“No, Major, I don’t.” Lawford sat upright and turned his charm onto the Major. “I’ve known Richard Sharpe since I was a Lieutenant and he was a Sergeant. He should have died a dozen times, Major, at least a dozen, but he crawls through somehow.” Lawford grinned. “Don’t worry about Sharpe, Major. It’s much better to let him worry about you. Who else is missing?”
“There’s Sergeant Harper, sir… „
“Ah!” Lawford interrupted. “The legendary Irishman.”
“And Lieutenant Gibbons, sir.”
“Lieutenant Gibbons?” Lawford remembered the meeting in Wellesley’s headquarters at Plasencia and the petulant expression on the blond Lieutenant’s face. “I wonder how he’ll get on without his uncle?” The Lieutenant Colonel smiled briefly; Gibbons was his least concern. There was still so much to do, so many men to be rescued before the townspeople spread into the carnage to loot the bodies. “Thank you, Major. We’ll just have to wait for Captain Sharpe. In the meantime would you arrange a party to get water for the men? And let’s hope these French dead have got food in their packs, otherwise we’re in for a lean night.”
The French did carry food, and gold, and Sharpe, as he always did, split his finds with Harper. The Sergeant was carrying the Eagle, and he peered at the bird thoughtfully.
“Is it worth money, sir?”
“I don’t know.” Out of habit Sharpe was reloading his rifle, and he grunted as he forced the ramrod into the fouled barrel.
“But they’ll reward us, sir, surely?”
Sharpe grinned at the Sergeant. “I’d think so. The Patriotic fund ought to be good for a hundred guineas, who knows?” He slid the ramrod back into place. “Perhaps they’ll just say ”thank you“.” He bowed ironically to the Irishman. “Thank you, Sergeant Harper.”
Harper bowed clumsily back. “It was a pleasure, Captain Sharpe.” He paused. “The bastards had better pay something. I can’t wait to see Simmerson’s face when you give him this.”
Sharpe laughed, he was looking forward to that moment. He took the Eagle from Harper. “Come on. We’d better find them.”
Harper touched Sharpe’s shoulder and froze, staring into the smoke above the stream. Sharpe could see nothing. “What is it?”
“Don’t you see it, sir?” Harper’s voice was hushed, excited. “There! Damn! It’s gone.”
“What, for God’s sake, what?”
Harper turned to him. “Would you wait, sir? Two minutes?”
Sharpe grinned. “A bird?”
“Aye. The magpie with the blue tail. It went over the stream and it can’t be far.” Harper’s face was lit up, the battle suddenly forgotten, the capture of the Eagle a small thing against the spotting of the rare bird he had yearned so long to see.
Sharpe laughed. “Go on. I’ll wait here.”
The Sergeant went silently towards the stream, leaving Sharpe in the drifting smoke among the bodies. Once a horse trotted past, intent on its own business, its flank a sheet of blood, and far off, behind the flames, Sharpe could hear bugles calling the living into ranks. He stared at the Eagle, at the thunderbolt gripped in the claw, the wreath round the bird’s neck, and felt a fresh surge of elation at its capture. They could not send him to the West Indies now! Simmerson could do his worst, but the man who brought back the first captured French Eagle was safe from Sir Henry. He smiled, held the bird up so its wings caught the light, and heard the hoof beats behind him.
His rifle was on the ground and he had to leave it as he rolled desperately to avoid Gibbons’ charge. The Lieutenant, curved sabre drawn, was wild-eyed and leaning from the saddle; the blade hissed over Sharpe’s head, he fell, kept rolling, and knelt up to see Gibbons reining in the horse, turning it with one hand, and urging it forward. The Lieutenant was giving Sharpe no time, even to draw his sword; instead he pointed the sabre like a lance and spurred forward so that the blade would spear into Sharpe’s stomach. Sharpe dropped and the horse went thundering beside him, turned on its back legs, and Gibbons was high over him with the sabre stabbing downwards. Neither man spoke. The horse whinnied, reared and lashed with its feet, and Sharpe twisted away as the sabre jabbed down.
Sharpe swung with the Eagle, aiming for the horse’s head, but Gibbons was too good a horseman and he smiled as he easily avoided the wild blow. The Lieutenant hefted the sabre in his hand. “Give me the Eagle, Sharpe.”
Sharpe looked round. The loaded rifle was five yards away and he ran towards it, knowing it was too far, hearing the hooves behind him, and then the sabre cut into his pack and threw him flat on the ground. He fell on the Eagle, twisted to his right, and the horse was pirouetting above him, the hooves like hammers above his face, and the sabre blade was a curve of light behind the glinting horseshoes. He rolled again, felt a numbing blow as one of the hooves struck his shoulder, but he kept rolling away from Gibbons’ sabre. It was hopeless. The grass smelt in his nostrils, the air was full of the flying hooves, the horse staying above him, treading beside him; he waited for the blade to spike into him and pin him to the dry ground. He was angry with himself, for being caught, for forgetting about Gibbons, and he wondered how long the Lieutenant had stalked him through the smoke.
He could hardly move his right arm, the whole of it seemed paralysed by the blow from the hoof, but he lunged up with the Eagle as if it was a quarterstaff, trying to force the hooves away from his body. Damn that magpie! Couldn’t Harper hear the fight? Then the sabre was over his stomach and Gibbons’ smiling face was above him, and the Lieutenant paused. “She felt good, Sharpe. And I’ll take that Eagle as well.”
Gibbons seemed to laugh at him, the Lieutenant’s mouth stretching and stretching, and still he did not stab downwards. His eyes widened and Sharpe began to move, away from the sabre, climbing to his feet, and he saw the blood coming from Gibbons’ throat and falling, slowly and thickly, on the sabre. Sharpe was still moving, the Eagle swinging, and the wing of the French trophy smashed into Gibbons’ mouth, breaking the teeth, forcing back the head, but the Lieutenant was dead. The Eagle had forced him back, but the body toppled towards Sharpe and in its back, through the ribs, was a bayonet on a French musket. Sergeant Harper stood on the far side of the horse and grinned at Sharpe.
Gibbons’ body slumped beside the horse and Sharpe stared at it, at the bayonet and strange French musket that had been driven clean into the lungs and was stuck there, swaying above the body. He looked at Harper.
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” The Sergeant was grinning broadly, as if he had been pleased to see Sharpe scrambling for his life. “It was worth being in this army just to do that.”
Sharpe leaned on the Eagle’s staff, catching his breath, appalled at the closeness of death. He shook his head at Harper. “The bastard nearly got me!” He sounded astonished, as if it had been unthinkable for Gibbons to prove the better fighter.
“He would have had to finish me off first, sir.” It was said lightly enough, but Sharpe knew the Sergeant had spoken the truth, and he smiled in acknowledgement and then went to pick up his rifle. He turned again. “Patrick?”
“Sir?”
“Thank you.”
Harper brushed it off. “Just make sure they give us more than a hundred guineas. It’s not every day we capture a bloody Eagle.”
Gibbons was not carrying much: a handful of guineas, a watch broken by his fall, and the expensive sabre that they would be forced to leave behind. Sharpe joined Harper and, kneeling by the crumpled body, he thrust his hand into Gibbons’ collar and found what he had half expected: a gold chain. Most soldiers carried something valuable round their necks and Sharpe knew that, should he die, some enemy would find the bag of coins round his own neck. Harper glanced up. “I missed that.”