‘Oui, monsieur,’ one of the two said. Both were young, and both looked nervous.
‘Then carry the wounded back. The dead you can bury later. And if you disturb our sleep again you’ll have more dead to bury.’ He turned away and began to walk towards his men.
‘Monsieur?’ one of the French officers called.
Sharpe turned back. ‘Yes?’
‘Is it true? The Emperor lost the battle?’
‘He lost it,’ Sharpe said curtly. He went on walking, and saw Private Bee gaping at a dead Frenchman. ‘Bee!’
‘Sir?’
Sharpe pointed at the dead man. ‘Steal that bugger’s knapsack. Leave yours here.’
‘His knapsack, sir?’
‘It’s more comfortable than the one the army gives you,’ Harper explained. The British knapsack with its narrow shoulder straps and tight chest strap was famously painful to wear. ‘And search his pockets for coins,’ Harper added.
‘Back to the bivouac,’ Sharpe told Harper, ‘and we march at daybreak.’
‘That’s not long,’ Harper said, looking at the eastern sky.
Sharpe beckoned Major Vincent. ‘How many miles to Ham now, Major?’
‘About sixty, Colonel.’
Sharpe grunted. ‘Two days, then.’
‘Hard marching,’ Harper added grimly.
‘The Duke wants us there fast,’ Vincent reminded Sharpe, though the reminder was hardly necessary. ‘And we’ll be on good roads.’
‘And doubtless we’ll meet more idiots on the way,’ Sharpe said. ‘We rest till dawn, then go.’
Deeper into France, and still on their own.
CHAPTER 3
The battalion marched in a misty dawn under a grey sky. ‘Pray it doesn’t rain again,’ Sharpe grunted to Major Vincent. ‘Rain will slow us down.’
‘It doesn’t look good,’ Vincent answered, looking up at the clouds.
They stopped at a farmhouse not far from where they had bivouacked, and Vincent, whose French was fluent, paid the farmer to let the wounded stay in a barn. ‘The British army will be here in two or three days,’ he told the man, ‘and they’ll take these poor fellows away.’ He gave the man coins. Sharpe left three men with blistered feet to look after the fourteen wounded, then rousted the battalion that rested on the road’s verges. ‘Up, lads! Long day ahead!’
Major Vincent watched the men form into their companies. ‘They’re not happy,’ he remarked.
‘Would you be?’ Sharpe retorted. ‘They’re way ahead of the army, alone in France, but they’ll fight, Major.’
‘So the Duke said,’ Vincent answered as the column started marching.
‘Tell me more about Ham,’ Sharpe said. He was riding alongside Vincent.
‘A pleasant little town,’ Vincent said, ‘with an unpleasant citadel built on the banks of the Somme. Luckily for us the citadel’s outworks were destroyed many years ago, but it’s still a formidable place.’
‘Which I’m expected to capture,’ Sharpe said grimly.
‘You are indeed, Colonel,’ Vincent smiled, ‘though my hope is that the wretched Commandant will simply surrender. He’s a vile piece of work called Pierre Gourgand. He’s a dyed in the wool Bonapartiste, and he don’t like us.’
‘Vile?’
‘He served in Spain, Sharpe, where he made a reputation for brutality. By God’s grace he lost a leg at Vittoria, so now he commands the garrison at Ham.’
‘How big a garrison?’
‘Officially no more than seventy or eighty men. Many of them invalided.’
Sharpe laughed sourly. ‘But all trained soldiers.’
‘And Gourgand might well have more,’ Vincent admitted. ‘Maybe even fugitives from last Sunday’s battle. In which case God help his prisoners.’
‘Who are they, Major?’
‘Men who deserve to be freed. They’re not criminals but enemies of Bonaparte, and among them is a man we desperately need to speak to.’
‘A spy.’
‘A gentleman who provided intelligence, Sharpe, and we owe him a debt.’
‘So who is he?’ Sharpe demanded, not expecting a clear answer.
Nor did he receive one. ‘He is the reason we’re marching to Ham, Sharpe. And praying that the gentleman hasn’t already been strapped to a guillotine.’
‘And if Gourgand don’t surrender the place?’
‘We assault the citadel, but I pray it doesn’t come to that.’ Vincent slapped at a horsefly on his stallion’s neck. ‘The outer ramparts have been slighted, Sharpe, but the central keep is a bastard.’
Sharpe grimaced. ‘We need artillery, Major.’
‘Which we don’t have. There’s no time for a siege. We go there, we free our prisoner, and we come back. Then on to Paris!’ He rode on for a few paces. ‘There is one other complication, Sharpe.’
‘That’s a surprise.’
Vincent smiled. ‘The Prussians are advancing on a road to the east, and their line of march isn’t far beyond Ham. They might be interested too.’
‘And we might be grateful for their help,’ Sharpe said.
‘We were never occupied by the French, Sharpe, so we don’t hate them as the Prussians do. I suspect that their march south will be a horror story. Rape and thievery,’ he spat the words. ‘The natural consequence is that the French detest them. If the Prussians get to Ham before us then there’s no hope of the citadel surrendering, not when they realise what fate awaits them.’
‘So an easy task, Major. Push the Prussians away, defeat the French, and find our man.’
‘Exactly,’ Vincent said happily, ‘and the Duke reckons you’re just the fellow.’
‘What he reckons,’ Sharpe said sourly, ‘is that we’re an expendable battalion.’
Vincent flinched at the words and rode in silence for a few paces. ‘You’re wrong,’ he finally said. ‘I asked the Duke to send his best, and he chose you. He assured me that if any man can do the impossible it’s Lieutenant-Colonel Sharpe.’
Sharpe gave a short dismissive laugh.
‘Truly, Sharpe,’ Vincent said.
‘So I’m to do the impossible?’
‘Capture Ham’s citadel, yes.’
They reached Péronne in the early evening and camped to the north of the city. No one troubled them, but next morning, as they skirted the city’s eastern side, cannon again fired at the battalion. Yet just as at Valenciennes, the shots either fell short of the marching battalion or seared over their heads. Sharpe rode at the head of the column with Major Vincent. ‘They seem serious,’ Sharpe said, nodding at the smoke drifting from the city’s battlements.
‘The Duke will have to assault.’
‘Why not leave them?’
‘Because whoever rules France now has to be convinced they’ve lost. If those idiots want a fight, the Duke will give them one.’
‘And good men will die even though the war’s nearly over,’ Sharpe said sourly, thinking of his own men who were marching towards an enemy-held citadel. He had been fortunate at Valenciennes, losing only a few men to the ill-aimed enemy fire, but he suspected some of his troops would die before Ham was captured.