Sharpe crouched beside Captain Gilliland high in the keep. He had to shout over the noise of the cannonade. ‘You know what to do?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Gilliland was unhappy. The rest of his rockets would be used in a manner he did not like. ‘How long, sir?’
‘I don’t know! An hour? Maybe two?’
Men wanted the French to come, wanted this storm of metal to end, wanted to have this fight done.
Frederickson yelled at the French to attack, called them yellow bastards, women to a man, afraid of a little hill with a few straggly thorns, and still the infantry did not come. One Rifleman screamed in pain because a canister ball was in his shoulder and Frederickson bawled at him to be silent.
The gunners slaved at their machines, served them, hauled at them, fed them with revenge for their dead Colonel.
High on the eastern side of the keep Sharpe watched the village. Once he flinched as a high canister shot struck shards of razor sharp stone from the hole he peered through. Somewhere a man screamed, the scream cut short, and the noise rolled about the valley and the smoke of the guns was drifted high over the pass and still the metal came at the walls and the shells cracked apart in the yard.
‘Sir?’ Harper pointed.
The French were coming.
Not in a column, not in one of France’s proud columns, but uncoiling like snakes from the village, four men in a file, and three Battalions were marching down the road, marching fast, and still the guns thundered, and still Sharpe’s men died in ones and twos; and still the shells battered at the defenders.
Fifteen hundred men, bayonets fixed, staying in the centre of the valley well away from the flight of the guns.
Sharpe watched them. He had held this place for a day now and he had desperately hoped for two. It would not be. He had one card left to play, just one, and when that was played it would all be over. He would retreat south through the hills, hoping the French cavalry had better targets to chase than his depleted force, and he would leave his wounded to the mercy of the French. He had made the garrison pile their coats and packs at the southern exit from the keep, the exit Pot-au-Feu’s men had used and which was now guarded by twenty Fusiliers to stop the faint-hearted leaving early. He grinned at Harper. ‘It was a good fight, Patrick.’
‘It’s not over yet, sir.’
Sharpe knew different. The curse was on him like a lead weight, and he supposed the curse would bring defeat, would let the French through the pass, and he wondered if he would have time to go to the dungeon before the panic of the scramble southwards and kill the yellow-faced misshapen man. That would lift the curse.
In the dungeon Hakeswill listened. He could read a battle by its sound and he knew the moment was not yet. He had hoped it would be in the night, but a Fusilier Lieutenant had sat with the sentries through much of the darkness, and Hakeswill had done nothing. Soon, he promised himself, soon.
Sharpe turned to the man who had replaced the bugler. ‘Ready?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘In a minute. Wait.’
The French were close, the Battalions turning towards the Castle, coming over the place where yesterday the rockets had shredded the ranks, but today there was no weapon that fired at them.
The guns stopped. It seemed like silence in the valley.
The left hand Battalion of the French broke into a run, curving further left, heading south-east, and they ran towards the watchtower hill because they would attack from the one direction where Dubreton had rightly guessed there were few defences.
The other two Battalions raised a cheer, lowered their bayonets, and ran at the rubble of the eastern wall. No muskets fired from the defenders, no rifles, and the gun that would have flanked them lay on its side, shattered, useless on the stones. The two men who would have fired it sprawled lifeless on the cobbles.
A Rifleman on the keep’s ramparts shouted for Sharpe, shouted loud, but the message never reached him. The French were in the courtyard.
Chapter 28
The news had come from Salamanca, where so much news came from because the Rev. Dr Patrick Curtis had been Professor of Astronomy and Natural History at the University of Salamanca. Strictly speaking Don Patricio Cortes, as the Spanish called him, was still Professor, and still Rector of the Irish College, but he had been in temporary residence in Lisbon ever since the French had discovered that the seventy-two year old Irish priest was interested in things other than God, the stars, and the natural history of Spain. Don Patricio Cortes was also Britain’s chief spy in Europe.
