Sharpe's Revenge Read Online Free PDF

Challon, Ducos now knew, was his man. ‘The fever,’ Ducos said mildly, ‘can be very catching.’
    â€˜So I’ve heard, sir.’
    â€˜And our responsibility will demand at least six men. Don’t you agree?’
    â€˜I think more than that will survive the fever, sir,’ Challon said as elliptically as Ducos. They were now confederates in treachery, and neither could state it openly, though each perfectly understood the other.
    â€˜Good.’ Ducos picked up one of the cockades. Challon hesitated, then picked up the other, and thus their pact was sealed.
    Two mornings later there was a sea-fog that rolled from the Garonne estuary to shroud Bordeaux in a white, clinging dampness through which nine horsemen rode eastwards in the dawn. Pierre Ducos led them. He was dressed in civilian clothes with a sword and two pistols at his belt. Sergeant Challon and his men were in the vestiges of their green uniforms, though all the troopers had discarded their heavy metal helmets. Their saddle bags bulged, as did the panniers of the pack horses that three of the troopers led.
    To deceive, cheat, disguise, and outwit; those were the skills Ducos had given to his Emperor; which skills must now serve his own ends. The horses clattered through the city’s outer gate, stirred the fog with their passing, and then were gone.

CHAPTER 1
    â€˜Of course the Peer knew about it,’ Major-General Nairn was speaking of the duel, ‘but between you and me I don’t think he was unhappy about it. The Navy’s been rather irritating him lately.’
    â€˜I expected to be arrested,’ Sharpe said.
    â€˜If you’d have killed the bugger, you would have been. Even Wellington can’t absolutely ignore a deceased Naval Captain, but it was clever of you just to crease the man’s bum.’ Nairn gave a joyful bark of laughter at the thought of Bampfylde’s wound.
    â€˜I was trying to kill him,’ Sharpe confessed.
    â€˜It was much cleverer of you to give him a sore arse. And let me say how very good it is to see you, my dear Sharpe. I trust Jane is well?’
    â€˜Indeed, sir.’
    Sharpe’s tone caused Nairn to give the Rifleman an amused look. ‘Do I detect that you are in marital bad odour, Sharpe?’
    â€˜I stink, sir.’
    It had taken Sharpe three days to catch up with the advancing army, and another half-day to find Nairn, whose brigade was on the left flank of the advance. Sharpe had eventually discovered the Scotsman on a hilltop above a ford which the British had captured that morning and through which a whole Division now marched. The French were only visible as a few retreating squadrons of cavalry far to the east, though a battery of enemy artillery occasionally fired from a copse of trees about a mile beyond the river.
    â€˜You brought Frederickson?’ Nairn now asked.
    â€˜His men are at the foot of the hill.’
    â€˜Creased his bum!’ Nairn laughed again. ‘Can I assume from your marital odour that Jane is not with you?’
    â€˜She sailed for home two days ago, sir.’
    â€˜Best place for a woman. I never really did approve of officers carrying wives around like so much baggage. No offence, of course, Jane’s a lovely girl, but she’s still baggage to an army. Hello! Christ!’ These last words were a greeting for a French cannonball that had thumped across the river and bounced uphill to force Nairn into a frantic evasion that almost spilled him from his saddle. The Scotsman calmed his horse, then gestured over the river. ‘You can see what’s happening, Sharpe. The bloody French try to stop us at every river, and we just outflank the buggers and keep moving.’ At the foot of the slope Nairn’s brigade patiently waited their turn to cross the ford. The brigade was composed of one Highland battalion and two English county battalions.
    â€˜What exactly do you want me to do?’ Sharpe