Sharpe's Gold by Bernard Cornwell Read Free Book Online Page B

tanned hand fidgeted

    with the hilt of an enormous, straight-bladed sword.
    'She's a bitch!' Sharpe said.
    'Pardon, sir?' The midshipman, fifteen years old, was frightened.
    Sharpe turned, unaware he had been joined. 'Nothing, son, nothing.' He grinned at the

    bemused boy. 'Gold for greed, women for jealousy, and death for the French. Right?'
    'Yes, sir. Of course, sir.'
    The boy watched the tall man go down the stairs. Once he had wanted to join the army, years

    before, but his father had simply looked up and said that anyone who joined the army was

    stark mad. He started untying the ropes that secured the bladders. His father, as ever,

    had been undoubtedly right.

CHAPTER 4
    On foot Kearsey was busy and, to Sharpe's eyes, ludicrous. He strutted with tiny steps,

    legs scissoring quickly, while his eyes, above the big, grey moustache, peered acutely at

    the mass of taller humanity. On horseback, though, astride his huge roan, he was at home as

    if he had been restored to his true height. Sharpe was impressed by the night's march. The

    moon was thin and cloud-ridden, yet the Major led the Company unerringly across

    difficult country. They crossed the frontier somewhere in the darkness, a grunt from

    Kearsey announcing the news, and then the route led downhill to the river Agueda, where

    they waited for the first sign of dawn.
    If Kearsey was impressive he was also annoying. The march had been punctuated with

    advice, condescending advice, as if Kearsey were the only man who understood the

    problems. He certainly knew the countryside, from the farmlands along the road from

    Almeida to Ciudad Rodrigo, to the high country that was to the north, the chaos of the

    valleys and hills that dropped finally to the river Duero, into which the Coa and the

    Agueda flowed. He knew the villages, the paths, the rivers and where they could be crossed;

    he knew the high hills and the sheltered passes, and within the lonely countryside he

    knew the guerrilla bands and where they could be found. Sitting in the mist that ghosted up

    from the Agueda, he talked, in his gruff voice, about the Partisans. Sharpe and Knowles

    listened, the unseen river a sound in the background, as the Major talked of ambushes

    and murders, the secret places where arms were stored, and the signal codes that flashed

    from hilltop to hilltop.
    'Nothing can move here, Sharpe, nothing, without the Partisans knowing. The French

    have to escort every messenger with four hundred men. Imagine that? Four hundred sabres

    to protect one despatch and sometimes even that's not enough.'
    Sharpe could imagine it, and even pity the French for it. Wellington paid hard cash for

    every captured despatch; sometimes they came to his headquarters with the crusted blood

    of the dead messenger still crisp on the paper. The messenger who died clean in such a

    fight was lucky. The wounded were taken not for the information but for revenge, and the

    war in the hills between French and Spanish was a terrible tale of ghastly pain. Kearsey

    was riffling the pages of his unseen Bible as he talked.
    'By day the men are shepherds, farmers, millers, but by night they're killers. For every

    Frenchman we kill, they kill two. Think what it's like for the French, Sharpe. Every man,

    every woman, every child, is an enemy in the countryside. Even the catechism has

    changed.'
    'Are the French true believers?'
    'No, they are the devil's spawn, doing his work, and must be eradicated."' He gave his

    barking laugh.
    Knowles stretched his legs. 'Do the women fight, sir?'
    'They fight, Lieutenant, like the men. Moreno's daughter, Teresa, is as good as any man.

    She knows how to ambush, to pursue. I've seen her kill.'
    Sharpe looked up and saw the mist silvering overhead as the dawn leaked across the hills.

    'Is she the one who's to marry El Catolico?'
    Kearsey laughed. 'Yes.' He was silent for a second. 'They're not all good, of course. Some

    are just brigands, looting their own