“No.”
“Perhaps you’d better not. You might accuse me of breaking my promise not to fight Englishmen.” Killick laughed, broke a shell open with a clasp knife, and tipped the oyster into his mouth. “So you’re in trouble.”
“I can’t deny it.”
Killick sat and, after a moment’s hesitation, Sharpe sat beside him. He suspected the American had come here for some purpose, though Killick was at pains to make the visit seem casual. The purpose could be simply to spy on Sharpe’s preparations, but Killick had made no real effort to enter the fort and seemed content to have Sharpe’s attention. The American tossed empty shells on to the sand. “Some of my men, Major, being less civilized than myself, ain’t happy with me. All because of my oath, you understand. If we can’t fight, then we can’t make money.”
“Is that why you fight?”
Killick shrugged. “It’s a business, Major. The Thuella cost my principals one hundred and sixty-three thousand new-fangled dollars. They’ve made a profit, but have you ever known a merchant content with a simple profit? And if my men don’t take prizes, my men starve, so they’re unhappy.”
“But alive,” Sharpe observed drily.
“There is that,” Killick allowed. “But their pride is hurt. They had to squat in Gujan while a British brig put a couple of roundshot into their boat and I wouldn’t let them fire back. I’m now being accused of cowardice, lack of patriotism, bastardy, even atheism! Me!” Killick’s tone suggested that he could more than cope with the grumbles of his crew.
“I’m sorry.”
Killick gave Sharpe a long, pensive look. “I suppose you wouldn’t release me from my promise?”
Sharpe smiled at the innocence with which the question had been asked. “Why on earth should I?”
“I can’t think of a good reason,” Killick said cheerfully, “except that it irks me. Oh, it was fair! I grant you that. And I’d take it again if it would save my excellent hide for another few years, but it irks. This is my only war, Major, and I am damned good at it. Damn good.“ The statement was not a boast, but a bleak fact and it reminded Sharpe of that noontide at St Jean de Luz when this big, confident man had made a monkey out of the Navy. Killick shrugged. ”I want to be released from that oath. It keeps me awake at nights, it itches like the pox, it irks.“
“The answer’s still no.”
Killick nodded, as though he had known he could not change Sharpe’s mind, but had nevertheless made a dutiful effort. “Why did those bastards run out on you?”
“I don’t know.”
The American cocked an eye towards the sky. “It might have been the weather. I thought we were in for one hell of a blow, but the damn thing disappeared. Strange weather here, Major. You expecting them back?”
“Maybe.”
“But they haven’t come today, my friend, so my bones tell me you’re in trouble.” Killick gave a slow, friendly grin. “You’re between the devil and the deep blue sea, aren’t you?”
“Maybe.”
The American laughed. “You could always join my crew, Major. Just march your men to Gujan and I’ll sign you all on. You want to be an American citizen?”
Sharpe laughed. The teasing was good-natured, and came from a man that Sharpe instinctively liked. If Killick had been British, Sharpe thought, and dressed in a green jacket, he would have made a damn fine Rifleman. “Perhaps you’d like to sign your men up in the Rifles? I could start you off as a corporal.”
“I’ve had my bellyful of land fighting,” Killick said with a rueful honesty. He gave a wistful glance towards the open sea, then looked again at Sharpe. “I’ll be sorry to see you defeated, Major.”
“I don’t intend to be.”
“And I’m mindful,” the American continued as though Sharpe had not spoken, “that you saved my life. So even if you won’t release me from my oath I reckon I owe you something. Isn’t that right, Major?”
“If you say so.” Sharpe spoke with the caution of a man wary of an enemy bringing a gift.
But this enemy smiled, shucked an oyster, then tossed the shell halves on to the sand in front of Sharpe. “They used to collect tons of those things out of the bay. Tons! Used to take them to a place at the end of the channel,” Killick jerked a thumb north, “and burn them, Major. Burn them. They stopped a few years back because they couldn’t ship the stuff out any more, but there’s a stone barn full of it up there. Full of it.” Killick smiled.
Sharpe frowned, not understanding. “Full of what?”
“Major! I may bring you breeches, but I’m damned if I’m going to pull them up for you.” Killick twisted another oyster apart with his blade, then shrugged. “Always think I’m going to find a pearl in these damn things, and I never do. Lassan was pretty astonished you spared our lives, Major.” The last sentence was said as casually as his remark about pearls.
“Lassan?” Sharpe asked.
“He was the commandant here. Scrupulous sort of fellow. So why did you, Major?”
The question was evidently asked seriously, and Sharpe thought carefully about his answer. “I find it hard to hang people, even Americans.”
Killick chuckled. “Squeamishness, eh? I was hoping I’d talked my way out of a hanging. All that guff about never hanging a sailorman in still airs.” Killick grinned, pleased with his cleverness. “It was all bally-hoo, Major. I just made it up.”
Sharpe stared at the American. For days Sharpe had believed, with all the force a superstition could command, that by showing mercy to Killick he had saved Jane’s life. Now it was bally-hoo? “It isn’t true?”
“Not a word, Major.” Killick was pleased with Sharpe’s shock reaction. “But I thank you anyway.”
Sharpe stood. “I have work to do.” His hopes were sliding into a bleak despair. “Good day to you.”
Killick watched the tall figure walk away. “Remember, Major! Oyster shells! Halfway between here and Gujan, and that ain’t bally-hoo!”
Sharpe went into the fortress. He wanted to speak with no one. Suddenly all the preparations he had made against siege seemed useless, contemptible, and pathetic. The hay-rakes, taken from the villages, seemed feeble instruments with which scaling-ladders could be knocked aside. The two guns, made ready by Harper, were toys to swat at a monster. The pine abatis was a bauble, no more of an obstacle than a sheep hurdle. Jane was dying. Sharpe could not see beyond that fact.
“Sir!” Frederickson ran up the stone ramp. “Sir!”
Sharpe, who had been sitting in one of the embrasures that faced the channel, looked up. “William?”
“Two thousand of the buggers, plus two batteries of artillery.” Frederickson’s mounted Riflemen had returned on lathered horses with the grim news.
Sharpe looked down again, wondering what purpose the white lines on the rampart, each numbered, had served.
“Sir?” Frederickson frowned.
Sharpe’s head jerked up again. “Two thousand, you say?”
“At least.”
Sharpe forced himself to attend to the news. “How far?”
“Three hours.”
“They’ll arrive in darkness,” Sharpe spoke softly. Somehow he did not care if it was two or twenty thousand.
“Sir?” Frederickson was puzzled by Sharpe’s mood.
“Tell me,” Sharpe suddenly stood, “what happens when you burn oyster shells?”
“Oyster shells?” Frederickson frowned at the strange question. “You get quicklime, of course.”
“Lime?” Sharpe told himself he could not wallow in self-pity. He had men to defend and an enemy to defy. “It blinds people?”
“That’s the stuff,” Frederickson said.
“Then we’ve got three hours to fetch some.” Sharpe was shaking himself back to normal. He passed on Killick’s directions and ordered one of the limbers taken north.
Two hours later, when the light was nothing but a glow above the western horizon, eight barrels of quicklime were carried into the fortress. Like the powder from the Customs House it was old and damp through too long storage behind the lime-kilns and it clumped in great dirty-white fist-sized lumps, but Frederickson took
