where the green water surged and broke ragged about the lashed guns, then he turned his saturnine gaze back to Sharpe. 'You're looking for Captain-General Vivar, yes?'

'I am, yes.' Sharpe was not surprised that Ardiles knew his business, for he had made no secret of his quest, yet he was taken aback by the abrupt and jeering manner of the Captain's asking and Sharpe's reply had consequently been guarded, almost hostile.

Ardiles leaned closer to Sharpe. 'I knew Vivar! I even liked him! But he was not a tactful man. Most of the army officers in Chile thought he was too clever. They had their own ideas on how the war should be lost, but Vivar was proving them wrong, and they didn't like him for that.'

'Are you saying that his own side killed him?'

Ardiles shook his head. 'I think he was killed by the rebels. He was probably wounded in the ambush, his horse galloped into deep timber, and he fell off. His body's probably still out there, ripped apart by animals and chewed by birds. The oddest part of the whole thing, to my mind, is why he was out there with such a small escort. There were only fifteen men with him!'

'He was always a brave man,' said Sharpe, who had not heard just how small the escort had been and now hid his surprise. Why would a Captain-General travel with such a tiny detachment? Even in country he thought safe?

'Maybe more foolish than brave?' Ardiles suggested. 'My own belief is that he had an arrangement to meet the rebels, and that they double-crossed him.'

Sharpe, who had convinced himself that Don Bias had been murdered by his own people, found this new idea grotesque. 'Are you saying he was a traitor?'

'He was a patriot, but he was playing with fire.' Ardiles paused, as though debating whether to say more, then he must have decided that his revelation could do no harm. 'I tell you a strange thing, Englishman. Two months after Vivar arrived in Chile he ordered me to take him to Talcahuana. That means nothing to you, so I shall explain.

'It is a peninsula, close to Concepcion, and inside rebel territory. His Excellency's staff told Don Bias it was not safe to go there, but he scoffed at such timidity. I thought it was my chance to fight against Cochrane, so I went gladly. But two days north of Valdivia we struck bad weather. It was awful! We could not go anywhere near land; instead we rode out the storm at sea for four days. After that Don Bias still insisted on going to Talcahuana. We anchored off Punta Tombes and Don Bias went ashore on his own. On his own! He refused an escort. He just took a fowling-piece! He said he wanted to prove that a nobleman of Spain could hunt freely wherever His Spanish Majesty ruled in this world. Six hours later he came back with two brace of duck, and ordered me back to Valdivia. So what? You are asking. I will tell you what! I myself thought it was merely bravado. After all, he had made me sail for a week through waters patroled by the rebel navy, but later I heard rumors that Don Bias had gone ashore to meet those rebels. To talk with them. I don't know if that is true, but on my voyage home with the news of Don Bias's disappearance, we captured a rebel pinnace with a dozen men aboard and two of them told me that the devil Cochrane himself had been waiting to meet Don Bias, but that after two days they decided he was not coming, and so Cochrane went away.'

'You believed them?'

Ardiles shrugged. 'Do dying men tell lies or truth? My belief, Englishman, is that they were telling the truth, and I think Don Bias died when he tried to resurrect the meeting with the rebels. But you believe Don Bias to be alive, yes?'

Sharpe hesitated, but Ardiles had favored him with a revelation, and Sharpe's truth was nowhere near so dangerous, so he told it. 'No.'

'So why are you here?'

'Because I've been paid to look for him. Maybe I shall find his dead body?' Because even that, Sharpe had decided, would give Louisa some small comfort. It would, at the very least, offer her certainty and if Sharpe could arrange to have the body carried home to Spain then Louisa could bury Don Bias in his family's vault in the great cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.

Ardiles scoffed at Sharpe's mild hopes. He waved northward through the spitting sleet and the spume and the wild waves' turmoil. 'That's a whole continent up there! Not an English farmyard! You won't find a single body in a continent, Englishman, not if someone else has decided to hide it.'

'Why would they do that?'

'Because if my tale of carrying Don Bias to meet the rebels is right, then Don Bias was not just a soldier, but a soldier playing politics, and that's a more dangerous pastime than fighting. Besides, if the Spanish high command decides not to help you, how will you achieve anything?'

'By bribes?' Sharpe suggested.

Ardiles laughed. 'I wish you luck, Englishman, but if you're offering money they'll just tell you what you want to hear until you've no money left, then they'll clean their knife blades in your guts. Take my advice! Vivar's dead! Go home!'

Sharpe crouched against a sudden attack of wind-slathered foam that shrieked down the deck and smashed white against the helmsman and his companion. 'What I don't understand,' Sharpe shouted when the sea had sucked itself out of the scuppers, 'is why the rebels haven't boasted about Don Bias's death! If you're a rebel and you kill or capture your enemy's commander, why keep it a secret? Why not trumpet your success?'

'You expect sense out of Chile?' Ardiles asked cynically.

Sharpe ducked again as the wind flailed more salt foam across the quarterdeck. 'Don Bias's widow doesn't believe it was the rebels who attacked her husband. She thinks it was Captain-General Bautista.'

Ardiles looked grimmer than ever. 'Then Don Bias's widow had best keep her thoughts to herself. Bautista is not a man to antagonize. He has pride, a memory and a taste for cruelty.'

'And for corruption?' Sharpe asked.

Ardiles paused, as though weighing the good sense of continuing this conversation, then he shrugged. 'Miguel Bautista is the prince of thieves, but that doesn't mean he won't one day be the ruler of Spain. How else do men become great, except by extortion and fear? I will give you some advice, Englishman,' Ardiles's voice had become fierce with intensity, 'don't make an enemy of Bautista. You hear me?'

'Of course.' The warning seemed extraordinary to Sharpe, a testimony to the real fear that Miguel Bautista, Vivar's erstwhile enemy, inspired.