‘Yes, sir.’ The man dropped the musket. ‘He was in the stables, sir, hiding under a tarpaulin. Reckon he was too fat to run, sir.’
Sharpe looked at the fat face that babbled at him. ‘Shut up!’
Silence from the quivering mass of uniformed fat. Sharpe walked round him, plucking the gorgeous hat from the cherubic white curls. ‘This, lads, is your enemy. This is Marshal Pot-au-Feu.’ The Fusiliers laughed. Some of them saluted the fat man whose eyes watched Sharpe as he circled. Each time Sharpe walked behind him the head jerked on its bed of chins to catch Sharpe coming round again. ‘Not every day we capture a French Marshal, eh?’ Sharpe tossed the hat to the man who had found Pot-au-Feu. ‘I want him looked after, lads. Don’t hurt him. Be very kind to him because he’s going to be very kind to you.’ The head jerked again, the eyes worried. ‘He’s really a Froggie Sergeant, this one, and he used to be a cook. A very, very good cook. So good that he’s going to the kitchens now to make you a Christmas meal!’
They cheered that and watched as Sharpe pulled Pot-au-Feu to his feet. Sharpe brushed straw from the blue and gold jacket. ‘Be good now, Sergeant! Don’t put anything in the soup that shouldn’t be there!’ It was hard to connect this fat, happy-looking face with horror in the dungeons. Pot-au-Feu, understanding that he was not to be killed on the spot, was nodding eagerly at Sharpe.
‘Look after him. Take him away.’
That made victory sweeter, alleviated the blunder of not blocking the escape route from the castle, to have captured the leader of this miserable band. Sharpe stood and watched the groups of prisoners being pushed together, listened to the shouts of women who pulled at their captors’ arms and shrieked after husbands and lovers. It was still chaos in the yard.
A Rifle Lieutenant found him and saluted. ‘Captain Frederickson’s compliments, sir, and he says they’ve abandoned the watchtower.’
‘Where is Captain Frederickson?’
‘On the roof, sir.’ The Lieutenant jerked his head at the keep.
‘Leave three men guarding the liquor and ask the Captain to take the Company to the tower.’ Sharpe did not like putting yet another burden on Frederickson, but he could hardly order a Company of the Fusiliers to the watch-tower, not while he was still a junior officer to whoever was in command. That was a thought. Who was in command? Sharpe asked Fusiliers if they had seen Farthing-dale, but they shook their heads, nor did they have news of Kinney. A Major Ford would be next in line for command of the Fusiliers, but Ford was missing too. ‘Look for him!’
‘Yes, sir.’ A Sergeant of the Fusiliers backed from Sharpe’s anger.
Sharpe looked at Harper. ‘I could do with some lunch.’
‘I’ll take that as an order, sir.’
‘No! I was just talking.’
Harper nevertheless followed Pot-au-Feu towards the Castle kitchens and Sharpe walked up onto the rubble of the eastern wall and smelt the smell of burned flesh. A miserable battle against a miserable enemy, and worse, a battle that need not have been fought. If the watchtower had been taken then the bodies that still littered the wide breach would not need to be here. The thought made him angry and he turned on a Captain of the Fusiliers who was clambering over the blackened stones. ‘Hasn’t anyone thought to bury these men?’
‘Sir? Oh. I’ll attend to it, sir. Major Sharpe?’
‘Yes.’
The Captain saluted. ‘Captain Brooker, sir. Grenadier Company.’ Brooker was nervous.
‘Well?’
‘Colonel Kinney’s dead, sir.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Sharpe truly was. He had liked Kinney in the short time he had known him, and he remembered the Welshman saying what a tragedy it would be if any man was to die on this Christmas Day. ‘I am sorry, Captain.’
‘He was a good man, sir. Major Ford’s dead too, sir.’
‘Jesus!’
Brooker shrugged. ‘In the back, sir. Shot.’
‘Unpopular?’
Brooker nodded miserably. ‘Very, sir.’
‘It happens.’ It did too, though no one liked to admit it. Sharpe had once heard a Captain, knowing his unpopularity, appeal to his men before battle to let the enemy kill him. They had granted him his wish.