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Sharpe’s Sword: The Salamanca Campaign, June and July 1812
Bernard Cornwell
Richard Sharpe, who alone can recognise the top French spy, is under orders to capture him alive.Richard Sharpe is once again at war. But this time his enemy is just one man – the ruthless Colonel Leroux. Sharpe’s mission is to safeguard El Mirador, a spy whose network of agents is vital to British victory.Sharpe is forced into a new world of political and military intrigue. And in unfamiliar surroundings of aristocratic Spanish society, his only guide is La Marquesa – a woman with her own secrets to conceal…Soldier, hero, rogue – Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles whose green jacket he proudly wears.
SHARPE’S
SWORD
Richard Sharpe and the Salamanca Campaign, June and July 1812
BERNARD CORNWELL
Copyright
This novel is a work of fiction. The incidents and some of the characters portrayed in it, while based on real historical events and figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Previously published in paperback by Fontana 1984
First published in Great Britain by Collins 1983
Copyright © Rifleman Productions Ltd 1983
Bernard Cornwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007276271
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2012 ISBN: 9780007346820
Version: 2017-06-07
For Peggy Blackburn,
with love
‘Consistently exciting! These are wonderful novels’
Stephen King
Table of Contents
Title Page (#ue89475b0-e8bd-5c63-a2d2-00503d90a346)
Copyright (#uc3ada1b0-e6b0-524b-b5b7-9928d6833a85)
Dedication (#ue7892bd2-050d-56f4-be77-b3b597333c7c)
Epigraph (#ue43a7e7b-533b-5f3b-ae2e-d1f691162e4f)
Map (#ue8b55add-1763-5aa8-b061-aafb5ac7b409)
Part One: Sunday, June 14th to Tuesday, June 23rd 1812 (#uf72686f7-1ab6-55de-900c-307c31c30fe4)
Prologue (#u7009dcca-996a-53fc-b786-ea24040b3ea4)
Chapter One (#u5e3ec853-25c4-5d12-813e-5062b2b43ab5)
Chapter Two (#u04ff0674-1870-5598-b4b4-6a4d1462cb10)
Chapter Three (#u9daf1aa4-f89a-5cef-8f74-c310e3a58a63)
Chapter Four (#u8ea1e889-2595-5d3c-8ccf-a500d98a140a)
Chapter Five (#uc3f1aead-e86f-5ffd-8155-55d86c8e4a8f)
Chapter Six (#u9167a6e4-c0ee-5e4a-b6aa-d7f30e388849)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Part Two: Wednesday, June 24th to Wednesday, July 8th 1812 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Part Three: Tuesday, 21st July to Thursday, 23rd July 1812 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
Historical Note (#litres_trial_promo)
Sharpe’s Story (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
The Sharpe Series (in chronological order) (#litres_trial_promo)
The Sharpe Series (in order of publication) (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Bernard Cornwell (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PART ONE
PROLOGUE
The tall man on horseback was a killer.
He was strong, healthy, and ruthless. Some men thought he was young to be a full Colonel in Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, but no-one took advantage of his youth. A single glimpse of his curiously pale eyes, pale-lashed eyes, eyes that gave his strong, handsome face a chill of death, was enough to make men offer respect to Colonel Leroux.
Leroux was the Emperor’s man. He went where Napoleon sent him and he performed his master’s tasks with skill and pitiless efficiency. Now he was in Spain, sent there by the Emperor himself, and Colonel Leroux had just made a mistake. He knew it, he cursed himself for it, but he was also planning how to escape his self-imposed predicament.
He was trapped.
He had ridden with a cavalry escort to a miserable village huddled at the edge of the great plains of Leon and there had found his man, a priest. He had tortured the priest, stripping the skin inch by inch from the living body, and in the end, of course, the priest talked. They all talked to Colonel Leroux in the end. Yet this time he had taken too long. At the moment of victory, at that very moment when the priest could take the pain no longer and screamed out the name which Leroux had come so far to learn, the German cavalry erupted into the village. Men of the King’s German Legion who fought for Britain in this war savaged the French Dragoons, their sabres rising and falling, their hoofbeats drumming a rhythm behind the screams of pain, and Colonel Leroux had run.
He had grabbed one companion, a Captain of the cavalry escort, and together they had ridden desperately north, cutting their way through one group of Germans, and now, an hour later, they had stopped at the edge of a wood that grew about a sudden, quick stream that tumbled towards the River Tormes.
The Dragoon Captain looked behind. ‘We’ve lost them.’
‘We haven’t.’ Leroux’s horse was streaked with white sweat, its flanks heaved, and the Colonel felt the terrible heat of the sun smashing through his gorgeous uniform; red jacket looped with gold, green overalls reinforced with leather with the silver buttons running down each leg. His black fur colback, thick enough to stop a sword blow to the head, hung from his pommel. The light breeze could not stir his sweat-plastered blond hair. He suddenly smiled at his companion. ‘What’s your name?’
