Sharpe’s Havoc: The Northern Portugal Campaign, Spring 1809

Sharpe ran towards the field where the horses were dead, dying or terrified. A few dragoons had tried to untie their mounts, but the rifle fire had chased them off. So now Sharpe was the possessor of a score of horses. ‘Dan!’ he called to Hagman. ‘Put the wounded ones out of their misery. Pendleton! Harris! Cresacre! Over there!’ He pointed the three men towards the wall on the paddock’s western side. The dragoons had fled that way and Sharpe guessed they had taken refuge in some trees that stood thick just a hundred paces away. Three picquets were not enough to cope with even a half-hearted counterattack by the French so Sharpe knew he would have to strengthen those picquets soon, but first he wanted to make sure there were no dragoons skulking in the houses, gardens and orchards of the village.

Barca d’Avintas was a small place, a straggle of houses built about the road that ran down to the river where a short jetty should have accommodated the ferry, but some of the smoke Sharpe had seen earlier was coming from a barge-like vessel with a blunt bow and a dozen rowlocks. Now it was smoking in the water, its upper works burned almost to the waterline and its lower hull holed and sunken. Sharpe stared at the useless boat, looked across the river that was over a hundred yards broad and then swore.

Harper appeared beside him, his rifle slung. ‘Jesus,’ he said, staring at the ferry, ‘that’s not a lot of good to man or beast, is it now?’

‘Any of our boys hurt?’

‘Not a one, sir, not even a scratch. The Portuguese are the same, all alive. They did well, didn’t they?’ He looked at the burning boat again. ‘Sweet Jesus, was that the ferry?’

‘It was Noah’s bloody ark,’ Sharpe snapped. ‘What do you goddamned think it was?’ He was angry because he had hoped to use the ferry to get all his men safe across the Douro, but now it seemed he was stranded. He stalked away, then turned back just in time to see Harper making a face at him. ‘Have you found the taverns?’ he asked, ignoring the grimace.

‘Not yet, sir,’ Harper said.

‘Then find them, put a guard on them, then send a dozen more men to the far side of the paddock.’

‘Yes, sir!’

The French had set more fires among sheds on the river bank and Sharpe now ducked beneath the billowing smoke to kick open half-burned doors. There was a pile of tarred nets smouldering in one shed, but in the next there was a black-painted skiff with a fine spiked bow that curved up like a hook. The shed had been fired, but the flames had not reached the skiff and Sharpe managed to drag it halfway out of the door before Lieutenant Vicente arrived and helped him pull the boat all the way out of the smoke. The other sheds were too well alight, but at least this one boat was saved and Sharpe reckoned it could hold about half a dozen men safely, which meant that it would take the rest of the day to ferry everyone across the wide river. Sharpe was about to ask Vicente to look for oars or paddles when he saw that the young man’s face was white and shaken, almost as if the Lieutenant was on the point of tears. ‘What is it?’ Sharpe asked.

Vicente did not answer, but merely pointed back to the village.

‘The French were having games with the ladies, eh?’ Sharpe asked, setting off for the houses.

‘I would not call it games,’ Vicente said bitterly, ‘and there is also a prisoner.’

‘Only one?’

‘There are two others,’ Vicente said, frowning, ‘but this one is a lieutenant. He had no breeches which is why he was slow to run.’

Sharpe did not ask why the captured dragoon had no breeches. He knew why. ‘What have you done with him?’

‘He must go on trial,’ Vicente said.

Sharpe stopped and stared at the Lieutenant. ‘He must what?’ he asked, astonished. ‘Go on trial?’

‘Of course.’

‘In my country,’ Sharpe said, ‘they hang a man for rape.’

‘Not without a trial,’ Vicente protested and Sharpe guessed that the Portuguese soldiers had wanted to kill the prisoner straight away and that Vicente had stopped them out of some high-minded idea that a trial was necessary.

‘Bloody hell,’ Sharpe said, ‘you’re a soldier now, not a lawyer. You don’t give them a trial. You chop their hearts out.’

