Sharpe 3-Book Collection 5: Sharpe's Company, Sharpe's Sword, Sharpe's Enemy by Bernard Cornwell Read Free Book Online

far too large to see on a single morning or even march on a single road. Wellington, perforce, had become remote. There were bureaucrats with the army, defenders of files, and soon, Sharpe knew, a man would be less important than the pieces of paper like that folded, forgotten gazette in Whitehall.
    ‘Sharpe!’ Major Forrest was shouting at him, waying, hurrying over the rubble. He was leading a small group of men, some of whom carried a door, Lawford’s stretcher. ‘What happened?’
    Sharpe gestured at the ruin about them. ‘A mine, sir. He was caught by it.’
    Forrest shook his head. ‘Oh God! What do we do?’ The question was not surprising from the Major. He was a kind man, a good man, but not a decisive man.
    Captain Leroy, the loyalist American, leaned down to light his thin, black cigar from the flickering flames of the timber baulk. ‘Must be a hospital in town.’
    Forrest nodded. ‘Into town.’ He stared in horror at the Colonel. ‘My God! He’s lost his arm!’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Will he live?’
    Sharpe shrugged. ‘God knows, sir.’
    It was suddenly freezing cold, the wind reaching over the breach to chill the men who rolled the Colonel, still mercifully unconscious, on to the makeshift stretcher. Sharpe wiped the sword blade on a scrap of Lawford’s cloak, sheathed it, and pulled the collar of his greatcoat high up his neck.
    It was not the entry into Ciudad Rodrigo that he had imagined. It was one thing to fight through a breach, overcome the last obstacle, and feel the elation of victory, but to follow Lawford in a slow, almost funeral march was destroying the triumph. Inevitably, too, though Sharpe hated himself for thinking of it, there were other questions that hung on this moment.
    There would be a new Colonel of the South Essex, a stranger. The Battalion would be changed, maybe for the better, but probably not for the betterment of Sharpe. Lawford, whose own future was seeping into the crude bandages, had learned to trust Sharpe years before; at Seringapatam, Assaye, and Gawilghur, but Sharpe could expect no favours from a new man. Lawford’s replacement would bring his own debts to be repaid, his own ideas, and the old ties of loyalty, friendship, and even gratitude that had held the Battalion together would be untied. Sharpe thought of the gazette. If it was refused, and the thought persisted that it might, then Lawford would have ignored the refusal. He would have kept Sharpe as Captain of the Light Company, come what may, but no longer. The new man would make his own dispositions and Sharpe felt the chill of uncertainty.
    They pushed deeper into the town, through crowds of men intent on recompense for the night’s effort. A group of the 88th had hacked open a wine-shop, splintering the door with bayonets, and now had set up their own business selling the stolen wine. Some officers tried to restore order, but they were outnumbered and ignored. Bolts of cloth cascaded from an upper window, draping the narrow street in a grotesque parody of a holiday as soldiers destroyed what they did not want to loot. A Spaniard lay beside a door, blood trickling in a dozen spreading streams from his scalp, while in the house behind were screams, shouts, and the sobbing of women.
    The main square was like a bedlam let loose. A soldier of the 45 th reeled past Sharpe and waved a bottle in the Rifleman’s face. The man was hopelessly drunk. ‘The store! We opened the store.’ He fell down.
    The French spirit store had been broken apart. Shouts came from the building’s interior, thumps as the casks were stove in, and musket shots as crazed men fought for the contents. A house nearby was in flames and a soldier, his red jacket decorated with the 45 th’s green facings, staggered in agony, his back burning, and he tried to douse the flames by pouring a bottle over his shoulder. The spirit flared, scorched his hand, and the man fell, writhing, to die on the stones. Across the plaza a second house was