The aide-de-camp with his sketching pad started towards his horse, then stopped. No one threatened him. He frowned and, with his usual meticulous care, took a watch from his pocket, snapped open the lid that was engraved with a message from his father, and noted the time on the corner of the pad. Four minutes to nine. He looked quickly round the hilltop, seeing the second gun in its fresh pit facing south, but still seeing no enemy. Then he saw the redcoats in the Castle and he stood, aghast, and watched the musket smoke smear the morning.
The Captain whose horse was nervous had ridden to the great gate into the keep. The archway was blocked with stones, waist high, and he could see the empty inner courtyard beyond. His horse was still frightened by something, and that was strange, but he rubbed the neck, spoke fondly to it, and turned towards the stable-block. He could hear the boots of the leading Companies coming towards the Castle.
The Colonel of the Battalion waved grumpily to another Captain who wheeled his troops right, onto the Convent road, and then the Colonel looked back to the gatehouse. A fine building once, he thought.
The Captain put spurs to his horse and trotted back towards the Castle gate. He could at least confirm the abandonment of the Castle, and he grinned as he stroked his horse’s neck, and then the horse shied again for the gate house was suddenly swarming with men. An officer, a Rifleman, had appeared from the gate leading to the northern ramparts, and a lad was beside him, bugle to his mouth, and the notes jerked into the valley. More men poured from a small door in the gatehouse, Riflemen, who ran into the tunnel and knelt with their weapons aimed. They seemed to ignore him, as did the other green-jacketed men who ran past the officer to the northern wall, and then there was a shout, a cheer, and a rush of feet behind him.
Redcoats were climbing from the keep, sprinting for the fallen eastern wait of the Castle, Sergeants bellowing at them, officers shouting, and the French Captain was alone in a courtyard of the enemy and he put hand to his sword and then saw the Rifle officer on the northern rampart waving to him. The wave was obvious. Dismount. Surrender. Next to the officer a Greenjacket knelt with levelled gun.
The Captain swore bitterly, dismounted, and the first guns split the morning.
Sharpe turned back. The leading French Company was thirty yards from the Castle as the rifle bullets dropped the front rank, then the second, and he glanced to his left to watch other Riflemen aiming for the officers. Rifles snapped from the turret at the gatehouse top and Sharpe saw the French Colonel thrown backwards from his horse, blood spattering his uniform, and then another volley of rifle bullets drove into the leading Company and the French officers were shouting at their men, forming them into line, and the deadly rifles on the ramparts picked the officers off and then went for the men in the single gold Sergeants’ stripes.
‘Keep playing, lad.’ The bugler had stopped for breath.
A half-company of redcoats thundered into the gateway, lined in front of the arch, and the muskets flamed, the smoke thick in their front, and Sharpe knew that the French could not succeed in a desperate frontal charge. That had been their one hope, if their officers had lived to realize it, and now Sharpe ran back into the gatehouse, down the stairs, and out into the courtyard towards the eastern wall.
Stop them at the gate, then take them in the flank. He could hear the French shouting, hear the rattle of ramrods desperate in muskets, and then he was across the wall and the officers were shouting behind him, forming the half Battalion of Fusiliers into two ranks, a line to sweep north across the valley, and he turned to face them.
He waited as redcoats stumbled into place, checked their dressing, and Sharpe did not hurry them. This had to be perfect, for this was the one chance they would have to fight in the open valley and he did not want the Fusiliers to go forward in a hurry, their concentration broken by excitement and fear, and he waved at one gap between Companies. ‘Close them up, Sergeant!’
‘Sir!’
‘Fix Bayonets!’
The rattle and scrape along the line. Rifles sounded by the gatehouse, the crash of muskets, then, at last, the first French replies as the dazed Battalion formed a ragged line at the crossroads.
Sharpe turned, drew the great sword. ‘Forward!’
He would have liked a band at this moment, he wanted to hear the music in his ears as he went forward, the crash of a good tune such as ‘The Downfall of Paris’ or, better still, the Rifle’s song ’Over the Hills and Far Away‘, but there was only the bugle still sounding. He looked left and still no more French troops were visible. He feared the cavalry and had an officer with Cross’s second bugler on the keep to sound a warning if it appeared.
