‘For the moment,’ Vincent said, smiling, then watched as Sharpe pulled the cloak from his baggage. ‘Cold, Sharpe?’
Sharpe did not answer at once, but just shook the cloak free. It was made from dark blue wool and lined with scarlet silk, while about its collar were golden threads surrounding woven bees and the letter ‘N’. ‘Not sure a mere capitaine would wear this,’ Sharpe said, ‘but if I’m to be French tonight? I will.’ He slung the cloak around his shoulders and fastened the small golden chain at his neck.
‘Good God,’ Vincent said, ‘that’s an Imperial Guard cloak!’
‘It belonged to one once. He died in Russia.’
‘And you got it?’
‘His wife gave it me, sir.’
‘Ah, the Vicomtesse?’
‘The Vicomtesse,’ Sharpe said, and added nothing more though Vincent was plainly curious.
‘The Duke told me about her,’ Vincent persisted, ‘he claimed she was proof that you have the devil’s own luck.’
‘I do,’ Sharpe said, then mounted his horse. The cloak had been Lucille’s gift to him on the eve of battle, and the thought of her struck him hard. ‘Shall we go, Major?’
Sharpe left Captain Price in command, with a stern order that the men were to stay inside the barn, all but the picquets who would watch the road. ‘God knows how long we’ll be, Harry, but we’ll be back.’
As the dusk faded Sharpe and Vincent rode down the farm track to join the road which led into Ham, which proved to be a large village rather than a town. There was a full moon rising in the south that gave enough light to show small houses and a large church. Lamplight showed in windows, but the streets were empty. Folk peered at the sound of the hoofbeats, but none came out to question the two horsemen. ‘We shouldn’t go too close,’ Vincent said nervously, still speaking French, ‘just close enough to let you see the chateau’s entrance.’
‘I can see enough already,’ Sharpe answered grimly. Ahead of him, dark in the night, an enormous round tower loomed over the village roofs, and, as they drew nearer, Sharpe saw the tower stood at the corner of immense walls. ‘Christ, Major! That’s a bloody castle!’
‘The only approach is from this side,’ Vincent said, apparently unimpressed by the massive ramparts, ‘the river runs beyond it.’
‘God in his heaven,’ Sharpe said, ‘we’d need siege guns to get inside that!’
‘Let’s hope they simply surrender,’ Vincent answered as he turned his horse into the trees that edged a wide patch of grass which led to the fortress. ‘That was all defence work once,’ he said, gesturing at the remnant of a wide ditch and stubs of broken walls. ‘Vauban built new outworks,’ Vincent said, ‘a glacis, ravelins, ditches, all the usual obstacles, but they’ve been slighted. All that’s left is the original castle.’
‘It’s a bastard of a place,’ Sharpe said gloomily. The glacis, built over a century before, was now just a low ridge in the grassy expanse, in front of which a shallow depression marked where the outer ditch had once been. Beyond the remnant of the glacis were stone walls that now stood only waist high through which the entrance path led to a triangular bastion, originally built to defend the castle’s huge square tower that contained the main gate. The bastion had once stood much higher, but was still high enough to effectively obscure the castle’s gate from Sharpe.
He could hear the river now and glimpsed the moon-sheened water through a screen of trees. The chateau was built inside a bend of the river, which protected its southern and western walls, while he and Vincent were riding across the eastern side where the great entrance loomed. They were over two hundred paces from the chateau, which showed no lights. The moon was behind it, giving the huge stone walls a dark and forbidding look. ‘I could die of old age holding that fortress,’ Sharpe said.
‘The Duke has faith in you, Sharpe,’ Vincent said, sounding amused.
They curbed the horses among the trees by the river. Both men dismounted and gazed at the great castle. ‘I think we should begin by demanding a surrender,’ Vincent said.
‘No,’ Sharpe said, ‘we’ll begin by deceiving them.’
‘How?’
‘By making them see what I want them to see.’ He was deliberately not explaining his thoughts, partly because Vincent refused to discuss the ‘important’ prisoner they had been charged with rescuing, and partly because Sharpe was wondering whether his plan had even a dog’s chance of succeeding.
Sharpe was staring at the main gate. He had moved close to the riverbank so he could see past the triangular bastion, and the formidable gate showed clearly now. It was set in an archway of the square entrance tower. He saw the glint of moonlight reflect from metal at the top of the tower and guessed there were sentries there. Those men must have seen the two horsemen come to the woodland near the castle, but they had raised no alarm nor shouted any challenge, which suggested they were used to seeing the townsfolk on the wide grassy space. Yet surely they had been warned by Péronne that British troops were nearby? ‘They’re dozy bastards,’ he muttered.
‘And drunk,’ Vincent said, amused. A group of men had started singing in the village and slowly came into sight. They were indeed drunk, and sang raucously. They took the path from the road to the main gate and Sharpe saw how that path led first to the triangular bastion that protected the entrance. Originally, Sharpe supposed, the bastion had been a formidable stone fortress, but it had been razed down to scarce more than a man’s height. He and Vincent heard a gate or door open, a shouted challenge, and then the drunken men filed into a tunnel that apparently led through the bastion. Another gate opened at the rear of the bastion and the drunks staggered across the bridge that spanned the fortress’s inner ditch. A moment later Sharpe heard the creak as the main gate opened. Lantern light spilled onto the stone bridge, there was laughter, then a bang as the big gate was crashed shut. ‘And that’s the only way in?’ Sharpe asked.
‘There may be a sally port, but I didn’t see one.’
‘So it’s the main gate or nothing?’
‘Unless you’d prefer an escalade?’
Sharpe snorted at that. The thought of making ladders long enough to scale those immense walls was bad enough, but the idea of climbing the ladders under fire from the towers that stood at the fort’s four corners was a nightmare. ‘No escalade, Major. If we go at all we’ll go through the front door.’ He had an idea how that could be achieved, though God alone knew how desperate an idea that was, and the bastion complicated the problem. The only way to the bridge across the moat was through the bastion’s tunnel, and the shouted challenge had confirmed that the bastion was evidently garrisoned.
‘Have you seen enough?’
‘Too much, Major.’
‘Then I suggest we go back to the farm.’