‘Across Vitoria’s proud plain, Ladies and Gentlemen, the thunder of their hooves was loud!’ The drums rolled menacingly. ‘Their swords were lifted to shine in the bright sunshine of that great day!’ The four sabres raggedly lifted. ‘And then, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, the pride of France was humbled, the troops of the Ogre brought down, and the world watched in awe the terrible prowess of our British Cavalry!’
The pit orchestra worked itself into a cacophonous frenzy and the four horsemen trotted over the stage, screaming and waving their sabres. The wooden blades hacked down on the ten men who, once again, squeezed their bags of false blood and strewed themselves artistically about the stage’s apron.
Sergeant Patrick Harper watched enthralled. He shook his head in admiration. ‘That’s just grand, sir.’
The drums were rolling again, louder and louder, drowning the screams of the dying actors and the excited shouts of the audience.
The back of the stage was opening up. It was, Sharpe admitted, impressive. Where, just a moment before, there had been a field of grass with some carefully arranged rock hills, all mysterious with the smoke from the small pots, now there was a magnificent castle, that, as it leaved outwards, pushed the hills and smoke aside.
The bass drum began a thunderous rhythm, a rhythm that made the audience clap with it and cheer in anticipation. The cymbals shivered the theatre, and the narrator, high on a pulpit beside the stage, raised his hands for silence.
‘My Lords! Ladies! Gentlemen! Pray silence for His Majesty, his unutterable Majesty, his foul, proud, Napoleonic Majesty, King Joseph!’
An actor, mounted on a black horse, carrying a sword and wearing on his face a scowl of utmost ferocity, pranced onto the stage and, pretending to notice the audience for the first time, stared haughtily at the packed theatre.
The stalls booed him. He spat at them, waved his sword, and the boos became louder. The horse staled.
‘King Joseph!’ the narrator cried above the threatre’s din. ‘Brother to the Ogre himself, a Bonaparte! Made King of Spain by his brother, tyrant to the proud nation of Spain, hated wherever liberty is loved!’
The audience jeered louder. Isabella, fetched from the house in Southwark, leaned on the plush cushion at the front of the box and stared in awe. She had never been inside a theatre before, and thought it was magical.
King Joseph shouted orders to the ragged file of resurrected French soldiers. ‘Kill the English! Slaughter them!’
The audience cat-called. A cannon was wheeled from the castle gateway, pointed at the audience, and a shower of sparks and smoke gushed from its muzzle.
Isabella gasped. Patrick Harper was wide-eyed with wonder at the spectacle.
The token for this box had been given to Sharpe by the landlord of the Rose Tavern. ‘You should go, Major,’ the man had said confidingly. ‘You was there, sir, it’ll bring it all back! And free oysters and champagne on the house, sir?’
Sharpe had not wanted to go, but Harper and Isabella had been desperate to see the “Victory at Vitoria Enacted” and eager for Sharpe to share the delight. He had agreed for Harper’s sake and now, as the pageant neared its end, Sharpe found himself enjoying the antics far more than he had expected. The effects, he thought, were clever, while some of the girls, conveniently introduced as persecuted peasants or grieving widows into the stage’s carnage, were luminously beautiful. There were worse ways, Sharpe thought, of spending an evening.
The audience screamed in delight as King Joseph began a panicked flight about the stage. British troops, come from the wings, chased him, and he successively shed his sword, his hat, his boots, his gilded coat, his waistcoat, his shirt, and finally, to the delighted shrieks of the women in the audience, his breeches. All that was left to him was a tiny French tricolour about his arse. He stood shivering on top of the cannon, clutching the flag. The drums rolled. A British soldier reached for the small flag, the drum roll grew louder, louder, the audience shouted for the soldier to pull the flag away, there was a clash of cymbals, and Isabella screamed in shock and delight as the flag was snatched away at the very instant that the curtain fell.