Most of Barca d’Avintas’s inhabitants had fled the dragoons, but some had stayed and most of them were now crowded about a house guarded by a half-dozen of Vicente’s men. A dead dragoon, stripped of shirt, coat, boots and breeches, lay face down in front of the church. He must have been leaning against the church wall when he was shot for he had left a smear of blood down the limewashed stones. Now a dog sniffed at his toes. The soldiers and villagers parted to let Sharpe and Vicente into the house where the young dragoon officer, fair-haired, thin and sullen-faced, was being guarded by Sergeant Macedo and another Portuguese soldier. The Lieutenant had managed to pull on his breeches, but had not had time to button them and he was now holding them up by the waist. As soon as he saw Sharpe he began gabbling in French. ‘You speak French?’ Sharpe asked Vicente.

‘Of course,’ Vicente said.

But Vicente, Sharpe reflected, wanted to give this fair-haired Frenchman a trial and Sharpe suspected that if Vicente interrogated the man he would not learn the real truth, merely hear the excuses, so Sharpe went to the house door. ‘Harper!’ He waited till the Sergeant appeared. ‘Get me Tongue or Harris,’ he ordered.

‘I will talk to the man,’ Vicente protested.

‘I need you to talk to someone else,’ Sharpe said and he went to the back room where a girl – she could not have been a day over fourteen – was weeping. Her face was red, eyes swollen and her breath came in fitful jerks interspersed with grizzling moans and cries of despair. She was wrapped in a blanket and had a bruise on her left cheek. An older woman, dressed all in black, was trying to comfort the girl who began to cry even louder the moment she saw Sharpe, making him back out of the room in embarrassment. ‘Find out from her what happened,’ he told Vicente, then turned as Harris came through the door. Harris and Tongue were Sharpe’s two educated men. Tongue had been doomed to the army by drink, while the red-haired, ever cheerful Harris claimed to be a volunteer who wanted adventure. He was getting plenty now, Sharpe reflected. ‘This piece of shit,’ Sharpe told Harris, jerking his head at the fair-haired Frenchman, ‘was caught with his knickers round his ankles and a young girl under him. Find out what his excuse is before we kill the bastard.’

He went back to the street and took a long drink from his canteen. The water was warm and brackish. Harper was waiting by a horse trough in the centre of the street and Sharpe joined him. ‘All well?’

‘There’s two more Frogs in there.’ Harper flicked a thumb towards the church behind him. ‘Live ones, I mean.’ The church door was guarded by four of Vicente’s men.

‘What are they doing in there?’ Sharpe asked. ‘Praying?’

The tall Ulsterman shrugged. ‘Looking for sanctuary, I’d guess.’

‘We can’t take the bastards with us,’ Sharpe said, ‘so why don’t we just shoot them?’

‘Because Mister Vicente says we mustn’t,’ Harper said. ‘He’s very particular about prisoners is Mister Vicente. He’s a lawyer, isn’t he?’

‘He seems halfway decent for a lawyer,’ Sharpe admitted grudgingly.

‘The best lawyers are six feet under the daisies, so they are,’ Harper said, ‘and this one won’t let me go and shoot those two bastards. He says they’re just drunks, which is true. They are. Skewed to the skies, they are.’

‘We can’t cope with prisoners,’ Sharpe said. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, then pulled his shako back on. The visor was coming away from the crown, but there was nothing he could do about that here. ‘Get Tongue,’ he suggested, ‘and see if he can find out what these two were up to. If they’re just drunk on communion wine then march them out west, strip them of anything valuable and boot them back where they came from. But if they raped anyone …’

‘I know what to do, sir,’ Harper said grimly.

‘Then do it,’ Sharpe said. He nodded to Harper, then walked on past the church to where the stream joined the river. The small stone bridge carried the road eastwards through a vineyard, past a walled cemetery and then twisted through pastureland beside the Douro. It was all open land and if more French came and he had to retreat from the village then he dared not use that road and he hoped to God he had time to ferry his men over the Douro and that thought made him go back up the street to look for oars. Or maybe he could find a rope? If the rope were long enough he could rig a line across the river and haul the boat back and forth and that would surely be quicker than rowing.

He was wondering if there were bell ropes in the small church that might stretch that far when Harris came out of the house and said that the prisoner’s name was Lieutenant Olivier and he was in the 18th Dragoons and that the Lieutenant, despite being caught with his breeches round his ankles, had denied raping the girl. ‘He said French officers don’t behave like that,’ Harris said, ‘but Lieutenant Vicente says the girl swears he did.’

‘So did he or didn’t he?’ Sharpe asked irritably.

‘Of course he did, sir. He admitted as much after I thumped him,’ Harris said happily, ‘but he still insists she wanted him to. He says she wanted comforting after a sergeant raped her.’

