‘No.’
‘No?’
‘I never threatened her.’
‘One is delighted to hear it.’ Vaughn smiled and took two thoughtful paces into the floor’s centre. ‘But you did know her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well? You knew her well?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘Yes is enough. Major. Ysu were challenged by Major Mendora, aide to the General?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you accepted the challenge?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even though you knew that such an acceptance was counter to the General Orders of this army?’
Sharpe looked at the smug face. ‘I went into the breach at Badajoz without orders, too.’
Two of the officers behind the table smiled. Vaughn just raised an eyebrow. ‘Another impetuous act, Major?’
Sharpe said nothing. Vaughn sighed and walked back to his table. He straightened his papers as though he would not be needing them much longer. ‘You were prevented from finishing this duel?’
‘I was.’
‘We should be grateful that someone was doing his duty yesterday. Presumably, Major, you felt cheated of a death?’
Sharpe frowned. ‘No.’
‘Ah! You were fighting a duel for exercise, perhaps?’
‘I was fighting for honour.’
Vaughn said nothing. The word hung, tawdry and silly, in the embarrassment of the courtroom.
The officers of the court tried to find more evidence, but there was none. Sharpe had no witnesses. He was ordered back to his limewashed room to await the verdict.
It took only ten minutes before he was escorted back.
He was guilty.
Lieutenant Trumper-Jones, his hair dropping over one eye, made a surprisingly impassioned speech for the prisoner. He described his gallantry, enumerated his acts on the battlefield, quoted the Times newspaper which had called Sharpe ‘Albion’s stalwart son’. On the grounds of his heroism, of his contribution to this war, Trumper- Jones said, the court should show the prisoner leniency.
Major Vaughn allowed all of the gallantry. He pointed out, too, that the Spanish people had entrusted Wellington with their pride and their armies. That trust had been broken. The Spanish would suspect the good faith of an ally who let a murderer of one of their leading citizens, a gallant General who had subdued a revolt in the Banda Oriental, go unpunished. In the interests of the alliance, as well as of natural justice, he feared he must call for the most rigorous punishment. He sounded regretful, but he spoke with the confidence of a man who knew the outcome.
General Pakenham was uncomfortable. He, too, was under orders here. His eyes did not look up at the prisoner as he ordered that Major Sharpe should be stripped of his rank, and dismissed from the army. When those formalities were completed, which should be, he said, by four o’clock that afternoon, Richard Sharpe was to be escorted to the main square of the town where, in the presence of four Spanish Battalions, he would be hanged.
Reluctantly, pain in his eyes, Pakenham looked at Sharpe. ‘Is there anything you have to say?’
Sharpe looked back defiantly. ‘Permission to die in my Rifleman’s jacket, sir.’
‘Denied.’ Pakenham looked as if he wanted to add that Sharpe had disgraced his uniform, but the words would not come. ‘These proceedings are over.’ He stood, and Sharpe was led from the courtroom, his hands tied, condemned to the gallows.
CHAPTER 7
Lord Stokeley, one of Wellington’s aides-de-camp, wondered whether wine should be served to the Spanish officers who came to witness the execution.
Wellington stared at him with cold, blue eyes. ‘It’s an execution, Stokeley, not a god-damned christening.’
Stokeley decided it would be best not to mention that in his family refreshments were served for both functions. ‘Very good, my Lord.’ He decided he had never seen his master in a worse temper.
Nor had he, indeed. The damage that could be done to the tenuous alliance between British and Spanish was immense. No Spanish soldier, so far as Wellington knew, had any love for the Marques de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba, but his murder had transformed him into a martyr of Spain. The damned churchmen had been quick off the mark, as usual, preaching their anti-protestant diatribes, but Wellington prided himself that he had been just as quick. The culprit had been tried, a hanging would take place, and all before the sun that had risen on the murdered man would set. The Spanish, ready to mount elaborate protests, had found the wind taken from their sails. They declared themselves satisfied with his Lordship’s swift retribution.
The Spanish soldiers who were marched into the plaza of the small town were glad of the break in their routine. They had been training hard, marching long days and waking with aching bones to face more hard training. Yet this afternoon it was like a fiesta. They were marched into the plaza, Battalion after Battalion, to witness the death of an Englishman.
The gibbet was made from an army wagon that was parked against the limewashed wall of the priest’s house. There was a convenient hook high on the wall. An English Sergeant, sweating in his Provost’s uniform, climbed a ladder with the rope that he looped onto the hook. The square was thick with Provosts. There was a rumour that men of the South Essex, together with some Riflemen, planned to try and rescue Richard Sharpe from the gallows. It sounded an unlikely threat, but it was taken seriously. The Provosts carried their short muskets tipped with bayonets and watched the alleys and streets that led into the plaza.
The first Spanish officers came to the headquarters. They seemed subdued. Most tactfully avoided the windows that faced the square, but Major Mendora, his bright white uniform bearing a black crepe band on its right sleeve, watched the Sergeant hang the rope in its place. Lord Stokeley wondered if the Major would care for a cup of tea? The Major would not.
The Provost Sergeant, safely off his ladder, pulled on the noose to make sure that the hook was secure. It held his weight. The rope, released from his grip, turned slowly in the small breeze.
Father Hacha, his black priest’s robes stained white with dust from the square, pushed through the officers to Mendora’s side. They should have handed him to us for punishment.’
The Major looked at the harsh faced priest. ‘Sir?’
‘Hanging’s too quick.’ His deep voice dominated the room. ‘Spain won’t be happy, gentlemen, till these heathens are gone from us.’
There were some murmurs of agreement, but not many. Most of the Spaniards present were glad to serve under the Generalissimo Wellington. They had learned from him how to organize an army, and the new regiments of Spain were troops that any officer could take pride in. But no one, not the most fervent supporter of the British alliance, was willing to cross an Inquisitor. The Junta might have abolished the Spanish Inquisition, but until it finally disappeared, no man wanted to have his name listed in its secret ledgers. The Inquisitor stared at the rope. ‘They should have garotted him.’
Some of the Spanish soldiers in the square would have agreed with the Inquisitor. Hanging, they said, was too quick. They should have brought one of the garottes that travelled with the Spanish army, sat the Englishman in its chair, and slowly, slowly tightened the screw that would break his neck. A good executioner could draw a garotting out for an hour, sometimes relaxing the pressure of the thread to give the victim false hope, before finally turning the screw and breaking the neck as the doomed man’s head snapped backwards.
