CHAPTER 15
The moment Colonel Favier removed his hat, Sharpe recognized the man who had spoken to him at the bridge over the Leyre. Favier smiled. “My general sends his congratulations.”
“Give him my commiserations.”
The French corporal holding the white flag of truce stood miserably beside Favier’s horse, while Favier stared along the ramparts. There was no one but Sharpe to be seen. Favier smiled. “My general informs you that you have acquitted yourself nobly and that you may march out with all the honours of war.” Favier shouted far louder than was necessary for just Sharpe to hear; he wanted the hidden garrison to listen to this offer. “You will be imprisoned, of course, but treated as honourable and brave opponents.”
“I’ll give you my answer,” Sharpe said, “at midday.”
Favier, who knew all the rules of this game, smiled. “If your answer is not forthcoming in ten minutes, Major, we shall presume that it is a rejection of our most generous terms. In the meantime may we remove our dead from the north ground?”
“You can send six men, unarmed, and one light cart. You should know that Captain Mayeron is our prisoner.”
“Thank you.” Favier calmed his horse that had suddenly skittered sideways on the road that led through the glacis. “And you should know, Major, that your ships believe you to be defeated and captured. They will not return for you.” He waited for a response, but Sharpe said nothing. Favier smiled. “You and your officers are invited to take lunch with General Calvet.”
“I shall give you that answer with the other,” Sharpe said.
“And General Calvet begs a favour of you. He would be appreciative of some fat bacon. He offers this in return.” Favier held up a black, squat bottle. “Brandy!”
Sharpe smiled. “Tell the general that we have all the food and drink we need. When you come for your answer I’ll give you the bacon.”
“It’s a pity for brave men to die!” Favier was shouting again. “For nothing!”
Eight minutes later Sharpe gave Favier the answer that the Frenchman expected, a rejection of the offered terms, and also tossed down a muslin-wrapped leg of bacon that the flag-carrier had to pick up from the broad ledge of the counter-guard. Favier waved a friendly farewell, then turned his horse away.
To the north a small waggon was still picking up the dead left in the dunes by Frederickson’s men. Sharpe wanted the French conscripts to see those corpses and to fear the night. The French could rule the day, but his Riflemen could make the environs of the Teste de Buch into a nightmare.
Yet within minutes of Favier’s departure Sharpe had some evidence that the Frenchman had planted some fear into his own men. Lieutenant Fytch, albeit sheepishly, wanted to know whether there was any hope in a fight.
“Who rules the waves, Lieutenant?” Sharpe asked.
“Britannia?”
Sharpe pointed to the sea. “So that’s our territory. Any moment, Lieutenant, a ship could appear. When it does, we’re safe. How would you feel if we surrendered and a naval squadron appeared an hour later?” The very fact that the question had been asked was cause for worry. Sharpe did not fear for the morale of his Riflemen, but the Marines had not been righting the French so consistently and, bereft of their ships, they felt the flickers of fear that could gnaw into a man’s confidence. “We’ve sent a message south, the Navy patrols this coast, we only have to hold on.”
“Yes, sir.”
Yet, in truth, Sharpe might have shared the tremor of despair that the lieutenant’s question had shown. There were no ships in sight, even though the waters beyond Cap Ferrat had settled to a gentle, sun-glittering chop. He waited on the ramparts, wondering what surprises the French general planned, and found himself contemplating the very thing Favier had encouraged; surrender.
Sharpe told himself that he was trapped, out-numbered, and with limited supplies of food, water and ammunition. When one of those things gave out, he was doomed.
Yet to be made a prisoner was to be taken far away from this part of France, to be marched north to the grim fortress town of Verdun and he would be even further from Jane. He had told his men they fought in hope of rescue, but he had lied.
Sharpe’s troubled thoughts were interrupted by Frederickson climbing the ramp. “I thought you were sleeping,” Sharpe said.
“I slept for three hours.” Frederickson stared out to sea. These western ramparts were the safest, the only wall not covered by the French forces, and the two officers could lean in a gun embrasure and stare at the waves.
“There’s something I should have told you,” Sharpe said uncertainly.
