LITMIR.BIZ

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they don’t want to fight us down here,’ Sharpe said. ‘Because they don’t want to wade through shit. Because they’re frightened.’ He smashed the rifle into the old brickwork, hitting again and again in a kind of frenzy, and Harper worked beside him, timing his blows to strike at the same time as Sharpe’s, and suddenly the ancient masonry collapsed. Some of the bricks cascaded down to Sharpe’s feet, splashing his legs with sewage, but most fell into whatever space was beyond the wall. The good news was that they fell with a dry clatter, not with a splash that would announce they had only managed to break into one of the many cesspits dug beneath the houses of the lower town. ‘Can you get through, Pat?’ Sharpe asked.

      Harper did not answer, but just clambered through the black space. Sharpe turned again to watch the tiny sparks of falling fire that he reckoned were no more than a hundred paces away. The journey through the sewer had seemed much longer. A larger scrap fell, flared blue-green and splashed into oblivion, but not before its sheen of light had flickered off the walls to show that the tunnel was empty.

      ‘It’s another damned cellar,’ Harper said, his voice echoing in the dark.

      ‘Take these,’ Sharpe said, and pushed his rifle and sword through the gap. Harper took the weapons, then Sharpe climbed up, scratching his belly on the rough edge of the shattered brickwork, then wriggling over onto a stone floor. The air was suddenly fresh. The stench was still there, of course, but less concentrated and he breathed deep before helping Harper lift the bundles of clothes through the hole. ‘Miss Fry? Give me your hands,’ Sharpe said, and he lifted her through the gap, stepped back and she fell against him so that her hair was against his face. ‘Are you all right?’

      ‘I’m all right,’ she said. She smiled. ‘You’re right, Mister Sharpe, and for some reason I am enjoying myself.’

      Harper was helping Vicente through the hole. Sharpe lifted Sarah gently. ‘You must get dressed, miss.’

      ‘I was thinking my life must change,’ she said, ‘but I wasn’t expecting this.’ She was still holding him and he could feel she was shivering. Not with cold. He ran a hand down her back, tracing her spine. ‘There’s light,’ she said in a kind of amazement, and Sharpe turned to see that there was indeed the faintest strip of grey at the far side of the wide room. He took Sarah’s hand and groped his way past piles of what felt like pelts. He realized that the room stank of leather, though that smell was a relief after the thickness of the stench inside the sewer. The grey strip was high, close to the ceiling, and Sharpe had to clamber up a pile of leather skins to discover that one pelt had been nailed across a small high window. He ripped it down to see that the window was only a foot high and crossed with thick iron bars, but it opened onto the pavement of a street which, after the last few hours, looked like a glimpse of heaven. The glass was filthy, but it still seemed as though the cellar was flooded with light.

      ‘Sharpe!’ Vicente said chidingly, and Sharpe twisted to see that the small light was revealing Sarah’s near nakedness. She looked dazzled by the light, then ducked behind a stack of pelts.

      ‘Time to get dressed, Jorge,’ Sharpe said. He fetched Sarah’s bundle and took it to her. ‘I need my boots,’ he said, turning his back.

      She sat down to take the boots off. ‘Here,’ she said, and Sharpe turned to see she was still almost naked as she held the boots up. There was a challenge in her eyes, almost as if she was astonished at her own daring.

      Sharpe crouched. ‘You’re going to be all right,’ he said. ‘Anyone as tough as you will survive this.’

      ‘From you, Mister Sharpe, is that a compliment?’

      ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and so’s this,’ and he leaned forward to kiss her. She returned the kiss and smiled as he rocked back. ‘Sarah,’ he said.

      ‘I think we’ve been introduced properly now,’ she allowed.

      ‘Good,’ Sharpe said, then left her to dress.

      ‘So what do we do now?’ Harper asked when they were all clothed again.

      ‘We get the hell out of here,’ Sharpe said. He twisted as he heard boots in the street, then saw feet going past the small window. ‘The army’s still here,’ he said, ‘so we get out and make sure Ferragus loses all that food in the warehouse.’ He buckled on the sword belt and shouldered the rifle. ‘And then we arrest him,’ he went on, ‘stand him against a wall and shoot the bastard, though no doubt you’d like him to have a trial first, Jorge.’

      ‘You can just shoot him,’ Vicente said.

      ‘Well said,’ Sharpe commented and crossed the room to where some wooden steps climbed to a door. It was locked, evidently bolted on the far side, but the hinges were inside the cellar and their screws were sunk into rotted wood. He rammed his sword under one of the hinges, levered it cautiously in case the hinge was stronger than it looked, then gave it a good heave that splintered the screws out of the jamb. A troop of cavalry clattered past outside. ‘They must be leaving,’ Sharpe said, moving the sword to the lower hinge, ‘so let’s hope the French aren’t too close.’

      The second hinge tore out of the frame and Sharpe pulled on it to force the door inwards. It tilted on the bolt, but opened far enough for him to see down a passageway that had a heavy door at its far end and, just as Sharpe was about to step through the half-blocked opening, someone began thumping that far door. He could see it shaking, could see the dust jarring off its timbers, and he held up a hand to caution his companions to silence as he backed away. ‘What day is it?’ he asked.

      Vicente thought for a second. ‘Monday?’ he guessed. ‘October the first?’

      ‘Jesus,’ Sharpe said, wondering whether the horses in the street had been French and not British. ‘Sarah? Get up close to the window and tell me if you can see a horse.’

      She scrambled up, pressed her face against the grimy glass, and nodded. ‘Two horses,’ she said.

      ‘Do they have docked tails?’

      ‘Docked?’

      ‘Are their tails cut off?’ The door at the passageway’s end was shaking with the blows and he knew it must give way at any second.

      Sarah looked through the glass again. ‘No.’

      ‘Then it’s the French,’ Sharpe said. ‘See if you can block the window, love. Push a piece of leather against it. Then hide! Go back to Pat.’

      The cellar went dark again as Sarah propped a stiff piece of leather over the small window, then she went back to join Harper and Vicente in the far corner where they were concealed by one of the massive heaps of hides. Sharpe stayed, watching the far door shake, then it splintered inwards and he saw the blue uniform and white crossbelt and he backed away down the steps. ‘Frogs,’ he said grimly, and crossed the cellar and crouched with the others.

      There was a cheer as the French broke into the house. Footsteps were loud on the floorboards above, then someone kicked at the half-broken cellar door and Sharpe could hear voices. French voices and not happy voices. The men evidently paused at the cellar door and one made a sound of disgust, presumably at the stench of sewage. ‘Merde,’ one of the voices said.

      ‘C’est un puisard.’ Another spoke.

      ‘He says it’s a cesspit,’ Sarah whispered in Sharpe’s ear, then there was a splashing sound as one of the soldiers urinated down the steps. There was a burst of laughter, then the Frenchmen went away. Sharpe, crouching close beside Sarah in the cellar’s darkest corner, heard the distant sounds of boots and hooves, voices and screaming. A shot sounded, then another. It was not the sound of battle, for that was many shots melding together to make an unending crackle, but single shots as men blew off padlocks or just fired for the hell of it.

      ‘The French are here?’ Harper asked in disbelief.

      ‘The whole damn army,’ Sharpe said. He loaded his rifle, shoved the ramrod back in its hoops, then waited. He heard boots clattering down

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