He looked to his front again. The Riflemen on the Convent roof were biting into the back of the French. They were panicking now, the enemy, crowding eastwards towards the village and Sharpe wanted that. He inclined the line to the left, forcing the French east, and the Riflemen from the gateway sprinted further left as the Fusiliers blocked the line of fire from the gate.
The nervousness was gone now, the hours of doubt as the night crawled by, the moments of waiting to unleash this small force against the enemy, and Sharpe felt the roadway beneath his boots and saw the French fifty yards ahead, and already he was picking his way through their dead. A musket ball went close to his head, a fluttering noise that left a tiny slap of wind, and he saw a Frenchman who had died with a look of utter astonishment on his young face. Behind Sharpe the Sergeants called. ‘Close up! Close up!’ They were taking casualties.
Sharpe stopped, listened to the boots behind him, heard the Rifles from the gatehouse, and the two rank line came up to him. ‘Fusiliers! Present!’
The twin line of muskets, steel tipped, went to the shoulders. To the French it seemed as if the red line had made a quarter turn to the right.
‘Fire!’
Flames gouted into smoke, a killing volley at short range, and the cloud spread in front of the Fusiliers obscuring their view.
‘Left wheel!’ This would be ragged, but this did not matter. His ears rang with the bellow of the muskets.
‘Charge!’
Bayonets from the smoke, swords in the hands of officers, and Sharpe bellowed with them as he ran out of the smoke cloud and saw the French running as he had known they would run. Timing was all. This had been rehearsed in his head again and again, thought through in the lonely hours, dreamed of as the rain fell on the weed strewn cobbles of the yard. ‘Halt! Dress!’
A wounded Frenchman cried and crawled towards the Fusiliers. Their dead were thick at the crossroads where they had taken the single volley of musket fire at a range so close that hardly a weapon could miss. The Battalion was going back towards the village, leaderless and frightened, and Sharpe was standing close to the fallen Colonel. The man’s horse was running free in the valley.
Sharpe re-lined the Fusiliers, still listening for the bugle call that would warn of the French cavalry, and he bellowed at the men to load. This was clumsy because the long bayonets skinned their cold knuckles as they rammed the shots home, but he needed one more volley from them. Gilliland! Where the hell was Gilliland?
The French officer at the watchtower saw them first, Lancers! The English had no Lancers! Yet there they were, coming across the skyline to the south, riding like the very devil down the small valley that split Castle and watchtower. They looked ragged and unprofessional, but that might have been because the horses had to negotiate the thorns, and then the French Battalion saw them and the officers and the Sergeants who still lived screamed at their men. ‘Form square!’ They knew what the Lancers would do to scattered infantry, knew how the long blades would tear into them and slaughter them, and the French leaders pulled at men, struck them, and formed the rallying square as the greatcoated horsemen burst out into the valley’s pasture.
‘Forward!’ Sharpe shouted again, his sword unblooded, and the two ranks stepped and stumbled over the dead bodies of the French, past the wounded who cried for help, and the joy was on Sharpe f
or now he was within a few seconds of this first success.
‘Left! Left! Left!’ The Fusilier Captain who led the Lancers shouted at them, circled towards the Castle, waved with his sword at the place of safety. Never in any of his wildest hopes had Sharpe wanted the untrained Rocket Troop to drive the charge home. They would have died like cattle in a slaughter-house, but they had done their job. They had forced the Battalion into square, into a solid target for another volley from the muskets, and as the horsemen swerved fast, water spraying from their horses’ hooves, and rode for the courtyard, Sharpe halted the line again. ‘Present!’
The French knew what was coming. Some called out, pleading for quarter, and some hunched down like men anticipating a storm of wind and rain, and then the great sword fell. ‘Fire!’
The splitting crash and hammer of the volley, the dirty throated cough of the half-Battalion’s muskets, and the balls converged and struck home into the huddled mass and again,‘Charge!’
The bugle sounded from the keep. ‘The enemy is cavalry’.
‘Back! Back! Back!’
