Sharpe 3-Book Collection 2: Sharpe’s Havoc, Sharpe’s Eagle, Sharpe’s Gold Read Free

Savage, if it was him what named the house.” Hagman stooped to maneuver the scissors over Sharpe’s high collar. “So why did the Captain leave us here, sir?” he asked.
    “He wants us to look after Colonel Christopher,” Sharpe said.
    “To look after Colonel Christopher,” Hagman repeated, making his disapproval evident by the slowness with which he said the words. Hagman was the oldest man in Sharpe’s troop of riflemen, a poacher from Cheshire who was a deadly shot with his Baker rifle. “So Colonel Christopher can’t look after himself now?”
    “Captain Hogan left us here, Dan,” Sharpe said, “so he must think the Colonel needs us.”
    “And the Captain’s a good man, sir,” Hagman said. “You can let the collar go. Almost done.”
    But why had Captain Hogan left Sharpe and his riflemen behind? Sharpe wondered about that as Hagman tidied up his work. And had there been any significance in Hogan’s final injunction to keep a close eye on the Colonel? Sharpe had only met the Colonel once. Hogan had been mapping the upper reaches of the River Cavado and the Colonel and his servant had ridden out of the hills and shared a bivouac with the riflemen. Sharpe had not liked Christopher who had been supercilious and even scornful of Hogan’s work. “You map the country, Hogan,” the Colonel had said, “but I map their minds. A very complicated thing, the human mind, not simple like hills and rivers and bridges.” Beyond that statement he had not explained his presence, but just ridden on next morning. He had revealed that he was based in Oporto which, presumably, was how he had met Mrs. Savage and her daughter, and Sharpe wondered why Colonel Christopher had not persuaded the widow to leave Oporto much sooner.
    “You’re done, sir,” Hagman said, wrapping his scissors in a piece of calfskin, “and you’ll be feeling the cold wind now, sir, like a newly shorn sheep.”
    “You should get your own hair cut, Dan,” Sharpe said.
    “Weakens a man, sir, weakens him something dreadful.” Hagman frowned up the hill as two round shots bounced on the crest of the road, one of them taking off the leg of a Portuguese gunner. Sharpe’s men watched expressionless as the round shot bounded on, spraying blood like a Catherine wheel, to finally bang and stop against a garden wall across the road. Hagman chuckled. “Fancy calling a girl Discretion! It ain’t a natural name, sir. Ain’t kind to call a girl Discretion.”
    “It’s in a book, Dan,” Sharpe said, “so it isn’t supposed to be natural.” He climbed to the porch and shoved hard on the front door, but found it locked. So where the hell was Colonel Christopher? More Portugueseretreated down the slope and these men were so frightened that they did not pause when they saw the British troops, but just kept running. The Portuguese cannon was being attached to its limber and spent musket balls were tearing at the cedars and rattling against the tiles, shutters and stones of the House Beautiful. Sharpe hammered on the locked door, but there was no answer.
    “Sir?” Sergeant Patrick Harper called a warning to him. “Sir?” Harper jerked his head toward the side of the house and Sharpe backed away from the door to see Lieutenant Colonel Christopher riding from the stable yard. The Colonel, who was armed with a saber and a brace of pistols, was cleaning his teeth with a wooden pick, something he did frequently, evidently because he was proud of his even white smile. He was accompanied by his Portuguese servant who, mounted on his master’s spare horse, was carrying an enormous valise that was so stuffed with lace, silk and satins that the bag could not be closed.
    Colonel Christopher curbed his horse, took the toothpick from his mouth, and stared in astonishment at Sharpe. “What on earth are you doing here, Lieutenant?”
    “Ordered to stay with you, sir,” Sharpe answered. He glanced again at the valise. Had Christopher been looting the House