Sharpe 3-Book Collection 5: Sharpe's Company, Sharpe's Sword, Sharpe's Enemy

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘Yes, sir. I know.’

  The aide-de-camp unhappily spread the cloth out and Dubreton could see the stains of last night’s wine. It seemed so long ago, and already his dinner guests had bloodied French pride in the grass. The next time it would not be so easy for them. Dubreton turned and spurred his horse between the ranks of the new Battalion, the aide-de-camp following him.

  The firing died in the Gateway of God, the powder smoke drifting westward on the breeze, and Sharpe walked out into the pasture-land that he had spattered with the dead and waited for his enemy.

  Chapter 21

  ‘Major Sharpe.’

  ‘Sir.’ Sharpe saluted.

  ‘I should have known, shouldn’t I?’ Dubreton was leaning forward on his saddle. ‘Did Sir Augustus die in the night?’

  ‘He found he had business elsewhere.’

  Dubreton sighed, straightened up and looked at the wounded. ‘The next time it won’t be so easy, Major.’

  ‘No.’

  The French Colonel gave Sharpe a wry smile. ‘It’s no good telling you that this is futile, is it? No.’ His voice became more formal. ‘We wish to rescue our wounded.’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘May I ask why you fired on the parties we sent forward to do just that?’

  ‘Did we hit anyone?’

  ‘Nevertheless I wish to register our protest.’

  Sharpe nodded. ‘Sir.’

  Dubreton sighed. ‘I am empowered to offer a truce for the time it takes to clear the field.’ He looked over Sharpe’s head and frowned. Fusiliers were digging at the graves which had been dug the day before.

  Sharpe shook his head. ‘No, Colonel.’ The French could bring gun limbers and have their wounded off the field in thirty minutes. ‘Any truce must last till mid-day.’

  Dubreton looked to his right. The wounded who were still conscious shouted at him for help, they knew why he had come, and some, more horrible still, pulled themselves by their arms towards him. Others lay in their blood and just cried. Some were silent, their lives shattered, their future to be cripples in France. Some would live to fight again and a few of them limped on the road towards the village. The French Colonel looked back to Sharpe. ‘I must formally tell you that our truce will last only as long as it will take us to rescue our men.’

  ‘Then I must formally instruct you to send no more than ten men to their aid. Any others will be fired on, and my Riflemen will be ordered to kill.’

  Dubreton nodded. He had known, as Sharpe had known, how this conference would go. ‘Eleven o’clock, Major?‘

  Sharpe hesitated, then nodded. ‘Eleven o’clock, sir.‘

  Dubreton half smiled. ‘Thank you, Major.’ He gestured towards the village. ‘May I?’

  ‘Please.’

  Dubreton waved vigorously and the first men ran out from the ranks of the waiting Battalion, some holding stretchers, and then there was a bigger disturbance in the ranks and two of the strange French ambulances were galloping along the road. They were small covered carts, sprung for the comfort of the wounded, and they were the envy of the British soldiers. More men survived an amputation if their limb was removed within minutes of the battle wound, and the French had developed the fast ambulances to take the casualties to the waiting surgeons. Sharpe looked up to Dubreton. ‘You had them very close, considering you were not expecting to fight.’

  Dubreton shrugged. ‘They were used to bring last night’s food and wine, Major.’ Sharpe wished he had not spoken. The last time he had met Dubreton a gift had passed between them, now they were enemies on a field. The Colonel looked at the Pioneers who were shovelling the loose earth from the graves. ‘I assume, Major, that we will undertake no military works for the duration of the truce?’

  Sharpe nodded. ‘I agree.’

  ‘So I assume that is not a defensive trench?’

  ‘A grave, sir. We lost men, too.’ The lie came smoothly off his tongue. Three Fusiliers had died, and eight were wounded, but the grave was not being enlarged for the dead.

  Sharpe turned to the Castle and waved, as Dubreton had waved, and the French Captain was released by the sentries on the gate. He rode into the field, trotted towards Dubreton, and he looked aghast at the carnage that had been wreaked on his Battalion. Behind him Fusiliers rolled the cart into the archway, sealing it.

