He dipped his quill into ink, and the nib emerged coated with vitriol. “Those prisoners, condemned for Desertion or Piracy, were Released, without my Knowledge nor Consent, by Major Richard Sharpe, Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers, whom we had Conveyed to the Teste de Buch, together with a small Force of soldiery, for Operations in the interior. As yet, with all the Attendant Duties that this Victory brings, and in the Business of anticipating the Prizes that will lie open to His Majesty’s ships Tomorrow, I have had neither opportunity nor time to Demand of Major Sharpe his Reasons for this,” Bampfylde paused, then swooped, “Betrayal. But be Assured that such Reasons will be sought and Conveyed to their Lordships by Your Most Humble and Obedient Servant, Horace Bampfylde.”
He sanded the despatch, folded it, then sealed it. Ford would wrap it in waxed paper, then take it to the Lily to wait for the winds that would speed this message back to London to the greater glory of Horace Bampfylde and to the deserved damn, tion of Major Richard Sharpe.
The mist thickened slowly, just as the ice ori the marshes thickened. There was no wind as dawn silvered the Bassin d’Arcachon and as Cornelius Killick, with his men, finished their frozen march i.c the village of Gujan where the Tkuella. was grounded.
Liam Docherty was astonished by the night’s events. First his life had been spared by an Englishman, then, as he left the fort, a savage-faced Rifleman had thrust a cloth bundle into his arms. That bundle proved to be the Thuella’s ensign and, to Docherty, a further proof that some supernatural force had given the Tkuella’s crew protection in the cold, still night.
Cornelius Killick took their release more carelessly, as though he knew his time on this earth was not yet finished. “There never was a saying, Liam, that hanging a sailorman in still airs brought revenge. But it seemed worth an attempt, eh?” He laughed softly. “And it worked!” He stared up at his beached schooner, knowing that it needed days of work before it could float. “We’ll patch with the elm and hope for the best.”
“At least the bastards won’t find us in this mist,” Docherty said hopefully.
“ If the wind doesn’t spring.” Killick stared over the saltings beyond the creek and saw how the slow, creeping whiteness was thickening into a vaporous shroud that might yet be his schooner’s salvation. “But if we burn her,” he said slowly, “the British can’t.”
“Burn her?” Docherty sounded appalled.
“Get the topmasts down, I want the bowsprit off her. Make her look like a hulk, Liam.” Killick, despite his sleepless night, was suddenly full of demonic energy. “Then set smoke fires in the hold.” He stared up at the sleek bulge of the careened hull. “Streak it with tar. Make her look abandoned, burned, and wrecked.” For if the British saw a canted, mastless hull, seeping a smudge of smoke, they would think the Thuella beyond salvage. They would not know that men carefully tended the smoke-rich fires, or that the topmasts, guns and sails were held safe ashore. “Do it, Liam! Fast now, fast!”
Killick grinned at his men, filling them with hope, then stalked back to the small tavern where Commandant Henri Lassan, wet and disconsolate, huddled before a smoking fire. “You’ll not stay with us, Henri?”
Lassan was wondering what fate had attended upon his small and valuable library. No doubt it would be burned. The British, in Lassan’s grim view, were entirely capable of burning books, which made it all the more surprising that they had released the Americans. “What was the name of the officer?”
“Sharpe.” Killick, with relief, had found some of his cigars safe amongst the baggage stored at Gujan. He lit one now, noticing that the mist was thickening to fog.
“Sharpe?” Lassan frowned. “A Rifleman?”
“Green Jacket, anyway.” Killick watched as Lassan scribbled in a small notebook. The French officer, resting in Gujan on his eastward journey, wanted to know all that Killick could tell him about the British force and the American, considering the request, decided that the giving of information did not break his promise to Sharpe. “Does it matter who he is?”
“If he’s the man I think he is, yes.” Lassan sounded dispirited by his defeat. “You’ve met one of their more celebrated soldiers.”