The news reached Dr Curtis in Lisbon two evenings before Christmas. He was hearing confessions in a small church, helping out the local priest, and one of the penitents had nothing to confess and gave news through the grille instead. Hurriedly Dr Curtis left his booth, smiling apologetically at the. parishioners, and after hastily crossing himself he undid the papers that had been sent to him across the border. The messenger, a trader in horses who sold to the French so he could travel unimpeded, shrugged. ‘I’m sorry it’s late, Father. I couldn’t find you.’
‘You did well, my son. Come with me.’
But time was desperately short. Curtis went to Wellington’s quarters and there he fetched Major Hogan from dinner, and the small Irish Major, who was also in charge of what Wellington liked to call his ‘intelligence’, rewarded the messenger with gold and then hurried the captured French despatch to the General.
‘God damn.’ The General’s cold eyes looked at Hogan. ‘Any doubt?’
‘None, sir. It’s the Emperor’s code.’
‘God damn.’ Wellington gave the smallest apologetic shrug towards the elderly priest, then blasphemed again. ‘God damn.’
There was time to send word to Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, to roust Nairn out of Frenada and have the Light Division moving, but that was not what worried the Peer. He was worried by the French diversionary attack that would come from the hills and descend on the valley of the Douro. God damn! This spring Wellington planned a campaign the like of which had never been seen in the Peninsula. Instead of attacking along the great roads of invasion, the roads that led eastward from Ciudad Rodrigo and from Badajoz, he was taking troops where the French thought they could not go. He would lead them north-east from the hills of Northern Portugal, lead them on a great circuit to cut the French supply road and force battle on a perplexed and outflanked enemy. To do it he would need pontoons, the great clumsy boats that carried roadways across rivers, because his invasion route was crossed by rivers. And the pontoons were being built at the River Douro and the French force was planning to descend on that area, an area that would normally be of small importance except this winter. God damn and damn again.
‘Apologies, Curtis.’
‘Don’t mention it, my Lord.’
Messengers went north that night, messengers who changed horses every dozen miles or so, messengers who rode to warn the British that the French were coming, and Wellington followed them himself, going first to Ciudad Rodrigo because he feared to lose that great gateway into Spain. With any luck, he thought, Nairn could hold the French at Barca de Alva.
Major General Nairn looked once at the order, thought for a moment, then disobeyed. The Peer had forgotten, or else had not connected the name Adrados with the Gateway of God, that the British already had a force that could block the French. A pitifully small force, a single Battalion with a raggle-taggle collection of Riflemen and Rockets, but if it could hold the pass just twelve hours then Nairn could reinforce it. His cold magically disappeared.
And now he was late. The snow had held him up and he feared he was too late. He had met Teresa coming from the pass and he had listened to her message, charmed her, and then taken her along with his troops who struggled against the snow. Next came Sir Augustus Farthingdale, icy and angry, who insisted that .there were complaints, serious complaints, that he wished to make against Major Richard Sharpe, but Nairn politely declined to listen, then rudely insisted, and finally ordered Sir Augu
stus and Lady Farthingdale on their way. On the evening of December 26th the wind brought more snow and the grumble of guns.
They marched before dawn and Nairn heard a mighty explosion in the hills, and the light showed a great pall of smoke that blew towards him, yet still the guns sounded. March to the guns, always to the guns, and he sent his best troops ahead with orders to climb fast and Teresa went with a Spanish Battalion of light troops that could climb the hills beside the pass and come down on the French flank. She would guide them, and they struggled through the cold, the snow, listening always to the guns that told them the battle still lived, that their help was needed, and then the guns stopped.
A seeming silence in the hills. The guns rested.
The French were in the courtyard. They were cheering, running, swarming over the stones of the eastern wall and there was no enemy.
The French officers had their swords drawn. They looked at ramparts and turrets for targets for their men, but the Castle seemed empty and silent, and then a shout from a Frenchman and they could see the Fusiliers crammed in the archway behind their low barricade of stone. ‘Charge!’
‘Fire!’ The Fusilier volley drove an avenue of musket fire into the courtyard.
‘Fire!’ The second rank pushed past the first.
‘Fire!’ The third was at the front, two more behind it, while the ranks that had fired reloaded and came up behind.
