Sharpe 3-Book Collection 6: Sharpe's Honour, Sharpe's Regiment, Sharpe's Siege by Bernard Cornwell

Morillos, sir, of the Princessa Regiment. He commanded the guard on General Casares’ house last night and he saw a British Rifle officer leave the house at three in the morning. The officer, he says, wore a straight sword.’
    That was a nice touch, Sharpe thought. Rifle officers were issued with curved cavalry sabres, and only Sharpe wore a straight sword. He shook his head. ‘And why didn’t Captain Morillos stop this man?’
    ‘He was ordered only to stop people from going into the house, sir, not from leaving it.’
    ‘Go on.’
    Trumper-Jones shrugged. ‘That’s it, sir. I thought, sir ...’ He stopped, nervous again.
    ‘Well?’
    ‘I thought, sir, that if we presented your record to the court, sir, that they must be lenient. The Eagle, sir, the Forlorn Hope at Badajoz ...’ His voice tailed away.
    Sharpe smiled. ‘You want me to plead guilty and trust that they won’t shoot a hero, is that it?’
    ‘Hang, sir.’ Trumper-Jones blushed. ‘You’ll be stripped of your commission and given a criminal’s death. Only, of course, if they ...’
    ‘If they find me guilty?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    Sharpe stared at the rusty nails on the wall. Of course this wasn’t happening. At any moment he would wake up and feel an extraordinary relief that it was only a dream. He would laugh at it, tell Sergeant Harper that he had dreamt of being court-martialled!
    Except it was not a dream. He had been abandoned to this and he could understand why. Understanding did not lessen the bitterness. A Spanish General had been murdered, and Sharpe knew well enough the fragile bond between the British and the Spanish. Spanish pride was upset that they needed the British to drive the invader from their soil, and their gratitude was made prickly by that pride. Wellington, in the wake of this blow to the alliance, was moving swiftly to offer the Spaniards a sacrifice.
    Yet someone else was moving swiftly, someone who wanted Sharpe dead, and he looked at the nervous Trumper-Jones and, in a voice that sounded drained and tired, he asked him to read out his copy of La Marquesa’s letter.
    None of it was true, of course, but the letter existed as a damning piece of evidence. Sharpe looked at the nervous young man. ‘I want paper, ink and a pen.’
    ‘But, sir ...’
    ‘Fetch them!’
    He wrote for an hour, ignoring Lieutenant Trumper-Jones, writing to Major Hogan his own version of the night’s events, describing the lies in La Marquesa’s letter, warning his friend that there was a plot of some kind, he knew not what. Even if Sharpe was dead then Hogan could not say he had not been warned. Yet what was the plot? What purpose did Sharpe’s death serve? He could understand the murder of the Marqués because such a murder would weaken a fragile alliance, but he saw no purpose in a plot that had his own death as its ending, nor did he believe that the Marquesa would seek his death.
    He folded the letter. ‘That’s to go to Major Hogan.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    Then came the boots in the yard, the scrape of the bolt, and the sudden wash of bright sunlight as the door was opened. A Sergeant, heading Sharpe’s escort, grinned at the Rifleman. ‘Good luck, sir.’
    Sharpe smiled, but said nothing. Luck, he thought had deserted him. He had had none since that day in the Gateway of God when Teresa died, and he remembered how, on the night before that death, he had been cursed by Obadiah Hakeswill. He had been cursed, his name buried on a stone.
    Sergeant Hakeswill, who had recruited Sharpe into the army, who had succeeded in having Sharpe flogged so that the scars still marred his back, and who had become Sharpe’s bitterest enemy, was dead, shot by Sharpe, and in his grave. Sharpe wondered how many hours would pass before he, too, was rolled into a shallow trench and had the dry soil of Spain shovelled onto his corpse. He followed the Sergeant to his fate.

    A Major Vaughn, Welsh and suave, was the prosecuting officer. His tone, silky and