Sharpe's Gold Read Free Page B

Batten, a

    failed horse-cooper, whom Harper would gladly have killed himself. Lieutenant Knowles

    seemed to share Harper's thoughts, for he fell in step beside the Irishman and looked at him

    with a troubled face. 'All for one chicken, Sergeant?'
    Harper looked down at the young Lieutenant. 'I doubt it, sir.' He turned to the ranks.

    'Daniel!'
    Hagman, one of the Riflemen, broke ranks and fell in beside the Sergeant. He was the

    oldest man in the Company, in his forties, but the best marksman. A Cheshireman, raised

    as a poacher, Hagman could shoot the buttons off a French General's coat at three hundred

    yards. 'Sarge?'
    'How many chickens were there?'
    Hagman flashed his toothless grin, glanced at the Company, then up at Harper. The

    Sergeant was a fair man, never demanding more than a fair share. 'Dozen, Sarge.'
    Harper looked at Knowles. 'There you are, sir. At least sixteen wild chickens there.

    Probably twenty. God knows what they were doing there, why the owners didn't take

    them.'
    'Difficult to catch, sir, chickens.' Hagman chuckled. 'That all, Sarge?'
    Harper grinned down at the Rifleman. 'A leg each for the officers, Daniel. And not the

    stringy ones.'
    Hagman glanced at Knowles. 'Very good, sir. Leg each.' He went back to the ranks.
    Knowles chuckled to himself. A leg each for the officers meant a good breast for the

    Sergeant, chicken broth for everyone, and nothing for Private Batten. And for Sharpe?

    Knowles felt his spirits drop. The war was lost, it was still raining, and tomorrow

    Captain Richard Sharpe would be in provost trouble, real trouble, right up to his

    sabre-scarred neck.

CHAPTER 2
    If anyone needed a symbol of impending defeat, then the Church of Sao Paulo in

    Celorico, the temporary headquarters of the South Essex, offered it in full. Sharpe

    stood in the choir watching the priest whitewash a gorgeous rood-screen. The screen was

    made of solid silver, ancient and intricate, a gift from some long-forgotten

    parishioner whose family's faces were those of the grieving women and disciples who

    stared up at the crucifix. The priest, standing on a trestle, dripping thick lime paint

    down his cassock, looked from Sharpe to the screen, and shrugged.
    'It took three months to clean off last time.'
    'Last time?'
    'When the French left.' The priest sounded bitter and he' dabbed angrily with the

    bristles at the delicate traceries. 'If they knew it was silver they would carve it into

    pieces and take it away." He splashed the nailed, hanging figure with a slap of paint and

    then, as if in apology, moved the brush to his left hand so that his right could sketch a

    perfunctory sign of the cross on his spattered gown. 'Perhaps they won't get this

    far.'
    It sounded unconvincing, even to Sharpe, and the priest did not bother to reply. He

    just gave a humourless laugh and dipped the brush into his bucket. They know, thought

    Sharpe; they all know that the French are coming and the British falling back. The priest made

    him feel guilty, as if he were personally betraying the town and its inhabitants, and he

    moved down the church into the darkness by the main door where the Battalion's

    commissariat officer was supervising the piling of fresh baked bread for the evening

    rations. The door banged open, letting in the late-afternoon sunlight, and Lawford,

    dressed in his glittering best uniform, beckoned at Sharpe. 'Ready?'
    'Yes, sir.'
    Major Forrest was waiting outside and he smiled nervously at Sharpe. 'Don't worry,

    Richard.'
    'Worry?' Lieutenant Colonel the Honourable William Lawford was angry. 'He should damned

    well worry.' He looked Sharpe up and down. 'Is that the best you can do?'
    Sharpe fingered the tear in his sleeve. 'It's all I've got, sir."
    'All? What about that new uniform! Good Lord, Richard, you look like a tramp.'
    'Uniform's in Lisbon, sir. In store. Light Companies should travel light.'
    Lawford snorted. 'And they shouldn't threaten provosts with rifles