Sharpe's Sword

“Whoa there, lad!” Co

Sharpe was lying on his side. He was a child again, being beaten, tied to the bench in the foundling home and the arm was crashing down and crashing down and the birch was splintering inside him and the face of the supervisor changed to Wellington’s face and the face was laughing at him.

He dreamed. Teresa was there, but he did not remember that dream, and he did not know that he dreamed of La Marquesa, and the dusk turned to darkness, night in Salamanca, and it should have been his last night in the wide black-curtained bed and he moaned on the palliasse and Co

He slept. He dreamed that the rats were chewing the flour and water paste that was caked onto a soldier’s hair. Recruits were forced to grow their hair long and when it was long enough it was pulled back and twisted round a leather queue, pulled so hard that some recruits screamed as the hair was yanked and twisted. The skeined hair was formed into the queue, five inches long, a solid pigtail, and it was caked with flour and water paste so that it was stiff and white and sometimes, in the night, the rats chewed at the queue. Then, surfacing into the pain, he remembered that he had not had his hair powdered and pasted for a dozen years, that the army had dropped the fashion, and that the rats were real, scuffling along the cellar’s edge, and he coughed at them, spat weakly, and the pain shrivelled him and he cried out.

“Die well, lad, die well.” Co

Sharpe knew then that the pain was real, that this was not a dream, and he wished he were dreaming again, but could not. He opened his eyes into the dank darkness and the pain was pulsing in him, making him sob, and he forced his knees up and tensed himself, but the pain was terrible and encompassing.

The rush light on the stairs flickered on the cellar wall. The bricks gleamed damply, darkly, curving down to Sharpe’s head and he knew he was in this place to die. He remembered Leroux, La Marquesa, and he knew he had been so confident and now it was all over. He had come so far, from the foundling home to being a Captain in Britain’s army, yet now he was as helpless as that small child strapped to the bench while the birch thrashed at it. He was going to die, and he was helpless, childlike, and he sobbed to himself and the pain was like flesh-hooks ripping him apart, and he dreamed again.

The Irish priest was mocking him, was stabbing him in the side with a long spear, and Sharpe knew he was being sent to hell. He dreamed he was in a vast building, so high that the roof was misty, and he was pi

The bricks glistened above his face. Cold water dripped slowly onto the palliasse. He knew it was the night’s middle, death’s kingdom, and the rats scuttled against the wall. He tried to talk, forcing words from the pain’s grip, and his voice was like wind stirring thistles. “Where am I?”

Co

There was no Harper. Sharpe remembered the body on the stairs, his friend, and the blood that puddled on the step, and Sharpe cried because he was alone, and was dying, and no one was there. There was no one. No Harper, no Teresa, no mother, no family, just a damp cellar of rats, cold in death’s kingdom, and all the glory of Colours carried into battle-smoke, of a soldier’s pride, of the bayonets rippling in sun and the boots going forward across the sparks towards victory ended here. In a death room. No Harper. No slow grin, no shared thoughts without words, no more laughter.

He sobbed, and in his sobs he swore he would not die.

The pain was all over so he forced his right hand down and found his naked legs, and then he moved his left hand and found the bandage and he felt round the bandage, round to his lower stomach, and the pain screamed up inside him in a vast red swell of breaking agony that drove him into unconsciousness again.

He dreamed his sword was broken, splintered grey shards, useless. He dreamed.

A man screamed in the room, a high-pitched quavering scream that startled the rats and woke Co

“Where am I?” Sharpe’s voice was unheard in the noise. He knew, though. He had seen death rooms before.

The man who had screamed was crying now, small yelps that peaked in pathetic gulps, and Sergeant Co

Sharpe breathed in short, shallow gasps, and he swore he would not die. He tried to blank the pain out, but he could not, and he tried to remember men who had come out of the death room alive. He could not. He could only think of his enemy, Sergeant Hakeswill, who had lived through a hanging, and Sharpe swore he would not die.

Co

“Patrick?”

“Are you called Patrick now? And us thinking you was a Frenchie.” Co

“Patrick?”

“And a good name it is, lad. Co

“Dying.” Sharpe had meant it as a question, but the word came as a statement.

“And sure you’re not! You’ll be chasing the women yet, Paddy, so you will.” Co

“I’m not going to die.” Each word was soft, each almost edged with a sob.

“Sure you’re not!” Co