now, sir,’ Harper said, ‘only if the wound goes bad.’
‘Maggots?’ Vicente asked faintly. ‘Did you say maggots?’
‘Nothing better, sir,’ Harper said enthusiastically. ‘Best thing for a dirty wound. Put the little buggers in, they clean it up, leave the good flesh, and you’re good as new.’ He patted his haversack. ‘I always carry a half-dozen. Much better than going to a surgeon because all those bastards ever want to do is cut you up.’
‘I hate surgeons,’ Sharpe said.
‘He hates lawyers,’ Vicente said to Sarah, ‘and now he hates surgeons. Is there anyone he likes?’
‘Women,’ Sharpe said, ‘I do like women.’ He was looking over the city, listening to screams and shots, and he knew from the noise that French discipline had crumbled. Coimbra was in chaos, given over to lust, hate and fire. Three plumes of smoke were already boiling from the narrow streets to obscure the clear morning sky and he suspected more would soon join them. ‘They’re firing houses,’ he said, ‘and we’ve got work to do.’ He bent down and scooped up some pigeon dung that he pushed into the barrels of Harper’s volley gun. He used the stickiest he could find, carefully placing a small amount into each muzzle. ‘Ram it down, Pat,’ he said. The dung would act as wadding to hold the balls in place when the barrels were tipped downwards, and what he planned would mean pointing the gun straight down. ‘Do many of the houses here have student quarters?’ he asked Vicente.
‘A lot, yes.’
‘Like this one?’ He gestured at the roof beside them. ‘With rooms stretching through the attic?’
‘It’s very common,’ Vicente said, ‘they are called repúblicas, some are whole houses, others are just parts of houses. Each one has its own government. Every member has a vote, and when I was here they…’
‘It’s all right, Jorge, tell me later,’ Sharpe said. ‘I just hope the houses opposite the warehouse are a república.’ He should have looked when he was there, but he had not thought of it. ‘And what we need now,’ he went on, ‘are uniforms.’
‘Uniforms?’ Vicente asked.
‘Frog uniforms, Jorge. Then we can join the carnival. How are you feeling?’
‘Weak.’
‘You can rest here for a few minutes,’ Sharpe said, ‘while Pat and I get some new clothes.’
Sharpe and Harper edged back down the gutter and climbed through the open window into the deserted attic. ‘My ribs bloody hurt,’ Sharpe complained as he straightened up.
‘Did you wrap them?’ Harper asked. ‘Never get better unless you wrap them up.’
‘Didn’t want to see the angel of death,’ Sharpe grumbled. The angel of death was the battalion doctor, a Scotsman whose ministrations were known as the last rites.
‘I’ll wrap the buggers for you,’ Harper said, ‘when we’ve a minute.’ He went to the doorway and listened to voices below. Sharpe followed him down the stairs, which they took slowly, careful not to make too much noise. A girl began screaming on the next floor. She stopped suddenly as if she had been hit, then started again. Harper reached the landing and moved towards the door where the screaming came from.
‘No blood,’ Sharpe whispered to him. A uniform jacket sheeted with new blood would make them too distinctive. Men’s voices came from the lower floor, but they were taking no interest in the girl above. ‘Make it fast,’ Sharpe said, edging past the Irishman, ‘and brutal as you like.’
Sharpe pushed the door open and kept moving, seeing three men in the room. Two were holding the girl on the floor while the third, a big man who had stripped off his jacket and lowered his breeches to his ankles, was just getting down on his knees when Sharpe’s rifle butt took him in the base of his skull. It was a vicious blow, hard enough to throw the man forward onto the girl’s naked belly. Sharpe reckoned the man had to be out of the fight, drew the rifle back and hit the left-hand man on the jaw and he heard the bone crack and saw the whole jaw twist awry. He sensed the third man going down to Harper’s blow and finished off the man with the broken jaw by another slam of the brass-sheathed butt to the side of his skull. By the feel of the blow he had fractured the man’s skull, then he was gripped round the legs by the first man who had somehow survived the initial assault. The man, hampered by his lowered breeches, clawed at Sharpe’s groin, unbalancing him, then the heavy butt of the volley gun slammed into the back of his skull and he slid down, groaning. Harper gave him a last tap as a keepsake.
The girl, stripped naked, stared up in horror and was about to scream again as Harper snatched up her clothes, but then he put his finger to his lips. She held her breath, gazing up at him, and Harper smiled at her, then gave her the clothes. ‘Get dressed, sweetheart,’ he said.
‘Inglês?’ she asked, pulling the torn dress over her head.
Harper looked horrified. ‘I’m Irish, darling,’ he said.
‘For God’s sake, lover boy,’ Sharpe said, ‘get the hell up the stairs and fetch the other two down.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Harper said and went to the door. The girl, seeing him go, gave a small cry of alarm. The Irishman looked back at her, winked at her, and the girl snatched up the rest of her clothes and followed him, leaving Sharpe with the three men. The big man, who had taken such a beating, showed signs of recovery, lifting his head and scrabbling on the floor with a calloused hand, so Sharpe drew the man’s own bayonet and slid it up between his ribs. There was very little blood. The man gave a heave, opened his eyes once to look at Sharpe, then there was a rattling noise in his throat and his head dropped. He lay still.
The other two men, both very young, were unconscious. Sharpe reckoned the one whose jaw he had broken and dislocated would probably die from the blow on the skull. He was white-faced and blood was trickling from his ear, and he gave no sign of consciousness as Sharpe stripped off his clothes. The second, whom Harper had hit, groaned as he was stripped, and Sharpe thumped him into silence. Then he peeled off his own jacket and pulled on a blue one. It fitted him well enough. It buttoned to one side of the broad white facing that blazoned the front and which ended at his waist, though a pair of tails hung down behind. The tails had white turnbacks decorated with pairs of red flaming grenades, which meant the jacket’s true owner was from a grenadier company. The high stiff collar was red and the shoulders had brief red epaulettes. He pulled on the soldier’s white crossbelt that was fastened at the left shoulder by the epaulette’s strap, and from which hung the bayonet. He decided against taking the man’s white trousers. He already wore the overalls of a French cavalry officer, and though the mix of coat and overalls was unusual, few soldiers were uniformed properly after they had been on campaign for a few weeks. He strapped his own sword belt beneath the coat tails and knew that was a risk, for no ordinary soldier would carry a sword, but he assumed men would think he had plundered the weapon. He hung his rifle on his shoulder, knowing that to any casual glance the weapon resembled a musket. He emptied the man’s oxhide pack and put in his own jacket and shako, then pulled on the soldier’s shako, a confection of red and black blazoned on the front with a brass plate showing an eagle above the number 19, making Sharpe a new recruit to the 19th Infantry of the Line. The cartridge box, which hung beneath the bayonet at the end of the crossbelt, had a brass badge of a grenade mounted on its lid.
Harper came back and looked startled for a second at the sight of Sharpe in enemy blue, then he grinned. ‘Suits you, sir.’ Vicente and the two girls followed.