“You have an unnatural passion for my beauty.” Frederickson blew steam from a mug of tea. “I understand it.”
Sharpe smiled a dutiful appreciation. “Jane.”
“Ah.” Frederickson, abandoning jest, turned and leaned his rump on the stone. “Well?”
“She has the fever.”
Frederickson’s one eye considered Sharpe. “She was well the night before…”
“The symptoms appeared next morning.”
Frederickson sighed. “I wish I could express my sorrow properly, sir.”
“It’s not that.” Sharpe was embarrassed into incoherence. “I just think I’m fighting here because I can’t bear to leave her. If she dies, and I’m not there. You understand? If I surrender,” he waved feebly towards the north, “I’ll be taken away from her.”
“I understand.” Frederickson took a cheroot from his pocket. He only had six left and had rationed himself to one a day. He lit it, and drew the smoke into his lungs. He watched Sharpe, knowing what Sharpe wanted to hear, but unable and unwilling to express it. He was saved an immediate reply by the presence of three Riflemen carrying a barrel of lime to one of the citadels.
Frederickson did not know Jane. He had met her just once, and he had discovered a girl of startling prettiness, but that did not make her special. Many girls, to one degree or another, were pretty. Marine Robinson’s green-eyed drab, for whom Robinson risked a deserter’s death, would be as pretty as any society girl if she was washed, dressed properly, and taught the monkey-antics of the salon. Frederickson had noted that Jane had a sweet-natured smile and a pleasant, vivacious personality, but such things were the stock-in-trade of the young woman seeking matrimony. Any father from the middling sort in Britain, and hopeful of marrying his daughter into the better classes, made sure his child was tricked out with such allurements. And as for intelligence, which Jane seemed to have, in Frederickson’s view the largest part of female humanity so blessed inevitably wasted the gift on cheap novels, gossip, or evangelical religion.
So to suffer for such a girl, as Sharpe was evidently suffering, did not touch a nerve in Frederickson’s soul. He allowed that Jane Sharpe might one day prove to be above the common ruck, might even prove to have a distinction and character that would outlast the fading of her beauty, and doubtless Sharpe saw those possibilities within her, but Frederickson, not knowing her, did not. To agonize over a wife was therefore beyond Sweet William’s comprehension; indeed for a soldier to take a wife was beyond his comprehension. Whores could scratch that itch, and so Frederickson found he could say nothing that would be of comfort to his friend. Instead, abandoning sympathy, he posed a question. “If you died this morning, God forbid, then I’d take over?”
“Yes.” Sharpe knew that Frederickson’s commission was senior to Palmer’s.
“Then I,” Frederickson said stonily, “would fight the bastards.”
“Why?”
“Why!” Frederickson stared at Sharpe with amazement. “Because they’re crapauds! Because they’re slimy Frogs! Because as long as they’re fighting us they can’t go south and give the Peer a headache! Because the English have a God-given duty to rid the world of the French! Because it’s what I’m paid to do. Because I’ve got nothing better to do! Because Napoleon Bonaparte is a foul little worm who grovels in his own excrement! Because no one’s ordered me to surrender
just because the odds are unhealthy! Because I don’t want to live under French rule and the more of those bastards I kill the more the rest of them will slowly comprehend that fact! Do you need more?” He watched Sharpe. “If you weren’t married, would you surrender?”
“No.”
“So being married has weakened you. It does, you know. Saps a man.” He grinned to show that he did not want to be taken seriously, even if he had spoken with real conviction. “I’m sorry about Jane, I truly am. But her fight isn’t here and you are.”
“Yes.” Sharpe felt ashamed of himself. He wanted to tell Frederickson about the superstition that had kept him going through the ambush and how Killick, unwittingly, had taken that strength away from him, but he could say nothing. “I’m sorry.”
“You need a good fight,” Frederickson said cheerfully. “Nothing like a good fight to raise the spirits. And two weeks from now, my friend, we’ll open a bottle and be embarrassed this conversation ever took place.”
“Yes.” Sharpe had expected some sympathy, and had found none. “They came for a parley.”
