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Sharpe’s Escape: Spain and Portugal, 1810 by Bernard Cornwell Rating: ••• (Recommended)
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Indomitable Bernard Cornwell rewards fans with the twentieth book in the Sharpe series, Sharpe’s Escape. By now, loyal readers know to expect that Captain Richard Sharpe will act impulsively, imprudently and successfully. There’s all of that and more in Sharpe’s Escape, including the return of familiar characters and the introduction of new, multi-dimensional characters to pique our interest. An Executive Times reader suggested I read this book, and I’m glad I did. Here’s an excerpt from the beginning of Chapter 4, pp. 92-96: Strangely, on the morning that the guns began to fire and make the windows, glasses and chandeliers vibrate throughout Coimbra, Ferragus announced that his brother’s household, which had readied itself to go south to Lisbon, was to stay in Coimbra after all. He made the announcement in his brother’s study, a gloomy room lined with unread hooks, where the family and the servants had gathered on Ferragus’s summons. Beatriz Ferreira, who was scared of her brother-in-law, crossed herself. “Why are we staving?” she asked. “You hear that?” Ferragus gestured towards the sound of the guns that was like an unending muted thunder. “Our army and the English troops are giving battle. My brother says that if there is a battle then the enemy will he stopped. Well, there is a battle, so if my brother is right then the French will not come.’ “God and the saints be thanked,” Beatriz Ferreira said, and the servants murmured agreement. “But suppose they do come?” It was Sarah who asked. Ferragus frowned because he thought the question impertinent, but he supposed that was because Miss Fry was an arrogant English hitch who knew no better. “If they arc not stopped,” he said irritably, “then we shall know, because our army must retreat through Coimbra. We shall leave then. But for the moment you will assume we are staying.” He nodded to show that his announcement was done and the household filed from the room. Ferragus was uncomfortable in his brother’s house. It was too full of their parents’ belongings, too luxurious. His own quarters in Coimbra were above a brothel in the lower town where he kept little more than a bed, table and chair, but Ferragus had promised to keep a watchful eve on his brother’s house and family, and that watchful eye extended past time battle. If it were won, then the French would presumably retreat, yet Ferragus was also plotting what he should do if the battle were lost. If Lord Wellington could not hold the great, gaunt ridge of Bussaco against the French, then how would he defend the lower hills in front of Lisbon? A defeated army would be in no mood to face the victorious French again, and so a loss at Bussaco would surely mean that Lisbon itself would fall inside a month. Os ingleses por mar. His brother had tried to deny that, to persuade Ferragus that the English would stay, hut in his heart Ferragus knew that Portugal’s allies would run back to the sea and go home. And why, if that happened, should he be trapped in Lisbon with the conquering French? Better to be caught here, in his own town, and Ferragus was planning how he would survive in that new world in which the French, at last, captured all of Portugal. He had never discounted such a capture. Ferreira had warned him of the possibility, and the tons of Hour that Sharpe had destroyed on the hilltop had been a token offer to the invaders, an offer to let them know that Ferragus was a man with whom negotiations could be conducted. It had been insurance, for Ferragus had no love for the French; he certainly did not want them in Portugal, but he knew it would be better to be a partner of the invaders rather than their victim. He was a wealthy man with much to lose, and if the French offered protection he would stay wealthy. Jf he resisted, even if he did nothing except flee to Lisbon, the French would Strip him bare. He had no doubt that he would lose some of his wealth if the French came, but if he cooperated with them he would retain more than enough. That was just common sense and, as he sat in his brother’s study and listened to the shudder of distant gunfire, he was thinking that it had been a mistake to even consider fleeing to Lisbon. If this battle were won then the French would never come here, and if it were lost, all would be lost. Best therefore to stay near his property and so protect it. His elder brother was the key. Pedro Ferreira was a respected staff officer and his contacts stretched across the gap between the armies to those Portuguese officers who had allied themselves with tile French. Ferragus, through his brother, could reach the French and offer them the one thing they most wanted: food. In his warehouse in the lower town lie had hoarded six months’ worth of hard biscuit, two months’ supply of salt beef, a month’s supply of salt cod and a stack of other food and materials. There was lamp oil, hoot leather, linen, horseshoes and nails. The French would want to steal it, but Ferragus had to devise a way to make