Sharpe’s Battle: The Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, May 1811

And it would begin, with a little cunning from Ducos and his most secret agent, on the banks of the Coa near the fortress of Almeida.

‘This is a chance, Sharpe, upon my soul it is a chance. A veritable chance. Not many chances come in a man’s life and a man must seize them. My father taught me that. He was a bishop, you see, and a fellow doesn’t rise from being curate to bishop without seizing his chances. You comprehend me?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Colonel Claud Runciman’s massive buttocks were well set on the inn bench while before him, on a plain wooden table, were the remnants of a huge meal. There were chicken bones, the straggling stalks of a bunch of grapes, orange peel, rabbit vertebrae, a piece of unidentifiable gristle and a collapsed wineskin. The copious food had forced Colonel Runciman to unbutton his coat, waistcoat and shirt in order to loosen the strings of his corset and the subsequent distending of his belly had stretched a watch chain hung thick with seals tight across a strip of pale, drum-taut flesh. The Colonel belched prodigiously. ‘There’s a hunchbacked girl somewhere about who serves the food, Sharpe,’ Runciman said. ‘If you see the lass, tell her I’ll take some pie. With some cheese, perhaps. But not if it’s goat’s cheese. Can’t abide goat’s cheese; it gives me spleen, d’you see?’ Runciman’s red coat had the yellow facings and silver lace of the 37th, a good line regiment from Hampshire that had not seen the Colonel’s ample shadow in many a year. Recently Runciman had been the Wagon Master General in charge of the drivers and teams of the Royal Wagon Train and their auxiliary Portuguese muleteers, but now he had been appointed liaison officer to the Real Compañía Irlandesa.

‘It’s an honour, of course,’ he told Sharpe, ‘but neither unexpected nor undeserved. I told Wellington when he made me Wagon Master General that I’d do the job as a favour to him, but that I expected a reward for it. A fellow doesn’t want to spend his life thumping sense into thick-witted wagon drivers, good God, no. There’s the hunchback, Sharpe! There she is! Stop her, Sharpe, there’s a kind fellow! Tell her I want pie and a proper cheese!’

The pie and cheese were arranged and another wine-skin was fetched, along with a bowl of cherries, to satisfy the last possible vestiges of Runciman’s appetite. A group of cavalry officers sitting at a table on the far side of the yard were making wagers on how much food Runciman could consume, but Runciman was oblivious of their mockery. ‘It’s a chance,’ he said again when he was well tucked into his pie. ‘I can’t tell what’s in it for you, of course, because a chap like you probably doesn’t expect too much out of life anyway, but I reckon I’ve got a chance at a Golden Fleece.’ He peered up at Sharpe. ‘You do know what real means, don’t you?’

‘Royal, sir.’

‘So you’re not completely uneducated then, eh? Royal indeed, Sharpe. The royal guard! These Irish fellows are royal! Not a pack of common carriers and mule-drivers. They’ve got royal connections, Sharpe, and that means royal rewards! I’ve half an idea that the Spanish court might even give a pension with the Order of the Golden Fleece. The thing comes with a nice star and a golden collar, but a pension would be very acceptable. A reward for a job well done, don’t you see? And that’s just from the Spanish! The good Lord alone knows what London might cough up. A knighthood? The Prince Regent will want to know we’ve done a good job, Sharpe, he’ll take an interest, don’t you see? He’ll be expecting us to treat these fellows proper, as befits a royal guard. Order of the Bath at the very least, I should think. Maybe even a viscountcy? And why not? There’s only one problem.’ Colonel Runciman belched again, then raised a buttock for a few seconds. ‘My God, but that’s better,’ he said. ‘Let the effusions out, that’s what my doctor says. There’s no future in keeping noxious effusions in the body, he tells me, in case the body rots from within. Now, Sharpe, the fly in our unguent is the fact these royal guards are all Irish. Have you ever commanded the Irish?’

‘A few, sir.’

‘Well, I’ve commanded dozens of the rogues. Ever since they amalgamated the Train with the Irish Corps of Wagoners, and there ain’t much about the Irish that I don’t know. Ever served in Ireland, Sharpe?’

‘No, sir.’

‘I was there once. Garrison duty at Dublin Castle. Six months of misery, Sharpe, without a single properly cooked meal. God knows, Sharpe, I strive to be a good Christian and to love my fellow man, but the Irish do sometimes make it difficult. Not that some of them ain’t the nicest fellows you could ever meet, but they can be obtuse! Dear me, Sharpe, I sometimes wondered if they were gulling me. Pretending not to understand the simplest orders. Do you find that? And there’s something else, Sharpe. We’ll have to be politic, you and I. The Irish’ – and here Runciman leaned awkwardly forward as though confiding something important to Sharpe – ‘are very largely Romish, Sharpe. Papists! We shall have to watch our theological discourse if we’re not to unsettle their tempers! You and I might know that the Pope is the reincarnation of the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, but it won’t help our cause if we say it out loud. Know what I mean?’