‘Wanted comforting!’ Sharpe said scathingly. ‘He was just second in line, wasn’t he?’

‘Fifth in line,’ Harris said tonelessly, ‘or so the girl says.’

‘Jesus,’ Sharpe swore. ‘Why don’t I just give the bugger a smacking, then we’ll string him up.’ He walked back to the house where the civilians were screaming at the Frenchman, who gazed at them with a disdain that would have been admirable on a battlefield. Vicente was protecting the dragoon and now appealed to Sharpe for help to escort Lieutenant Olivier to safety. ‘He must stand trial,’ Vicente insisted.

‘He just had a trial,’ Sharpe said, ‘and I found him guilty. So now I’ll thump him and then I’ll hang him.’

Vicente looked nervous, but he did not back down. ‘We cannot lower ourselves to their level of barbarity,’ he claimed.

‘I didn’t rape her,’ Sharpe said, ‘so don’t place me with them.’

‘We fight for a better world,’ Vicente declared.

For a second Sharpe just stared at the young Portuguese officer, scarce believing what he had heard. ‘What happens if we leave him here, eh?’

‘We can’t!’ Vicente said, knowing that the villagers would take a far worse revenge than anything Sharpe was proposing.

‘And I can’t take prisoners!’ Sharpe insisted.

‘We can’t kill him’ – Vicente was blushing with indignation as he confronted Sharpe and he would not back down – ‘and we can’t leave him here. It would be murder.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ Sharpe said in exasperation. Lieutenant Olivier did not speak English, but he seemed to understand that his fate was in the balance and he watched Sharpe and Vicente like a hawk. ‘And who’s going to be the judge and jury?’ Sharpe demanded, but Vicente got no opportunity to answer for just then a rifle fired from the western edge of the village and then another sounded and then there was a whole rattle of shots.

The French had come back.

Colonel James Christopher liked wearing the hussar uniform. He decided it suited him and he spent a long time admiring himself in the pier glass in the farmhouse’s largest bedroom, turning left and right, and marvelling at the feeling of power conveyed by the uniform. He deduced it came from the long tasselled boots and from the jacket’s high stiff collar that forced a man to stand upright with his head back, and from the fit of the jacket that was so tight that Christopher, who was lean and fit, still had to suck in his belly to fasten the hooks and eyes down its silver-laced front. The uniform made him feel encased in authority, and the elegance of the outfit was enhanced by the fur-edged pelisse that was draped from his left shoulder and by the silver-chained sabre scabbard that chinked as he went downstairs and as he paced up and down the terrace where he waited for his guest. He put a sliver of wood into his mouth, obsessively working it between his teeth as he gazed at the distant smear of smoke which showed where buildings burned in the captured city. A handful of fugitives had stopped at the farm to beg for food and Luis had talked with them and then told Christopher that hundreds if not thousands of people had drowned when the pontoon bridge broke. The refugees claimed that the French had wrecked the bridge with cannon fire and Luis, his hatred of the enemy fuelled by the false rumour, eyed his master with a surly expression until Christopher had finally lost his patience. ‘It is only a uniform, Luis! It is not a sign of a changed allegiance!’

‘A French uniform,’ Luis had complained.

‘You wish Portugal to be free of the French?’ Christopher snapped. ‘Then behave respectfully and forget this uniform.’

Now Christopher paced the terrace, picking at his teeth and constantly watching the road that led across the hill. The clock in the farm’s elegant parlour struck three and no sooner had the last chime faded than a large column of cavalry appeared across the far crest. They were dragoons and they came in force to make sure that no partisans or fugitive Portuguese troops gave trouble to the officer who rode to meet Christopher.

The dragoons, all from the 18th regiment, wheeled away into the fields beneath the farmhouse where a stream offered water for their horses. The cavalrymen’s rose-fronted green coats were white with dust. Some, seeing Christopher in his French hussar’s uniform, offered a hasty salute, but most ignored him and just led their horses towards the stream as the Englishman turned to greet his visitor.

His name was Argenton and he was a captain and the Adjutant of the 18th Dragoons and it was plain from his smile that he knew and liked Colonel Christopher. ‘The uniform becomes you,’ Argenton said.

‘I found it in Oporto,’ Christopher said. ‘It belonged to a poor fellow who was a prisoner and died of the fever and a tailor trimmed it to size for me.’

‘He did well,’ Argenton said admiringly. ‘Now all you need are the cadenettes.’

