“Carry on, Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir. And sir?” Harper’s face was bleak. “You will let me know what happens?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
Sharpe and Hogan ran into the dark streets, slipping on the filth, pushing their way through the fugitives who were forcing the doors of wine-shops and private houses. Hogan panted to keep up with the Rifleman. It would be a bad night in Talavera, a night of looting, destruction, and rape. Tomorrow a hundred thousand men would march into a maelstrom of fire, and Hogan, catching a glimpse of Sharpe’s snarling face as he hurled two Spanish infantrymen out of his way, feared for the evil that seemed to be welling up in preparation for the morrow. Then they were in the quiet street where Josefina was living and Hogan peered up at the quiet windows, the closed shutters, and prayed that Richard Sharpe would not destroy himself with his huge anger.
CHAPTER 18
Sharpe’s boots crunched on broken plaster; he listened to the voices murmuring in the room, on the other side of the splintered door, and stared unseeing through a small window at the high ragged clouds which raced past the moon. Hogan sat on the top step of the steep stairs next to the sheets they had taken from Josefina’s bed. In the half light of the candles seeping through the doorway the sheets seemed to be patterned in red and white. There was a cry from the room. Sharpe spun round in irritation.
“What are they doing to her?”
Hogan hushed him. “The doctor’s bleeding her, Sharpe. He knows what he’s doing.”
“As if she hasn’t lost enough blood already!”
“I know, I know.” Hogan spoke soothingly. There was nothing he could say that would ease the turmoil in Sharpe’s head, to soften the blow or deflect the revenge which Hogan knew was being minutely plotted as the Rifleman paced up and down the tiny landing. The Engineer sighed and picked up a tiny plaster head. The house belonged to a seller of religious statues, and the stairs and corridors were stacked with his wares. When Gibbons and Berry had forced their way into the girl’s room they had trampled on twenty or thirty images of Christ, each with a bleeding heart, and the scraps of statues still littered the landing. Hogan was a peaceful man. He enjoyed his job, he liked the fresh challenges of each day, he was happy with his head full of angles and reentries, yardages and imperial weights; he liked company that laughed easily, drank generously, and would pass the time with stories of happiness past. He was no fighter. His war was fought with picks, shovels and powder, yet when he had burst with Sharpe into the attic room he had felt in himself a searing anger and lust for revenge. The mood had passed. Now he sat, saddened and quiet, but as he watched the tall Rifleman he knew that in Sharpe the mood was being refined and fed. For the twentieth time Sharpe stopped.
“Why?”
Hogan shrugged. “They were drunk, Richard.”
“That’s no answer!”
“No.” Hogan carefully replaced the broken head on the floor, out of reach of Sharpe’s pacing. “There isn’t an answer. They wanted revenge on you. Neither you nor the girl are important. It’s their pride… „He tailed away. There was nothing to say, just the enormous sadness to feel and the fear of what Sharpe would do. Hogan regretted his first reaction to the girl; he had thought her calculating and cold, but as he escorted her from Plasencia to Oropesa, and from there to Talavera, he had been captivated by the charm, the easy laughter, and the honesty with which she planned a future away from a cloying past and a fugitive husband.
Sharpe was staring through the window at the clouds patterning the moon. “Do you think I’ll do nothing?”
“They’re terrified.” Hogan spoke flatly; he was afraid of what Sharpe might do. He thought of the line of Shakespeare: ‘Beauty provoketh fools’. Sharpe turned on him again. “Why?”
“You know why. They were drunk. Good God, man, they were so drunk they couldn’t even do that properly. So they beat her. It was all on the spur of the moment, and now? They’re terrified, Richard. Terrified. What will you do?”
“Do? I don’t know.” Sharpe spoke irritably and Hogan knew he was lying.
“What can you do, Richard? Call them out to a duel? That will ruin your career, you know that. Will you charge them with rape? For God’s sake, Richard, who’d believe you? The town’s full of bloody Spanish tonight, raping anything that moves! And everyone knows the girl was with Gibbons before you. No, Richard, you must think. You must think before you do anything.”
Sharpe turned on him and Hogan knew there could be no argument with that implacable face. “I’ll bloody murder them.”
Hogan sighed and rubbed his face with both hands. “I didn’t hear that. So you get hung? Shot? Beat the bones out of them if you must, but no more, Richard, no more.”
Sharpe did not answer and Hogan knew he was seeing in his mind the body they had found with the blood-soaked sheets. She had been raped and beaten and when they arrived the landlady was screaming at the girl. It had taken more money to silence the woman, find a doctor, and now they waited. Agostino peered up the stairs, saw Sharpe’s face, and went back to the front door where he had been told to wait. New sheets had been carried into the room, water, and Sharpe had listened to the landlady tidy up the floor, and he remembered the girl, bruised and bleeding, crawling among the broken saints and stained sheets.
The door opened, scrunching on the shards, and the landlady beckoned to them. The doctor was kneeling beside the bed and his eyes flicked warily at the two officers. Josefina lay on the bed, her black hair fanned on the pillow, but her eyes were tight shut. Sharpe sat beside her, saw the spreading yellow bruise on her unnaturally pale skin, and he took one of her hands that clutched at the fresh linen. She pulled away but he held on and her eyes opened.
“Richard?”
“Josefina. How are you?” It seemed a stupid thing to say but he could think of nothing else. She closed her eyes and the faintest smile came and went.
She opened her eyes again. “I’ll be all right.” There was a flash of the old Josefina, but as she spoke a tear ran from her eye and she sobbed and turned away from him. Sharpe turned to the doctor. “How is she?”
The doctor shrugged and looked hopelessly towards the landlady. Hogan intervened and rattled in his Spanish at the doctor. Sharpe listened to the voices and as he did he stroked the girl’s averted face. All he could think of was that he had failed her. He had promised to protect her and now this had happened, the worst, the unthinkable.
Hogan sat beside him. “She’ll be all right. She lost some blood.”
“How?”
Hogan closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them. “She was beaten, Richard. They were not gentle. But she’ll mend.”
Sharpe nodded. There was silence in the room but from the street outside Sharpe could hear the screams and shouts generated by the drunken Spanish soldiers. The girl turned back to him. She had stopped crying. Her voice was very low. “Richard?”
“Yes?”
“Kill them.” She spoke flatly. Hogan half shook his head but Sharpe bent down and kissed her by the ear.
“I will.”
As he straightened up he saw another half smile on the face, and then she forced it into a proper smile that went oddly with the tears. She squeezed his hand. “Will there be a battle tomorrow?”
“Yes.” Sharpe spoke as if the subject could be brushed away, as if it was not of importance.
“Be lucky.”
„I’ll come and see you afterwards.“ He smiled at her.
“Yes.” But there was no conviction in her voice. Sharpe turned to Hogan.
“You’ll stay?”
“Till daybreak. I’m not needed till then. But you should go-„
Sharpe nodded. “I know.” He kissed her again, stood up, and put on his rifle and pack. Hogan thought’his face was as cruel as a face could be. The Engineer walked with him to the stairs.
“Be careful, Richard.”
“I will.”