“So I heard.”
“They said that Bampfylde was told we’d been defeated. That’s why the Navy buggered off.”
“Clever.” Frederickson blew smoke into the wind.
It was de Maquerre, Sharpe thought. Perhaps Hogan had known de Maquerre was a traitor, but no one else had known. But now Sharpe knew and he vowed, should he survive this siege, that he would seek the Frenchman out. Then the first howitzer shell cracked apart and both men twisted towards the explosion even as the shards of broken shell casing, humming and fizzing from the smoke, spattered about them.
A howitzer was merely a short-barrelled cannon useful for the firing of exploding shell. The loss of accuracy occasioned by the stunted barrel was compensated by the diameter of the shell’s explosion.
Their proper use, in battle, was to lob shells over the heads of friendly troops. Thus, unlike the long-barrelled cannons, they were fired at a gentle upward angle.
Yet General Calvet did not want to use a shallow trajectory. Instead he wanted his four howitzers to fire as mortars; firing almost vertically so their shells would plummet straight down into the killing confines of the fortress walls.
So each eight hundred and eighty pound barrel had to be wrestled from its carriage and laid in a specially made cradle of timbers laid in the gunpits. The timbers were levered and sawn from the village houses, notched to take the howitzer’s trunnions, then wedged solid with wooden quoins. Now, angling up to the sky, they would arc their shells high over the walls. Or so the theory went.
The problems, apart from the shifting and settling of the timbers beneath the hammer blows of each shot, were twofold. First, the gunner must precisely gauge the weight of powder that would send the ball neatly into the courtyard of the Teste de Buch. A quarter ounce too much would send the shell searing far beyond the enemy. Second, the duration of the ball’s flight had to be estimated and one of the five fuses selected as appropriate. It was a science fleshed out with instinct, and the very first guesses of the French artillery colonel were a tribute to his experience.
He ordered five ounces of powder used, far less than a mortar would take for the same distance, and he selected the middle fuse. The first gun, firing its experimental shot, hammered down into the timbers and squirted a quoin loose, but the colonel, watching the tiny trace of smoke from the burning fuse, saw the shell arc sweetly towards the fort, then fall, faster and faster, to provoke a cracking, dirty-smoked explosion in the very centre of the enemy.
The shell was a sphere of cast-iron filled with powder. When the fuse burned to the powder, the shell exploded and fragments of iron whistled out to fill a circle, twenty yards in diameter, with possible death. The shells dropped almost vertically.
“Take cover!” Sharpe shouted through the smoke.
Two men were down, one screaming and clutching his belly, the other motionless.
A second shell hit the ramparts, bounced, and trickled down the stone ramp. Sharpe waited for the explosion.
A third shell tore through the rafters of the garrison’s offices and exploded on the upper floor. Lieutenant Fytch, shooting out of the door like a rabbit pursued by a ferret, shouted for water.
The fourth shell buried itself in the ashes and blackened timber of the burned barracks and vented those relics up and out as it coughed its dark explosion.
“We’ve got one dead, sir!” A Rifleman pointed to the second shell which had come to rest on the ramp. No smoke came from the reed which held the fuses, but Sharpe had seen such things explode quite inexplicably.
“Stay clear of it!”
There was a pause in which, Sharpe knew, the enemy was realigning the guns and ladling black powder into the swabbed barrels. Sharpe was furious with himself. For some reason he had not anticipated mortar fire and the shock of it stunned him.
“I suppose,” Frederickson said, “we’re going to have to endure it for a while.”
“I imagine so.” But the powder laboratory was threatened, as was the surgeon’s room, and Sharpe shouted for Lieutenant Minver to make up a work-party to remove both to safer places deep in the stone galleries.
Six men ran with fouled water from the well and handed their buckets into the offices where other men fought the fire. Two Marines carried the wounded man towards the surgery, while a Rifleman dragged the dead man to the side of the yard. Sharpe saw, with approval, how the dead man’s ammunition was rescued.
