Sharpe's Skirmish

Sharpe's Skirmish by Bernard Cornwell Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: Sharpe's Skirmish by Bernard Cornwell Read Free Book Online
Authors: Bernard Cornwell
Tags: Historical fiction, adventure, Historical, War
was open.
    Herault and his small army was coming.
    And all Pailleterie needed to do was wait.
    "It was my fault," Sharpe said bitterly.
    "I shouldn't have fired so soon," Price admitted.
    "I shouldn't have put Pat Harper across the river," Sharpe said. "I should have kept our men together."
    Ensign Hickey said nothing, but just looked heartbroken. He had not thought Captain Sharpe could be defeated.
    "Bloody hell!" Sharpe swore uselessly. He had pulled his surviving men back to the village where they could shelter behind garden walls. The fort was a hundred paces away, and he had thought about making an attack on it, but he would have to lead his men round to the far side and then through the archway and he guessed the French would be expecting that approach.
    The store-room door had been shut, and was doubtless barricaded. Every now and then a black fur hat showed on the parapet as an hussar peered over to make certain the British troops were not planning any mischief.
    Daniel Hagman, keeping watch from the river bank, reported that the frogs had tipped the cart into the river. "I got one of the bastards, sir," he said, "and Harris popped another."
    "Well done, Dan," Sharpe said morosely, then wondered why the French would clear the barricade away. and the answer was depressingly obvious. Because they were expecting more men, that was why. Because the hussars were only holding the bridge long enough to let a flood of bloody Crapauds across the river. Because all hell was about to be loosed on the British supply lines, and Captain Richard Sharpe would be blamed. "Jesus!" Sharpe cursed.
    "He doesn't seem to be on our side today," Hagman said.
    The only good news was that Harper had brought his men safely back across the Tormes. He had led them a mile westwards and used a fisherman's skiff to ferry them over the river, and it was reassuring for Sharpe to have the big Irishman and the twenty rifleman back at his side, but he did not know what he could do with them. Have them killed in a forlorn attack on the fort's gate?
    The Scotsman, MacKeon, came and squatted beside Sharpe. He was smoking a short foul pipe that he now pointed towards the fort. "It reminds me, Captain," he said, "of that terrible place in India."
    Sharpe wondered if MacKeon was drunk. The fort at San Miguel was nothing like Gawilghur. The Indian fort had been built on a clifftop, dizzyingly high above the Deccan plain, while San Miguel was a decaying ruin built beside a river. "It don't look much like Gawilghur to me," Sharpe said.
    "Mebbe not," MacKeon said, tapping the pipe out against a stone, "but the pigtailed fellows reckon there's only one way in. And they're guarding that entrance, like as not, but there's always a back way, Captain, always a back way. And you were the laddie that found it at Gawilghur." He pointed the stem of his pipe at the fort. "See that great crack?"
    MacKeon was pointing to a jagged fissure that began low on the shadowed western wall then zig-zagged up the stones almost to the parapet. For a moment Sharpe was wondering whether the Scotsman really expected the light company to climb the wall, then saw that, maybe a third of the way up, a whole section of stone had fallen away. The space looked like a small cave and was half hidden by ivy, but MacKeon was right. It was a back way in, and an agile man could squeeze through the gap, but to what? Sharpe could not remember seeing a hole inside the fort, so where did it lead?
    "Sergeant Harper?"
    "Sir?"
    "If a frog shows his head above that parapet, shoot him." The riflemen could keep the French out of sight, and if they were out of sight they could not see what mischief Sharpe planned. He unbuckled his sword belt, let the clumsy weapon drop, and then, with the rifle slung on his shoulder, ran across the waste ground to the fort's wall. No Frenchman saw him, for they were keeping their heads below the parapet. They might have captured the fort, but they had a healthy respect for the

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