‘You mean there’ll be no Golden Fleece, sir?’

‘Good fellow, knew you’d comprehend. Exactly. We have to be diplomatic, Sharpe. We have to be understanding. We have to treat these fellows as if they were Englishmen.’ Runciman thought about that statement, then frowned. ‘Or almost English, anyway. You came up from the ranks, ain’t that right? So these things might not be obvious to you, but if you just remember to keep silent about the Pope you can’t go far wrong. And tell your chaps the same,’ he added hastily.

‘A fair number of my fellows are Catholics themselves, sir,’ Sharpe said. ‘And Irish.’

‘They would be, they would be. A third of this army is Irish! If there was ever a mutiny, Sharpe …’ Colonel Runciman shuddered at the prospect of the papist redcoats running wild. ‘Well, it doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?’ he went on. ‘So ignore their infamous heresies, Sharpe, just ignore them. Ignorance is the only possible cause for papism, my dear father always said, and a burning at the stake the only known cure. He was a bishop, so he understood these matters. Oh, and one other thing, Sharpe, I’d be obliged if you didn’t call me Colonel Runciman. They haven’t replaced me yet, so I’m still the Wagon Master General, so it ought to be General Runciman.’

‘Of course, General,’ Sharpe said, hiding a smile. After nineteen years in the army he knew Colonel Runciman’s type. The man had purchased his promotions all the way to lieutenant colonel and there got stuck because promotion above that rank depended entirely on seniority and merit, but if Runciman wanted to be called General then Sharpe would play along for a while. He also sensed that Runciman was hardly likely to prove a difficult man so there was small point in antagonizing him.

‘Good fellow! Ah! You see that scrawny chap who’s just going?’ Runciman pointed to a man leaving the inn through its arched entrance. ‘I swear he’s left half a skin of wine on his table. See it? Go and snaffle it, Sharpe, there’s a stout fellow, before that hunchbacked girl gets her paws on it. I’d go myself, but the damn gout is pinching me something hard today. Off you go, man, I’m thirsty!’

Sharpe was saved the indignity of scavenging the tables like a beggar by the arrival of Major Michael Hogan who waved Sharpe back towards the wreckage of Runciman’s luncheon. ‘Good afternoon to you, Colonel,’ Hogan said, ‘and it’s a grand day too, is it not?’ Hogan, Sharpe noticed, was deliberately exaggerating his Irish accent.

‘Hot,’ Runciman said, dabbing with his napkin at the perspiration that dripped down his plump cheeks and then, suddenly conscious of his naked belly, he vainly tried to tug the edges of his corset together. ‘Damnably hot,’ he said.

‘It’s the sun, Colonel,’ Hogan said very earnestly. ‘I’ve noticed that the sun seems to heat up the day. Have you noticed that?’

‘Well, of course it’s the sun!’ Runciman said, confused.

‘So I’m right! Isn’t that amazing? But what about winter, Colonel?’

Runciman threw an anguished glance towards the abandoned wineskin. He was about to order Sharpe to fetch it when the serving girl whisked it away. ‘Damn,’ Runciman said sadly.

‘You spoke, Colonel?’ Hogan asked, helping himself to a handful of Runciman’s cherries.

‘Nothing, Hogan, nothing but a twinge of gout. I need some more Husson’s Water, but the stuff is damned hard to find. Maybe you could put a request to the Horse Guards in London? They must realize we need medication here? And one other thing, Hogan?’

‘Speak, Colonel. I am ever yours to command.’

Runciman coloured. He knew he was being mocked but, though he outranked the Irishman, he was nervous of Hogan’s intimacy with Wellington. ‘I am still, as you know, Wagon Master General,’ Runciman said heavily.

‘So you are, Colonel, so you are. And a damned fine one too, I might say. The Peer was only saying to me the other day. Hogan, says he, have you ever seen wagons so finely mastered in all your born days?’

‘Wellington said that?’ Runciman asked in astonishment.

‘He did, Colonel, he did.’