They checked, skidded, turned, and ran as they had been told to run. A panicked rush for the eastern wall, a scramble away from the threat of French cavalry coming from the village, and at the wall they stopped, turned, and lined on the rubble that would destroy any charging horse. Then they cheered. They had done it. They had taken on a French Battalion, destroyed it, and the bodies littered the valley to prove it.
Sharpe walked back. He could see that the German Lancers were far away, unformed, and no threat. He looked towards the Convent and saw the huge figure of Harper standing on the roof. Blue-coated bodies on the road to the Convent showed where the single French Company had been pushed back. He waved to Harper and saw a raised hand in reply. Sharpe laughed.
Sharpe climbed the rubble of the wall, a rubble still marked by the explosion that had happened just yesterday. He looked at the Fusiliers. ‘Who said it couldn’t be done?’
Some laughed, some grinned. Behind them the artillerymen were gratefully sliding from saddles, leading their horses into the inner courtyard. They chattered noisily like men who had survived the valley of the shadow of death, and Sharpe saw Gilliland talking excitedly to the Fusilier Captain who had steered them safely to the Castle gate. Sharpe cupped his hands. ‘Captain Gilliland!’
‘Sir?’
‘Make your men ready!’
‘Sir!’
Sharpe had propped the sword against his thigh and he retrieved it, sheathed it, and looked at the Fusiliers. ‘Are we going to lose?’
‘No!’ They roared the message defiantly across the valley.
‘Are we going to win?’
‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’
Pierre, the aide-de-camp, appalled and alone on the watchtower hill, heard the triple shout and stared into the valley. The survivors of the Battalion were going back to the village, pressed on their way by the Rifles that still fired from Castle and Convent, leaving behind them the Gateway of God horrid with dead and wounded. He took out his watch, clicked the lid open, and jotted down the time. Three minutes past nine! Seven minutes of butchery planned by a professional, seven minutes in which a French Battalion had lost nearly two hundred dead and wounded. A second French Battalion was parading in front of the village, their ranks opening to let the survivors through, and the German Lancers were forming in squadrons at the foot of the hill. ‘Hey! Hey!’
It took a few seconds for the aide-de-camp to realize the hail was for him. The Colonel of the German Lancers tried again. ‘Hey!’
‘Sir?’
‘What’s up there?’
‘Nothing, sir! Nothing!’
Some men of the defeated Battalion went back for their wounded, but the Rifles’ bullets drove them back. They protested, holding up their arms to show they carried no weapons, but the Rifles fired again. They went back. Dubreton crossed to the Lancers, heard the shout and shook his head. ‘It’s a trap.’ Of course it was a trap. Dubreton had watched Sharpe lead the half Battalion into the valley and he had hated Sharpe for his skill and admired him for the achievement, and no soldier who could gut an Emperor’s Battalion in such short time would leave this hill unguarded.
The German Colonel waved at the aide-de-camp. ‘He’s there, isn’t he?’
‘So are the British.’ Dubreton’s eyes searched the tangles of thick thorn. ‘Call him down.’
The German shook his head. ‘And lose the hill? Perhaps they don’t have enough men to defend it?’
‘If he had half his number he’d defend it.’
The German twisted in his saddle and spoke to a Lieutenant, then looked back to Dubreton and grinned. ‘A dozen men, yes? They’ll search it better than that artist.’
‘You’ll lose them.’
‘Then I’ll revenge them. Go!’
The Lieutenant shouted at his men, led them into one of the winding paths, and the lances were held high so that the red and white pennons were bright against the blackness of the thorns. Dubreton watched them climb, saw how slow progress was in the thick bushes, and he feared for them. A Company of Voltigeurs came running from the village, French skirmishers sent to reinforce the climbing horsemen, and Dubreton wondered whether Sharpe had decided, after all, only to defend the two great buildings at the crest of the pass. Perhaps the German Colonel was right. Perhaps Sharpe did not have the men to hold all this ground, and the watchtower hill was horribly far from the Castle. Further, indeed, than the village was from the Castle gate.
The Voltigeurs, red epaulettes bright on blue uniforms, disappeared into the thorns, bayonets fixed on their muskets. Sixty men took a half dozen paths and Dubreton saw them climb. The Lieutenant was almost at the top. ‘We should have put a Battalion in there.’
