Sharpe's Assassin (Sharpe #21)
Bernard Cornwell
PART ONE
The Fortress
CHAPTER 1
There were three men on the ridge top. Two were alive.
One of the two, a tall, lean man, his face darkened by sun, was wielding a pickaxe, slamming the blade down into the stubborn earth. The top twelve inches of digging had been easy, but the hard rain of two days before had not loosened the thick clay soil beneath and the pick was striking hard, but not deep. ‘This’ll take all bloody day,’ he grumbled.
‘Let me do it,’ the second man said. He was even taller, a burly hard-muscled man who spoke in an Irish accent. ‘You take the shovel.’
‘I want to do it,’ the first man said surlily and slammed the pick down again. He was stripped to the waist, wearing only a crude straw hat, calf-length boots, and French cavalry overalls. His shirt and his green Rifleman’s jacket were hung on a nearby tree, together with his heavy cavalry sword, a tattered red officer’s sash, and a rifle.
‘I told you to dig the hole in the valley,’ the bigger man said. ‘Ground’s softer down there.’
‘It has to be up here, Pat. Dan always liked the high ground.’
‘I’ll miss Dan,’ Patrick Harper said wistfully.
‘Bloody Frogs.’ The pickaxe hammered down again. ‘Give me that shovel.’
‘I’ll shovel it,’ Harper said, ‘make room.’ He jumped into the shallow grave and scraped out some loose soil and stones.
The officer walked to the tree and took down his rifle. ‘I’ll bury this with him,’ he said.
‘Why not his own rifle?’
‘Because his is better than mine. Dan won’t mind.’
‘He looked after his rifle, that’s for sure.’
Dan Hagman’s corpse lay on the grass. He had been killed by a French Voltigeur in the battle that had been fought on the ridge just one day before. Most of the battalion’s dead were being buried in a shallow grave on the lower ground close to the chateau of Hougoumont that still smoked from the fire that had destroyed the main house. Another fiercer and larger fire burned closer to the chateau, and the stink of it wafted up the ridge.
The officer crouched beside Hagman’s corpse and gently touched the dead man’s face. ‘You were a good man, Dan,’ he said.
‘He was that.’
The officer, whose name was Richard Sharpe, flicked a piece of dirt from Dan Hagman’s green jacket that had been cleaned and mended by one of the battalion wives. Sharpe had washed Hagman’s face, though no amount of washing could erase the rash of powder burns scored into Hagman’s right cheek, each burn thrown up by the explosion of powder in his rifle’s pan. ‘We should say a prayer,’ he said.
‘If we ever make his grave deep enough,’ Harper grumbled.
‘You can say it. You’re a Catholic?’
‘Christ, I haven’t seen a church in ten years,’ Harper said. ‘I doubt God listens to me.’
‘He doesn’t even know I exist. I wonder if Dan prayed?’
‘He sang a nice hymn, so he did,’ Harper said. He took the pickaxe and drove it deep in the ground. ‘We’ll soon have this done,’ he said, loosening the hard-packed soil with a heave.
‘I don’t want the foxes digging him up.’
‘We’ll put rocks on top of him.’
Sharpe had made a wooden cross from the shattered backboards of an artillery wagon. He had used a red-hot bayonet to burn Dan Hagman’s name into the crosspiece, then added ‘Rifleman’. He arched his back, trying to work the pain from his muscles, and stared across the shallow valley where the battle had been fought. There were corpses everywhere, men and horses, while the crops were flattened and scorched by artillery fire. ‘God, that stinks,’ Sharpe said, nodding down the slope to where the fiercer fire was being fed with timber cut from the wood beyond Hougoumont. Men were also carrying French corpses to the fire and throwing them onto the flames. The British dead were being buried, but the enemy would burn their way into eternity. Sharpe dropped the wooden cross and picked up the spade.
‘Officer coming,’ Harper said in warning.
Sharpe turned to see a cavalry officer coming towards them. ‘Not one of ours,’ he said dismissively, turning away to scrape at the soil Harper had loosened. The approaching officer had sky blue trousers and a dark blue tunic crossed with a golden sash. To Sharpe’s eyes the uniform looked unnaturally clean. The men who had fought on this ridge were filthy, their uniforms stained with mud, darkened by blood, and scorched by powder burns, but the young cavalry officer appeared elegant and polished.
‘The bugger’s talking to Sergeant Huckfield,’ Harper said, eyeing the horseman, who had stopped beside a group of redcoats who were cleaning muskets gathered from the battlefield. One of the redcoats gestured towards Sharpe, who swore under his breath, making Pat Harper laugh. ‘Trouble will find you,’ he said.
The elegantly uniformed officer turned his horse and spurred towards Sharpe and Harper. He saw what they were doing and grimaced. ‘I’m told you men know where I can find Lieutenant-Colonel Sharpe,’ he said. He had a crisp voice which, like his well-groomed horse and expensive uniform, spoke of money.
‘You’ve found him, your honour,’ Harper said, exaggerating his Irish accent.
‘You?’ The officer stared at Harper with disbelief.
‘I’m Colonel Sharpe,’ Sharpe said.
If the cavalry officer had found the thought of Harper as a Colonel unbelievable he seemed to find Sharpe even more preposterous. That could have been because Sharpe had his back turned and that back was crossed with the scars of a flogging. Sharpe tipped back his straw hat as he faced the newcomer. ‘And you are?’
‘Captain Burrell, sir. I’m on the Duke’s staff.’
‘Lord Burrell?’ The scorn in Sharpe’s voice was unmistakable.
‘A younger son, so no, sir.’
‘What can I do for you, Burrell?’
‘The Duke wants to see you, sir.’
‘He’s still in Waterloo?’
‘In Brussels, sir. We rode there this morning.’
‘I’ll have to finish here first,’ Sharpe said, and drove the spade into the earth. ‘And I need to shave.’ He had not shaved in four days and the stubble was dark on his cheeks.
‘The Duke says it’s important,’ Burrell said nervously. ‘He insisted on the utmost haste, sir.’
Sharpe straightened. ‘You see that dead man, Captain?’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘He was a damn fine soldier and a good friend. That man marched with me from Portugal to France, then came here, where some bastard Voltigeur killed him. I owe him a grave, and I pay my debts. If you’re in such a hurry then you can climb off that bloody horse and help us.’
‘I’ll wait, sir,’ Burrell said uncertainly.