Sharpe’s Havoc by Bernard Cornwell

And if the gamble failed, and if he could not salvage his London career then it probably would not matter, for he clung to the belief that the French would surely win in the end and he would be back in Oporto where, for lack of any other knowledge, the lawyers must account him as Kate’s husband and he would be wealthy. Kate would come to terms with it. She would recover when she was restored, as she would be, to comfort and home. Thus far, it was true, she had been unhappy, her joy at the marriage turning to horror in the bedroom, but young mares often rebelled against the bridle yet after a whipping or two became docile and obedient. And Christopher wished that outcome for Kate because her beauty still thrilled him. He dragged her on to where Williamson, now Christopher’s servant, held his horse. „Get on its back,” he ordered Kate.

„I want to go home!” she said.

„Get up!” He almost hit her with the riding crop that was tucked under the saddle, but then she meekly let him help her onto the horse. „Hold on to the reins, Williamson,” Christopher ordered. He did not want Kate turning the horse and kicking it away westward. „Hold them tight, man.”

„Yes, sir,” Williamson said. He was still in his rifleman’s uniform, though he had exchanged his shako for a wide-brimmed leather hat. He had picked up a French musket, a pistol and a saber in the retreat from Oporto and the weapons made him look formidable, an appearance that was a comfort to Christopher. The Colonel had needed a servant after his own had fled, but he wanted a bodyguard even more and Williamson played the role superbly. He told Christopher tales of tavern brawls, of wild fights with knives and clubs, of bare-fisted boxing bouts, and Christopher lapped it up almost as eagerly as he listened to Williamson’s bitter complaints about Sharpe.

In return Christopher had promised Williamson a golden future. „Learn French,” he had advised the deserter, „and you can join their army. Show that you’re good and they’ll give you a commission. They ain’t particular in the French army.”

„And if I wants to stay with you, sir?” Williamson had asked.

„I was always a man to reward loyalty, Williamson,” Christopher had said, and so the two suited each other even if, for now, their fortunes were at a low ebb as, with thousands of other fugitives, they climbed into the rain, were buffeted by the wind and saw nothing ahead but the hunger, bleak slopes and wet rocks of the Serra de Santa Catalina.

Behind them, on the road from Oporto to Amarante, a sad trail of abandoned carriages and wagons stood in the downpour. The wounded French watched anxiously, praying that the pursuing British would appear before the peasants, but the peasants were closer than the redcoats, much closer, and soon their dark shapes were seen flitting in the rain and in their hands were bright knives.

And in the rain the wounded men’s muskets would not fire.

And so the screaming began.

Sharpe would have liked to take Hagman on his pursuit of Christopher, but the old poacher was not fully recovered from his chest wound, and so Sharpe was forced to leave him behind. He took twelve men, his fittest and cleverest, and all complained vehemently when they were rousted out into Oporto’s rain before dawn because their bellies were sour with wine, their heads sore and their tempers short. „But not as short as mine,” Sharpe warned them, „so don’t make such a damned fuss.”

Hogan came with them, as did Lieutenant Vicente and three of his men. Vicente had learned that three mail carriages were going to Braga at first light and told Hogan that the vehicles were notoriously fast and would be traveling on a good road. The drivers, carrying sacks of mail that had been waiting for the French to leave before they could be delivered to Braga, happily made room for the soldiers who collapsed on the mail sacks and fell asleep.

They passed through the remnants of the city’s northern defenses in the wet halflight of dawn. The road was good, but the mail coaches were slowed because partisans had felled trees across the highway and each barricade took a half-hour or more to clear. „If the French had known Amarante had fallen,” Hogan told Sharpe, „they’d have retreated on this road and we’d never have caught them! Mind you, we don’t know that their Braga garrison has left with the rest.”