Sharpes Escape   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

Portia was his previous horse, a mare that Slingsby now rode and thus appeared, to any casual onlooker, to be the commander of the light company. Lawford must have been aware of the contrast because he told Sharpe that officers ought to ride. "It gives their men something to look up to, Sharpe," he said. "You can afford a horse, can't you?"

What Sharpe could or could not afford was not something he intended to share with the Colonel. "I'd prefer they looked up to me instead of at the horse, sir," Sharpe commented instead.

"You know what I mean." Lawford refused to be offended. "If you like, Sharpe, I'll cast about and find you something serviceable? Major Pearson of the gunners was talking about selling one of his hacks and I can probably squeeze a fair price from him."

Sharpe said nothing. He was not fond of horses, but he nevertheless felt jealous that bloody Slingsby was riding one. Lawford waited for a response and, when none came, he spurred the gelding so that it picked up its hooves and trotted a few paces ahead. "So what do you think, Sharpe, eh?" the Colonel demanded.

"Think, sir?"

"Of Lightning! That's his name. Lightning." The Colonel patted the horse's neck. "Isn't he superb?"

Sharpe stared at the horse, said nothing.

"Come, Sharpe!" Lawford encouraged him. "Can't you see his quality, eh?"

"He's got four legs, sir," Sharpe said.

"Oh, Sharpe!" the Colonel remonstrated. "Really! Is that all you can say?" Lawford turned to Harper instead. "What do you make of him, Sergeant?". .

"He's wonderful, sir," Harper said with genuine enthusiasm, "just wonderful. Would he be Irish now?"

"He is!" Lawford was delighted. "He is! Bred in County Meath. I can see you know your horses, Sergeant." The Colonel fondled the gelding's ears. "He takes fences like the wind. He'll hunt magnificently. Can't wait to get him home and set him at a few damn great hedgerows." He leaned towards Sharpe and lowered his voice. "He cost me a few pennies, I can tell you."

"I'm sure he did, sir," Sharpe said, "and did you pass on my message about the telegraph station?"

"I did," Lawford said, "but they're busy at headquarters, Sharpe, damned busy, and I doubt they'll worry too much about a few pounds of flour. Still, you did the right thing."

"I wasn't thinking of the flour, sir," Sharpe said, "but about Major Ferreira."

"I'm sure there's an innocent explanation," Lawford said airily, then rode ahead, leaving Sharpe scowling. He liked Lawford, whom he had known years before in India and who was a clever, genial man whose only fault, perhaps, was a tendency to avoid trouble. Not fighting trouble: Lawford had never shirked a fight with the French, but he hated confrontations within his own ranks. By nature he was a diplomat, always trying to smooth the corners and find areas of agreement, and Sharpe was hardly surprised that the Colonel had shied away from accusing Major Ferreira of dishonesty. In Lawford's world it was always best to believe that yapping dogs were really sleeping.

So Sharpe put the confrontation of the previous day out of his mind and trudged on, half his thoughts conscious of what every man in the company was doing and the other half thinking of Teresa and Josefina, and he was still thinking of them when a horseman rode past him in the opposite direction, wheeled around in a flurry of dust and called to him. "In trouble again, Richard?"

Sharpe, startled out of his daydream, looked up to see Major Hogan looking indecently cheerful. "I'm in trouble, sir?"

"You do sound grim," Hogan said. "Get out of bed the wrong side, did you?"

"I was promised a month's leave, sir. A bloody month! And I got a week."

"I'm sure you didn't waste it," Hogan said. He was an Irishman, a Royal Engineer whose shrewdness had taken him away from engineering duties to serve Wellington as the man who collected every scrap of information about the enemy. Hogan had to sift rumors brought by peddlers, traders and deserters, he had to appraise every message sent by the partisans who harried the French on both sides of the frontier between Spain and Portugal, and he had to decipher the dispatches, captured by the partisans from French messengers, some of them still stained with blood. He was also an old friend of Sharpe, and one who now frowned at the rifleman. "A gentleman came to headquarters last night," he said, "to lodge an official complaint about you. He wanted to see the Peer, but Wellington's much too busy fighting the war, so the man was fobbed off on me. Luckily for you."

"A gentleman?"

"I stretch the word to its uttermost limits," Hogan said. "Ferragus."

"That bastard."

"Illegitimacy is probably the one thing he cannot be accused of," Hogan said.

"So what did he say?"

"That you hit him," Hogan said.

"He can tell the truth, then," Sharpe admitted.

"Good God, Richard!" Hogan examined Sharpe. "You don't seem hurt. You really hit him?"

"Flattened the bastard," Sharpe said. "Did he tell you why?"

"Not precisely, but I can guess. Was he planning to sell food to the enemy?"

"Close on two tons of flour," Sharpe said, "and he had a bloody Portuguese officer with him."

"His brother," Hogan said, "Major Ferreira."

"His brother!"

"Not much alike, are they? But yes, they're brothers. Pedro Ferreira stayed home, went to school, joined the army, married decently, lives respectably, and his brother ran away in search of sinks of iniquity. Ferragus is a nickname, taken from some legendary Portuguese giant who was reputed to have skin that couldn't be pierced by a sword. Useful, that. But his brother is more useful. Major Ferreira does for the Portuguese what I do for the Peer, though I fancy he isn't quite as efficient as I am. But he has friends in the French headquarters."

"Friends?" Sharpe sounded skeptical.

"More than a few Portuguese joined the French," Hogan said. "They're mostly idealists who think they're fighting for liberty, justice, brotherhood and all that airy nonsense. Major Ferreira somehow stays in touch with them, which is damned useful. But as for Ferragus!" Hogan paused, staring uphill to where a hawk hovered above the pale grass. "Our giant is a bad lot, Richard, about as bad as they come. You know where he learned English?"

"How would I?"

"He joined a ship as a seaman when he ran away from home," Hogan said, ignoring Sharpe's surly response, "and then had the misfortune to be pressed into the Royal Navy. He learned lower-deck English, made a reputation as the fiercest bare-knuckle fighter in the Atlantic fleet, then deserted in the West Indies. He apparently joined a slave ship and rose up through the ranks.