Sharpe 3-Book Collection 5: Sharpe's Company, Sharpe's Sword, Sharpe's Enemy by Bernard Cornwell Page A

his way towards the flickering lights of the plaza where the French spirit store had been broken open.
    The French prisoners were still in the square’s centre, though without their officers who had given their parole and gone off to bed or to drink with their captors. The French soldiers sat shivering and weaponless. Their guards watched them with curious eyes, their hands thrust into pockets, their loaded and bayoneted muskets slung on cold shoulders. Other sentries guarded the houses, stopping the last looters who still staggered, drunk, in the light of the burning buildings. Sharpe was stopped at the liquor store by a nervous sentry. ‘Can’t go in there, sir.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘General’s orders, sir. Orders.’
    Sharpe snarled at him. ‘The General sent me. He’s thirsty.’
    The sentry grinned, but still brought his musket down across the doorway. ‘I’m sorry, sir. It’s orders, sir.’
    ‘What’s going on?’ A Sergeant appeared, a big man, walking slowly. ‘Trouble?’
    Sharpe faced the Sergeant. ‘I’m going in there for drink. Do you want to stop me?’
    The Sergeant shrugged. ‘Up to you, sir, but I’d advise against it. Bloody raw alcohol, that is, sir. It’s killed a couple of lads.’ He looked Sharpe up and down, saw the blood on the uniform. ‘In the breach, were you, sir?’
    ‘Yes.’
    The Sergeant nodded and unslung a canteen from his neck. ‘Here you are, sir. Brandy. Took it off a prisoner. Compliments of the 83rd.’
    Sharpe took it, made his thanks, and the Sergeant let out a long, slow breath as he watched the Rifleman walk away. ‘You know who that was, lad?’
    ‘No, Sarge.’
    ‘Sharpe That’s who that was. Lucky I was here.’
    ‘Lucky, Sarge?’
    ‘Yes, lad. Otherwise you might have had to shoot a bleedin’ hero.’ The Sergeant shook his head. ‘Well, well, well, so he likes a drop, does he?’
    Sharpe walked close to one of the burning houses where the heat of the fire had melted the snow into a glistening sheen on the cobbles. A broken table was tipped on its side and he perched on it, watching the prisoners in the snow, and wished he could get drunk. He knew he would not. As soon as the first, fierce brandy was in his throat he knew that he was being indulgent. He must find the Company, clean the sword, think of tomorrow, but not yet. It was warm by the burning house, the first warmth he had known in days, and he wanted to be alone for a while. Damn Lawford for walking into a breach where he had no business!
    Hooves clattered on stones and a group of horsemen entered the plaza. They wore long, dark cloaks, broad-brimmed hats, and Sharpe could see the outlines of muskets and swords. Partisans. He felt an obscure, unfair anger. The Guerilleros were the men and women of Spain who fought the ‘Guerilla’, the ‘little war’, and they were achieving what the Spanish armies had failed to achieve; they were pinning down thousands and thousands of Napoleon’s troops, troops the British would not have to face, but somehow the presence of the Spanish horsemen in the plaza of Ciudad Rodrigo annoyed Sharpe. These partisans had not fought through a breach, had not faced the cannon, yet here they were, come to pick like vultures at a carcass they had done nothing to kill. The horsemen stopped. They stared at the French prisoners with a silent menace.
    Sharpe turned away. He drank again and stared into the white-heat where the house had collapsed into a furnance-like intensity. He thought of Badajoz, waiting to the south, Badajoz the impregnable. Perhaps the pox-scarred Whitehall clerk could write the garrison a letter, telling them their presence was ‘irregular’, and Sharpe laughed at the thought. Damn the bloody clerk.
    There was a shout behind him that made him turn round. A single rider had left the group of horsemen and was walking his horse along the front row of prisoners. The French squirmed back, fearing the revenge of the Spanish, and the British sentries