Sharpe’s Gold by Bernard Cornwell

  The Spaniard chuckled, waved a hand in one of his elegant gestures. 'You're not going to answer my question. I suppose you are searching for the gold? Am I right?' Sharpe said nothing and El Catolico's voice became insistent. 'Am I right?'

  'Yes.'

  'You have a voice!' El Catolico turned and spoke to one of his men, waited, and turned back holding a spade. 'Then dig, Captain. Dig. We never had time to bury Carlos properly. We did it in a hurry last Saturday night, so you can do us a service.' He threw the spade at Sharpe, the blade catching the light, and it thumped into the soil next to the Rifleman's feet.

  Sharpe did not move. Part of him damned Harper, unfairly, for the suspicions about a Sunday burial, but he knew that he would have come back anyway. And where was the big Irishman? He could not have been captured, not without a struggle that would have been audible a mile away, and Sharpe felt the faintest stirring of hope.

  El Catolico took a step forward. 'You won't dig?'

  The tall Spaniard chopped down with his left hand and Sharpe saw the musket barrel come up, heard the bang, saw the stab of flame in the gout of smoke, and the ball flattened itself on the wall behind him. Had the bastards cut Harper's throat? There was no hope of a rescue from Hagman; Sharpe had drummed it into the group that they were not to come into the village unless summoned. Damn everything! And Knowles would lumber into the same trap, and everything, every last bloody thing, had collapsed around him because he had been too clever. He picked up the spade – there was no choice – and he thrust its blade into the earth beside the body, and his mind, refusing to take the finality of utter defeat, still hoped that beneath the rotting corpse he might find bags of gold. Beneath the body was flinty soil, full of sharp rocks, hard-packed and jarring as he thrust down with the spade.

  El Catolico laughed. 'Have you found your gold, Captain?' He turned to his men, spoke in quick Spanish, and they laughed at the Englishman, mocked the Rifle Captain with the dirty face who was being forced to dig a grave like a peasant.

  'Joaquim?' Teresa's voice, and suddenly she was there, dressed in a long white dress, and she stood beside her man, put her arm through his, and asked what was happening. Sharpe heard her laughter as El Catolico explained.

  'Dig, Captain, dig! The gold! You must have the gold!' El Catolico was enjoying himself.

  Sharpe threw down the spade. 'There is no gold.'

  'Ah!' El Catolico's face showed mock horror; his hands flew up, releasing the girl, and he translated to his men. He turned back, ignoring their laughter. 'Where are your men, Captain?'

  'Watching you.'

  It was a feeble answer and El Catolico treated it with the contempt it deserved. He laughed. 'You were seen crawling to the grave, Captain, all alone and in the darkness. But you're not alone, are you?'

  'No. And I didn't expect to find you here.'

  El Catolico bowed. 'An unexpected pleasure, then. Teresa's father is leading the ambush. I decided to come back.'

  'To protect your gold?' It was a futile attempt, but everything was futile now.

  El Catolico put an arm round Teresa's shoulders. 'To protect my treasure, Captain.' He translated again, and the men laughed. The girl's face stayed enigmatic as ever. El Catolico waved a hand at the gate. 'Go, Captain. I know your men are near. Go home, little gravediggcr, and remember one thing.'

  'Yes?'

  'Watch your back. Very carefully. It's a long road.' El Catolico laughed, watched Sharpe bend down to retrieve his rifle. 'Leave the rifle, little gravedigger. It will save us picking it up from the road.'

  Sharpe picked it up, slung it defiantly on his shoulder, and swore uselessly at the Spaniard. El Catolico laughed, shrugged, and gestured again at the gate.

  'Go, Captain. The French have the gold, as I told you. The French.'

  The gate was not locked; it could have been opened easily, but Patrick Harper, with the blood of Irish heroes in his veins, chose to stand back and kick it with one enormous foot. It exploded inwards, the hinges tearing from the dry mortar, and there he stood, six feet four inches of grinning Irishman, filthy as a slaughterer, and with seven barrels held in one hand that pointed casually at El Catolico and his men.

  'Top of the morning! And how's our lordship this morning?'

  Sharpe was rarely given a glimpse of Harper's imitation of what the rest of the world thought of as Irish mannerisms, but this was obviously a rich performance. The dreadful shroud of failure vanished because Sharpe knew, with an absolute certainty, that Patrick Harper was boiling with good news. There was the grin, the jigging walk, and the inane words that bubbled from the huge soldier.