them buy it. That way Ferragus would survive. He opened the study door, shouted for a servant and sent her to summon Miss Fry to the study. “I cannot write,” he explained to her when she arrived, holding up his bruised right hand to prove the incapacity. In truth he could write, though his knuckles were still sore and to flex his fingers was painful, but he did not want to write. He wanted Sarah. “You will write for me,” he went on, “so sit.” Sarah bridled at his abrupt tone, hut obediently sat at the Major’s desk where she pulled paper. inkwell and sand shaker towards her. Ferragus stood close behind her. “I am ready, she said. Ferragus said nothing. Sarah looked at the wall opposite that was filled with leather-bound hooks. The room smelledof cigar smoke. The gunfire was persisting, a grumble from far away like thunder in the next county. “The letter,” Farragus said, startling her with his gravelly voice, “is for my brother.” He moved even closer so that Sarah was aware of his big presence just behind the chair. “Give him my regards,” Ferragus said, “and tell him that all is well in Coimbra.” Sarah found a steel-nibbed pen, dipped it in ink and began writing. The nib made a scratching noise. “Tell him,” Ferragus went on, “that the matter of honor is not settled. “The man escaped.” “Just that, senhor?” Sarah asked. “Just that,” Ferragus said in his deep voice. Damn Sharpe, he thought. The wretched rifleman had destroyed the flour, and so Ferragus’s token gift to the French had stayed ungiven, and the French had been expecting the flour and they would now think Ferragus could not be trusted, and that left Ferragus and his brother with a problem. How to reassure the enemy? And would the enemy need reassurance? Would they even come? “Tell my brother,” he went on, “that I rely on his judgment whether or not the enemy will be stopped at Bussaco.” Sarah wrote. As the ink began to thin on the nib she dipped the pen again and then froze because Ferragus’s fingers were touching the nape of her nexk. For a heartbeat she did not move, and then she slapped the pen down. Senhior, you are touching me. “So?” “So stop! Or do you wish me to call Major Ferreira’s wife? Ferragus chuckled, but took his fingers away. “Pick up your pen, Miss Fry,” he said, “and tell my brother that I pray the enemy will be stopped. Sarah added the new sentence. She was blushing, not from enlbarrassment, but out of rage. How dare Ferragus touch her? She pressed too hard on the pen and the ink spattered in tiny droplets across the words. But tell him,” the harsh voice persisted behind her, “that if the enemy is not stopped, then I have decided to do what we discussed. Tell him he must arrange protection.” “Protection for what, senhor? Sarah asked in a tight voice. “He will know what I mean,” Ferragus said impatiently. “You just write, woman.” He listened to the pen’s tiny noise and sensed, from the force of the nib on the paper, the extent of tile girl’s anger. She was a proud one, he thought. Poor and proud, a dangerous mixture, and Ferragus saw her as a challenge. Most women were frightened of him, terrified even, and he liked that, but Miss Fry seemed to think that because she was English, she was safe. He would like to see terror replace that confidence, see her coldness warm into fear. She would fight, he thought, and that would make it even better and he considered taking her right there, on the desk, muffling her screams as he raped her white flesh, but there was still a terrible pain in his groin from the kick Sharpe had given him and he knew he would not be able to finish what he began and, besides, he would rather wait until his brother’s wife was gone from the house. In a day or two, he thought, he would take Miss Fry’s English pride and wipe his arse on it. “Read what you have written,” he ordered her. Sarah read the words in a small voice. Ferragus, satisfied, ordered her to write his name amid seal the letter. “Use this.” he gave her his own seal and, when Sarah pressed it into the wax, she saw the image of a naked woman. She ignored it, rightly suspecting that Ferragus had been trying to embarrass her. “You can go now,” he told her coldly, “but send Miguel to me. Miguel was one of his most trusted men ane he was ordered to carry time letter to where the cannons sounded. “Find my brother,” Ferragus instructed, “give this to him and bring me his answer.” The next few days, Ferragus thought, would be dangerous. Some money and lives would be lost, but if he was clever, and just a little bit lucky, much could be gained. Including Miss Fry. Who did not matter. In many ways, he knew, she was a distraction amid distractions were dangerous, but they also made life interesting. Captain Sharpe was a second distraction, and Ferragus wryly noted the coincidence that he was suddenly obsessed by two English folk. One, he was sure, would live and scream while the other, the one who wore the green jacket, must scream and die. It would just take luck and a little cleverness. To see how these new characters cross paths with Captain Richard Sharpe, read Sharpe’s Escape. Steve Hopkins, July 26, 2004
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