Sharpe's Fury - 11 Read Free

that meant none of his men should die and none should even be wounded. Sharpe was glad of that, but he was also aware that he had not been given the easy job as a reward, but because Moon disliked him. The brigadier had made that plain when the six light companies had reported to him in Lisbon. “My name’s Moon,” the brigadier had said, “and you’ve got a reputation.”
    Sharpe, taken aback by the offhand greeting, had looked surprised. “I do, sir?”
    “Don’t be modest with me, man,” Moon had said, stabbing a finger at the South Essex badge, which showed a chained eagle. Sharpe and his sergeant, Patrick Harper, had captured that eagle from the French at Talavera, and such a feat, as Moon had said, gave a man a reputation. “I don’t want any damn heroics, Sharpe,” the brigadier went on.
    “No, sir.”
    “Good plain soldiering wins wars,” Moon had said. “Doing mundane things well is what counts.” That was undoubtedly true, but it was odd coming from Sir Barnaby Moon whose reputation was anything but mundane. He was young, only just a year over thirty, and he had been in Portugal for little more than a year, yet he had already made a name for himself. He had led his battalion at Bussaco where, on the ridge where the French had climbed and died, he had rescued two of his skirmishers by galloping through his men’s ranks and killing the skirmishers’ captors with his sword. “No damned frog will take my fusiliers!” he had announced, leading the two men back, and his soldiers had cheered him and he had taken off his cocked hat and bowed to them from the saddle. He was also said to be a gambler and a ruthless hunter of women and, because he was as wealthy as he was handsome, he was reckoned a most successful hunter. London, it was said, was a safer city now that Sir Barnaby was in Portugal, though doubtless there was a score or more of Lisbon ladies who might give birth to babies who would grow up to have Sir Barnaby’s lean face, fair hair, and startling blue eyes. He was, in brief, anything but a plain soldier, yet that was what he required of Sharpe and Sharpe was happy to oblige. “You need make no reputation with me, Sharpe,” Sir Barnaby had said.
    “I’ll try hard not to, sir,” Sharpe had said, for which he had received a foul look, and ever since Moon had virtually ignored Sharpe. Jack Bullen, who was Sharpe’s lieutenant, reckoned that the brigadier was jealous.
    “Don’t be daft, Jack,” Sharpe had said when this was proposed.
    “In any drama, sir,” Bullen had persevered, “there is only room for one hero. The stage is too small for two.”
    “You’re an expert on drama, Jack?”
    “I am an expert on everything except for the things you know about,” Bullen had said, making Sharpe laugh. The truth, Sharpe reckoned, was that Moon simply shared most officers’ mistrust of men who had been promoted from the ranks. Sharpe had joined the army as a private, he had served as a sergeant, and now he was a captain, and that irritated some men who saw Sharpe’s rise as an affront to the established order, which, Sharpe decided, was fine by him. He would create the diversion, let the other five companies do the fighting, then go back to Lisbon and so back to the battalion. In a month or two, as spring arrived in Portugal, they would march north from the Lines of Torres Vedras and pursue Marshal Masséna’s forces into Spain. There would be plenty enough fighting in the spring, even enough for upstarts.
    “There’s the light, sir,” Harper said. He was lying flat beside Sharpe and staring into the valley.
    “You’re sure?”
    “There it is again, sir. See it?”
    The brigadier had a shielded lantern and, by raising one of its screens, could flash a dim light that would be hidden from the French. It glowed again, made faint by the dawn, and Sharpe called to his men. “Now, lads.”
    All they had to do was show themselves, not in ranks and files, but scattered across the