“He met one of America’s more celebrated sailors,” Killick said happily. He wondered if this unnatural calm presaged a storm. He saw Lassan’s pencil pause, and sighed. “Let me think now. I’d guess a hundred Riflemen, maybe a few more.”
“Marines?” Lassan asked.
“At least a hundred.” Killick shrugged.
Lassan looked through the window, saw the fog, and knew he must find a horse, any horse, and take his news to those who could best use it. The British had come, had won their victory, but they had not yet left Arcachon, so Lassan would go to Bordeaux and there find the men who could organize revenge on a Rifleman.
Fog writhed about the low walls of the Teste de Buch, utterly obscuring the ramparts from the courtyard where Sharpe, in the dawn, paraded his Riflemen.
“He’s not best pleased with you,” Captain of Marines Palmer spoke hesitantly. Sharpe replied with his brief opinion of Captain Bampfylde that made the tough Marine smile. “I’m to give you this.” Palmer handed Sharpe a sealed paper.
Sharpe supposed the paper was a reprimand or protest from Bampfylde, but it was merely a reminder that Major Sharpe was expected back at the Teste de Buch by noon on Thursday. Doubtless Bampfylde was unwilling to face Sharpe in person, and Sharpe did not care. His head was aching, sometimes pulsing with a stab of dark agony, and his mood was bleak.
“We’re marching with you,” Captain Palmer said. He had fifty Marines on parade. He had also taken two of the captured gun-limbers, each harnessed behind a pair of carthorses that had been discovered in a meadow by the village and which now drew the Marines’ packs and supplies. “The men aren’t hardened to marching,” Palmer explained.
“You’re attached to us?” Sharpe asked with surprise.
Palmer shook his head. “We’re supposed to be hunting your Americans.”
“If they’ve got any sense,” Sharpe said, “they’ll be long gone.”
The gate squealed open, boots slammed on the cobbles, and the small force that was intended to cut the French supply-road marched into the cold whiteness of the fog. If his map was right Sharpe reckoned they faced a full day’s march. First they would follow the main road, keeping to its ruts in the blinding fog as far as a bridge at a village called Facture. There they would turn south-east and follow the River Leyre until they reached the supply road. One day on the road to cause what chaos he could, then one day for the return journey.
The Riflemen again outstripped the Marines. Gradually the sound of the horses’ trace-chains faded behind and Sharpe’s men marched amidst the clinging, soft wet fog as if in a silent cloud.
Nothing stirred in Arcachon. The fog half obscured the buildings, the shuttered windows stayed shuttered, but the road led straight through the market-place.
“I wanted to thank you,” Frederickson said, “for your actions last night.”
Sharpe had been lost in the private pain of a stabbing headache. He had to think to remember the events of the night, then he shrugged. “For nothing.”
“I doubt that Bampfylde feels it’s nothing?”
Sharpe gave a dutiful smile. He flinched as a dart of pain stabbed behind his bandaged forehead.
Frederickson saw the flinch. “Are you well, sir?”
“I’m well.” It was said curtly.
Frederickson walked in silence for a few paces. “I doubt Captain Palmer can find the fugitives in this fog.” He spoke in the tones of a man who openly changed the subject.
“Bampfylde’s got the chasse-marees,” Sharpe said, “what the hell else does he want?”
“He wants the American schooner for prize money. Did you ever meet a naval captain who didn’t want prize money?” Frederickson sounded scornful. “The web-foots fight a battle and spend the next ten years in litigation over the division of the spoils. The Navy’s made the legal profession wealthy!”
It was an old Army complaint. A naval captain could become rich for ever by capturing an unarmed enemy merchantman, while a soldier could fight a score of terrible engagements and never see a sixpence for all the crammed warehouses he might capture. Sharpe could hardly complain, for he and Harper had stolen their wealth off a battlefield, but the old soldier’s envious habit of despising the Navy for legalizing theft persisted. The Army did award prize money; a saddle horse, taken in battle, fetched three shillings and ninepence, but that sum shared