The Captain was relieved by the smile. He was frightened of Leroux and this sudden, unexpected friendliness was a welcome change. ‘Delmas, sir. Paul Delmas.’
Leroux’s smile was full of charm. ‘Well, Paul Delmas, we’ve done great things so far! Let’s see if we can lose them for good, eh?’
Delmas, flattered by the familiarity, smiled back. ‘Yes, sir.’ He looked behind again, and again he could see nothing except for the bleached grassland silent under the heat. Nothing seemed to move except the wind-ripple of grass, and a solitary hawk, wings motionless, that easelessly rode the cloudless sky.
Colonel Leroux was not deceived by the emptiness. He had spotted the dead ground as they rode and he knew the Germans, good professionals, were out in the plain, spreading the cordon that would drive the fugitives towards the river. He knew too that the British were marching eastwards, that some of their men would be following the river, and he guessed that he and his companion were being driven into an ambush. So be it. He was trapped, outnumbered, but not beaten.
He could not be beaten. He had never been beaten, and now, above all other times, he had to regain the safety of the French army. He had come so near to success, and when he completed the job then he would hurt the British as they had rarely been hurt in this war. He felt the surge of pleasure at the thought. By God, he would hurt them! He had been sent to Spain to discover the identity of El Mirador, and he had succeeded this afternoon, and now all that remained was to take El Mirador back to some torture chamber and squeeze from the British spy the names of all the correspondents in Spain, Italy, and France who sent their messages to El Mirador in Salamanca. El Mirador collected information from throughout Napoleon’s empire, and though the French had long known the code-name, they had never discovered his identity. Leroux had, and so he had to escape this trap, he had to take his captive back to France, and there he would destroy the net of British spies who all worked for El Mirador. But first he must escape this trap.
He let his horse walk into the cool greenness of the wood. ‘Come on, Delmas! We’re not finished yet!’
He found what he wanted just a few yards into the wood. A fallen beech tree, its trunk rotten, lay in front of a tangle of brambles and wind-driven leaves from last year’s autumn. Leroux dismounted. ‘Time to work, Delmas!’ His voice was optimistic and cheerful.
Delmas did not understand what they were doing, was frightened to ask, but he followed Leroux’s example and stripped off his jacket. He helped the Colonel clear a space behind the log, a hiding place, and Delmas wondered how long they would have to crouch in thorny discomfort until the Germans gave up the hunt. He smiled diffidently at Leroux. ‘Where do we hide the horses?’
‘In a minute.’ Leroux dismissed the question.
The Colonel seemed to be measuring the hiding place. He drew his sword and poked at the brambles. Delmas watched the sword. It was a weapon of exquisite craftsmanship, a straight-bladed, heavy cavalry sword made by Kligenthal as were most of the French cavalry blades, but this sword had been made specially for Leroux by the finest craftsman at Kligenthal. It was longer than most swords, heavier too, for Leroux was a tall, strong man. The blade was beautiful, a sheen of steel in the dappled green light of the wood, and the hilt and guard were made of the same steel. The handle was bound by silver wire, the sword’s sole concession to decoration, but despite its plainness, the weapon proclaimed itself as a beautiful, exquisitely balanced killing blade. To hold that sword, Delmas thought, must be to know what King Arthur felt when he slid Excalibur, smooth as grey silk, from the churchyard stone.
Leroux straightened up, seemingly content. ‘Anything behind us, Delmas?’
The Dragoon Captain turned. Nothing disturbed the peace of the beeches and oaks. ‘No, sir.’
‘Keep watching. They’re not far behind.’
Leroux guessed he had ten minutes which was more than enough. He smiled at Delmas’s back, measured the distance, and lunged.
He wanted this kill to be quick, painless, and with a minimum of blood. He did not want Delmas to cry out and startle anyone who might be further into the trees. The blade, as sharp as the day it had left its maker, pierced the base of Delmas’s head. Leroux’s strength, an enormous strength, drove it through bone, through the spinal cord, and into the brain. There was a soft sigh and Delmas crumpled forward.
Silence.
Leroux guessed he would be captured, and he knew too that the British would not let Colonel Leroux be exchanged for a British Colonel captured by the French. Leroux was a wanted man and he had seen to that himself. He worked by fear, he spread horror about his name, and all his victims, once dead, were inscribed with his name. He would leave a patch of skin untouched and on the patch he would incise two words. Leroux fecit. Just as if he were a sculptor boasting a fine piece of work, he would leave his mark. ‘Leroux made this.’ If Leroux was captured he could expect no mercy. Yet the British would not give a fig for Captain Paul Delmas.
