Sharpe’s Havoc by Bernard Cornwell

It’s in a book, Dan,” Sharpe said, „so it isn’t supposed to be natural.” He climbed to the porch and shoved hard on the front door, but found it locked. So where the hell was Colonel Christopher? More Portuguese retreated down the slope and these men were so frightened that they did not pause when they saw the British troops, but just kept running. The Portuguese cannon was being attached to its limber and spent musket balls were tearing at the cedars and rattling against the tiles, shutters and stones of the House Beautiful. Sharpe hammered on the locked door, but there was no answer.

„Sir?” Sergeant Patrick Harper called a warning to him. „Sir?” Harper jerked his head toward the side of the house and Sharpe backed away from the door to see Lieutenant Colonel Christopher riding from the stable yard. The Colonel, who was armed with a saber and a brace of pistols, was cleaning his teeth with a wooden pick, something he did frequently, evidently because he was proud of his even white smile. He was accompanied by his Portuguese servant who, mounted on his master’s spare horse, was carrying an enormous valise that was so stuffed with lace, silk and satins that the bag could not be closed.

Colonel Christopher curbed his horse, took the toothpick from his mouth, and stared in astonishment at Sharpe. „What on earth are you doing here, Lieutenant?”

„Ordered to stay with you, sir,” Sharpe answered. He glanced again at the valise. Had Christopher been looting the House Beautiful?

The Colonel saw where Sharpe was looking and snarled at his servant, „Close it, damn you, close it.” Christopher, even though his servant spoke good English, used his own fluent Portuguese, then looked back to Sharpe. „Captain Hogan ordered you to stay with me. Is that what you’re trying to convey?”

„Yes, sir.”

„And how the devil are you supposed to do that, eh? I have a horse, Sharpe, and you do not. You and your men intend to run, perhaps?”

„Captain Hogan gave me an order, sir,” Sharpe answered woodenly. He had learned as a sergeant how to deal with difficult senior officers. Say little, say it tonelessly, then say it all again if necessary.

„An order to do what?” Christopher inquired patiently.

„Stay with you, sir. Help you find Miss Savage.”

Colonel Christopher sighed. He was a black-haired man in his forties, but still youthfully handsome with just a distinguished touch of gray at his temples. He wore black boots, plain black riding breeches, a black cocked hat and a red coat with black facings. Those black facings had prompted Sharpe, on his previous meeting with the Colonel, to ask whether Christopher served in the Dirty Half Hundred, the 50th regiment, but the Colonel had treated the question as an impertinence. „All you need to know, Lieutenant, is that I serve on General Cradock’s staff. You have heard of the General?” Cradock was the General in command of the British forces in southern Portugal and if Soult kept marching then Cradock must face him. Sharpe had stayed silent after Christopher’s response, but Hogan had later suggested that the Colonel was probably a „political” soldier, meaning he was no soldier at all, but rather a man who found life more convenient if he was in uniform. „I’ve no doubt he was a soldier once,” Hogan had said, „but now? I think Cradock got him from Whitehall.”

„Whitehall? The Horse Guards?”

„Dear me, no,” Hogan had said. The Horse Guards were the headquarters of the army and it was plain Hogan believed Christopher came from somewhere altogether more sinister. „The world is a convoluted place, Richard,” he had explained, „and the Foreign Office believes that we soldiers are clumsy fellows, so they like to have their own people on the ground to patch up our mistakes. And, of course, to find things out.” Which was what Lieutenant Colonel Christopher appeared to be doing: finding things out. „He says he’s mapping their minds,” Hogan had mused, „and what I think he means by that is discovering whether Portugal is worth defending. Whether they’ll fight. And when he knows, he’ll tell the Foreign Office before he tells General Cradock.”

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