Sharpe’s Havoc by Bernard Cornwell

Sharpe gazed at the far hill. „If there’s bloody cavalry about,” he said, „then I don’t want to be caught on the road.” It was the one place in a nightmare landscape where horsemen would have an advantage.

So to avoid enemy horsemen they struck north into the wilderness. It meant crossing the Cavado which they managed at a deep ford which led only to the high summer pastures. Sharpe continually looked behind, but saw no sign of the horsemen. The path climbed into a wild land. The hills were steep, the valleys deep and the high ground bare of anything except gorse, ferns, thin grass and vast rounded boulders, some balanced on others so precariously that they looked as if a child’s touch would send them bounding down the precipitous slopes. The grass was fit only for a few tangle-haired sheep and scores of feral goats on which the mountain wolves and wild lynx fed. The only village they passed was a poor place with high rock walls about its small vegetable gardens. Goats were hobbled on pastures the size of inn yards and a few bony cattle stared at the soldiers as they passed. They climbed still higher, listening to the goat bells among the rocks and passing a small shrine heaped with faded gorse blossom. Vicente crossed himself as he passed the shrine.

They turned eastward again, following a stony ridge where the great rounded boulders would make it impossible for any cavalry to form and charge, and Sharpe kept watching southwards and saw nothing. Yet there had been horsemen, and there would be more, for he was making a rendezvous with a desperate army that had been bounced from imminent success to abject defeat in one swift day.

It was hard traveling in the hills. They rested every hour, then trudged on. All were soaked, tired and chilled. The rain was relentless and the wind had now gone into the east so that it came straight into their faces. The rifle slings rubbed their wet shoulders raw, but at least the rain lifted that afternoon, even if the wind stayed brisk and cold. At dusk, feeling as weary as he ever had on the terrible retreat to Vigo, Sharpe led them down from the ridge to a small deserted hamlet of low stone cottages roofed with turf. „Just like home,” Harper said happily. The driest places to sleep were two long, coffin-shaped granaries that protected their contents from rats by being raised on mushroom-shaped stone pillars, and most of the men crammed themselves into the narrow spaces while Sharpe, Hogan and Vicente shared the least damaged cottage where Sharpe conjured a fire from damp kindling, and brewed tea.

„The most essential skill of a soldier,” Hogan said when Sharpe brought him the tea.

„What’s that?” Vicente asked, ever eager to learn his new trade.

„Making fire from wet wood,” Hogan said.

„Aren’t you supposed to have a servant?” Sharpe asked.

„I am, but so are you, Richard.”

„I’m not one for servants,” Sharpe said.

„Nor am I,” Hogan said, „but you’ve done a grand job with that tea, Richard, and if His Majesty ever decides he doesn’t want a London rogue to be one of his officers then I’ll give you a job as a servant.”

Picquets were set, more tea brewed and moist tobacco coaxed alight in clay pipes. Hogan and Vicente began an impassioned argument about a man called Hume of whom Sharpe had never heard and who turned out to be a dead Scottish philosopher, but, as it seemed the dead Scotsman had proposed that nothing was certain, Sharpe wondered why anyone bothered to read him, let alone argue about him, yet the notion diverted Hogan and Vicente. Sharpe, bored with the talk, left them to their debate and went to inspect the picquets.

It started to rain again, then peals of thunder shook the sky and lightning whipped into the high rocks. Sharpe crouched with Harris and Perkins in a cave-like shrine where some faded flowers lay in front of a sad-looking statue of the Virgin Mary. „Jesus bloody wept,” Harper announced himself as he splashed through the downpour, „and we could be tucked up with those ladies in Oporto.” He crammed himself in beside the three men. „I didn’t know you were here, sir,” he said. „I brought the boys some picquet juice.” He had a wooden canteen of hot tea. „Jesus,” he went on, „you can’t see a bloody thing out there.”

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