‘Well, I’m not really surprised,’ Runciman said. ‘My dear mother always said I had a talent for organization, Hogan. But the thing is, Major,’ Runciman went on, ‘that until a replacement is found then I am still the Wagon Master General’ – he stressed the word ‘General’ – ‘and I would be vastly obliged if you addressed me as –’

‘My dear Wagon Master,’ Hogan interrupted Runciman’s laborious request, ‘why didn’t you say so earlier? Of course I shall address you as Wagon Master, and I apologize for not thinking of that simple courtesy myself. But now, Wagon Master, if you’ll excuse me, the Real Compañía Irlandesa have reached the edge of town and we need to review them. If you’re ready?’ Hogan gestured to the inn’s gateway.

Runciman quailed at the prospect of exerting himself. ‘Right now, Hogan? This minute? But I can’t. Doctor’s orders. A man of my constitution needs to take a rest after …’ He paused, seeking the right word. ‘After …’ he went on and failed again.

‘Rest after labour?’ Hogan suggested sweetly. ‘Very well, Wagon Master, I’ll tell Lord Kiely you’ll meet him and his officers at General Valverde’s reception this evening while Sharpe takes the men up to San Isidro.’

‘This evening at Valverde’s, Hogan,’ Runciman agreed. ‘Very good. And Hogan. About my being Wagon Master General –’

‘No need to thank me, Wagon Master. You’d just embarrass me with gratitude, so not another word! I shall respect your wishes and tell everyone else to do the same. Now come, Richard! Where are your green fellows?’

‘In a taproom at the front of the inn, sir,’ Sharpe said. His riflemen were to join Sharpe in the San Isidro Fort, an abandoned stronghold on the Portuguese border, where they would help train the Real Compañía Irlandesa in musketry and skirmishing.

‘My God, Richard, but Runciman’s a fool!’ Hogan said happily as the two men walked through the inn’s gateway. ‘He’s a genial fool, but he must have been the worst Wagon Master General in history. McGilligan’s dog would have done a better job, and McGilligan’s dog was famously blind, epileptic and frequently drunk. You never knew McGilligan, did you? A good engineer, but he fell off the Old Mole at Gibraltar and drowned himself after drinking two quarts of sherry, God rest his soul. The poor dog was inconsolable and had to be shot. The 73rd Highlanders did the deed with a full firing party and military honours to follow. But Runciman’s just the fellow to flatter the Irish and make them think we’re taking them seriously, but that’s not your job. You understand me?’

‘No, sir,’ Sharpe said, ‘don’t understand you in the least, sir.’

‘You’re being awkward, Richard,’ Hogan said, then stopped and took hold of one of Sharpe’s silver coat buttons to emphasize his next words. ‘The object of all we now do is to upset Lord Kiely. Your job is to insert yourself into Lord Kiely’s fundament and be an irritant. We don’t want him here and we don’t want his bloody Royal Company here, but we can’t tell them to bugger off because it wouldn’t be diplomatic, so your job is to make them go away voluntarily. Oh! Sorry now,’ he apologized because the button had come away in his fingers. ‘The buggers are up to no good, Richard, and we have to find a diplomatic way of getting rid of them, so whatever you can do to upset them, do it, and rely on Runciman the Rotund to smooth things over so they don’t think we’re being deliberately rude.’ Hogan smiled. ‘They’ll just blame you for not being a gentleman.’

‘But I’m not, am I?’

‘As it happens, you are, it’s one of your faults, but let’s not worry about that now. Just get rid of Kiely for me, Richard, with all his merry men. Make them cringe! Make them suffer! But above all, Richard, please, please make the bastards go away.’

The Real Compañía Irlandesa might be called a company, but in fact it was a small battalion, one of the five that made up the household guard of Spain’s royalty. Three hundred and four guardsmen had been on the company’s books when it had last served in the Escorial Palace outside Madrid, but the imprisonment of Spain’s king and benign neglect by the occupying French had reduced its ranks, and the journey by sea around Spain to join the British army had thinned the files even more, so that by the time the Real Compañía Irlandesa paraded on the outskirts of Vilar Formoso there were a mere one hundred and sixty-three men left. The one hundred and sixty-three men were accompanied by thirteen officers, a chaplain, eighty-nine wives, seventy-four children, sixteen servants, twenty-two horses, a dozen mules, ‘and one mistress,’ Hogan told Sharpe.

‘One mistress?’ Sharpe asked in disbelief.

‘There’s probably a score of mistresses,’ Hogan said, ‘two score! A walking brothel, in all likelihood, but his Lordship tells me we have to arrange accommodation suitable for himself and a lady friend. Not that she’s here yet, you understand, but his Lordship tells me she’s coming. The Doña Juanita de Elia is supposed to charm her way across the enemy lines in order to warm his Lordship’s bed and if she’s the same Juanita de Elia that I’ve heard about then she’s well practised in bed warming. You know what they say of her? That she collects a uniform from the regiment of every man she sleeps with!’ Hogan chuckled.