The German Colonel spat, not at Dubreton’s words, but at the Riflemen who stopped the French fetching their wounded. ‘Bastards.’
‘They’ll make us carry a white flag. He’s buying time.’ Dubreton shook his head. Sharpe was a hard enemy.
The Lancer Lieutenant broke clear of the last thorns and grinned at the aide-de-camp. ‘You’ve taken the hill, sir!’ His French was broken.
Pierre shrugged. ‘They’ve gone!’
‘Let’s make certain, sir.’
The Lancers spread out, blades dropped, but this was no place for a heart-stopping cavalry charge, hooves thundering on turf and blades searing at an enemy. This was a cramped, pocked hilltop surrounded by dark thorn and the horses walked slowly forward so the cavalry could peer into the deep wet spines.
Frederickson watched them. A pity, this. He had hoped for a Company, at least, not such few men, but a man must take what fate gives him. ‘Fire!’
Only the Rifles fired, Rifles that outnumbered the Lancers nearly seven to one, and the big horses fell; screaming, and the lance blades toppled, and Frederickson tore himself clear of the thorns. ‘Forward!’
One Lancer was alive, miraculously alive, and he stood with his lance extended and shook his head as Frederickson shouted at him in German. Then more German voices called to him, Riflemen, and the Lancer still obstinately refused to surrender but challenged them with his long weapon. He lunged at Frederickson, but the sabre easily turned the lance aside, and Sergeant Rossner hooked the Lancer’s feet from underneath him, sat on the man’s chest, and bellowed at him in angry German.
‘Come on!’ Frederickson rushed the hilltop, waving his men left and right, listening to the curses and shouts and they pulled themselves from the thorns. ‘Skirmishers in front!’ A musket bullet flattened itself on the tower. ‘Kill those bastards!’
Frederickson was not worried by a Company of French Skirmishers. He spent his life fighting Voltigeurs, as his men did, and he left his Lieutenants to push them back while he walked to the gun facing north and pulled the nail out of the touch-hole. A sketch-book had fallen under the trail of the gun and he stooped, wiped the mud from the open page, and saw the drawing of the tower doorway.
‘Captain?’
A grinning Fusilier came round the tower, bayonet in the back of the aide-de-camp. The Frenchman looked terrified. He had run at the first bullets, dived into the gunpit, and then the hilltop was swarming with British troops. Now he faced the most villainous man he had ever seen, a man with one eye, the other socket raw and shadowed, a man whose top front teeth were missing, and a man who smiled wolfishly at him.
‘Yours?’ Frederickson asked, holding the sketch pad out.
‘Oui, monsieur.’
The vile looking Rifleman looked at the sketch, looked back to the Frenchman, and this time Frederickson spoke in French. ‘Have you been to Leca do Balio?’
‘No, monsieur.’
‘A very similar doorway. You’d like it. And some fine lancet windows in the clerestory. And below it, too. A Templar’s church, which might explain the foreign influence.’ But Frederickson could have saved his breath. The aide-de-camp had fainted clean away, and the Fusilier grinned at Frederickson. ‘Shall I kill him, sir?’
‘Good God, no!’ Frederickson sounded pained. ‘I want to talk to him!’
Rifles cracked from the top of the tower, Rifles that drove confusion in the ranks of the Lancers. The German Colonel swore, grimaced, and blood was on his thigh. He clamped a hand on the wound, looked up the hill, and swore again.
The Voltigeurs were going back, hunted through the thorns that crackled as the Rifle bullets spun through them. The French Voltigeur Captain saw more troops appear, red-coated and equipped with bayonets. ‘Back! Back!’
Dubreton turned his horse and spurred back to the village. They had done everything Sharpe had known they would do, everything! They had played into his hand and now they would be forced to do the next thing Sharpe had planned. They would be forced to ask for a truce to rescue their wounded. Sharpe wanted time, and they would hand it to him on a plate!
‘Colonel!’ The General shouted. Behind the General an aide-de-camp was already skewering one of the white cloths from the inn onto a sword.
Sharpe 3-Book Collection 5: Sharpe's Company, Sharpe's Sword, Sharpe's Enemy Page 80