Sharpe 3-Book Collection 7: Sharpe's Revenge, Sharpe's Waterloo, Sharpe's Devil by Bernard Cornwell Read Free Book Online

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    The nine horsemen had travelled eastwards from Bordeaux. Their route took them far to the north of where Marshal Soult retreated in front of the British army, and far to the south of where the Emperor protected Paris with a dazzling display of defensive manoeuvres. Ducos and his men rode into the deserted uplands of central France. They lived well on their journey. There was money for an inn room each night, and money for those men who wanted whores, and money for food, and money for spare horses, and money for good civilian clothes to replace the Dragoons’ uniforms, though Ducos noted that each man saved his green uniform coat. That was pride; the same pride that made the Dragoons wear their hair long so that, one day, they might again plait it into the distinctive cadenettes. Their possession of money also made the nine men ride circumspectly, for the forests were full of dangers, yet by avoiding the main roads they travelled safely around the places where hungry brigands laid desperate ambushes.
    Ducos, Sergeant Challon, and three of the troopers were Frenchmen. One of the other Dragoons was a German; a great hulking Saxon with eyes the colour of a winter’s sky and hands that, despite the loss of two fingers on his right hand, could still break a man’s neck with ease. There was a Pole who sat dark and quiet, yet seemed eager to please Ducos. The other two Dragoons were Italians, recruited in the early heady days of Napoleon’s career. All spoke French, all trusted Challon and, because Challon trusted Ducos, they were happy to offer allegiance to the small bespectacled Major.
    After a week’s eastward travel Ducos found a deserted upland farm where for a few days the nine men lay up in seclusion. They were not hiding, for Ducos was happy to let the Dragoons ride to the nearby town so long as they fetched him back whatever old newspapers were available. ‘If we’re not hiding,’ one of the Italians grumbled to Challon, ‘then what are we doing?’ The Italians disliked being stranded in the primitive comforts of the turf-roofed farmhouse, but Challon told them to be patient.
    ‘The Major’s sniffing the wind,’ Challon said, and Ducos was indeed sniffing the strange winds that blew across France, and he was beginning to detect a danger in them. After two weeks in the farm Ducos told Challon of his fears. The two men walked down the valley, crossed an uncut meadow and walked beside a quick stream. ‘You realize ’ Ducos said, ‘that the Emperor will never forgive us?’
    ‘Does it matter, sir?’ Challon, ever the soldier, had a carbine in his right hand while his eyes watched the forest’s edge across the stream. ‘God bless the Emperor, sir, but he can’t last for ever. The bastards will get him sooner rather than later.’
    ‘Did you ever meet the Emperor?’ Ducos asked.
    ‘Never had that honour, sir. I saw him often enough, of course, but never met him, sir.’
    ‘He has a Corsican’s sense of honour. If his family is hurt, Sergeant, then Napoleon will never forgive. So long as he has a breath in his body he will seek revenge.’
    The grim words made Challon nervous. The four crates that Challon had escorted to Bordeaux had contained property that belonged to the Emperor and to his family, and soon the Emperor would have all the leisure in the world to wonder what had happened to that precious consignment. ‘Even so, sir, if he’s imprisoned, what can he do?’
    ‘The Emperor of France,’ Ducos said pedantically, ‘is the head of the French State. If he falls from power, Challon, then there will be another head of state. That man, presumably the King, will regard himself as Napoleon’s legitimate heir. I presume that you would like to die of a peaceful old age in France?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘So would I.’ Ducos was staring over the stream and dark trees towards a tall crag of pale rock about which two eagles circled in the cold wind, but Ducos was not seeing the rock, nor