  Sharpe waved towards the Captain and spoke to Dubreton. ‘Captain Desaix had the misfortune to be in the Castle yard when the fighting begun. He has given me his parole and undertaken not to bear arms against His Britannic Majesty, or his allies, until he has been exchanged for an officer of equal rank. Till then he is in your charge.’ It was a pompous speech, but a necessary formality, and Dubreton nodded.

  ‘It will be done.’ He spoke in French to the Captain, jerking his head towards the village, and the young man spurred away. Dubreton looked back to Sharpe. ‘He was lucky.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I hope luck stays with you, Major.’ Dubreton gathered his reins. ‘We shall meet again.’

  He turned, his spurs touched the flanks of his horse, and Sharpe watched him go. An hour and a half, a little more, and the fighting would begin again.

  He stopped by the Fusilier Pioneers who scraped in the graves. A Sergeant looked up at the officer. ‘Bloody horrid, sir. What do we do with them?’

  The bodies had been uncovered, their nakedness horribly white and stained by earth, their wounds somehow unreal. ‘They weren’t buried deep, were they?’

  ‘No.’ The Pioneer Sergeant sniffed. The bodies were scarce one foot under the earth, no protection against the carrion eaters that would scrape them up and tear at the dead flesh.

  Sharpe jerked his head towards the southernmost part of the trench, the excavation nearest to the thorn covered hillside. ‘Put them up there. Dig it deep. I want most of this trench free.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And hurry.’

  The Sergeant shook his head. ‘We could do with some help, sir.’

  Sharpe knew there were enough men. ‘If it isn’t ready in an hour and a half, Sergeant, I’ll leave you here when they attack.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The formal politeness barely disguised the hatred the Sergeant felt. As Sharpe walked away he heard the sound of the man spitting, but then there were bellowed orders, shouts for the Pioneers to get on with it, and Sharpe let the Sergeant be. It was a horrid job, but the Pioneers of a Battalion often got the horrid jobs, the worst of the digging and the least thanks. At least this time their work would not be wasted. Sharpe would need the trench to bury his dead in when this business was done.

  He climbed to the ramparts of the keep and settled himself with his telescope and a cup of tea. He could see Frederickson’s men dragging thorn bushes from the slope facing the village, some men hacking at trunks with saw-backed bayonets, others pulling at the thorns so that a wide path was being cleared up the hillside. The bushes were being taken to the southern slope, the vulnerable slope, and Sharpe wondered what cunning had devised the orders. Doubtless he would find out soon. He expected the watchtower to be the next point of attack, and he expected it to fall by mid-afternoon, and he rehearsed in his mind the plan he had to evacuate the garrison. Strictly speaking, whatever Frederickson was doing on the hill broke the terms of the truce, but the French were not meticulous in it either. Through the lens of his glass Sharpe could see the artillery coming into the village. Twelve pounders, the kings of the battlefield, big bastards to make the next hours into misery and death.

  For once in the morning he wanted company, but there was no soldier he would want to talk to. Teresa, maybe, but even she would have given short shrift to his fears of defeat. Common wisdom said that an attacker needed a three to one advantage over a well-sited defence, and Sharpe’s defence was as good as he could make it. Yet he lacked artillery to batter the French guns, and the French could bring far more than three attackers to each defender. There were the rockets, of course, but they would be useless against the artill
ery. For them Sharpe had other plans.

  Futile plans, he thought, as useless as the pride and duty that had made him stay in this high place where he could not win. He could delay the French, and every hour was a victory of a sort, but the hours would be bought at the price of men. He knelt behind the rampart again, levelled the telescope, and saw eight Riflemens’ shakoes lined on the topmost stones of the watchtower. Eight Battalions of French infantry in sight. Eight! Call that four thousand men and it sounded no better. He laughed silently to himself, a grim laugh, and he laughed because they had made him into a Major and his first achievement would be to lose a Battalion. What had Harry Price told him on the march from Frenada? That men did not live long when they fought for Sharpe. That was a grim epitaph, the summation of his life, and he shook his head as if to clear the pessimism from his mind.

  ‘Sir?’ A squeaking voice. ‘Sir?’

  The bugler walked slowly towards him, Sharpe’s rifle on his small shoulder, a plate balanced precariously on one hand. ‘The kitchen sent it, sir. For you.’

