Sharpe’s Devil: Napoleon and South America, 1820–1821

Sharpe, who had been prepared by Blair for every kind of official obstructiveness, dared not believe his good fortune. The Espiritu Santo could indeed solve all his problems, but Marquinez had qualified his optimism with one cautious word that Sharpe now echoed as a tentative query. ‘Fortunate?’

‘Besides the permit to travel to Puerto Crucero,’ Marquinez explained, ‘you will need a permit to exhume Don Blas’s body. That permit is issued by the church, of course, but I’m sure the Bishop will be eager to satisfy the Dowager Countess of Mouromorto. However, you should understand that sometimes the church is, how shall I say? Dilatory?’

‘We came prepared for such difficulties,’ Sharpe said.

‘How so?’ The question was swift.

‘The church must have charities dear to its heart?’

‘How very thoughtful of you.’ Marquinez, relieved that Sharpe had so swiftly understood the obstacle, offered his guests a dazzling smile and Sharpe wondered how a man kept his teeth so white. Marquinez then held up a warning hand. ‘We mustn’t forget the necessary licence to export a body. There is a disease risk, you understand, and we have to satisfy ourselves that every precaution has been taken.’

‘We came well prepared,’ Sharpe said dourly. The requirements, so far as he could see, were two massive bribes. One to the church which, in Sharpe’s experience, was always greedy for cash, and the other to the army authorities to secure the travel permit and for the licence to export a body, which licence, Sharpe suspected, had just been dreamed up by the inventive Marquinez. Doña Louisa, Sharpe thought, had understood Chile perfectly when she had insisted on sending him with the big chest of coins. Sharpe smiled at the charming Marquinez. ‘So when, señor, may we expect a travel permit? Today?’

‘Oh, dear me, no!’ Marquinez frowned, as though Sharpe’s suggestion of such haste was somehow unseemly.

‘Soon?’ Sharpe pressed.

‘The decision is not mine,’ Marquinez said happily.

‘Our affairs will surely not be of interest to Captain-General Bautista?’ Sharpe said with what he hoped was a convincing innocence.

‘The Captain-General is interested in all our visitors, especially those who have been notable soldiers.’ Marquinez bowed to Sharpe, whose fame had been described in Louisa’s letter of introduction. ‘Tell me,’ Marquinez went on, ‘were you at Waterloo?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I am sure the Captain-General will want to meet you. General Bautista is an aficionado of the Emperor. He would, I think, be delighted to hear of your experiences.’ Marquinez beamed delightedly, as if a mutual treat awaited his master and Sharpe. ‘Such a pleasure to meet you both!’ Marquinez said, then ushered them back to the guardroom. ‘Such a pleasure,’ he said again.

‘So how did it go?’ Blair asked when they returned.

‘Very well,’ Sharpe said. ‘All things considered it couldn’t have gone much better.’

‘That means you’re in trouble,’ Blair said happily, ‘that means you’re in trouble.’

That night it rained so heavily that the town ditch flooded with earth-reddened water which, in the moonlight, looked like blood. Blair became drunk. He bemoaned that his wife was still in Liverpool and commiserated with Sharpe and Harper that their wives were, respectively, in France and Ireland. ‘You live in bloody France?’ Blair kept asking the question as though to dilute the astonishment he evidently felt for Sharpe’s choice of a home. ‘Bloody funny place to live, I mean if you’ve been fighting the buggers. It must be like a fox moving in with the rabbits!’

Sharpe tried to talk of more immediate matters, like Captain-General Bautista and his fascination for Napoleon, but Blair did not want to talk about the Spanish commander. ‘He’s a bastard. A son of a whore bastard, and that’s all there is to say about him.’ It was clear that Blair, despite his privileged status as a diplomat, feared the Spanish commander.

‘Are you saying he’s illegitimate?’ Sharpe asked disingenuously.

‘Oh, Christ, no.’ Blair glanced at the servants as though fearing they had suddenly learned English and would report this conversation to Bautista’s spies. ‘Bautista’s a younger son, so he needs to make his own fortune. He got his posting here because his father is a minister in Ferdinand VII’s government, and he greased his son a commission in the artillery and an appointment in Chile, because this is where the money is. But the rest Bautista did for himself. He’s capable! He’s efficient and a hard worker. He’s probably no soldier, but he’s no weakling. And he’s making himself rich.’

‘So he’s corrupt?’