‘If she crosses the lines here,’ Sharpe said, ‘she’ll be damned lucky to escape the Loup Brigade.’

‘How the hell do you know about Loup?’ Hogan asked instantly. For most of the time the Irishman was a genial and witty soul, but Sharpe knew the bonhomie disguised a very keen mind and the tone of the question was a sudden baring of that steel.

Yet Hogan was also a friend and for a split second Sharpe was tempted to confess how he had met the Brigadier and illegally executed two of his grey-uniformed soldiers, but then decided that was a deed best forgotten. ‘Everyone knows about Loup here,’ he answered instead. ‘You can’t spend a day on this frontier without hearing about Loup.’

‘That’s true enough,’ Hogan admitted, his suspicions allayed. ‘But don’t be tempted to inquire further, Richard. He’s a bad boy. Let me worry about Loup while you worry about that shambles.’ Hogan and Sharpe, followed by the riflemen, had turned a corner to see the Real Compañía Irlandesa slouching in parade order on a patch of waste land opposite a half-finished church. ‘Our new allies,’ Hogan said sourly, ‘believe it or not, in fatigue dress.’

Fatigue dress was meant to be a soldier’s duty uniform for everyday wear, but the fatigue uniform of the Real Compañía Irlandesa was much gaudier and smarter than the full dress finery of most British line battalions. The guardsmen wore short red jackets with black-edged, gilt-fringed swallowtails behind. The same gold-trimmed black cord edged their buttonholes and collars, while the facings, cuffs and turnbacks of their coats were of emerald green. Their breeches and waistcoats had once been white, their calf-length boots, belts and crossbelts were of black leather, while their sashes were green, the same green as the high plume that each man wore on the side of his black bicorne hat. The gilded hat badges showed a tower and a rearing lion, the same symbols that were displayed on the gorgeous green and gold shoulder sashes worn by the sergeants and drummer boys. As Sharpe walked closer he saw that the splendid uniforms were frayed, patched and discoloured, yet they still made a brave display in the bright spring sunshine. The men themselves looked anything but brave, instead appearing dispirited, weary and aggravated.

‘Where are their officers?’ Sharpe asked Hogan.

‘Gone to a tavern for luncheon.’

‘They don’t eat with their men?’

‘Evidently not.’ Hogan’s disapproval was acid, but not as bitter as Sharpe’s. ‘Now don’t be getting sympathetic, Richard,’ Hogan warned. ‘You’re not supposed to like these boys, remember?’

‘Do they speak English?’ Sharpe asked.

‘As well as you or I. About half of them are Irish born, the other half are descended from Irish emigrants, and a good few, I have to say, once wore red coats,’ Hogan said, meaning that they were deserters from the British army.

Sharpe turned and beckoned Harper towards him. ‘Let’s have a look at this palace guard, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Put ’em in open order.’

‘What do I call them?’ Harper asked.

‘Battalion?’ Sharpe guessed.

Harper took a deep breath. ‘’Talion! ’Shun!’ His voice was loud enough to make the closest men wince and the further ones jump in surprise, but only a few men snapped to attention. ‘For inspection! Open order march!’ Harper bellowed, and again very few guardsmen moved. Some just gaped at Harper while the majority looked towards their own sergeants for guidance. One of those gorgeously sashed sergeants came towards Sharpe, evidently to inquire what authority the riflemen possessed, but Harper did not wait for explanations. ‘Move, you bastards!’ he bellowed in his Donegal accent. ‘You’re in a war now, not guarding the royal pisspot. Behave like the good whores we all are and open up, now!’

‘And I can remember when you didn’t want to be a sergeant,’ Sharpe said to Harper under his breath as the startled guards at last obeyed the greenjacket Sergeant’s command. ‘Are you coming, Major?’ Sharpe asked Hogan.

‘I’ll wait here, Richard.’

‘Come on then, Pat,’ Sharpe said, and the two men began inspecting the company’s front rank. An inevitable band of small mocking boys from the town fell into step behind the two greenjackets and pretended to be officers, but a thump on the ear from the Irishman’s fist sent the boldest boy snivelling away and the others dispersed rather than face more punishment.