‘The cadenettes?’

‘The pigtails,’ Argenton explained, touching his temples where the French hussars grew their hair long to mark themselves as elite cavalrymen. ‘Some men go bald and have wigmakers attach false cadenettes to their shakoes or colbacks.’

‘I’m not sure I want to grow pigtails,’ Christopher said, amused, ‘but perhaps I can find some girl with black hair and cut off a pair of tails, eh?’

‘A good idea,’ Argenton said. He watched approvingly as his escort set picquets, then smiled his thanks as a very sullen-looking Luis brought him and Christopher glasses of vinho verde, the golden white wine of the Douro valley. Argenton sipped the wine cautiously and was surprised that it was so good. He was a slight man with a frank, open face and red hair that was damp with sweat and marked where his helmet had been. He smiled easily, a reflection of his trusting nature. Christopher rather despised the Frenchman, but knew he would be useful.

Argenton drained the wine. ‘Did you hear about the drownings in Oporto?’ he asked.

‘My servant says you broke the bridge.’

‘They would say that,’ Argenton said regretfully. ‘The bridge collapsed under the weight of the refugees. It was an accident. A sad accident, but if the people had stayed in their homes and given our men a decent welcome then there wouldn’t have been any panic at the bridge. They’d all be alive now. As it is, we’re being blamed, but it had nothing to do with us. The bridge wasn’t strong enough and who built the bridge? The Portuguese.’

‘A sad accident, as you say,’ Christopher said, ‘but all the same I must congratulate you on your swift capture of Oporto. It was a notable feat of arms.’

‘It would have been still more notable,’ Argenton observed, ‘if the opposition had been better soldiers.’

‘I trust your losses were not extravagant?’

‘A handful,’ Argenton said dismissively, ‘but half of our regiment was sent eastwards and they lost a good few men in an ambush by the river. An ambush’ – he looked accusingly at Christopher – ‘in which some British riflemen took part. I didn’t think there were any British troops in Oporto?’

‘There shouldn’t have been,’ Christopher said, ‘I ordered them south of the river.’

‘Then they disobeyed you,’ Argenton said.

‘Did any of the riflemen die?’ Christopher asked, mildly hoping that Argenton would have news of Sharpe’s death.

‘I wasn’t there. I’m posted to Oporto where I find billets, look for rations and do the errands of war.’

‘Which I am sure you discharge admirably,’ Christopher said smoothly, then led his guest into the farmhouse where Argenton admired the tiles about the dining-room hearth and the simple iron chandelier that hung above the table. The meal itself was commonplace enough: chicken, beans, bread, cheese and a good country red wine, but Captain Argenton was complimentary. ‘We’ve been on short rations,’ he explained, ‘but that should change now. We’ve found plenty of food in Oporto and a warehouse stuffed to the rafters with good British powder and shot.’

‘You were short of those too?’ Christopher asked.

‘We have plenty,’ Argenton said, ‘but the British powder is better than our own. We have no source of saltpetre except what we scrape from cesspit walls.’

Christopher grimaced at the thought. The best saltpetre, an essential element of gunpowder, came from India and he had never considered that there might be a shortage in France. ‘I assume,’ he said, ‘that the powder was a British gift to the Portuguese.’

‘Who have now given it to us,’ Argenton said, ‘much to Marshal Soult’s delight.’

‘Then it is time, perhaps,’ Christopher suggested, ‘that we made the Marshal unhappy.’

‘Indeed,’ Argenton said, ‘indeed,’ and then fell silent because they had reached the purpose of their meeting.

It was a strange purpose, but an exciting one. The two men were plotting mutiny. Or rebellion. Or a coup against Marshal Soult’s army. But however it was described it was a ploy that might end the war.

There was, Argenton now explained, a great deal of dissatisfaction in Marshal Soult’s army. Christopher had heard all this before from his guest, but he did not interrupt as Argenton rehearsed the arguments that would justify his disloyalty. He described how some officers, all devout Catholics, were mortally offended by their army’s behaviour in Spain and Portugal. Churches had been desecrated, nuns raped. ‘Even the holy sacraments have been defiled,’ Argenton said in a horrified tone.

‘I can hardly believe it,’ Christopher said.

Other officers, a few, were simply opposed to Bonaparte. Argenton was a Catholic monarchist, but he was willing to make common cause with those men who still held Jacobin sympathies and believed that Bonaparte had betrayed the revolution. ‘They cannot be trusted, of course,’ Argenton said, ‘not in the long run, but they will join us in resisting Bonaparte’s tyranny.’