  'And a fine morning it is, to be sure, your honour.' He was looking at El Catolico. 'I wouldn't move, your grace, not while I've got the gun on you. It could go off with a desperate bang, so it could, and take the whole of your precious head off.' He glanced at Sharpe. 'Morning, sir! Excuse my appearance.'

  Sharpe smiled, began to laugh with the relief of it. Harper was disgusting, covered with glistening and decaying muck, and the Sergeant grinned through the mask of manure.

  'I fell in the shit, sir.' Only one thing about the Sergeant was not smothered in manure – the gun – and that, despite his excitement, was held very steadily on El Catolico. The Irishman glanced quickly again at Sharpe. 'Would you mind calling the lads, sir?'

  Sharpe drew the whistle from its holster on his leather crossbelt and blew the signal that would bring the Riflemen running to the village. Harper still looked steadily at El Catolico. 'Thank you, sir.' This was his moment, his victory, and Sharpe was not going to spoil it for him.

  The Sergeant smiled at El Catolico. 'You were saying, your holiness, that the French have the gold?'

  El Catolico nodded, said nothing. Teresa looked defiantly at Harper, then at Sharpe, who now pointed his rifle at the small group of Partisans.

  'The French have the gold.' Her voice was firm, her tone almost contemptuous of the two men with the guns. The Spaniards had guns, but none of them dared move while the vast muzzle of the seven-barrelled gun stared at them from the flank. Teresa repeated herself. 'The French have the gold.'

  'That's good, miss, so it is.' Harper's voice was suddenly gentle. 'Because what you don't know about, as my old mother used to say, you won't miss. And look what I found in the dung-heap.' He grinned at them all, raised his free hand, and from it, trickling in a glittering cascade, fell thick gold coins. The grin became wider.

  'The Good Lord,' said Patrick Augustine Harper, 'has been kind to me this morning.'

  Chapter 13

  Sharpe pointed at a stunted olive tree, apparently a marker between two fields, and shouted up at Hagman. 'See the tree, Daniel?'

  The voice came down from the bell-tower. 'Sir?'

  'Olive tree! Four hundred yards away. Beyond the big house!'

  'Got it, sir.'

  'Shoot that hanging branch off!'

  Hagman muttered something about bloody miracles, El Catolico sneered at the impossibility of the marksmanship, and Sharpe smiled at him.

  'If any of your men try to leave the village, they get shot. Understand?'

  The Spaniard did not reply. Sharpe had put four Riflemen in the bell-tower with orders to shoot any horsemen spurring away from Casatejada. For the moment he needed all the time he could gain before El Catolico's whole band of hardened Partisans began the pursuit of the Light Company through the hills. The Baker rifle banged, the hanging branch leaped into the air, hinged on a strip of bark, and then fell back. Hagman had not fully severed the pale bark, but the demonstration was more than enough, and El Catolico watched the ragged branch swaying like a pendulum. He said nothing. His men, disarmed and perplexed, sat by the cemetery wall and watched five other Riflemen, led by Harper, raking at the huge pile of manure with their bayonets. They were pulling out leather bags, filled with coins, and dumping them at Sharpe's feet; bag after bag, thick with gold, more money than Sharpe had ever seen in one place, a fortune beyond his imaginings.

  The R
iflemen were awed by the gold, elated at its discovery, and disbelieving in their excitement as the warm, reeking bags thumped down at Sharpe's feet. El Catolico's face was as rigid as a child's mask sold at a country fairground, but Sharpe knew the controlled muscles hid a raging anger. The Spaniard crossed to Sharpe, gestured at the bags.

  'Our gold, Sharpe.'

  'Ours?'

  'Spanish.' The dark eyes searched the Rifleman's face.

  'So we take it to Cadiz for you. Do you want to come?'

  'Cadiz!' For a moment the mask slipped and the voice was a snarl of anger. 'You won't take it to Cadiz! It will go back to England with your army, to buy comforts for your Generals.'

  Sharpe hoped his own face mirrored the scorn on El Catolico's. 'And what were you going to do with it?'

  The Spaniard shrugged. 'Take it to Cadiz. By land.'

  Sharpe did not believe him; every instinct told him that El Catolico had planned to steal the gold, keep it, but he had no proof except that the gold had been hidden. He shrugged back at the guerrilla leader. 'Then we'll save you a journey. It will be our pleasure.'

