Sharpes Battle   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

The steel-plated straps of his helmet hung loose beside his face, resembling the cadenettes of braided hair that French hussars liked to wear hanging from their temples. He drew on his cigar again, then smiled. "Might I remind you, Captain, of the rules of war?"

Sharpe offered Loup a word that he doubted the Frenchman had heard much in Edinburgh's learned society. "I don't take lessons from murderers," Sharpe went on, "not in the rules of war. What your men did in that village wasn't war. It was a massacre."

"Of course it was war," Loup said equably, "and I don't need lectures from you, Captain."

"You might not need a lecture, General, but you damn well need a lesson."

Loup laughed. He turned and walked to the stream's edge where he stretched his arms, yawned hugely, then stooped to scoop some water to his mouth. He turned back to Sharpe. "Let me tell you what my job is, Captain, and you will put yourself in my boots. That way, perhaps, you will lose your tedious English moral certainties. My job, Captain, is to police the roads through these mountains and so make the passes safe for the supply wagons of ammunition and food with which we plan to beat you British back to the sea. My enemy is not a soldier dressed in uniform with a colour and a code of honour, but is instead a rabble of civilians who resent my presence. Good! Let them resent me, that is their privilege, but if they attack me, Captain, then I will defend myself and I do it so ferociously, so ruthlessly, so comprehensively, that they will think a thousand times before they attack my men again. You know what the major weapon of the guerrilla is? It is horror, Captain, sheer horror, so I make certain I am more horrible than my enemy, and my enemy in this area is horrible indeed. You have heard of El Castrador?"

"The Castrator?" Sharpe guessed the translation.

"Indeed. Because of what he does to French soldiers, only he does it while they are alive and then he lets them bleed to death. El Castrador, I am sorry to say, still lives, but I do assure you that none of my men has been castrated in three months, and do you know why? Because El Castrador's men fear me more than they fear him. I have defeated him, Captain, I have made the mountains secure. In all of Spain, Captain, these are the only hills where Frenchmen can ride safely, and why? Because I have used the guerrilleros' weapon against them. I castrate them, just as they would castrate me, only I use a blunter knife." Brigadier Loup offered Sharpe a grim smile. "Now tell me, Captain, if you were in my boots, and if your men were being castrated and blinded and disembowelled and skinned alive and left to die, would you not do as I do?"

"To children?" Sharpe jerked his thumb at the village.

Loup's one eye widened in surprise, as though he found Sharpe's objection odd in a soldier. "Would you spare a rat because it's young? Vermin are vermin, Captain, whatever their age."

"I thought you said the mountains were safe," Sharpe said, "so why kill?"

"Because last week two of my men were ambushed and killed in a village not far from here. The families of the murderers came here to take refuge, thinking I would not find them. I did find them, and now I assure you, Captain, that no more of my men will be ambushed in Fuentes de Onoro."

"They will if I find them there."

Loup shook his head sadly. "You are so quick with your threats, Captain. But fight me and I think you will learn caution. But for now? Give me my men and we shall ride away."

Sharpe paused, thinking, then finally shrugged and turned. "Sergeant Harper!"

"Sir?"

"Bring the two Frogs out!"

Harper hesitated as though he wanted to know what Sharpe intended before he obeyed the order, but then he turned reluctantly towards the houses. A moment later he appeared with the two French captives, both of whom were still naked below the waist and one of whom was still half doubled over in pain. "Is he wounded?" Loup asked.

"I kicked him in the balls," Sharpe said. "He was raping a girl."

Loup seemed amused by the answer. "You're squeamish about rape, Captain Sharpe?"

"Funny in a man, isn't it? Yes, I am."

"We have some officers like that," Loup said, "but a few months in Spain soon cures their delicacy. The women here fight like the men, and if a woman imagines that her skirts will protect her then she is wrong. And rape is part of the horror, but it also serves a secondary purpose. Release soldiers to rape and they don't care that they're hungry or that their pay is a year in arrears. Rape is a weapon like any other, Captain."

"I'll remember that, General, when I march into France," Sharpe said, then he turned back towards the houses. "Stop there, Sergeant!" The two prisoners had been escorted as far as the village entrance. "And Sergeant!"

"Sir?"

"Fetch their trousers. Get them dressed properly."

Loup, pleased with the way his mission was going, smiled at Sharpe. "You're being sensible, good. I would hate to have to fight you in the same way that I fight the Spanish."

Sharpe looked at Loup's pagan uniform. It was a costume, he thought, to scare a child, the costume of a wolfman walking out of nightmare, but the wolfman's sword was no longer than Sharpe's and his carbine a good deal less accurate than Sharpe's rifle. "I don't suppose you could fight us, General," Sharpe said, "we're a real army, you see, not a pack of unarmed women and children."

Loup stiffened. "You will find, Captain Sharpe, that the Brigade Loup can fight any man, anywhere, anyhow. I do not lose, Captain, not to anyone."

"So if you never lose, General, how were you taken prisoner?" Sharpe sneered. "Fast asleep, were you?"

"I was a passenger on my way to Egypt, Captain, when our ship was captured by the Royal Navy. That hardly counts as my defeat." Loup watched as his two men pulled on their trousers. "Where is Trooper Godin's horse?"

"Trooper Godin won't need a horse where he's going," Sharpe said.

"He can walk? I suppose he can. Very well, I yield you the horse," Loup said magniloquently.

"He's going to hell, General," Sharpe said. "I'm dressing them because they're still soldiers, and even your lousy soldiers deserve to die with their trousers on." He turned back to the settlement. "Sergeant! Put them against the wall! I want a firing squad, four men for each prisoner. Load up!"

"Captain!" Loup snapped and his hand went to his sword's hilt.

"You don't frighten me, Loup. Not you nor your fancy dress," Sharpe said. "You draw that sword and we'll be mopping up your blood with your flag of truce. I've got marksmen up on that ridge who can whip the good eye out of your face at two hundred yards, and one of those marksmen is looking at you right now."

Loup looked up the hill.