Harper ignored the reproof. He and Sharpe had been together too long, shared too many dangers, and the Sergeant knew precisely what liberties he could take with his taciturn officer. “He’s looking more cheerful than ever, sir. He must have another job for us.”
“I wish to God they’d send us home.”
Harper, his huge hands gently stripping the lock of his rifle, pretended not to hear the remark. He knew what it meant but the subject was a dangerous one. Sharpe commanded the remnants of a company of Riflemen who had been cut off from the rearguard of Sir John Moore’s army during its retreat to Corunna the winter before. It had been a terrible campaign in weather that was like the traveller’s tales of Russia rather than northern Spain. Men had died in their sleep, their hair frozen to the ground, while others dropped exhausted from the march and let death overtake them. The discipline of the army had crumbled and the drunken stragglers were easy meat for the French cavalry who flogged their exhausted mounts at the heel of the British army. The rabble was saved from disaster only by the few Regiments, like the 95th, which kept their discipline and fought on. 1808 turned into 1809 and still the nightmarish battle went on, a battle fought with damp powder by freezing men peering through the snow for a glimpse of the cloaked French Dragoons. Then, on a day when the blizzard bellied in the wind like a malevolent monster, the company had been cut off by the horsemen. The Captain was killed, the other Lieutenant, the rifles wouldn’t fire and the enemy sabres rose and fell and the damp snow muffled all sounds except for the grunts of the Dragoons and the terrible chopping of the blades cutting into wounds that steamed in the freezing air. Lieutenant Sharpe and a few survivors fought clear and scrambled into high rocks where horsemen could not follow, but when the storm blew out, and the last desperately wounded man died, there was no hope of rejoining the army. The second Battalion of the 95th Rifles had sailed home while Sharpe and his thirty men, lost and forgotten, had headed south, away from the French, to join the small British garrison in Lisbon.
Since then Sharpe had asked a dozen times to be sent home but Riflemen were too scarce, too valuable, and the army’s new commander, Sir Arthur Wellesley, was unwilling to lose even thirty-one. So they had stayed and fought for whichever Battalion needed its Light Company strengthened and had marched north again, retracing their steps, and been with Wellesley when he avenged Sir John Moore by tumbling Marshal Soult and his veterans out of North Portugal. Harper knew his Lieutenant harboured a sullen anger at his predicament. Richard Sharpe was poor, dog poor, and he would never have the money to purchase his next promotion. To become a Captain, even in an ordinary Battalion of the line, would cost Sharpe fifteen hundred pounds, and he might as well hope to be made King of France as raise that money. He had only one hope of promotion and that was by seniority in his own Regiment; to step into the shoes of men who died or were promoted and whose own commissions had not been purchased. But as long as Sharpe was in Portugal and the Regiment was home in England he was being forgotten and passed over, time and again, and the unfairness soured Sharpe’s resentment. He watched men younger than himself purchase their Captaincies, their Majorities, while he, a better soldier, was left on the heap because he was poor and because he was fighting instead of being safe home in England.
The door of the cottage banged open and Captain Hogan stepped into the room. He looked, in his blue coat and white trousers, like a naval officer and he claimed his uniform had been mistaken for a Frenchman’s so often that he had been fired on more by his own side than by the enemy. He was an Engineer, one of the tiny number of Military Engineers in Portugal, and he grinned as he took off his cocked hat and nodded at Sharpe’s leg. “The warrior restored? How’s the leg?”
“Perfect, sir.”
“Sergeant Harper’s maggots, eh? Well, we Irish are clever devils. God knows where you English would be without us.” Hogan took out his snuff box and inhaled a vast pinch. As Sharpe waited for the inevitable sneeze he eyed the small, middle-aged Captain fondly. For a month his Riflemen had been Hogan’s escort as the Engineer had mapped the roads across the high passes that led to Spain. It was no secret that any day now Wellesley would take the army into Spain, to follow the River Tagus that was aimed like a spear at the capital, Madrid, and Hogan, as well as sketching endless maps, had strengthened the culverts and bridges which would have to take the tons of brass and wood as the field artillery rolled towards the enemy. It had been a job well done in agreeable company, until it rained and the rifles wouldn’t fire and the crazy-eyed French Hussar had nearly made a name for himself by his mad solo charge at a group of Riflemen. Somehow Sergeant Harper had kept the damp out of his firing pan, and Sharpe still shivered when he thought of what might have happened if the rifle had not fired.