  He smiled at El Catolico, who turned away and spoke rapidly to his men, gesturing at Sharpe, and the seated fighters by the wall muttered angrily so that Sharpe's men had to heft their rifles and step one pace forward.

  Patrick Harper stopped beside Sharpe and stretched his back muscles. 'They're not happy, sir.'

  Sharpe grinned. 'They think we're stealing their gold. I don't think they want to help us take it to Cadiz.'

  Teresa was staring at Sharpe as a cat might look at a bird. Harper saw her expression.

  'Do you think they'll try to stop us, sir?'

  Sharpe raised innocent eyebrows. 'We're allies.' He raised his voice and spoke slowly so that any of the Spaniards with a smattering of English would understand. 'We take the gold to Cadiz, to the Junta.'

  Teresa spat on the ground and raised her eyes again to Sharpe. He wondered if they had all known that the gold was hidden in the manure, but doubted it. If too many of the Partisans had known, then there was always a danger that someone would talk and the secret would be gone. But there was no doubting the fact that now the gold had been revealed, they were determined to stop him taking it away. It was an undeclared war, nasty and private, and Sharpe wondered how the Light Company was to carry the coins through a countryside that was familiar hunting territory to El Catolico's men.

  'Sir!' Hagman was calling from the bell-tower. 'Mr Knowles in sight, sir!'

  Knowles had evidently lost his way, strayed hopelessly in the dark, and the young Lieutenant's face was exasperated and tired as the red-jacketed men straggled into the village. He stopped when he saw the gold, and then turned to Sharpe again. His expression went to one of joy.

  'I don't believe it.'

  Sharpe picked up one of the coins and casually tossed it to him. 'Spanish gold.'

  'Good God!' The newcomers pressed round the Lieutenant, leaned over and fingered the coin. Knowles looked up. 'You found it!'

  Sharpe nodded at Harper. 'Harps did.'

  'Harps!' Knowles used the Sergeant's nickname quite unconsciously. 'How the devil did you do it?'

  'Easy, sir. Easy!'

  Harper launched himself on the retelling of his exploit. Sharpe had heard it four or five times already, but this was the Sergeant's achievement, and he must hear it again. Harper had been in the bushes, as Sharpe had told him, and listening to the sound of his Captain scrabbling at the grave. 'Noisy! I thought he'd woken the dead, so I did, scratch, and all the time the light coming up.' Then there had been noises, footsteps from the village. Harper nodded at Sharpe. 'I knew he hadn't heard a thing, still scratching away like the graveyard had fleas, so he was, and I thought I 'm not going to move. The bastards might know about the Captain, but I was hidden away and better off there.' He pointed at El Catolico, who stared back expressionless. 'Then your man there comes round here, all on his own. Buttoning up his trousers, he was, and he peeks through the gate. So, I thought, going to jump on the Captain, are you? I was about to do a wee bit of jumping myself, but then he turns round, draws out his fancy sword, and pokes the bloody manure! So I knew then, sure enough, and when the bastard has gone off I poked in there myself.' He grinned broadly, seemed to wait for applause, and Knowles laughed.

  'But how did you know?'

  Sharpe interrupted. 'This is the clever bit. Honest Sergeant Harper at work.'

  Harper grinned, happy to bask in the approbation. 'Would you ever have seen a pickpocket at work, sir?' Knowles shook his head, muttered something about moving in different circles, and Harper's grin grew even wider. 'It's like this, sir, so it is. There are two of you, right? One brashes against a wealthy man in the street, jostles him, you know how it is? You don't hurt the man, but you wobble him off balance. So what does he do? He thinks you may have lifted his money so he immediately puts a hand on his pocket to see if it's there. So your other man's watching, sees which pocket he pats, and it's as good as picked!' He jerked, a thumb at the Partisan leader. 'Silly bastard falls right into it. Hears that the Captain's disturbing the worms so he can't resist sneaking round to make sure that the stuff is still safe! And here it is!'

  Knowles laughed. 'How does a simple Irish lad from Donegal know about pickpockets?'

  Harper raised a sage eyebrow. 'We learn a lot of things in Tangaveane, sir. It's surprising, sir, so it is, what you learn at your mammy's knee.'

  Sharpe walked over to the strewn manure. 'How many more bags?'

  Harper brushed his hands together. 'That's it, sir. Sixty-three bags; can't see any more.'