‘I pray they do,’ Christopher said. The British government had long known that there was a shadowy league of French officers who opposed Bonaparte. They called themselves the Philadelphes and London had once sent agents in search of their elusive brotherhood, but had finally concluded that their numbers were too few, their ideals too vague and their supporters too ideologically divided for the Philadelphes ever to succeed.

Yet here, in remote northern Portugal, the various opponents of Bonaparte had found a common cause. Christopher had first got wind of that cause when he talked with a French officer who had been taken prisoner on Portugal’s northern border and who had been living in Braga where, having given his parole, his only restriction was to remain within the barracks for his own protection. Christopher had drunk with the unhappy officer and heard a tale of French unrest that sprang from one man’s absurd ambition.

Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, Marshal of France and commander of the army that was now invading Portugal, had seen other men who served the Emperor become princes, even kings, and he reckoned his own dukedom was a poor reward for a career that outshone almost all the Emperor’s other marshals. Soult had been a soldier for twenty-four years, a general for fifteen and a marshal for five. At Austerlitz, the greatest of all the Emperor’s victories so far, Marshal Soult had covered himself with glory, far outfighting Marshal Bernadotte who, nevertheless, was now Prince of Ponte Corvo. Jérôme Bonaparte, the Emperor’s youngest brother, was an idle, extravagant wastrel, yet he was King of Westphalia while Marshal Murat, a hot-headed braggart, was King of Naples. Louis Napoleon, another of the Emperor’s brothers, was King of Holland, and all those men were nonentities while Soult, who knew his own high worth, was a mere duke and it was not enough.

But now the ancient throne of Portugal was empty. The royal family, fearing the French invasion, had fled to Brazil and Soult wanted to occupy the vacant chair. Colonel Christopher, at first, had not believed the tale, but the prisoner had sworn its truth and Christopher had talked with some of the other few prisoners who had been captured in skirmishes on the northern frontier and all claimed to have heard much the same story. It was no secret, they said, that Soult had royal pretensions, but the paroled officers also told Christopher that the Marshal’s ambitions had soured many of his own officers, who disliked the idea that they should fight and suffer so far from home only to put Nicolas Soult on an empty chair. There was talk of mutiny and Christopher had been wondering how he could discover whether that mutinous talk was serious when Captain Argenton approached him.

Argenton, with great daring, had been travelling in northern Portugal, dressed in civilian clothes and claiming to be a wine merchant from Upper Canada. If he had been caught he would have been shot as a spy, for Argenton was not exploring the land ahead of the French armies, but rather trying to discover pliable Portuguese aristocrats who would encourage Soult in his ambitions, for if the Marshal was to declare himself King of Portugal or, more modestly, King of Northern Lusitania, then he first needed to be persuaded that there were men of influence in Portugal who would support that usurpation of the vacant throne. Argenton had been talking with such men and Christopher, to his surprise, discovered there were plenty of aristocrats, churchmen and scholars in northern Portugal who hated their own monarchy and believed that a foreign king from an enlightened France would be of benefit to their country. So letters were being collected that would encourage Soult to declare himself king.

And when that happened, Argenton had promised Christopher, the army would mutiny. The war had to be stopped, Argenton said, or else, like a great fire, it would consume all Europe. It was a madness, he said, a madness of the Emperor who seemed intent on conquering the whole world. ‘He believes he is Alexander the Great,’ the Frenchman said gloomily, ‘and if he doesn’t stop then there will be nothing left of France. Who are we to fight? Everyone? Austria? Prussia? Britain? Spain? Portugal? Russia?’

‘Never Russia,’ Christopher said, ‘even Bonaparte is not that mad.’

‘He is mad,’ Argenton insisted, ‘and we must rid France of him.’ And the start of the process, he believed, would be the mutiny that would surely erupt when Soult declared himself a king.

‘Your army is unhappy,’ Christopher allowed, ‘but will they follow you into mutiny?’

‘I would not lead it,’ Argenton said, ‘but there are men who will. And those men want to take the army back to France and that, I assure you, is what most of the soldiers want. They will follow.’

‘Who are these leaders?’ Christopher asked swiftly.

Argenton hesitated. Any mutiny was a dangerous business and if the identities of the leaders became known then there could be an orgy of firing squads.