Sharpe's Gold

CHAPTER 4

On foot Kearsey was busy and, to Sharpe's eyes, ludicrous. He strutted with tiny steps, legs scissoring quickly, while his eyes, above the big, grey moustache, peered acutely at the mass of taller humanity. On horseback, though, astride his huge roan, he was at home as if he had been restored to his true height. Sharpe was impressed by the night's march. The moon was thin and cloud-ridden, yet the Major led the Company unerringly across difficult country. They crossed the frontier somewhere in the darkness, a grunt from Kearsey a

If Kearsey was impressive he was also a

'Nothing can move here, Sharpe, nothing, without the Partisans knowing. The French have to escort every messenger with four hundred men. Imagine that? Four hundred sabres to protect one despatch and sometimes even that's not enough.'

Sharpe could imagine it, and even pity the French for it. Wellington paid hard cash for every captured despatch; sometimes they came to his headquarters with the crusted blood of the dead messenger still crisp on the paper. The messenger who died clean in such a fight was lucky. The wounded were taken not for the information but for revenge, and the war in the hills between French and Spanish was a terrible tale of ghastly pain. Kearsey was riffling the pages of his unseen Bible as he talked.

'By day the men are shepherds, farmers, millers, but by night they're killers. For every Frenchman we kill, they kill two. Think what it's like for the French, Sharpe. Every man, every woman, every child, is an enemy in the countryside. Even the catechism has changed.'

'Are the French true believers?'

'No, they are the devil's spawn, doing his work, and must be eradicated."' He gave his barking laugh.

Knowles stretched his legs. 'Do the women fight, sir?'

'They fight, Lieutenant, like the men. Moreno's daughter, Teresa, is as good as any man. She knows how to ambush, to pursue. I've seen her kill.'

Sharpe looked up and saw the mist silvering overhead as the dawn leaked across the hills. 'Is she the one who's to marry El Catolico?'

Kearsey laughed. 'Yes.' He was silent for a second. 'They're not all good, of course. Some are just brigands, looting their own people.' He was silent again. Knowles picked up his uncertainty.

'Do you mean El Catolico, sir?'

'No.' Kearsey still seemed uncertain. 'But he's a hard man. I've seen him skin a Frenchman alive, inch by inch, and praying over him at the same time.' Knowles made a sound of disgust, but Kearsey, visible now, shook his head. 'You must understand, Lieutenant, how much they hate. Teresa's mother was killed by the French and she did not die well.' He peered down at the Bible, trying to read the print, then looked up at the lightening mist. 'We must move. Casatejada's a two-hour march.' He stood up. 'You'll find it best to tie your boots round your neck as we cross the river.'

'Yes, sir.' Sharpe said it patiently. He had probably crossed a thousand rivers in his years as a soldier, but Kearsey insisted on treating them all as pure amateurs.

Once over the Agueda, waist-high and cold, they were beyond the farthest British patrols. From now on there was no hope of any friendly cavalry, no Captain Lossow with his German sabres, to help out in trouble. This was French territory, and Kearsey rode ahead, searching the landscape for signs of the enemy. The hills were the French hunting-ground, the scene of countless small and bloody encounters between cavalrymen and Partisans, and Kearsey led the Light Company on paths high up the slopes so that should an enemy patrol appear they could scramble quickly into the high rocks where horsemen could not follow. The Company seemed excited, glad to be near the enemy, and they gri

He had only twenty Riflemen now, including himself and Harper, out of the thirty-one survivors he had led from the horror of the retreat to Coru

The other thirty-three were all Redcoats, armed with the smoothbore Brown Bess musket, but they had proved themselves at Talavera and in the tedious winter patrols. Lieutenant Knowles, still awed by Sharpe, but a good officer, decisive and fair. Sharpe nodded at James Kelly, an Irish Corporal, who had stu

Sergeant Harper, the best of them all, moved alongside Sharpe. Next to the seven-barrelled gun he had slung two packs belonging to men who were falling with tiredness after the night's march. He nodded ahead. 'What's next, sir?'

'We pick up the gold and come back. Simple.'

Harper gri

Sharpe had no time to reply. Kearsey had stopped, two hundred yards ahead, and dismounted. He pointed left, up the slope, and Sharpe repeated the gesture. The Company moved quickly into the stones and crouched while Sharpe, still puzzled, ran towards the Major. 'Sir?'

Kearsey did not reply. The Major was alert, like a dog pointing at game, but Sharpe could see from his eyes that Kearsey was not sure what had alarmed him. Instinct, the soldier's best gift, was working, and Sharpe, who trusted his own instinct, could sense nothing. 'Sir?'

The Major nodded at a hilltop, half a mile away. 'See the stones?'

Sharpe could see a heap of boulders on the peak of the hill. 'Yes, sir.'

'There's a white stone showing, yes?' Sharpe nodded, and Kearsey seemed relieved that his eyes had not deceived him. 'That means the enemy are abroad. Come on.'