The Sergeant collected the pieces of his rifle lock as if he was about to leave but Hogan held up his hand. “Stay on, Patrick. I have a treat for you; one that even a heathen from Donegal might like.” He took a dark bottle out of his haversack and raised an eyebrow to Sharpe. “You don’t mind?”
Sharpe shook his head. Harper was a good man, good at everything he did, and in their three years’ acquaintanceship Sharpe and Harper had become friends, or at least as friendly as an officer and a Sergeant could be. Sharpe could not imagine fighting without the huge Irishman beside him, the Irishman dreaded fighting without Sharpe, and together they were as formidable a pair as Hogan had ever seen on a battlefield. The Captain set the bottle on the table and pulled the cork. “Brandy. French brandy from Marshal Soult’s own cellars and captured at Oporto. With the compliments of the General.”
“From Wellesley?” Sharpe asked.
“The man himself. He asked after you, Sharpe, and I said you were being doctored or would have been with me.”
Sharpe said nothing. Hogan paused in his careful pouring of the liquid. “Don’t
Assaye. Sharpe remembered all right. The field of dead outside the Indian village where he had been commissioned on the battlefield. Hogan pushed a tin cup of brandy across the table to him. “You know he can’t make you into a Captain of the 95th. He doesn’t have the power!”
“I know.” Sharpe smiled and raised the cup to his lips. But Wellesley did have the power to send him home where promotion might be had. He pushed the thought away, knowing the nagging insult of his rank would soon come back, and was envious of Hogan who, being an Engineer, could only gain promotion by seniority. It meant that Hogan was still only a Captain, even in his fifties, but at least there was no jealousy and injustice because no man could buy his way up the ladder of promotion. He leaned forward. “So? Any news? Are we still with you?”
“You are. And we have a job.” Hogan’s eyes twinkled. “And a wonderful job it is, too.”
Patrick Harper grinned. “That means a powerful big bang.”
Hogan nodded. “You are right, Sergeant. A big bridge to be blown.” He took a map out of his pocket and unfolded it onto the table. Sharpe watched a callused finger trace the River Tagus from the sea at Lisbon, past Abrantes where they now sat, and on into Spain to stop where the river made a huge southwards loop. “Valdelacasa,” Hogan said. “There’s an old bridge there, a Roman one. The General doesn’t like it.”
Sharpe could see why. The army would march on the north bank of the Tagus towards Madrid and the river would guard their right flank. There were few bridges where the French might cross and harass their supply lines and those bridges were in towns, like Alcantara, where the Spanish kept garrisons to protect the crossings. Valdelacasa was not even marked. If there was no town there would be no garrison, and a French force could cross and play havoc in the British rear. Harper leaned over and looked at the map.
“Why isn’t it marked, sir?”
Hogan made a contemptuous noise. “I’m surprised the map even marks Madrid, let alone Valdelacasa.” He was right. The infamous old Tomas Lopez map, the only one available to the armies in Spain, was a wondrous work of the Spanish imagination. Hogan stabbed his finger down onto the map. “The bridge is hardly used, it’s in bad repair. We’re told you can hardly put a cart across, let alone a gun, but it could be repaired and we could have ”old trousers“ up our backsides in no time.” Sharpe smiled. ’Old trousers’ was the Rifle’s strange nickname for the French, and Hogan had adopted the phrase with relish. The Engineer lowered his voice conspiratorially. ”It’s a strange place, I’m told, just a ruined convent and the bridge. They call it El Puente de los Malditos.“ He nodded as if he had made his point.
Sharpe waited a few seconds and sighed. “All right. What does it mean?”
Hogan smiled triumphantly. “I’m surprised you need to ask! It means ”The Bridge of the Accursed“. It seems that, years ago, all the nuns were taken out of the convent and massacred by the Moors. It’s haunted, Sharpe, stalked by the spirits of the dead!”
Sharpe leaned forward to peer more closely at the map. Give or take the width of Hogan’s finger the bridge
