‘Sergeant!’
Harper came in, seven-barrelled gun in hand, and saw the girl. ‘God save Ireland.’
‘Cut her free!’
Sharpe heard Kearsey’s voice on the landing. ‘Steady now!’ He could hear Knowles downstairs, counting off the men, sending the wounded up first. The French Colonel was babbling at Sharpe, pointing at the girl, but the sword held him and Sharpe wished he had killed the man straightaway. This was no place to take prisoners and he was trapped, not knowing what was happening outside. The girl was free, rubbing her wrists, and Sharpe dropped the sword. ‘Watch him, Sergeant!’
He ran to the window, smashed panes with the sword, and saw the empty darkness outside. They could make it! The first Redcoats were at the head of the stairs, and then the French Colonel screamed, a terrible agony, and Sharpe whipped round to see that the slim, dark-haired girl had taken the Frenchman’s own sabre and plunged it, point first, into his groin. She was smiling, and she was beautiful enough to catch the breath.
Harper was staring aghast. Sharpe ignored the Frenchman. ‘Patrick!’
‘Sir?’
‘Get the men in here. Through the window! And next door!’
The girl spat at the Colonel, who had collapsed in his own blood, swore at him, and then looked at Sharpe with a glance that seemed to convey pure disdain because he had not killed the Frenchman himself. Sharpe was reeling from her, thrown off balance by her hawk-like beauty, hardly hearing the commands from the landing, the banging muskets. He snapped his attention back, despising himself, but the girl was faster. She had the Colonel’s sabre, her freedom, and she ran out the door, ignoring the fight, and turned right. Sharpe followed, caution gone, just the instinct left that some things, just one thing perhaps, could turn a man’s life inside out.
CHAPTER 7
Knowles had done well. The hall was on fire but empty of the enemy, and the Redcoats backed up the stairs, still loading and firing their muskets, ignoring the fresh blood that made the steps slippery, and then the Riflemen took over, the Bakers spitting into the hallway below, and Major Kearsey, sabre in hand, was pushing the men into a bedroom, towards a window, and shouting, ‘Jump!’
‘Aim low! Aim low!’ Harper’s voice bellowed at the Riflemen. Hussars were coming into the hall, choking on the smoke. Redcoats were pouring from the first-floor windows, forming up in the field beneath, and only Sharpe was absent.
Knowles looked round. ‘Captain!’
‘He’s missing!’ Major Kearsey grabbed Knowles. ‘Get outside! There may be cavalry!’
The girl had run through a door and Sharpe followed, noticing, irrelevantly, a small statue of the Virgin Mary with a host of candles flickering at its base. He remembered the Catholics in the Company deciding that today – no, yesterday – was the fifteenth of August, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and he was grateful because the stairs beyond the door were pitch dark and he grabbed a candle and followed the fading footsteps. He hurried, heels sliding over steps, banging down the stairs. He cursed himself. His place was with his men, not chasing some girl because she had Josefina’s long black hair, a slim body, and a beauty that had overcome him. But this was not a night for sensible action; it was a mad darkness, a gambler’s last throw, and he reasoned that she had been kept a prisoner and that made her important to the enemy, and so important to him.
The rationalization lasted to the bottom of the stairs. The stairway was four-sided and he knew it had plunged below ground, into the cellars, and he was still hurtling down, almost out of control, with the candle flame blown out, when a white arm shot out and her voice hushed him. They were by a door, light leaking through its gaping planks, but there was no point in pretending that anyone on the far side had not heard their feet on the stairway, Sharpe pushed it open, ignoring her caution, and in the cellar a lantern hung from a hook, and beneath it, fear across his face, was a lancer holding a musket and bayonet. He lunged at Sharpe, thinking perhaps that he could kill with a blade point more easily than by pulling a trigger, but Sharpe had cut his teeth on just such fighting. He let the bayonet come, stepped aside, and used his enemy’s own motion to run the sword blade into his stomach. Then Sharpe nearly gagged.