The house was empty. The French had searched it and found nothing except some heavy tables, stools and beds, so they had gone to look for richer pickings. At the top of the second flight of stairs was a broken door, its padlock split away, and above it was a narrow staircase that climbed to a set of attic rooms that seemed to extend across three or four houses. The largest room, long, low and narrow, had a dozen low wooden beds. ‘Student quarters,’ Vicente said.
There were screams from nearby houses, the sound of shots, then voices down below and Sharpe reckoned more troops had come to the house. ‘The window,’ he said, and pushed the closest one open and climbed through to find himself in a gutter that ran just behind a low stone parapet. The others followed Sharpe who found a refuge at the northern gable end that was not overlooked by any of the attic windows. He peered over the parapet into a narrow, shadowed alley. A French cavalryman, a woman across his pommel, rode beneath Sharpe. The woman screamed and the man slapped her rump, then hauled up her black dress and slapped it again. ‘They’re having fun and games,’ Sharpe said sourly.
He could hear the French in the attic rooms, but none came out onto the roof and Sharpe sat back on the tiles and stared uphill. The great university buildings dominated the skyline, and beneath them were thousands of roofs and church towers. The streets were flooding with the invaders, but none were up high, though here and there Sharpe could see frightened people who, like him, had taken refuge on the tiles. He was trying to find Ferragus’s warehouse. He knew it was not far away, knew it had a high, pitched roof, and finally reckoned he had spotted it a hundred or more paces up the hill.
He looked across the alley. The houses on the far side had the same kind of parapet protecting their roof and he reckoned he could jump the gap easily enough, but Vicente, with his wounded shoulder, might be clumsy, and Sarah’s long, torn frock would hamper her. ‘You’re going to stay here, Jorge,’ he told Vicente, ‘and look after Miss Fry. Pat and I are going exploring.’
‘We are?’
‘Got anything better to do, Pat?’
‘We can come with you,’ Vicente said.
‘Better if you stay here, Jorge,’ Sharpe said, then took out his pocket knife and unfolded the blade. ‘Have you ever looked after wounds?’ he asked Sarah.
She shook her head.
‘Time to learn,’ Sharpe said. ‘Take the bandage off Jorge’s shoulder and find the bullet. Take it out. Take out any scraps of his shirt or jacket. If he tells you to stop because it’s hurting, dig harder. Be ruthless. Dig out the bullet and anything else, then clean up the wound. Use this.’ He gave her his canteen that still had a little water in it. ‘Then make a new bandage,’ he went on, before laying Vicente’s loaded rifle beside her, ‘and if a Frog comes out here, shoot him. Pat and I will hear and we’ll come back.’ Sharpe doubted that he or Harper could recognize a rifle’s bark amidst all the other shots, but he reckoned Sarah might need the reassurance. ‘Think you can do all that?’
She hesitated, then nodded. ‘I can.’
‘It’s going to hurt like hell, Jorge,’ Sharpe warned, ‘but God knows if we can find you a doctor in this town today, so let Miss Fry do her best.’ He straightened up and turned to Harper. ‘Can you jump that alley, Pat?’
‘God save Ireland.’ Harper looked at the gap between the houses. ‘It’s a terrible long way, sir.’
‘So make sure you don’t fall,’ Sharpe said, then stood on the parapet where it made a right angle to the alleyway. He gave himself a few paces to build up speed, then ran and made a desperate leap across the void. He made it easily, clearing the far parapet and crashing into the roof tiles so that agony flared in his ribs. He scrambled aside and watched as Harper, bigger and less lithe, followed him. The Sergeant landed right across the parapet, winding himself as its edge drove into his belly, but Sharpe grabbed his jacket and hauled him over.
‘I said it was a long way,’ Harper said.
‘You eat too much.’
‘Jesus, in this army?’ Harper said, then dusted himself off and followed Sharpe along the next gutter. They passed skylights and windows, but no one was inside to see them. In places the parapet had crumbled away and Sharpe scrambled up to the roof ridge because it gave them safer footing. They negotiated a dozen chimneys, then slid down to another alley and another jump. ‘This one’s narrower,’ Sharpe said to encourage Harper.
‘Where are we going, sir?’
‘The warehouse,’ Sharpe said, pointing to its great stone gable.
Harper eyed the gap. ‘It would be easier to go through the sewer,’ he grumbled.
‘If you want to, Pat. Meet me there.’
‘I’ve come this far,’ Harper said, and winced as Sharpe made the leap. He followed, arriving safely, and the two clambered up the next roof and along its ridge until they arrived at the street which divided the block of houses from the building Sharpe reckoned was the warehouse.
Sharpe slid down the tile slope to the gutter by the parapet, then peered over. He pulled back instantly. ‘Dragoons,’ he said.
‘How many?’
‘Dozen? Twenty?’ He was sure it was the warehouse. He had seen the big double doors, one of them ajar, and from the roof ridge he had just seen the skylights on the warehouse which was slightly higher up the hill. The street was too wide to be jumped, so there was no way of reaching those skylights from this roof, but then Sharpe peered again and saw that the dragoons were not plundering. Every other Frenchman in the city seemed to have been let off the leash, but these dragoons were sitting on their horses, their swords drawn, and he realized they must have been posted to guard the warehouse. They were turning French infantrymen away, using the flat of their swords if any became too insistent. ‘They’ve got the bloody food, Pat.’
‘And they’re welcome to it.’
‘No, they’re bloody not,’ Sharpe said savagely.
‘So how in Christ are we supposed to take it away from them?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Sharpe said. He knew the food had to be taken away if the French were to be beaten, yet for a moment he was tempted to let the whole thing slide. To hell with it. The army had treated him badly, so why the hell should he care? Yet he did care, and he would be damned before Ferragus helped the French win the war. The noise in the city was getting louder, the noise of screaming, of disorder, of chaos let loose, and the frequent musket shots were startling hundreds of pigeons into the air. He peered a third time at the dragoons and saw how they had formed two lines to block the ends of the small street to keep the French infantry away from the warehouse. Scores of men were protesting to the dragoons and Sharpe guessed that the horsemen’s presence had started a rumour that there was food in the street, and the infantry, who had become ever more hungry as they marched through a stripped land, were probably desperate with hunger. ‘I’m not sure,’ Sharpe said again, ‘but I’ve got an idea.’
‘An idea for what, sir?’
‘To keep those bastards hungry,’ Sharpe said, which was what Wellington wanted, so Sharpe would give it to his lordship. He would keep the bastards hungry.
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