Bernard Cornwell – 1809 01 Sharpe’S Rifles

“Disbelief is your privilege, Lieutenant,” Coursot said, “but I assure you the army corps is coming.”

“And I assure you,” Sharpe said, “that we shall defeat you before they arrive.”

“That assumption is also your privilege,” the Colonel said equably, “but it will not make me surrender to you. I assume you have come here to seek my surrender?”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a tense silence. Sharpe wondered if some of the officers in this room had urged a surrender on Coursot; these Frenchmen were vastly outnumbered, surrounded, and every moment of continued fighting would make more casualties to join the wounded who lay in the corners of the room. Tf you don’t surrender now,“ Sharpe pressed his case awkwardly, ”we shall give you no further opportunity. You wish the palace to burn down around you?“

Coursot chuckled. “I assure you, Lieutenant, that a stone building does not catch fire easily. You, I think, lack artillery? So what are you hoping for? That St James will send down heavenly fire?”

Sharpe blushed. The Count of Mouromorto translated the jibe and the tension in the room relaxed as the French officers laughed.

“Oh, I know all about your miracle,” Coursot said mock-ingly. “What astonishes me is to find an English officer involved in such nonsense. Ah, the coffee!” He turned as an orderly entered the room with a tray of cups. “Do you have time for coffee?” he asked Sharpe. “Or must you hurry away to pray for a divine thunderbolt?”

Til tell you what I’ll do.“ Sharpe, stung out of his efforts at diplomacy, spoke with a biting savagery. Til put my best Riflemen on those bell towers.” He pointed through the window at the cathedral. “Your muskets aren’t accurate at that range, but my men can pick the eyes out of your French skulls at twice that distance. They’ve got all day to do it, Colonel, and they’ll turn these rooms into a charnel house. Frankly, I don’t give a bugger. I’d rather shoot Frenchmen than talk to them.”

“I do believe you.” If the Colonel was rattled by Sharpe’s threat he did not betray it, but nor did he press his own threat of an approaching army corps which Sharpe sensed had been made purely as a formality. Instead he placed a cup of coffee on the table in front of the Rifleman. “You can kill a lot of my men, Lieutenant, and I can make myself a considerable nuisance to your miracle.” Coursot took a cup from the orderly, then looked with amusement at Sharpe. “The gonfalon of Santiago? Isn’t that right? Don’t you think you’re clutching at straws if you need such a nonsensical bauble for victory?”

Sharpe neither confirmed nor denied it.

The Colonel sipped coffee. “Of course I’m no expert, Lieutenant, but I would imagine miracles are best performed in an atmosphere of reverent peace, wouldn’t you agree?” He waited for a reply, but Sharpe kept silent. Coursot smiled. “I am suggesting a truce, Lieutenant.”

“A truce?” Sharpe could not keep the astonishment from his voice.

“A truce!” Coursot repeated the word as though he was explaining it to a child. “I assume you do not think your occupation of Santiago de Compostela will be forever? I thought not. You have come here to make your little miracle, then you wish to leave. Very well. I promise not to fire on your men, nor on any other person in the city, not even upon St James himself, so long as you promise not to fire on my men, nor make an attack on this building.”

The Count of Mouromorto made a sudden and impassioned protest against the suggestion, then, when Cour-sot ignored it, turned away in disgust. As he drank his coffee, Sharpe thought he could understand the Count’s displeasure. He had tried again and again to capture the gonfalon, now he was supposed to stand idly by while it was unfurled in the cathedral. Yet would these Frenchmen stand idle?

Coursot saw Sharpe’s hesitation. “Lieutenant. I have two hundred and thirty men in this building; some of them wounded. What damage can I do to you? You wish to inspect the palace? You may, indeed you should!”