Sharpe inspected the muskets rather than the men, though he made sure that he looked into each soldier’s eyes in an attempt to gauge what kind of confidence and willingness these men had. The soldiers returned his inspection resentfully, and no wonder, Sharpe thought, for many of these guards were Irishmen who must have been feeling all kinds of confusion at being attached to the British army. They had volunteered for the Real Compañía Irlandesa to protect a Most Catholic King, yet here they were being harried by the army of a Protestant monarch. Worse still, many of them would be avid Irish patriots, fierce for their country as only exiles can be, yet now they were being asked to fight alongside the ranks of that country’s foreign oppressors. Yet, as Sharpe walked down the rank, he sensed more nervousness than anger and he wondered if these men were simply fearful of being asked to become proper soldiers for, if their muskets were any indication, the Real Compañía Irlandesa had long abandoned any pretensions to soldiering. Their muskets were a disgrace. The men carried the serviceable and sturdy Spanish-issue musket with its straight-backed hammer; however these guns were anything but serviceable, for there was rust on the locks and fouling caked inside the barrels. Some of them had no flints, others had no leather flint-seatings, while one gun did not even have the doghead screw to hold the flint in place. ‘Did you ever fire this musket, son?’ Sharpe asked the soldier.

‘No, sir.’

‘Have you ever fired a musket, son?’

The boy looked nervously towards his own sergeant. ‘Answer the officer, lad!’ Harper growled.

‘Once, sir. One day,’ the soldier said. ‘Just the once.’

‘If you wanted to kill someone with this gun, son, you’d have to beat them over the head with it. Mind you’ – Sharpe pushed the musket back into the soldier’s hands – ‘you look big enough for that.’

‘What’s your name, soldier?’ Harper asked him.

‘Rourke, sir.’

‘Don’t call me “sir”. I’m a sergeant. Where are you from?’

‘My da’s from Galway, Sergeant.’

‘And I’m from Tangaveane in County Donegal and I’m ashamed, boy, ashamed, that a fellow Irishman can’t keep a gun in half decent order. Jesus, boy, you couldn’t shoot a Frenchman with that thing, let alone an Englishman.’ Harper unslung his own rifle and held it under Rourke’s nose. ‘Look at that, boy! Clean enough to pick the dirt out of King George’s nose. That’s how a gun should look! ’Ware right, sir.’ Harper added the last three words under his breath.

Sharpe turned to see two horsemen galloping across the waste ground towards him. The horses’ hooves spurted dust. The leading horse was a fine black stallion being ridden by an officer who was wearing the gorgeous uniform of the Real Compañía Irlandesa and whose coat, saddlecloth, hat and trappings fairly dripped with gold tassels, fringes and loops. The second horseman was equally splendidly uniformed and mounted, while behind them a small group of other riders curbed their horses when Hogan intercepted them. The Irish Major, still on foot, hurried after the two leading horsemen, but was too late to stop them from reaching Sharpe. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ the first man asked as he reined in above Sharpe. He had a thin, tanned face with a moustache trained and greased into fine points. Sharpe guessed the man was still in his twenties, but despite his youth he possessed a sour and ravaged face that had all the effortless superiority of a creature born to high office.

‘I’m making an inspection,’ Sharpe answered coldly.

The second man reined in on Sharpe’s other side. He was older than his companion and was wearing the bright-yellow coat and breeches of a Spanish dragoon, though the uniform was so crusted with looped chains and gold frogging that Sharpe assumed the man had to be at least a general. His thin, moustached face had the same imperious air as his companion’s. ‘Haven’t you learned to ask a commanding officer’s permission before inspecting his men?’ he asked with a distinct Spanish accent, then snapped an order in Spanish to his younger companion.

‘Sergeant Major Noonan,’ the younger man shouted, evidently relaying the older man’s command, ‘close order, now!’

The Real Compañía Irlandesa’s Sergeant Major obediently marched the men back into close order just as Hogan reached Sharpe’s side. ‘There you are, my Lords’ – Hogan was addressing both horsemen – ‘and how was your Lordships’ luncheon?’

‘It was shit, Hogan. I wouldn’t feed it to a hound,’ the younger man, whom Sharpe assumed was Lord Kiely, said in a brittle voice that dripped with aloofness but was also touched by the faint slur of alcohol. His Lordship, Sharpe decided, had drunk well at lunch, well enough to loosen whatever inhibitions he might have possessed. ‘You know this creature, Hogan?’ His Lordship now waved towards Sharpe.

‘Indeed I do, my Lord. Allow me to name Captain Richard Sharpe of the South Essex, the man Wellington himself chose to be your tactical adviser. And Richard? I have the honour to present the Earl of Kiely, Colonel of the Real Compañía Irlandesa.’

Kiely looked grimly at the tattered rifleman. ‘So you’re supposed to be our drillmaster?’ He sounded dubious.

‘I give lessons in killing too, my Lord,’ Sharpe said.