LITMIR.BIZ

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before?’

      ‘No, sir.’ He smiled weakly. ‘I’ve only been out here a month.’

      ‘Where’s Major Hogan?’

      ‘Don’t know, sir.’

      ‘So how do you plan to prove my innocence, Trumper-Jones?’

      The young man pushed the lick of hair away from his forehead. He had a voice like d’Alembord’s, but without the easy confidence. He smiled nervously. ‘I fear it looks bleak, sir.’

      ‘Tell me.’

      Trumper-Jones seemed happier now that he could read from his papers. ‘It seems, sir, that you are acquainted with the Marquesa de Casares el Grande…’

      ‘True.’

      ‘And that you threatened her, sir.’ Trumper-Jones said it timidly.

      ‘I did what?’

      Trumper-Jones nearly jumped out of his chair. ‘You threatened her…’ He blushed. ‘Well, you threatened her, sir.’

      ‘I did no such goddamn thing!’

      Trumper-Jones swallowed, cleared his throat, and gestured with a piece of paper. ‘There is a letter, sir, from her Ladyship to her husband, and it says…’

      Sharpe leaned back. ‘Spare me, Lieutenant. I know the Marquesa. Let’s accept they have a letter. Go on.’ So she had provoked the duel. D’Alembord had hinted at it, Sharpe had refused to believe it, but he supposed it made sense. Yet he found it hard to accept that a woman who had loved him could so easily betray him.

      Trumper-Jones pushed the hair back again. ‘The letter provoked a duel, sir, that you were prevented from finishing?’

      ‘True.’ It all sounded so hopeless.

      ‘And because you were prevented from fighting, sir, the prosecution is alleging that you went to the General’s quarters last night and murdered him.’

      ‘Not true.’

      ‘They have a witness, sir.’

      ‘Really?’ Sharpe said the word scornfully. ‘Who?’

      The papers rustled. ‘A Captain Morillos, sir, of the Princessa Regiment. He commanded the guard on General Casares’s house last night and he saw a British Rifle officer leave the house at three in the morning. The officer, he says, wore a straight sword.’

      That was a nice touch, Sharpe thought. Rifle officers were issued with curved cavalry sabres, and only Sharpe wore a straight sword. He shook his head. ‘And why didn’t Captain Morillos stop this man?’

      ‘He was ordered only to stop people from going into the house, sir, not from leaving it.’

      ‘Go on.’

      Trumper-Jones shrugged. ‘That’s it, sir. I thought, sir…’ He stopped, nervous again.

      ‘Well?’

      ‘I thought, sir, that if we presented your record to the court, sir, that they must be lenient. The Eagle, sir, the Forlorn Hope at Badajoz…’ His voice tailed away.

      Sharpe smiled. ‘You want me to plead guilty and trust that they won’t shoot a hero, is that it?’

      ‘Hang, sir.’ Trumper-Jones blushed. ‘You’ll be stripped of your commission and given a criminal’s death. Only, of course, if they…’

      ‘If they find me guilty?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      Sharpe stared at the rusty nails on the wall. Of course this wasn’t happening. At any moment he would wake up and feel an extraordinary relief that it was only a dream. He would laugh at it, tell Sergeant Harper that he had dreamt of being court-martialled!

      Except it was not a dream. He had been abandoned to this and he could understand why. Understanding did not lessen the bitterness. A Spanish General had been murdered, and Sharpe knew well enough the fragile bond between the British and the Spanish. Spanish pride was upset that they needed the British to drive the invader from their soil, and their gratitude was made prickly by that pride. Wellington, in the wake of this blow to the alliance, was moving swiftly to offer the Spaniards a sacrifice.

      Yet someone else was moving swiftly, someone who wanted Sharpe dead, and he looked at the nervous Trumper-Jones and, in a voice that sounded drained and tired, he asked him to read out his copy of La Marquesa’s letter.

      None of it was true, of course, but the letter existed as a damning piece of evidence. Sharpe looked at the nervous young man. ‘I want paper, ink and a pen.’

      ‘But, sir…’

      ‘Fetch them!’

      He wrote for an hour, ignoring Lieutenant Trumper-Jones, writing to Major Hogan his own version of the night’s events, describing the lies in La Marquesa’s letter, warning his friend that there was a plot of some kind, he knew not what. Even if Sharpe was dead then Hogan could not say he had not been warned. Yet what was the plot? What purpose did Sharpe’s death serve? He could understand the murder of the Marqués because such a murder would weaken a fragile alliance, but he saw no purpose in a plot that had his own death as its ending, nor did he believe that the Marquesa would seek his death.

      He folded the letter. ‘That’s to go to Major Hogan.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      Then came the boots in the yard, the scrape of the bolt, and the sudden wash of bright sunlight as the door was opened. A Sergeant, heading Sharpe’s escort, grinned at the Rifleman. ‘Good luck, sir.’

      Sharpe smiled, but said nothing. Luck, he thought had deserted him. He had had none since that day in the Gateway of God when Teresa died, and he remembered how, on the night before that death, he had been cursed by Obadiah Hakeswill. He had been cursed, his name buried on a stone.

      Sergeant Hakeswill, who had recruited Sharpe into the army, who had succeeded in having Sharpe flogged so that the scars still marred his back, and who had become Sharpe’s bitterest enemy, was dead, shot by Sharpe, and in his grave. Sharpe wondered how many hours would pass before he, too, was rolled into a shallow trench and had the dry soil of Spain shovelled onto his corpse. He followed the Sergeant to his fate.

      A Major Vaughn, Welsh and suave, was the prosecuting officer. His tone, silky and musical, managed to imbue his words with a sincere regret that he had, as he said, this unfortunate duty to prosecute an officer so famed for his gallantry.

      The British officers behind the table did not look at Sharpe. General Sir Edward Pakenham, the Adjutant General and Wellington’s brother-in-law, presided. Three Spanish officers, their faces like masks, stared at the prisoner.

      Major Vaughn, despite his regrets, offered the court a swift and damning version of the night’s events. Major Sharpe had been prevented from defending his honour in a duel. That failure rankled. He had gone, by night, and murdered the husband of a woman whom he had pursued vilely. He much regretted bringing in this evidence, but he had no choice, and he produced the letter written and sealed by the Marquesa.

      Ned Pakenham lifted the letter as though it was plague-ridden and handed it back to Vaughn. The letter was read into the records of the Court-Martial.

      Vaughn brought the letter to Sharpe. ‘You recognise the handwriting, Major? Do remember you are under oath.’

      Sharpe looked up into the plump, clever face. ‘La Marquesa is a Frenchwoman, a spy, and…’

      ‘Thank you, Major, I only asked if you recognised the handwriting. Do you?’

      He did, but he saw no sense in making things grimmer for himself than they already were. ‘I can’t tell.’

      Vaughn walked back to his table. ‘Fortunately we have witnesses who can.’

      Sharpe raised his voice. ‘I have another letter from…’

      ‘We

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