‘Fire!’ The archway was safe.
‘Doors!’ French officers led their men to the doorways into the gatehouse and north-western turret, but the doors had been blocked solid with stone, as had the steps to the northern ramparts, and still the French infantry piled into the courtyard and believed they had victory.
‘Now!’ Sharpe snarled at the bugler. ‘Now!’
Dubreton had foreseen this. He had known that the courtyard would be a deathtrap, a cul de sac, unless the men could fight their way into the keep.
French officers shouted at their men. ‘Fire! Fire at the archway!’
And then the bugle sounded. The notes climbed the full octave once, twice, three times. ‘Open fire’.
The sticks had been taken from the remaining rockets much to Gilliland’s disgust and now the Rocket Troop put fire to the fuses, waited to see the fire catch, and then tossed the stickless cylinders out of arrow-slits, through gaps in the stones, over ramparts, and down to the courtyard crammed with French.
The cylinders tumbled, smoke intricate behind them, and then they coughed and roared into life and without the sticks they could not fly but hurled themselves in aimless frantic patterns in the yard.
‘Come on! Throw!’
More came, more rockets, shells beginning to explode in their heads, and still more came, their tails flaying the French with fire, the rockets whipping erratically about the stones, breaking ankles, lodging in bodies, exploding, burning, and Sharpe yelled at the men to throw more. Some snaked their way to the stables where they added to the fire and pumped smoke at the disorganized French, while most carved gaps in the crowded ranks and exploded their iron fragments in circles of death, while the solid-tipped rockets hurled their weight against feet and legs and wounded bodies and the French shouted in alarm, in confusion, and still more came.
‘Downstairs!’ Sharpe led Harper and the bugler down to where the Fusiliers waited for this moment. Two hundred of them waited with their Colours and Sharpe pushed the bugler forward. ‘Sound the cease-fire!’ He looked at the Fusiliers, those who were not guarding the archway. ‘Fix bayonets!’
The bugle was sounding its message to the Rocket Troop again and again, but Sharpe did not hear it. He heard only the scraping and clicking as the seventeen-inch blades were slotted onto muskets and he drew his own sword, the metal bright in the archway’s gloom, and he waited until he was sure no more rockets were being thrown. ‘We go to the rubble! No further!’ He would clear the yard, kill the enemy, for in this hour of defeat he could still claw and maim this French force and hope to weaken it so that it could not perform whatever duty it had been sent to do.
‘Charge!’
This was the way to end it! Sword in hand and charging, and even though the battle was lost he could still make these French regret the day they had come to the Gateway of God. He could put fear in them for their next battle, he would make them remember this place with sourness. ‘Get them!’ The sword twisted in his hand as it glanced off bone, but the man was down, and then he heard the bellow of the seven-barrelled gun, and Sharpe had a glimpse of the Fusiliers, teeth bared over white crossbelts on red uniforms, blades reaching ahead, and the yard was full of smoke and stinking rocket carcasses and the French were running from the line of men who had erupted into the gloom and Sharpe saw an officer trying to rally them and he lunged at the man, felt the Frenchman’s sword scrape the length of his blade, and then he was onto the man, beating down with the blade, and he could see the rubble ahead. ‘On!’
He tugged the sword free, looked for another enemy, but the French had gone back, the courtyard was his, and he screamed at Brooker to line the Fusiliers on the rubble. He saw the two Colours, ragged and blackened, proud over the line and he stood in front of them, sword red in his hand, and there was a mad impulse to charge on into the valley as if his two hundred Fusiliers could sweep the French clear out of the hills.
That was the last card, the last surprise, the final twisting of the French tail. There was nothing left now but muskets, rifles, and bayonets. He would have to retreat before the next attack, and a small part of him said it would be sensible to go now, go while the French were not pressing behind, while he could still extricate Frederickson from the hill, but Sharpe would not retreat until he could see the enemy’s face. He would not.
He could hear firing to his left and he wondered if the French were attacking through the gate. “Watch the gate, Mr Brooker!‘
‘Sir!’