  Bread, cold meat, and ships‘biscuits.’Have you eaten, lad?‘

  The boy hesitated. Sharpe grinned.

  ‘Help yourself. How old are you?’

  ‘Fourteen, sir.’

  ‘Where did you get the rifle?’

  ‘Soldier put it in your room last night, sir. I’ve been looking after it. You don’t mind, sir?’

  ‘No. Do you want to be a Rifleman?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ The boy was suddenly eager. ‘Another two years, sir, and Captain Cross says I can join the ranks.’

  ‘Maybe the war will be over.’

  ‘No.’ The head shook. ‘Can’t be, sir.’

  He was probably right. There had been war between Britain and France for as long as this boy had lived. He would be the son of a Rifleman, he would have grown up in the Regiment, he knew no other life. He would be a Sergeant by twenty, if he lived, and if the war did end he would be spat out onto the rubbish heap of the old soldiers whom nobody wanted. Sharpe looked away from him, knelt again at the parapet, and stared at the horsemen who once again had appeared at the end of the village street. A full General, no less, coming to fight Sharpe.

  The General drummed his fingers on the leather writing box of his saddle. Damn this Sharpe, damn this pass, and damn this morning! He looked to the aide-de-camp who scribbled figures. ‘Well?’

  The Captain was nervous. ‘We think half the Battalion is in the Castle, sir, maybe more. We’ve seen one Company on the hill, and some redcoats in the Convent.’

  ‘Damned Riflemen?’

  ‘Certainly a Company on the hill, sir. But they’ve a few in the Castle and we saw a half dozen in the Convent.’

  ‘You mean there’s more than one Company?’

  The Captain nodded unhappily. ‘It would seem so, sir.’

  The General looked at Ducos whose eyes watered without the protection of his spectacles. ‘Well?’

  ‘So they have two Companies. One on the hill, the other split in two.’

  The General did not like Ducos’ nonchalance. ‘Riflemen are bastards, Major. I don’t like the way they’re breeding over there. And tell me who those Lancers are, yes?’

  Ducos shrugged. ‘I did not see them.’ His tone suggested that if he had not seen them, then they could not exist.

  ‘Well I saw them! God damn it, I saw them! Alexandre?’

  Dubreton shook his head. ‘The English don’t have lancers, and if they did they would dress them in cavalry cloaks, not infantry greatcoats. And this morning, remember, they did not charge home.’

  ‘So?’

  Dubreton shifted in his saddle, the leather creaking beneath him. ‘Well. We know La Aguja is here, and I think it’s unlikely she would travel alone. I think they were Partisans, given army greatcoats by the English.’ He shrugged. ‘They give them everything else.’

  The General looked to his other side. ‘Ducos?’

  ‘It makes sense.’ The voice was grudging.

  ‘So we add fifty Partisans to the garrison. Now tell me how many British troops there are, and where?’

  The Captain did not like the responsibility. His voice was unhappy. ‘Sixty Rifles and a hundred redcoats on the hill, sir. Thirty and three hundred in the Castle, and thirty and one hundred in the Convent?’

  The General grunted. ‘Dubreton?’

  ‘I’d agree, sir. Perhaps a few less in the Convent.’

  ‘Guns?’

  Dubreton answered. ‘Our prisoners are certain of that, sir. One in the Convent which can’t bear. One over the broken wall which isn’t a danger till we reach the courtyard, and two on the hill.’

  ‘And they brought gunners with them?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The General sat silent. Time, time, time. He wanted to be at the river this afternoon, across by evening, and at Vila Nova by nightfall tomorrow. That was optimistic, he knew, and he had allowed himself one more day to achieve his object, but if this damned Sharpe held him up all day today, then the operation would be jeopardized. He played with an idea.‘What if we ignore them? Ring that damned Castle with Voltigeurs and march straight past them? Eh?’

  It was a tempting thought. If the three Battalions that were to garrison the Gateway of God remained to continue the siege, then the rest of the force could go on into Portugal, but all of the officers knew what might happen. If the Castle was not taken by the three Battalions, then the General’s retreat was blocked. There was another reason too. Dubreton voiced it. ‘The pass is too narrow, sir. Those damned Rifles will kill every horse that goes through.’ He imagined the light guns that were to go with the General smashed on the lip of the pass, their horses shot, the weight of barrel and carriage running the wheels over wounded animals, turning over, blocking the road beneath the pitiless aim of the Greenjackets.