‘Corrupt!’ Blair mocked the word. ‘Of course he’s corrupt. They’re all corrupt. I’m corrupt! Everyone here knows the bloody war is lost. It’s only a question of time before the Spaniards go and the Chileans can bugger up their own country instead of having someone else to do it for them, so what Bautista and his people are doing is making themselves rich before someone takes away the tray of baubles.’ Blair paused, sipped, then leaned closer to Sharpe. ‘Your friend Vivar wasn’t corrupt, which is why he made enemies, but Bautista, he’s a coming man! He’ll make his money then go home and use that money to buy himself office in Madrid. Mark my words, he’ll be the power in Spain before he’s fifty.’

‘How old is he now?’

‘He’s a youngster! Thirty, no more.’ Blair, clearly deciding he had said enough about the feared Bautista, pushed his glass to the end of the table for a servant girl to fill with a mixture of rum and wine. ‘If you want a whore, Colonel,’ Blair went on, ‘there’s a chingana behind the church. Ask for the girl they call La Monja!’ Blair rolled his eyes heavenwards to indicate what exquisite joys awaited Sharpe and Harper if they followed his advice. ‘She’s a mestiza.’

‘What’s a mestiza?’ Harper asked.

‘Half-breed, and that one’s half a woman and half a wildcat.’

‘I’d rather hear about Bautista,’ Sharpe said.

‘I’ve told you, there’s nothing to tell. Man’s a bastard. Cross him and you get butchered. He’s judge, jury and executioner here. He’s also horribly efficient. You want some more rum?’

Sharpe glanced at the two Indian girls who, holding their jugs of wine and rum, stood expressionless at the edge of the room. ‘No.’

‘You can have them, too,’ Blair said hospitably. ‘Help yourselves, both of you! I know they look like cows, but they know their way up and down a bed. No point in employing them otherwise. They can’t cook and their idea of cleaning a room is to rearrange the dirt, so what else are they good for? And in the dark you don’t know they’re savages, do you?’

Sharpe again tried to turn the conversation back to his own business. ‘I need to find the American Consul. Does he live close?’

‘What the hell do you want Fielding for?’ Blair sounded offended, as though Sharpe’s question suggested that Fielding was a better Consul than Blair.

Sharpe had no intention of revealing that he possessed a signed portrait of Napoleon which the American Consul was supposed to smuggle to a British Colonel now living in the rebel part of the country, so instead he made up a story about doing business for an American expatriate living in Normandy.

‘Well, you’re out of luck,’ Blair said with evident satisfaction. ‘Fielding’s away from Valdivia this week. One of his precious whaling boats was impounded by the Spanish navy, so he’s on Chiloe, trying to have the bribe reduced to something under a king’s ransom.’

‘Chiloe?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Island down south. Long way away. But Fielding will be back in a week or so.’

Sharpe hid his disappointment. He had been hoping to deliver the portrait quickly, then forget about the Emperor’s gift, but now, if he was to keep his promise to Bonaparte, he would have to find some other way of reaching Fielding. ‘Have you ever heard of a Lieutenant-Colonel Charles?’ he asked Blair, as casually as he could.

‘Charles? Of course I’ve heard of Charles. He’s one of O’Higgins’s military advisers.’

‘So he’s a rebel?’

‘Of course he’s a bloody rebel! Why else would he have come to Chile? He likes to fight, and Europe isn’t providing any proper wars these days, so all the rascals come over here and complicate my life instead. What do you want with Charles?’

‘Nothing,’ Sharpe said, then let the subject drop.

An hour later he and Harper went to their beds and lay listening to the water sluice off the tiles. The mattresses were full of fleas. ‘Like old times,’ Harper grumbled when they woke early.

Blair was also up at first light. The rain in the night had been so heavy that part of the misted square was flooded, and the inundation had turned the rubbish-choked ditch into a moat in which foul things floated. ‘A horrid day to travel,’ Blair complained when he met them in his parlour where coffee waited on the table. ‘It’ll be raining again within the hour, mark my words.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Down river. To the port.’ Blair groaned and rubbed his temples with his fingertips. ‘I’ve got to supervise some cargo loading, and probably see the Captain of the Charybdis.’

‘What’s the Charybdis?’ Harper asked.

‘Royal Navy frigate. We keep a squadron on the coast just to make sure the bloody dagoes don’t shoot any of our people. They know that if they upset me I’ll arrange to have their toy boats blown out of the water.’ Blair shivered, then groaned with pain. ‘Breakfast!’ he shouted towards the kitchens, then flinched as a muffled rattle of musketry sounded from the Citadel. ‘That’s another rebel gone,’ Blair said thickly. There was a second ragged volley. ‘Business is good this morning.’

