LITMIR.BIZ

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he was halfway up the slope, a hundred feet above the river, and he could see three of his Riflemen shepherding the prisoners into a huddle. Four more climbed towards them and one of them, Parry Jenkins, was shouting incoherently and pointing beyond Sharpe. At the same instant Harper yelled. ‘In front, sir!’

      The Voltigeurs, annoyed perhaps at the impudence of the Riflemen’s charge, were determined to take the two men isolated on the slope. They had fired their volley and now a dozen of them came down with bayonets to either take prisoners or finish Sharpe and Harper off.

      Frustration filled Sharpe with anger. He blamed himself for letting Delmas escape. He should have insisted to Colonel Windham that the man could not be trusted, and now Windham was dead. Sharpe had to presume that poor young McDonald was dead too, killed at sixteen by a bastard who had broken his parole and who was now escaping up the hill. Sharpe came up out of his hiding place with a huge anger, with the great, heavy, ill-balanced sword in his hand, and as he went to meet the Frenchmen it seemed to him, as it so often did in battle, that time slowed down. He could clearly see the face of the first man, could see the gapped, yellowed teeth beneath the straggly moustache, and he could see the man’s throat and he knew where his blade would go and he swung, the steel hissing, and the sharpened tip slashed the enemy’s throat and Sharpe was already bringing it back in an upswing that crashed a second man’s musket aside, bit into the man’s forearm so that he dropped the weapon and was helpless as the downswing slammed through shako and skull.

      Harper watched for an instant, grinning, because he was used to the fearsome spectacle of Richard Sharpe going fierce into battle and then he joined in. He left the seven-barrelled gun behind and used a length of fire-blackened timber with which he flailed the red-epauletted enemy until, their courage broken, they were scrambling back up the hill. Harper looked at his Captain whose reddened blade had defeated four men in less than half a minute. He bent down to retrieve the big gun. ‘Have you ever thought about joining the army, Mr Sharpe?’

      Sharpe was not listening. He was staring at the houses where the priest had stopped the civilians from firing, and now Sharpe was smiling because the priest might be able to order civilians, but he could not order British soldiers about. The Sixth Division had arrived! He could see the red uniforms at the hilltop, he could hear the crackle of muskets, and Sharpe drove himself up the slope so he could find out where Delmas was. Harper followed.

      They dropped at the crest. To their right the houses were dotted with red uniforms, to their left were the three forts to which the Voltigeurs were retreating and Delmas was with them! He had been headed off by the Sixth Division and had been forced towards the fortresses. That was a victory of a kind, Sharpe supposed, because now the treacherous Frenchman was trapped in the forts. He looked behind and saw the river bank thick with British troops who marched west along the road beside the Tormes to finish off the cordon about the three strongholds. Delmas was trapped!

      The French cannons fired again, canister blasting over the wasteland to rattle on the houses, smashing windows and flimsy shutters, aimed at driving the newly arrived British troops into cover.

      Sharpe watched Delmas. He watched as the man was helped into the ditch in front of the nearest, smallest fort. Watched as the brass helmet appeared again and the Frenchman was pulled into one of the cannon embrasures. Sharpe watched his enemy go into the fort. The bastard was trapped! The sword was in Salamanca and it might yet belong to Sharpe.

      Sharpe looked at Harper. ‘That’s it. Bastard got away.’

      ‘Not next time, sir.’ Harper twisted around and stared over the river. A knot of officers were in the shelter of the houses on the far bank, another group of men, unmolested by the French gunners, were carrying Windham’s body up the hill. Harper could see the foxhounds following the sad cortege. As he watched, so the gunners fired again at the bridge. They would let the British take away their dead, but they would still not yield passage of the river. Harper nodded at the bridge. ‘Don’t think we can go back, sir.’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Not a bad wee city to be stuck in, sir.’

      ‘What?’ Sharpe had only been half listening. He had been thinking of Delmas. The Frenchman had murdered Windham, and probably murdered McDonald too. A man who killed while still on parole was a murderer.

      ‘I said it’s not a bad wee city …’

      ‘I heard you, Patrick.’ Sharpe looked at the Sergeant, remembering the fight. ‘Thank you.’

      ‘For what? Do you think we should join the lads?’

      ‘Yes.’

      They scrambled down the hill to join the few Riflemen who, like themselves, were marooned on the northern bank of the river. One of them had retrieved Sharpe’s rifle and carried it all the way across the bridge. He gave it back to his Captain. ‘What do we do now, sir?’

      ‘Now?’ Sharpe listened. Faintly he could hear a rhythmic booming, a sound overlaid with a slight, tinny melody. ‘Hear that?’

      They listened. Parry Jenkins grinned. ‘It’s a band!’

      Sharpe slung his rifle. ‘I think we should join in.’ He guessed that the Sixth Division was making their formal entry into the city; bands playing and colours flying, and he pointed down the river bank to the east. ‘That way, lads, then up into the city.’ The route would take them far from the French cannons pointing across the wasted south-western corner of the city. ‘And listen, lads!’ They looked at him. ‘Just stay together, you understand? We’re not supposed to be here and the bloody Provosts would just love a chance to put a real soldier in chains.’ They grinned at him. ‘Come on!’

      He was wiping the blood from his big sword as he led them along the river bank and then up into a steep alleyway which pointed towards the two Cathedrals on the hilltop. They were behind the houses from which the Spanish civilians had fired at Delmas, where the priest had checked their fire, and Sharpe thought he recognised the tall, grey-haired figure that climbed ahead of him.

      He quickened his pace, leaving his Riflemen behind, and the noise of his boots on the cobbled street made the priest turn. He was a tall, elderly man whose face seemed filled with amusement and charity. He smiled at Sharpe and glanced at the sword. ‘You look as if you want to kill me, my son.’

      Sharpe had not known exactly why he had pursued the priest, except to vent his anger at the man’s interference with the afternoon’s fight. The priest’s perfect English took him by surprise, and the man’s cool tone annoyed him. ‘I kill the King’s enemies.’

      The priest smiled at Sharpe’s dramatic tone. ‘You’re angry with me, my son. Is it because I stopped the civilians shooting? Yes?’ He did not wait for an answer, but went on placatingly. ‘Do you know what the French will do to them if they get a chance? Do you? Have you seen civilians put against a wall and shot like sick dogs?’

      Sharpe’s anger spilt into his voice. ‘For Christ’s sake! We’re here now, not the bloody French!’

      ‘I doubt if it’s for His sake, my son.’ The priest irritated Sharpe by continuing to smile. ‘And for how long are you here? If you don’t defeat the main French armies then you’ll be running back to Portugal and we can expect those Frenchmen to be in our streets again.’

      Sharpe frowned. ‘Are you English?’

      ‘Praise the Lord, no!’ For the first time the priest sounded shocked by something Sharpe had said. ‘I’m Irish, my son. My name is Father Patrick Curtis, though the Salamantines call me Don Patricio Cortes.’ Curtis stopped as Harper shepherded the curious riflemen past the two men. Harper took them on up the street. Curtis smiled again at Sharpe. ‘Salamanca is my city now, and these people are my people. I understand their hatred of the French, but I must protect them if the French ever rule here again. That man you were chasing. Do you know what he would do to them?’

      ‘Delmas? What?’

      Curtis frowned. He had a strong face, deeply lined, dominated by enormous, busy grey eyebrows. ‘Delmas? No! Leroux!’

      It

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