  Sharpe looked at his ebullient Sergeant. He was covered in dung, animal and human, his clothes slimy with liquid. He grinned.

  'Go and wash, Patrick. And well done.'

  Harper clapped his hands. 'Right, lads! Clean up time!'

  Sharpe walked back to the gold and picked up another coin from the bag he had opened. It was a thick coin, he guessed weighing near to an ounce, and on one side was the arms of Spain, surmounted by a crown, and with a legend chased round its perimeter. He read it aloud, working his way slowly through the syllables. '"Initium sapientiae timor domini." Do you know what that means, Lieutenant?'

  Knowles looked at his coin and shook his head. Rifleman Tongue, the educated one, chimed in with a translation.

  'The beginning of wisdom, sir, is the fear of the Lord."

  Sharpe grinned. He turned the coin over. On the other side was the profile of a man, his head covered in a wig of profuse curls, and the legend was easily understood. Philip the Fifth, by the Grace of God King of Spain and the Indies. At the foot of the profile was a date: 1729. Sharpe looked at Knowles.

  'Know what it is?'

  'Doubloon, sir. Eight escudo piece."

  'What's it worth?'

  Knowles thought about it, hefted the coin in his hand, tossed it into the air. 'About three pounds ten shillings, sir.'

  Sharpe looked disbelieving. 'Each?'

  Knowles nodded. 'Each.'

  'Sweet Jesus.'

  Sixteen thousand coins, each worth three pounds and ten shillings, and Sharpe tried to work it out in his head. Isaiah Tongue beat them all, his voice full of wonder as he gave the figure.

  'Fifty-six thousand pounds, sir.'

  Sharpe started to laugh, feeling almost hysterical in his reaction. He could buy well over thirty Captaincies with this money. It would pay a day's wages to more than a million men. If Sharpe should live for a hundred years he would never earn the amount that was sagging in the leather bags at his feet: fat, great, thick, yellow-gold coins with their pictures of a fancy-haired, hook-nosed, soft-looking King. Money, gold, more than he could comprehend on his salary of ten shillings and sixpence a day, less two shillings and eightpence for the mess charge, and then more deductions for washing and the hospital levy, and he stared disbelieving at the pile. As for the men, they were lucky if in a year they earned as much as just two of these coins. A shilling a day, less all t
he deductions, brought them down to the Three Sevens: seven pounds, seven shillings, and sevenpence a year. But there were few men who made even that much. They were charged for lost equipment, broken equipment, replacement equipment, and men had deserted for less than the value of a handful of this gold.

  'A thousand pounds, sir.' Knowles was looking serious.

  'What?'

  'I guess that's what it weighs, sir. A thousand, probably more.'

  Nearly half a ton of gold, to be carried through the enemy hills, and probably in weather that was about to break disastrously. The clouds were overhead now, heavy with rain, moving south so that soon there would be no blue sky. Sharpe pointed at the bags.

  'Split them up, Lieutenant. Thirty piles. Fill thirty packs, throw away everything except ammunition, and we'll just have to take it in turns to carry them.'

  El Catolico stood up, walked slowly towards Sharpe, keeping an eye on the Riflemen, who still covered the Spaniards with their guns.

  'Captain.'

  'Yes?'

  'It's Spanish gold.' He spoke with pride, making one last effort.

  'I know.'

  'It belongs to Spain. It must stay here.'

  Sharpe shook his head. 'It belongs to the Supreme Junta in Cadiz. I am merely delivering it.'

  'It does not need to go.' El Catolico had summoned up all his dignity. He spoke quietly, persuasively. 'It will be used to fight the French, Captain. To kill Frenchmen. If you take it, then Britain will steal it; it will go home in your ships. It should stay here.'

  'No.' Sharpe smiled at the Spaniard, trying to annoy him. 'It goes with us. The Royal Navy is sending it to Cadiz. If you don't believe me, why don't you come, too? We could do with more backs to pile it on.'

  El Catolico returned the smile. 'I will be coming with you, Captain.'

  Sharpe knew what he meant. The journey home would be a nightmare of fear, fear of ambush, but Wellington's 'must' was the imperative in Sharpe's head. He turned away and, as he did, felt one solitary raindrop splash on his cheek. He waited, but there were no more, though he knew that soon, within the hour, the clouds would burst and the streams and rivers would rise with unimaginable speed.