Two more guns fired, this time with a different sound, and Sharpe whipped round to see that two of the enemy’s twelve-pounder guns, Napoleon’s ‘beautiful daughters’, were successfully embrasured in the scorched watermill. They were firing heavy canister, presumably to scour the defenders from the ramparts, and the heavy balls thudded on stone or whispered overhead. “Rifles! Watch those bastards!” The gunners, five hundred yards away to the south-east, just might show themselves in a window of the mill, though the smoke of their guns provided a sheltering screen against the Rifles’ aim. Then, in a shattering beat of sound, the six other twelve-pounders, some inside the mill and the others sheltered by a stone wall that ran alongside the stream-race, opened fire.
A howitzer shell screamed down, this one exploding five yards above the courtyard’s cobbles, and a fragment of its casing took the skulltop from one of the men who had crouched for shelter behind the furnace. Bullet-making had been interrupted by the attack and molten lead, tipped by the shell’s blast, poured slow and obscene on to the dead face.
Another shell landed on the eastern ramparts and tossed a Rifleman down into the courtyard. The next shell overshot, cracking apart in the dry northern ditch, while the last of this second volley, its fuse damp, bounced, span, smoked, and Patrick Harper, magnificently casual as he emerged from a powder gallery, checked the spin with his boot, licked forefinger and thumb, then bent down and plucked the burning fuse free. “Good morning, sir!”
“Good morning, RSM. Thank you for last night.”
Harper cocked an ear to the morning’s sounds. “Doesn’t seem to have discouraged the bastards, sir.”
Sharpe left just a dozen men in the shelter of the citadels, mostly Riflemen, and the rest were put deep in the safe galleries of the fort. The offices would have to burn.
Sharpe stayed on the ramparts, as did Captain Palmer, but Frederickson was ordered unwillingly into shelter. The heavy canister balls rattled and scraped on the stones, bounced spinning from the glacis, and tore at the makeshift flag. Once a French gunner showed himself beside the mill, four rifles spat, but the man, with a derisive gesture, leaped to safety.
The shells had to be endured. They came with a horrid frequency, no longer spaced in batches of four because each French gun, finding its rhythm, fired at its own pace. Sometimes two or three would land together, sometimes there would be a pause as long as thirty seconds when no shell landed, but the morning seemed to Sharpe to be an unending thunder. Again and again the expl
osions cracked and shook and rumbled and the foul-smelling smoke soured the air and flames started again in the destroyed barracks to match the flames that shot up above the ramparts from the burning offices. Six men, led by Minver, had helped move the makeshift surgery into a ready magazine while another six, led by Harper, rescued the laboratory with its precious load of half-made cartridges.
A young Marine, crouching beside Sharpe in the dubious safety of the south-east citadel, flinched each time a shell exploded. “Bastards,” he said, “bastards.” Fragments of shell casing scrabbled on stone; one fragment came through the citadel door and dropped, still smoking, at Sharpe’s feet.
“Bastards,” the Marine said. A shell hit the citadel roof, making a noise like the ringing crack of a sledge-hammer, and Sharpe heard the shell scrape as it slid down the stone roof towards the ditch and he knew if it exploded outside the loopholes the iron would scythe this casement clean like a butcher’s cleaver swept at waist level, but the shell splashed harmlessly into the ditch.
“Bastards,” the Marine said.
The fortress shook with the explosions, the air thumped with them, the cobbles were scorched by them. One of Harper’s cannon, so lovingly restored, was blown from its carriage. A corpse, hit in the belly by an exploding shell, spattered flesh and blood on the walls. One of Sharpe’s walkways, circumventing the citadels, was lifted from its place and dropped into the barracks’ rubble. Another, at the south-western corner, was burned by the flames that climbed from Lassan’s offices.
The twelve-pounders, seeing no movement on the walls, changed to solid shot and the hammer blows rang like harsh bells throughout the Teste de Buch. At five hundred yards, over open sights, the gunners could not miss. Their iron shot skimmed the glacis to crack into the ramparts and the stones, laid with poor mortar, began to shift.
“Bastards.” The Marine’s knuckles, gripping the stock of his heavy musket, were white.
“What’s your name? Sharpe asked.
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