Where were the bastards? Why did they not come? This was the moment of their victory, the moment when Sharpe could not fight them, and then he wondered whether the guns would start again and the canister would spray the Fusiliers red and ragged off the stones, but still he stared into the smoke of the rockets and wondered why the enemy did not come.
The smoke drifted slowly, cleared thin, and he saw why the guns did not fire.
The Battalion that had attacked the watchtower hill was in full retreat, streaming across the valley. Sharpe grinned. Sweet William had blooded them.
Sweet William was mad with anger. ‘You bastards! You bastards!’ He shook his fist at men in sky-blue uniforms, men who had swept from behind the Castle and charged with bayonets at the Battalion which had been coming for Frederickson. ‘You bastards!’ The Spaniards had cheated him of a fight.
‘Sir!’ Harper was pointing left. ‘Sir!’ His voice was triumphant.
Riflemen. Scores of Riflemen! Greenjackets! How the hell had they got here, Sharpe wondered? And he felt the weight of defeat lift from him and he stared, almost unbelieving, at the French running from the Convent, at the skirmish line that was on his flank, and then he looked right and saw the Spanish uniforms on the hill. They had won!
‘Fusiliers! Forward!’
And Hakeswill struck.
Chapter 29
Only a fraction of the gold that Sharpe and Dubreton had fetched so laboriously to the Gateway of God had been found. Handfuls had been taken off the prisoners, lost forever into the pouches of French and British soldiers, but the bulk of it still lay in the Castle. It was hidden for gold was a useful thing to hide, a cache that could be retrieved at leisure when the enemy had gone, and Hakeswill had hidden it well. It was in the dungeon, behind the gore-splashed wall where he had tortured and murdered the men and women who had displeased him. Now he needed the gold.
He did not take all of it. Enough to last him a few weeks and enough to get him out of the Castle, and when he judged by the sound of the battle that the Castle keep was short of defenders, he acted.
He threw one coin. It cl
inked heavily, rolled down two steps, and shuddered to a halt. A sentry, nervous because of the battle sounds, stared disbelieving at the gold.
Another coin came from the darkness, caught the light of the straw torch, and bounced on the stone of the bottom step.
The sentry grinned, went down to the cellar floor, and a comrade, jealous of his luck, called out a sour warning to be careful, but then a shower of gold glittered in the light, fell in rich harvest on the stairs, and the sentries whooped for their luck and shouted at each other for someone else to watch the prisoners while they scooped the coins into their pouches.
More gold came. Gold that was more than a Fusilier could earn in five years service, gold flickering from the darkness, gold that rang heavy on the stones and Hakeswill watched the sentries go down on hands and knees to make themselves rich. ‘Now!’
One sentry managed to scramble back, to pull a trigger and send a deserter backwards over the barricade with a bullet in his brain, but then he too was caught by the half naked men, men who stank in his nostrils, who beat him with fists and then stamped the life from him with the butt of his own musket.
‘Stop!’ Hakeswill crouched halfway up the steps, next to the bloody body of the one man who had fought back. ‘Wait, lads, wait.’
He carried his bag of gold in his hand, crept up the stairs, and saw the passageway beyond the door empty. Packs and greatcoats were piled in the passage and, better still, muskets piled against a wall. The muskets had been put there by Sharpe for the final desperate defence of the Castle, muskets captured from Pot-au-Feu’s men and now returned to them.
Hakeswill moved fast. He went left and peered into the inner courtyard and swore silently when he saw the picquet that guarded the southern exit. He went the other way, plucking a greatcoat as he went, and he saw that the courtyard was oddly empty except of French dead and strange, smoking cylinders that lay on the cobbles. He went back to the cellar steps. ‘Coats up here, lads, and muskets. Get one each, then follow me.’ He would go through the courtyard, across the wall, then break right into the thorns. He prepared himself, steeled himself for the rush, planned the route he would take south. He grinned at his fellow deserters, waited for a twitching of his head to stop. ‘They can’t kill me, lads. Nor you, while you’re with me.’
Sharpe 3-Book Collection 5: Sharpe's Company, Sharpe's Sword, Sharpe's Enemy Page 87