Bernard Cornwell – 1807 09 Sharpe’s Prey

But one woman screamed at the sight of the injured man.

It was Astrid who ran to meet Sharpe. “What are you doing here?” he asked her.

“I knew you would be coming here so I came to make sure you were safe.” She gave an involuntary grimace when she saw her father’s face. “Is he alive?”

“He needs a doctor,” Sharpe said. He reckoned Skovgaard must have resisted for hours before he broke.

“The hospitals are full,” Astrid said, holding her father’s wrist because his hand was nothing but a broken claw. “They made an announcement this morning,” she went on, “that only the worst injured must go to hospital.”

“He’s badly injured,” Sharpe said, then thought that Lavisser would know that and so the hospitals were exactly where Lavisser would look for Skovgaard. The bombs were thumping steadily, their explosions flashing in the smoky sky. “Not the hospital,” he told Astrid. He thought about Ulfedt’s Plads, then reckoned that was the second place Lavisser would search.

Astrid touched her father’s cheek. “There’s a good nurse at the orphanage,” she said, “and it’s not far.”

They carried Skovgaard to the orphanage where the nurse took charge of him. Astrid helped her, while Sharpe took Hopper and Clouter out to the courtyard where they sat under the flagpole. Some of the smaller children were crying because of the noise of the bombs, but they were all safe in their dormitories which were a long way from where any missiles fell. Two women carried milk and water up the outside staircase and glanced fearfully at the three men. “Lavisser wasn’t there,” Sharpe said.

“Does it matter?” Hopper asked.

“He wants this list,” Sharpe said, patting his pocket. “These names buy him favor with the French.”

“There was no gold either,” Clouter growled.

Sharpe looked surprised, then shook his head. “I clean forgot about the gold,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He rubbed his face. “We can’t go back to the warehouse. Lavisser will look for us there.” And Lavisser, he thought, would take Danish troops with him, claiming he was looking for British agents. “We’ll have to stay here,” he decided.

“We could go back to the ships?” Clouter suggested.

“You can if you want,” Sharpe said, “but I’ll stay.” He would stay because he knew Astrid would remain with her father and he would stay with Astrid.

Hopper began to reload one of the volley guns. “Did you see that nurse?” he asked.

“I think he wants to stay here, sir,” Clouter said with a grin.

“We can wait it out here,” Sharpe said. “And thank you, both of you. Thank you.” The bombs lit the sky. By morning, he thought, the Danes must surrender and the British army would come and Lavisser would hide, but Sharpe would find him. If he had to search every damned house in Copenhagen he would find him and kill him. And then he would have finished the job and he could stay here, stay in Denmark, because he wanted a home.

Next morning General Peymann called a council in the Amalienborg Palace. Coffee was served in royal china to men who were dirty with soot and ash, and whose faces were pale and drawn from another night of fighting fires and carrying horribly burned people to the crowded hospitals. “I thought there were fewer bombs last night,” the General observed.

“They fired just under two thousand, sir,” Major Lavisser reported, “and that includes rockets.”

“And the night before?” Peymann tried to remember.

“Nearer five thousand,” an aide answered.

“They are running short of ammunition,” the General declared, unable to conceal a triumphant note. “I doubt we’ll receive more than a thousand missiles tonight. And tomorrow? Perhaps none at all. We shall hold on, gentlemen, we shall hold on!”

The superintendent of the King Frederick Hospital offered a sobering report. There were no more bed available, not even now they had taken over the Maternity Hospital next door, and there was a severe shortage of salves, bandages and fresh water, but he still expressed a cautious optimism. If the bombardment got no worse then he thought the hospitals would cope.

A city engineer reported that an old well in Bjornegaden was yielding copious amounts of fresh water and that three other abandoned wells, capped when the city began piping supplies from north Zealand, were to be opened during the day. The deputy mayor said there was no shortage of food. Some cows had died in the night, he said, but plenty were left.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *