Bernard Cornwell – 1809 07 Sharpe’S Eagle

“Why isn’t it marked, sir?”

Hogan made a contemptuous noise. “I’m surprised the map even marks Madrid, let alone Valdelacasa.” He was right. The infamous old Tomas Lopez map, the only one available to the armies in Spain, was a wondrous work of the Spanish imagination. Hogan stabbed his finger down onto the map. “The bridge is hardly used, it’s in bad repair. We’re told you can hardly put a cart across, let alone a gun, but it could be repaired and we could have “old trousers” up our backsides in no time.” Sharpe smiled. ‘Old trousers’ was the Rifle’s strange nickname for the French, and Hogan had adopted the phrase with relish. The Engineer lowered his voice conspiratorially. “It’s a strange place, I’m told, just a ruined convent and the bridge. They call it El Puente de los Malditos.” He nodded as if he had made his point.

Sharpe waited a few seconds and sighed. “All right. What does it mean?”

Hogan smiled triumphantly. “I’m surprised you need to ask! It means “The Bridge of the Accursed”. It seems that, years ago, all the nuns were taken out of the convent and massacred by the Moors. It’s haunted, Sharpe, stalked by the spirits of the dead!”

Sharpe leaned forward to peer more closely at the map. Give or take the width of Hogan’s finger the bridge must be sixty miles beyond the border and they were that far from Spain already. “When do we leave?”

“Now there’s a problem.” Hogan folded the map careful-ly. “We can leave for the frontier tomorrow but we can’t cross until we’re formally invited by the Spanish.” He leaned back with his cup of brandy. “And we have to wait for our escort.”

“Escort!” Sharpe bridled. “We’re your escort.”

Hogan shook his head. “Oh, no. This is politics. The Spanish will let us blow up their bridge but only if a Spanish Regiment goes along with us. It’s a question of pride, apparently.”

“Pride!” Sharpe’s anger was obvious. “If you have a whole Regiment of Spaniards then why the hell do you need us?”

Hogan smiled placatingly. “Oh, I need you. There’s more, you see.” He was interrupted by Harper. The Sergeant was standing at the window, oblivious of their conversation, and staring into the small square.

“That is nice. Oh, sir, that can clean my rifle any day of the week.”

Sharpe looked through the small window. Outside, on a black mare, sat a girl dressed in black; black breeches, black jacket, and a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed her face but in no way obscured a beauty that was startling. Sharpe saw a wide mouth, dark eyes, coiled hair the colour of fine powder, and then she became aware of their scrutiny. She half smiled at them and turned away, snapped an order at a servant holding the halter of a mule, and stared at the road leading from the plaza towards the centre of Abrantes. Hogan made a small, contented noise. “That is special. They don’t come out like that very often. I wonder who she is?”

“Officer’s wife?” Sharpe suggested.

Harper shook his head. “No ring, sir. But she’s waiting for someone, lucky bastard.”

And a rich bastard, thought Sharpe. The army was collecting its customary tail of women and children who followed the Regiments to war. Each Battalion was allowed to take sixty soldiers’ wives to an overseas war but no-one could stop other women joining the `official’ wives; local girls, prostitutes, seamstresses and washerwomen, all mak-ing their living from the army. This girl looked different. There was the smell of money and privilege about her, as if she had run away from a rich Lisbon home. Sharpe presumed she was the lover of a rich officer, one of the breed who would regard his woman as much a part of his equipment as his thoroughbred horses, his Manton pistols, his silver dinnerware for camp meals, and the hounds that would trot obediently at his horse’s tail. There were plenty of girls like her, Sharpe knew, girls who cost a lot of money, and he felt the old envy rise in him.

“My God.” Harper, still staring out the window, had spoken again.