‘Rebels?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Or some poor bugger caught with a gun and no money to bribe the patrol. They shove them up against the Angel Tower, say a quick Hail Mary, then send the buggers into eternity.’

‘The Angel Tower?’ Sharpe asked.

‘It’s that ancient lump of stone in the middle of the fort. The Spaniards built it when they first came here, way back in the dark ages. Bloody thing has survived earthquake, fire, and rebellion. It used to be a prison, but it’s empty now.’

‘Why is it called the Angel Tower?’ Harper asked.

‘Christ knows, but you know what the dagoes are like. Some drunken Spanish whore probably saw an angel on its top and the next thing you know they’re all weeping and praying and the priests are carrying round the collection plate. Where’s my goddamned bloody breakfast?’ he shouted towards the kitchen.

Blair, well-breakfasted at last, left for the harbour an hour later. ‘Don’t expect anything from Marquinez!’ he warned Sharpe. ‘They’ll promise you anything, but deliver nothing. You’ll not hear a word from that macaroni until you offer him a fat bribe.’

Yet, no sooner had Blair gone, than a message arrived from the Citadel asking Colonel Sharpe and Mister Harper to do the honour of attending on Captain Marquinez at their earliest opportunity. So, moments later, Sharpe and Harper crossed the bridge, walked through the tunnel that pierced the glacis, crossed the outer parade courtyard and so into the inner yard where two bodies lay like heaps of soiled rags under the bloodstained wall of the Angel Tower. Marquinez, greeting Sharpe in the courtyard, was embarrassed by the bodies. ‘A wagon is coming to take them to the cemetery. They were rebels, of course.’

‘Why don’t you just dump them in the ditch like the Indian babies?’ Sharpe asked Marquinez sourly.

‘Because the rebels are Christians, of course.’ Marquinez was bemused that the question had even been asked.

‘None of the Indians are Christian?’

‘Some of them are, I suppose,’ Marquinez said airily, ‘though personally I don’t know why the missionaries bother. One might as well offer the sacrament to a jabbering pack of monkeys. And they’re treacherous cretures. Turn your back and they’ll stab you. They’ve been rebelling against us for hundreds of years, and they never seem to learn that we always win in the end.’ Marquinez ushered Sharpe and Harper into a room with a high arched ceiling. ‘Will you be happy to wait here? The Captain-General would like to greet you.’

‘Bautista?’ Sharpe was taken aback.

‘Of course! We only have one Captain-General!’ Marquinez was suddenly all charm. ‘The Captain-General would like to welcome you to Chile himself. Captain Ardiles told him how you had a private audience with Bonaparte and, as I mentioned, the Captain-General has a fascination with the Emperor. So, do you mind waiting? I’ll have some coffee sent. Or would you prefer wine?’

‘I’d prefer our travel permits,’ Sharpe said truculently.

‘The matter is being considered, I do assure you. We must do whatever we can to look after the happiness of the Countess of Mouromorto. Now, if you will excuse me?’ Marquinez, with a confiding and dazzling smile, left them in the room which was furnished with a table, four chairs, and a crucifix hanging from a bent horseshoe nail. A broken saddle tree was discarded in one corner, while a lizard watched Sharpe from the curved ceiling. The room’s one window looked onto the execution yard. After an hour, during which no one came to fetch Sharpe and Harper, a wagon creaked into the yard and a detail of soldiers swung the two dead rebels onto the wagon’s bed.

Another hour passed, noted by the chiming of a clock somewhere deep in the fort. Neither wine, coffee, nor a summons from the Captain-General arrived. Captain Marquinez had disappeared, and the only clerk in the office behind the guardroom did not know where the Captain might be found. The rain fell miserably, slowly diluting the bloodstains on the limewashed wall of the Angel Tower.

The rain fell. Still no one came and, as the clock chimed another half hour, Sharpe’s patience finally snapped. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’

‘What about Bautista?’

‘Bugger Bautista.’ It seemed that Blair was right about the myriad of delays that the Spanish imposed on even the simplest bureaucratic procedure, but Sharpe did not have the patience to be the victim of such nonsense. ‘Let’s go.’

It was raining much harder now. Sharpe ran across the Citadel’s bridge, while Harper lumbered after. They splashed across the square’s cobbles, past the statue where the group of chained Indians still sat vacant under the cloudburst, to where a heavy wagon, loaded with untanned hides, was standing in front of Blair’s house. The untreated leather stank foully. A uniformed soldier was lounging under the Consul’s arched porch, beside the drooping British flag, apparently guarding the wagon’s stinking cargo. The day-dreaming soldier straightened as Sharpe approached. ‘You can’t go in there, señor

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