The women were wives of Sharpe’s officers. Closer, smiling at him, and walking up the hill with the unnecessary attention and help of two dozen men, came his own wife.
They had been married two months. She had insisted, against his direct orders, that she would come with him. ‘I’ve always wanted to travel. Besides, it will be good for my sketching.’
‘Sketching?’
‘I sketch and paint; didn’t you know that?’
‘No.’
Isabella, who had decided that London was a strange and fearful place, had insisted on returning as Jane’s servant. Harper, who had ordered his pregnant wife to remain in London, had, like Sharpe, been flagrantly disobeyed.
‘Richard!’ Jane wore a dark red cloak over her dress.
‘My love.’ He felt awkward saying it in front of so many men.
She smiled, striking her beauty into his soul like a sword. ‘I met Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood. Poor man.’
‘Poor man.’
She turned and looked at the battlefield. The British dead were gone, but the French dead, stripped naked, still lay among the rocks. ‘Have I got time for one drawing?’
‘It’s hardly suitable, is it?’
‘Don’t be pompous.’ She smiled at him, put Rascal on the ground, and took from her bag a large pad and a box of pencils.
They had been married two months, and Sharpe had not regretted a moment of them. He had not guessed at this kind of happiness, he was even frightened that one day it would be taken from him, and he did not even mind that men laughed at him because of his sudden uxoriousness. The laughter was not cruel, and he was happy. He thought she was happy too. He was astonished how important to him her happiness was. He watched her pencil, amazed at her skill. ‘I have to go and form the Battalion.’
‘That’s because you’re important and pompous. Don’t forget I’m here.’
‘I’ll try not to, but you’re easily overlooked.’ He smiled at her, thinking he was the luckiest man in the world.
They were ordered away from the hill an hour later. The Battalion was formed in parade order on the roadside, ready to march, its baggage somewhere behind it. Captain Harry Price stood at the head of a Company. The flags were cased again. They were marching into France.
Sharpe sat on Sycorax. Jane was beside him on her own mare. It was beginning to rain, the drops huge as pennies where they splashed on the rocks. ‘Sergeant Major!’
‘Sir!’
‘The Battalion will march in line of Companies.’
‘Where to, sir?’
Sharpe grinned. ‘Into France!’
But suddenly, before the order to march was given, and to Sharpe’s embarrassment and his wife’s delight, someone cheered. They cheered themselves and their victory. The noise spread, until the Prince of Wales’ Own Volunteers were filling the valley with their sound of delight. Sharpe had taken broken, persecuted men and made them into soldiers.
‘That’s enough, Sergeant Major!’
‘Sir! ‘Talion!’
Girdwood was mad, so these men, until another colonel was appointed, belonged to Sharpe now. He watched them march, listened to the singing that had already begun, and he thought how they had fought among the rocks to victory. They were, he considered, as good as any troops he had known and, for the moment at least, they were his men, his responsibility, and his pride. Jane watched him. She saw on his hard, striking face the glint of water that was not rain. He was staring at the men for whom he had fought against all the bastards who despised them because they were mere common soldiers. They were his men, his soldiers, Sharpe’s regiment.
HISTORICAL NOTE
The Battle of Vitoria (described in Sharpe’s Honour) finished French hopes in Spain. A handful of garrisons clung to their fortresses, but the French field armies, trounced by Wellington, fled northwards across the Pyrenees. No one expected their return. It was thought that the rest of 1813 would be spent in mopping up the French garrisons and preparing (from the new Pasajes supply-base) the invasion of France. A good time, then, for a man to return to England.
Yet Sharpe and Harper, by returning to Britain, missed some hard and confused fighting. Marshal Soult, sent by Napoleon to shore up the crumbling defences on the Spanish border, surprised Wellington by attacking instead of passively waiting to be attacked. Armies marched, countermarched, and fought in the mists of the Pyrenees, but by autumn’s end the French thrusts had all been defeated, the last fortresses in Spain had fallen (the fall of San Sebastian being particularly horrific), and Wellington could at last advance into France. Sharpe and Harper were back in time for the end of the Pyrenean fighting that cleared the foothills.