British soldiers fought the flames while a redcoat military band played outside the Amalienborg Palace. General Peymann listened to the unfamiliar music and tried to pay attention to the flattering remarks made by the city’s new masters, but he could not rid himself of a feeling of gross injustice. “There were women and children here,” he said again and again, but he spoke in Danish and the British officers, who dined off the palace’s finest porcelain plates, did not understand him. “We did not deserve this,” he finally protested, insisting one of his own aides offered a translation.
“Europe didn’t deserve the Emperor,” Sir David Baird retorted hotly, “but we have him. Come, sir, try the ragout of beef.”
General Cathcart, who had never wanted to bombard the city, said nothing. The smell of smoke filled the dining room, taking away his appetite, though every now and then he would glance from the windows to see the masts of the captured fleet and wonder how much of their value would be given him in prize money. More than enough to buy an estate in his native Scotland, that was for sure.
Not far away, in Bredgade, a dozen sailors had finished hauling blackened beams and scorched bricks from a gaping hole. Now they squatted in a circle and chipped away at dozens of curious black lumps that, when broken apart with a boarding axe, gleamed like a newly risen sun. Not all of the gold had melted, some of the coins were still in the charred remnants of their bags, and Captain Chase was making piles of guineas. “I’m not sure we got it all, Richard.”
“Enough,” Sharpe said.
“Oh enough, certainly enough, more than I ever dreamed!”
Lord Pumphrey was watching over the excavation. He had appeared unexpectedly, accompanied by a dozen soldiers, and announced that he was there to look after the Treasury’s interests. “Though I shall do as Nelson did at Copenhagen,” he told Sharpe, “and turn a blind eye. I do not, after all, have a great love for the Treasury. Who does? But we must return something to them.”
“Must we?”
“I like to think they will owe me a favor, so yes. But do help yourself, Richard, while my blind eye is watching.”
Sharpe gave Pumphrey the list of names. “Lavisser’s dead, my lord.”
“You cheer me, Sharpe, you do cheer me.” Pumphrey peered at the papers. “Is that blood?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Pumphrey looked up at Sharpe, saw the anger that was still in the rifleman, so said nothing more of the blood. Nor did he ask him about the blood in his hair or the scorch marks on the green jacket. “Thank you, Sharpe. And Skovgaard?”
“Alive, sir, barely. I’m going to see him now. Last night’s bombs burned his warehouse, nothing left of it at all, but he’s got a house outside the city walls in Vester Faelled. You want to come?”
“I think I shall wait before I pay my respects,” Pumphrey said, then held out a hand to hold Sharpe back. “But tell me, will he move to Britain? He can hardly stay here.”
“He can’t?”
“My dear Sharpe, we shall stay here a month, at the most two, and then the French will be very firmly in the Danish saddle. How long do you think Mister Skovgaard will last then?”
“I think, my lord, that he would go to hell before he went to Britain,” Sharpe said, “so you’ll have to find another way to protect him. And his daughter.”
“His daughter?”
“She knows as much as he does. What will you do, my lord?”
“Sweden, perhaps?” Lord Pumphrey suggested. “I’d prefer them both to be in Britain, but I do promise you, Sharpe, I do promise you upon my honor, that the French will not trouble them.”
Sharpe looked hard at Pumphrey who almost shivered under the intensity of the gaze, but then Sharpe nodded, satisfied with the promise, and walked away. His pockets were heavy with gold. Chase and his men would become rich this day, and doubtless Lord Pumphrey would skim a share before he returned the gold to the Treasury, but Sharpe, despite the weight in his pockets, would not be rich.