  The General looked left, at the high tower. ‘How long to take that?’

  ‘How many Battalions, sir?’ Dubreton asked.

  ‘Two.’

  Dubreton looked at the thorns, at the steepness of the hill, and he imagined the soldiers climbing into the Rifle fire. ‘Two hours, sir.’

  ‘As little as that?’

  ‘We’ll offer them medals.’

  The General gave a humourless laugh. ‘So we could have the tower by one o’clock. Another hour to put guns there.‘ He shrugged. ’We might as well put our guns here! They can pound those bastards into mincemeat.‘

  Ducos’ voice was a sneer. ‘Why take the tower at all? Why not just take the Castle?’ No one answered him, so he went on. ‘We lose time with every minute! Colonel Dubreton has already given them till eleven o’clock! How many men would you lose attacking the tower, Colonel?‘

  ‘Fifty.’

  ‘And still the Castle will have to be taken. So lose the men there instead.’ The Castle was a mere blur to Ducos, but he waved at it dismissively. ‘The attack en masse! Give medals to the first five ranks and go!’

  En masse. It was the French way, the method that had brought victory to the armies of the Empire throughout Europe, the way of the Emperor, the irresistible mass. Throw the mass like a human missile at the Castle’s defenders, overwhelm them with targets, terrify them with the massed drummers in the columns’ centre, and push over the dead to victory. The Castle could be theirs by mid-day, and the General knew that the Convent was not the same threat, that it was less heavily garrisoned and more vulnerable to the twelve pounder shots that would crumble its walls about the British. Take the Castle, unseat the gun in the Convent, and then his troops could be marching into the pass by two o‘clock, the garrison on the watchtower forgotten, ignored, treated with the contempt that it deserved. En masse.

  He tried to work out casualties. They would be heavy in the first few ranks, perhaps a hundred dead, but that was a small price to pay for the time he needed. He could afford to lose twice that number and still not notice. The Emperor’s way, and this wretched Ducos would write his report and it would be a good th
ing if it was said that victory was won in the Emperor’s way!

  ‘All the Battalions in the village.’ He was thinking out loud. ‘Fifty men in each rank, how many ranks?’

  ‘Eighty.’ The aide-de-camp said. A great rectangle of eight thousand men, drums in the centre, eighty ranks pushing irresistibly home.

  Dubreton had lit a cheroot. ‘I don’t like it.’

  The General wavered. He liked the idea, he did not want to be dissuaded, but he reluctantly looked at Dubreton. ‘Tell me?’

  ‘Two things, sir. First he’s dug a trench in front of the wall. That could be an obstacle. Secondly I’m worried about that courtyard. We’ll get in there and find every exit blocked. We’ll be marching into a cul de sac, with Rifles on three sides.’

  Ducos had a small spyglass to his right eye, the barrel slightly contracted to compensate for his missing spectacles. ‘The trench does not extend the full width.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘How wide is it?’

  Dubreton shrugged. ‘It’s narrow. A man could jump it without effort, but...’

  ‘But?’ The General asked.

  ‘In the column a man does not see the obstacles ahead. The first ranks will clear it, but the ranks behind will stumble.’

  ‘Then warn them! And go in from the right! Most of the column will pass the trench!’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The General blew on his hands, grinned. ‘And the courtyard ? We’ll fill it with muskets! Any damned Rifleman who shows his head will be dead! How many men do we think are there?’

  ‘Three hundred and thirty, sir.’The aide-de-camp said.

  ‘We’re frightened of three hundred and thirty? Against eight thousand?’ The General gave his horse-like laugh. ‘A Legion d’Honneur to the first man into the keep. Will that do you, Dubreton?‘

  ‘I already have one, sir.’

  ‘You’re not going, Alexandre. I need you.’ The General grinned at him. ‘Good! We ignore the watchtower. Let them think they are important, and learn differently! We will attack en masse, gentlemen, and we will put every Voltigeur in front to keep the grasshoppers busy!’ His good spirits were back. ‘We’ll paralyze them, gentlemen! We will do it in the way of Bonaparte!’