Sharpe’s Havoc by Bernard Cornwell

„I think it’s empty, sir,” Harris said, though he sounded nervous.

„I reckon you’re right,” Sharpe agreed and he turned and walked on down the drive. The gravel crunched under his boots so he moved to the verge and signaled that his men should do the same. The day was hot and still, even the birds were silent.

And then he smelt it. And immediately he thought of India and even imagined, for a wild second, that he was back in that mysterious country for it was there that he had experienced this smell so often. It was thick and rank and somehow honey-sweet. A smell that almost made him want to vomit, then that urge passed, but he saw that Perkins, almost as young as Pendleton, was looking sickly. „Take a deep breath,” Sharpe told him. „You’re going to need it.”

Vicente, looking as nervous as Perkins, glanced at Sharpe. „Is it … „ he began.

„Yes,” Sharpe said.

It was death.

Vila Real de Zedes had never been a large or a famous village. No pilgrims came to worship in its church. Saint Joseph might be revered locally, but his influence had never extended beyond the vineyards, yet for all its insignificance it had not been a bad village in which to raise children. There was always work in the Savage vineyards, the soil was fertile and even the poorest house had a vegetable patch. Some of the villagers had possessed cows, most kept hens and a few reared pigs, though there was no livestock left now. There had been little authority to persecute the villagers. Father Josefa had been the most important person in Vila Real de Zedes, other than the English in the Quinta, and the priest had sometimes been irascible, but he had also taught the children their letters. He had never been unkind.

And now he was dead. His body, unrecognizable, was in the ashes of the church where other bodies, shrunken by heat, lay among the charred and fallen rafters. A dead dog was in the street, a trickle of dried blood extending from its mouth and a cloud of flies buzzing above the wound in its flank. More flies sounded inside the biggest of the two taverns and Sharpe pushed open the door with the butt of his rifle and gave an involuntary shudder. Maria, the girl Harper had liked, was spread naked on the only table left unbroken in the taproom. She had been pinned to the table by knives thrust through her hands and now the flies crawled across her bloody belly and breasts. Every wine barrel had been splintered, every pot smashed and every piece of furniture other than the single table torn apart. Sharpe slung his rifle and tugged the knives from Maria’s palms so that her white arms flapped as the blades came free. Perkins stared aghast from the door. „Don’t just stand there,” Sharpe snapped, „find a blanket, anything, and cover her.”

„Yes, sir.”

Sharpe went back to the street. Vicente had tears in his eyes. There were bodies in half a dozen houses, blood in every house, but no living folk. Any survivors of Vila Real de Zedes had fled the village, chased out by the casual brutality of their conquerors. „We should have stayed here,” Vicente said angrily.

„And died with them?” Sharpe asked.

„They had no one to fight for them!” Vicente said.

„They had Lopes,” Sharpe said, „and he didn’t know how to fight, and if he had then he wouldn’t have stayed. And if we’d fought for them we’d be dead now and these folk would be just as dead.”

„We should have stayed,” Vicente insisted.

Sharpe ignored him. „Cooper? Sims?” The two men cocked their rifles. Cooper shot first, Sharpe counted to ten and then Sims pulled his trigger, Sharpe counted to ten again and then he fired into the air. It was a signal that Harper could lead the others down from the hilltop. „Look for spades,” Sharpe said to Vicente.

„Spades?”

„We’re going to bury them.”

The graveyard was a walled enclosure just north of the village and there was a small hut with sextons’ shovels that Sharpe gave to his men. „Deep enough so the animals don’t scratch them up,” he ordered, „but not too deep.”