Men were detailed to collect the French muskets, while the captured men were ordered to take off their boots, jackets and belts. ‘Kick them out the front gate,’ Sharpe ordered Huckfield, ‘but warn them there’s to be no plundering in the town.’
Captain Godwin had discovered the Commandant’s quarters, which were half of one of the long buildings down the side of the courtyard. Gourgand had a wife there and a daughter, so Sharpe ordered Godwin to put a guard on them. ‘And find his office. If there’s any money there, it’s ours.’
‘Ours, sir?’
‘It belongs to the army, not us, but just bring it.’
Sharpe suddenly felt immensely tired, the weariness that followed the tension of battle. ‘Sir! Colonel Sharpe!’ It was Captain Yates of Six Company, calling excitedly. ‘Come and look, sir!’ Yates was the youngest Captain in the battalion, newly promoted from Lieutenant and eager to impress.
Yates was standing by a window of one of the long buildings, the same one that contained Gourgand’s quarters. Sharpe crossed to him and Yates gestured through the window that had been broken by a musket ball. The room inside was dark, and for a moment Sharpe could see nothing, but then a door inside the building opened and a wash of lamplight dispersed the shadows. ‘Christ,’ Sharpe said.
At first all he had seen were the tall timbers reaching to the room’s ceiling. There were two of them and they seemed to spring from a low wooden platform, then the light glinted off metal and he saw it was a guillotine. The slanted blade was in the lowest position.
‘Dear God,’ Yates breathed, ‘what an awful thing.’
‘Better than a hanging,’ Sharpe said. There was a door nearby which led into the room, and Sharpe found a lantern inside which he lit. The guillotine had plainly been used, judging by the dried blood on the lower platform. Thick leather straps showed where a victim was pinioned to the machine. ‘It must be a quick death,’ Sharpe said. ‘Messy, but quick.’
‘You’ve seen one at work, sir?’ Yates asked. ‘In Normandy, perhaps?’
‘Never seen one working,’ Sharpe said, ‘but I remember there was a guillotine in Yorkshire.’
‘In Yorkshire?’ Yates sounded disbelieving.
‘In Halifax,’ Sharpe said.
‘They behead people in Halifax!’
‘Used to,’ Sharpe said. ‘When I was a lad I worked in a Sheffield tavern and they had a great big picture of the Halifax guillotine on the taproom wall. I always wanted to see the real thing, but I never did get to Halifax. The Crapauds like to say they invented it, but Yorkshire was way ahead of them.’ He unhooked the rope from its cleat and remembered his disappointment at not seeing a beheading. Fourteen-year-olds, he thought, could be bloodthirsty little buggers. He had been fascinated by the old woodcut of the guillotine, and that old feeling stirred as he gazed up at the ungainly device. He hauled the heavy blade to the top of the frame and cleated the rope off. ‘Maybe we can try it out.’
‘Really, sir?’ Yates sounded appalled.
‘I’ve always wanted to see if they work,’ Sharpe said, then noticed the five guns parked at the far end of the big room. ‘Those must be the cannon brought for the Garde Nationale.’ He crossed to them. ‘Old-fashioned six-pounders. Thank God the buggers didn’t wheel them out.’
‘What do we do with them?’
‘We’ll blow the things up. See if your lads can make wedges. There must be a carpentry shop somewhere.’
The other long building was a barracks, and some of the defeated French had been married. Their wives now came from the barracks and stood watching nervously. ‘Keep those women safe,’ Sharpe told Yates. ‘When their men leave, they leave too.’
Harper had come down from the gatehouse and joined Sharpe as he went back into the building that formed the end of the courtyard, where the prison cells were built. Another door led out into a second, much smaller courtyard, and Sharpe heard voices there. He went through.
‘They’re starving,’ Vincent greeted him, pointing to the freed prisoners.
‘There must be kitchens here.’
There were a score of prisoners, all dressed in white fatigue uniforms. Vincent gestured at a small group, half a dozen men, standing together. ‘Those are our lads,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure they’re strong enough to walk back to the army.’
‘Then we find the stables,’ Sharpe said, ‘and if there aren’t enough horses, we buy some in the town.’ He looked at the six prisoners. ‘Is our fellow among them?’ he asked.
‘He is, thank God,’ Vincent said with evident relief. ‘Gourgand gave orders to execute them all, but they were too slow.’
‘What do you want done with Gourgand?’
‘He’s a beast,’ Vincent said, ‘he killed one of the prisoners before we stopped him. If it was my decision I’d stand him against a wall and shoot him.’
‘So you don’t want him alive?’
‘I don’t care what happens to him.’
Meaning, Sharpe thought, that it was his decision. ‘Pat?’
‘Mister Sharpe?’
‘Take Colonel Gourgand to Captain Yates, he’ll know what to do with him.’
‘Gladly, sir.’
‘But tell him I’ll loosen the rope,’ Sharpe called after Harper.
‘Loosen the rope?’ Vincent asked.
‘He’ll know what I mean,’ Sharpe brushed the question aside. ‘Do we take all the prisoners?’
‘Just the one,’ Vincent said, ‘the other five Britons can come if they want or fend for themselves. But our task now is to rejoin the army quickly. One of those gentlemen,’ Vincent nodded at the six men standing apart, ‘has information the Duke needs to hear. Urgently.’ He stressed the last word.
‘We leave in the morning,’ Sharpe said.
Next morning they tipped the French six-pounders into the river. The guns were spiked first. They could have been blown apart, but it would have taken time to fashion the wedges that would have jammed the cannon balls in the barrels. There were eight horses in the citadel’s stables, four of them carriage horses, and one horse was saddled and given to the man Vincent wanted returned to the army. The carriage horses pulled a wagon with the remaining five released prisoners and Sharpe’s wounded. Then, under a light drizzle, they marched. The garrison of the citadel, who had spent a cold damp night outside the fortress, watched them go and doubtless would reoccupy the fort as soon as the British were gone, and Sharpe left them to discover Gourgand’s decapitated body still strapped on the guillotine’s base. His men had cheered when the blade fell, though some could not bring themselves to watch, and young Pat Bee had thrown up a meal of mutton stew.
‘You did well, Sharpe,’ Vincent said as he rode alongside the Rifleman.
‘Still buried two men there, Major. They probably thought they’d go home soon.’
‘I pray we all go home soon, Sharpe, but this war isn’t over.’
‘Damn nearly, Major.’
‘Let’s get to Paris first,’ Vincent said, then looked at Sharpe. ‘I’ll have work for you there if the Duke allows me to use you.’
‘Work, Major?’
‘To stop the war, Sharpe!’
‘I thought we did that last Sunday?’
‘Not this war, Sharpe. The next.’
They rode on.
CHAPTER 4