Sharpe's Prey

Sharpe nodded. “He’ll be worrying.”

“Just to let him know we’re still ticking,” Hopper said. “Doesn’t matter which of us goes, sir, but the Captain, sir, he’ll want to know what’s going to happen.”

“If I knew, I’d tell you,” Sharpe said.

“I thought we’d wait till the bombs start again, then go. No one takes a blind bit of notice when the bombs are dropping.”

Sharpe gazed down the street where a lame sweeper was brushing litter toward a wheelbarrow. “What we do,” Sharpe said, “really depends on what the Danes do. On whether they surrender or not.”

“Have to drop a few more bombs than we did last night,” Hopper said scathingly. “It’s no good a

“If they surrender,” Sharpe said, “then there isn’t a problem. We’ll just take Mister Skovgaard to a British surgeon. But if they don’t surrender… “ He left the thought unfinished.

“Then we’ll be dodging this Captain Lavatory?”

Sharpe nodded. “Though I think we’re safe enough here.”

Hopper nodded. “So when it’s dark, sir, and the bombs start up, I’ll sneak back to the Captain.”

“Tell Captain Chase I’ll stay here till Mister Skovgaard can be moved.” Sharpe did not know what else he could do. He knew he should hunt Lavisser down, but guarding Ole Skovgaard now seemed the more important task. “And when it’s all over, Hopper, you, me and Clouter are going to go digging in that house. There ought to be forty-three thousand melted guineas somewhere under the ashes.”

“Forty-three thousand?”

“Give or take a handful.”

Hopper whistled. “Captain Lavatory will already be digging though, won’t he?”

“It’ll still be too hot,” Sharpe said.

“So pray the buggers surrender, eh?” Hopper stared down the shadowed street. “Look at that silly bugger! Sweeping up a bombed city! You should get some sleep, sir, you look like a rag.” He frowned at the small storeroom. “You ain’t got room to make a proper cot in here, sir, why not go to the chapel? It’s quiet enough there.”

“Wake me before you leave.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

It was quiet in the chapel, though Sharpe could not sleep. He sat at the very back in a white-painted pew and stared at the stained glass window above the simple altar. It was getting darker outside and the details of the window were obscured, but the golden hair of the children and Christ’s silver halo showed up brightly. There were words scrolled around the halo, but they were in Danish so he could not read them.

He heard the door open and turned to see that Astrid had come to join him. “You look very thoughtful,” she said.

“I was just wondering what those words say,” Sharpe said, “up on the window.”

Astrid peered up at the dark glass. “Lader de sind Bom,” she read, “komme til mig.”

“I’m none the wiser.”

“Let the little children come to me,” she translated. “It’s from the Gospels.”

“Ah.”

Astrid smiled. “You sound disappointed.”

“I thought it might be ‘Be sure your sin will find you out.’ ”

“So you do have some religion?”

“Do I?”

She took his hand and held it silently for a while, then she sighed. “Why would anyone hurt another man so much?”

“Because it’s war,” Sharpe said.

“Because the world is cruel,” Astrid said. She stared up at the window. Christ’s halo and eyes were piercing white, the rest was darkening. “From now on,” she said, “he will be half blind, toothless and never able to hold a pen again.” She squeezed Sharpe’s hand. “And I will have to look after him.”

“Then I’ll have to look after you, won’t I?”

“Will you?”

He nodded. The question, he thought, was not would he, but could he? Could he live here? Could he deal with a querulous Ole Skovgaard, with a strange language and the stifling respectability? Then Astrid rested her head on his shoulder and he knew he did not want to lose her. He sat silent, watching the dark suffuse the window, and he thought of Lord Pumphrey’s confidence that the next few years would bring enough war to guarantee promotion and he reflected that he had never proved himself as an officer. He had shown he was a soldier, but he was still floundering as an officer. A company of greenjackets, he thought, and a French enemy to be humbled, that was a dream that would be worth pursuing. But a man must make choices, and that thought made him squeeze Astrid’s fingers.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Sharpe said, and he saw Christ’s dark-blue robe turn purple and His white eyes flash livid red. You must be dreaming, he thought, then the colors faded to darkness again and he heard the thump and he instinctively put his arms around Astrid and covered her body with his as the bomb exploded beyond the window and the stained glass, all its blues and golds and scarlets and greens, shattered into a thousand shards that screamed through the chapel. Smoke boiled after it, and then there was silence broken only by the skittering of broken glass across the chapel floor. It was like an indrawing of breath.

Before the other bombs began to fall.

The British had fired close to five thousand bombs on the first night of the bombardment and they had watched the fires rage beyond the walls and had been certain that another night of pain would persuade the Danes to surrender the city. They fired far fewer bombs the second night, a mere two thousand, thinking that would be sufficient to satisfy the garrison’s honor, but in the morning, when the smoke covered the city like a pall, no message came from the city, the Danish flag still flew above the citadel and the guns on the shot-scarred ramparts opened a defiant fire. So now, on the third night, they would drown Copenhagen in fire. All day they had replenished the magazines, hauling wagon after wagon of bombs to the batteries, and as soon as darkness fell the great guns began their battering until the very ground seemed to throb with the hammering of the mortars and the recoil of howitzers. The sky flickered with fuse traces and was tangled with smoke trails.

The gu

General Peyma

“I saw him a few moments ago, sir.”

“Tell him to burn the fleet.”

“Burn it?” The aide was horrified, for such an order meant that Peyma