They're where Robinson Crusoe was marooned, or rather where Alexander Selkirk, who was the original of Crusoe, spent four not uncomfortable years. I last saw Vivar eight weeks ago, and he was well and as comfortable as a man could be. He tried to escape a couple of times in this last year, but it's very hard to get off an island if you're not a seaman.'
Sharpe tried to make sense of all the information. 'What did Napoleon want of Don Bias, for God's sake?'
'Valdivia, of course. But not just Valdivia. Once it was secure we'd have marched north and taken over Chile, but the Emperor insisted that we provide him with a secure fortress before he'd join us, and this place is as fine a stronghold as any in the Americas. The Emperor thought Vivar was his man and would have just handed the fortress over!'
'To Napoleon?'
'Yes,' Cochrane said, as though that was the most normal thing in all the world. 'And why not? You think I fought these last months to watch more Goddamned lawyers form a government? For Christ's sake, Sharpe, the world needs Napoleon! It needs a man with his vision!' Cochrane was suddenly enthusiastic, full of the contagious vigor that made him such a formidable leader of men. 'South America is rotten, Sharpe. You've seen that for yourself! It's an old empire, full of decay. But there's gold here, and silver, and iron, and copper, and fields as rich as any in Scotland's lowlands, and orchards and vines, and cattle! There are riches here! If we can make a new country here, a United States of South America, we can make a power like the world has never seen! We just need a place to start! And a genius to make it work. I'm not that genius. I'm a good Admiral, but I don't have the patience for government, but there is a man who does, and that man's willing!' Cochrane strode back to the table and snatched up the coded letter. 'And Bonaparte can make this whole continent into a magical country, a place of gold and liberty and opportunity! All that the Emperor demanded of us was that we provide him with a secure base, and the beginnings of an army.' Cochrane swept an arm around in a lavish gesture that encompassed all of Valdivia's Citadel, its town and its far harbor. 'And this is it. This is the kernel of Napoleon's new empire, and it will be a greater and a better empire than any he has ever had before.'
'You're mad!' Sharpe said without rancor.
'But it's a glorious madness!' Cochrane laughed. 'You want to be dull? You want to live under the rule of pen-pushers? You want the world to lose its fire? You want old, jealous men to be cutting off your spurs with a butcher's axe at midnight just because you dare to live? Napoleon's only fifty! He's got twenty years to make this new world great. We'll bring his Guardsmen from Louisiana and ship volunteers from France! We'll bring together the best fighters of the European wars, from both sides, and we'll give them a cause worth the sharpening of any man's sword.' Cochrane stabbed a finger toward Sharpe. 'Join us, Sharpe! My God, you're the kind of man we need! We're going to fight our way north. Chile first, then Peru, then up to the Portuguese territories, and right up to Mexico, and God knows why we need to stop there! You'll be a General! No, a Marshal! Marshal Richard Sharpe, Duke of Valdivia, whatever you want! Name your reward, take whatever title you want, but join us! If you want your family here, tell me! I'll send a ship for them. My God, Sharpe, it could be such joy! You and I, one on land, one on sea, making a new country, a new world!'
Sharpe let the madness flow around him. 'What about O'Higgins?'
'Bernardo will have to make up his mind,' Cochrane was pacing the room restlessly. 'If he doesn't want to join us, then he'll go down with his precious lawyers. But you, Sharpe? You'll join us?'
'I'm going home,' Sharpe said.
'Home?'
'Normandy. To my woman and children. I've fought long enough, Cochrane. I don't want more.'
Cochrane stared at Sharpe, as though testing the words he had just heard, then he abruptly nodded his acceptance of Sharpe's decision. 'I'm sending the
'You'll never get Bonaparte out of Saint Helena,' Sharpe said.
'If I can take Valdivia's harbor and Citadel with three hundred men,' Cochrane said, 'I can get Bonaparte off an island. It won't be difficult! Colonel Charles has found a man who looks something like the Emperor. He'll pay a courtesy visit, just like you did, and leave the wrong man inside Longwood. Simple. The simpie things always work best.' Lord Cochrane mused for a moment, then barked a joyous yelp of laughter. 'What joy you are going to miss,' he said to Sharpe, 'what joy you will miss.'
Cochrane was unchaining Bonaparte. The devil, bored with peace, would open the vials of war. The Corsican ogre was to be loosed to mischief, to conquest and to battle without end. Bonaparte, who had drenched Europe in blood, would now soak the Americas, and Sharpe, who was trapped in Valdivia, could do nothing about it.
Except watch as all the horror started again.
Bias Vivar arrived in Valdivia Harbor three weeks after the fall of the Citadel, three weeks after the collapse of Spanish Chile. He refused to step ashore. It was bad enough being on board one of Cochrane's ships, without riding Cochrane's roads or sleeping in Cochrane's citadel or taking Cochrane's hospitality. Sharpe went to the harbor and found his friend full of an understandable bitterness. 'The man broke his word,' Vivar spoke of Cochrane. 'He betrayed a truce.'
'You called him a devil, remember, so why be surprised when he behaves like one?'
'But he gave his word!' Vivar protested painfully. He had become a pale, gray figure; the man Sharpe remembered was shrunken, beaten down by a year's imprisonment and saddened by his failure. That failure, Vivar now knew, had done more than lose Spain's divinely ordained Empire, it had released the horror of war across a whole continent, perhaps a whole world. 'I thought when Cochrane wanted to meet me that he would talk terms of surrender! I thought I had won. I thought they would offer me the southern half of Chile and plead to keep the north. I was not going to accept, but I wanted to hear their terms. Instead they asked me to surrender Valdivia. For Bonaparte!'
On the eve of their departure Cochrane entertained Sharpe and Harper in the captured Fort Niebla where he laughingly recounted how the government in Santiago was begging him to send Valdivia's captured treasury north, but Cochrane was pleading time to count the coins before he released them. The truth was that he was holding the treasury against the arrival of his new master. 'Bonaparte knows you can't fight wars without cash.'
'How long before he gets here?' Sharpe asked.
'A month? No more than six weeks. Then, my dear Sharpe, we shall set this world ablaze!'
Cochrane had already returned Louisa's money to Vivar, and now he insisted on Sharpe and Harper taking a share of the plunder. He filled two sea chests with coins that he ordered carried down to the wharf. It was cold. Snow flurries whirled over the blazing torches that lit the quay and a strip of black water. Cochrane, caped in a naval cloak, shivered. 'Why don't you stay here, Sharpe? March north with me! We'll become rich!'
'I'm a farmer, not a soldier.'
'At least you're not a lawyer.' Cochrane gave Sharpe a bear hug of farewell. 'No hard feelings?'
'You're a devil, my Lord.'
Cochrane laughed at the compliment. 'Give General Vivar my apologies. I suppose he'll never forgive me?'
'I fear not, my Lord.'
'So be it.' Cochrane hugged Harper. 'Go safe home. Fair winds to you both.'
They sailed in the dawn, beating south against a cold sea and a freezing wind. They were traveling in a brig that was carrying hides to London. She made heavy weather of Cape Horn, but at last began to beat her way north.
Vivar brooded. He was a wise man, yet his understanding could not encompass a man who would break his word. 'Is the world changing so much?' he asked Sharpe.
'Yes,' Sharpe said bleakly. 'The war changed it.'
'So that results justify methods?'
'Yes.'
