Free Sharpe's Gold by Bernard Cornwell

the old poacher had ever been caught, but he supposed that one

    night the Cheshireman had drunk too much. It was the usual story. Harper had one more

    objection. 'And the Major, sir?' Sharpe said nothing and Harper nodded. 'As you say, sir.

    A pox on the bloody Major.' The Irish Sergeant grinned. 'We can do it."
    Sharpe lay in the westering sun, looking at the valley, following the course he had

    planned until he agreed. It could be done. A pox on Kearsey. He imagined the vault as having

    a vast stone lid; he saw it, in his mind, being heaved back, to reveal a heap of gold coins

    that would save the army, defeat the French, and he wondered again why the money was

    needed. He would have to take all the Company, post a string of guards to face the village,

    preferably Riflemen, and the gold would have to go in their packs. What if there was more

    than they could carry? Then they must carry what they could. He wondered about a

    diversion, a small group of Riflemen in the southern end of the valley to distract the

    French, but he rejected the idea. Keep it simple. Night attacks could go disastrously

    wrong and the smallest complication could turn a well-thought plan into a horrid mess

    that cost lives. He felt the excitement grow. They could do it!
    At first the trumpet was so faint that it hardly penetrated Sharpe's consciousness.

    Rather it was Harper's sudden alertness that stirred him, dragged his mind from the gold

    beneath the Moreno vault, and made him curse as he looked at the road disappearing to the

    north-east. 'What was that?'
    Harper stared at the empty valley. 'Cavalry.'
    'North?'
    The Sergeant nodded. 'Nearer to us than the Partisans were, sir. Something's

    happening up there.'
    They waited, in silence, and watched the valley. Knowles climbed up beside them. 'What's

    happening?'
    'Don't know.' Sharpe's instinct, so dormant this morning, was suddenly screaming at

    him. He turned and called to the sentry on the far side of the gully. 'See anything?'
    'No, sir.'
    'There!'
    Harper was pointing to the road. Kearsey was in sight, cantering the roan towards the

    village and looking over his shoulder, and then the Major turned off the road, began

    covering the rough ground towards the slopes where the Partisans had disappeared in a

    hidden entry to one of the twisted valleys that spilled into the main valley.
    'What the devil?'
    Sharpe's question was answered as soon as he had spoken. Behind Kearsey was a regiment,

    rank upon rank of horsemen in blue and yellow, each one wearing a strange, square yellow,

    hat, but that was not their oddest feature. Instead of swords the enemy were carrying

    lances, long, steel-tipped weapons with their red and white pennants, and as the Major

    turned off the road the lancers kicked in their heels, dropped their points and the race was

    on. Knowles shook his head. 'What are they?'
    'Polish lancers.'
    Sharpe's voice was grim. The Poles had a reputation in Europe: nasty fighters,

    effective fighters. These were the first he had encountered in his career. He

    remembered the moustachioed Indian face behind the long pole, the twisting, the way the

    man had played with him, and the final thrust that had pinned Sergeant Sharpe to a tree and

    held him there till the Tippoo Sultan's men had come and pulled the needle-sharp blade from

    his side. He still carried the scar. Bloody lancers.
    'They won't get him, sir.' Knowles sounded very sure.
    'Why not?'
    'The Major explained to me, sir. Marlborough's fed on corn and most cavalry horses

    are grass-fed. A grass-fed horse can't catch a corn-fed horse.'
    Sharpe raised his eyebrows. 'Has anyone told the horses?'
    The lancers were catching up, slowly and surely, but Sharpe suspected Kearsey was

    saving the big horse's strength. He watched the Poles and wondered how many regiments of

    cavalry the French had thrown up into the hills to wipe out the guerrilla bands. He

    wondered how long they would stay.
    Sharpe had snapped