Free Sharpe's Fury - 11 by Bernard Cornwell Page A

down to the river,” Sharpe said. He gazed eastward. “If the bastards come,” he said, “this is the road they’ll use, and at least we’ll see them a couple of miles away.”
    “Let’s hope they’re not coming.”
    “And let’s hope no one’s drunk if they do,” Sharpe said.
    Harper threw a puzzled look at Sharpe, then understood. “You needn’t worry about the Connaught men, sir. They’ll do what you tell them.”
    “They will?”
    “I had a word with Sergeant Noolan, so I did, and said you weren’t entirely bad unless you were crossed, and then you were a proper devil. And I told him you had an Irish father, which might be true, might it not?”
    “So I’m one of you now, am I?” Sharpe asked, amused.
    “Oh no, sir. You’re not handsome enough.”
    Sharpe went back to the kitchen where he discovered Geoghegan pounding the dough and two more of Noolan’s men stacking firewood beside the stove. “They’ll make you eggs and ham,” Sergeant Noolan told him, “and we’ve shown them how to make proper tea.”
    Sharpe contented himself with a piece of newly baked bread and a hunk of hard cheese. “Have any of your men got razors?” he asked Noolan.
    “I’m sure Liam has,” Noolan said, nodding at one of the men stacking firewood. “Keeps himself looking smart, he does, for the ladies.”
    “Then I want every man shaved,” Sharpe said, “and no one’s to leave the stable yard. If the bloody frogs come we don’t want to be searching for lost men. And Harris? Look around the stables. See if you can find some wood to make the brigadier crutches.”
    Harris grinned. “He’s already got crutches, sir. The lady had some that belonged to her husband.”
    “The Marquesa?”
    “She’s a crone, sir, a widow, and hell, has she got a bloody tongue on her!”
    “Has the brigadier been given food?”
    “He has, sir, and there’s a doctor on his way.”
    “He doesn’t need a doctor,” Sharpe grumbled. “Private Geoghegan did a good job on that leg.”
    Geoghegan grinned. “I did, sir.”
    “I’m going to have a look about,” Sharpe said, “so if the bloody frogs come you must get the brigadier down to the river.” He was not sure what they could do beside the river with the French on their heels, but maybe some escape would offer itself.
    “You think they will come, sir?” Noolan asked.
    “God knows what the bastards will do.”
    Sharpe went back outside, then crossed the terrace and down into the kitchen garden. Two men worked there now, setting out plants in newly turned furrows, and they straightened up and watched him with suspicion as he walked to the boathouse. It was a wooden building on a stone foundation and had a padlocked door. It was an old ball-padlock, the size of a cooking apple, and Sharpe did not even bother trying to pick it, but just put its shackle against the door, then rapped the lock’s base with the brass butt of his rifle. He heard the bolts shear inside, pulled the shackle free, and swung the door outward.
    And there was the boat.
    The perfect boat. It looked like an admiral’s barge with six rowing benches and a wide stern thwart and a dozen long oars laid neatly up its center line. It floated between two walkways and there was hardly a drop of water in its bilges, suggesting that the boat was watertight. The gunwales, transom, and stern thwart had been painted white once, but the paint was peeling now and there was dust everywhere and cobwebs between the thwarts. A scrabble in the dark beneath the walkways betrayed rats.
    He heard the footsteps behind and turned to see that one of the gardeners had come to the boathouse. The man was holding a fowling piece that he trained at Sharpe and then spoke in a harsh voice. He jerked his head and twitched the gun, ordering Sharpe away from the boat.
    Sharpe shrugged. The fowling piece had a barrel at least five feet long. It looked ancient, but that did not mean it would not work. The man was tall, well-built, in