Sharpe's Eagle s-8

by Бернард Корнуэлл

  He dropped flat in the grass. No-one had fired. He heard the French running through the grass, the moans of a wounded man, but no-one had fired at him. He lay still, stared at the skyline, and waited until his eyes could see the dim shapes of the approaching column. Questions were shouted forward, he could hear the Voltigeurs hissing back their answers, but still they were undetected; the British sat at their fires and waited for a dawn that might never happen. Sharpe had to provoke that volley.

  He laid the sword flat on the grass and pulled the Baker off his shoulder. He slid it forward, opened the pan and felt that the powder was still in place, then eased the flint back until he felt it click into place. The French were quiet again; their attacker had disappeared as quickly as he had come.

  “Talion! Talion will fire by companies! Present!“

  He shouted meaningless orders at the French. He could see the shape of the column just fifty yards away. The skirmishers had pulled back to join in the final march when this mass of men would crash into the unsuspecting British.

  “Talion!” He drew the word out. “Fire!”

  The Baker spat its bullet towards the French and he heard a sharp cry. They would have seen the muzzle flash but Sharpe rolled to his right and snatched up the sword.

  „Tirez!“ He shouted the order at the column. A dozen nervous soldiers pulled their triggers and he heard the bullets whirring over the grass. At last! The British must have woken up and he turned round to see men standing by the fires, signs of movement, even panic.

  „Tirez! Tirez! Tirez!“ He screamed at the column and more muskets banged in the night. Officers shouted at their men to stop firing, but the damage was done. The British had heard the firing, seen the musket flashes, and Sharpe could see men grabbing weapons, fixing bayonets, waiting for whatever crouched in the dark. It was time to be going. The French were moving again, and Sharpe sprinted towards the British lines. His running body was silhouetted against the fires arid he heard a crackle of musketry and felt the bullets go past him. He shouted as he ran.

  “The French! Form line! The French!”

  He saw Harper and the Riflemen running down the line, away from the centre where the French would strike home, and out to the dimly lit edge of the plateau. That was sensible. Rifles were not for close work, and the Sergeant was hiding his men in the shadows where they could snipe at the enemy. Sharpe’s breath echoed in his ears, he was panting, the run had become a struggle against tiredness and the weight of his pack. He watched the South Essex form small nervous groups that kept splitting up and reforming. No-one knew what was happening. To their right another Battalion was in equal disarray, and behind Sharpe could hear the steady sound of the French advancing at a trot.

  “The French!” He had no more breath. Harper had disappeared. Sharpe hurdled a fire and ran full tilt into a Sergeant who held on to him and supported him as he gasped for breath.

  “What’s happening, sir?”

  “French column. Coming this way.”

  The Sergeant was bewildered. “Why didn’t the first line stop them?”

  Sharpe looked at him, astonished. “You are the first line!”

  “No-one told us!”

  Sharpe looked round him. Men ran to and fro looking for their Sergeants or officers, a mounted officer rode forward through the fires. Sharpe could not see who it was, and disappeared towards the column. Sharpe heard a shout, the scream of the horse as muskets fired, and the thump of the beast falling. The musket flashes showed where the French were, and Sharpe, with a pang of satisfaction, heard the crisp sound of the Bakers at the hill’s edge.

  Then the column was visible, their white trousers showing in the firelight, angling across their front and aiming at the centre of the British line. Sharpe screamed the orders. “Present. Fire!” A few muskets banged, the white smoke swallowed immediately in the darkness, and Sharpe was alone. The men had fled at the sight of the massive column. Sharpe ran after them, beating at men with his sword. “You’re safe here! Stand still!” But it was no good. The South Essex, like the Battalion next to them, had broken and panicked and were streaming back towards the fires in their rear, where Sharpe could see men forming in companies, the ranks tipped with bayonets.

  It was chaos. Sharpe cut across the fugitives, making for the edge of the hill and the darkness where his Riflemen lay hidden. He found Knowles, with a group of the company, and pushed them ahead to join Harper, but most of the Battalion was running back. The French fired their first volley, a massive rolling thunder of shots that cracked the night with smoke and flame, and cut a swathe in the troops ahead of them. The Battalion ran blindly back towards the safety of the next line of fires, Sharpe crashed into fugitives, shook them off, struggled towards the comparative peace of the edge of the hill. A voice shouted, “What’s happening?” Sharpe turned. Berry was there, his jacket undone, his sword drawn, his black hair falling over his fleshy face. Sharpe stopped, crouched, and growled. He remembered the girl, her terror, her pain, and he rose to his feet, walked the few paces, and grabbed Berry’s collar. Frightened eyes turned on him.

  “What’s happening?”

  He pulled the Lieutenant with him, over the crest, down into the darkness of the slope. He could hear Berry babbling, asking what was happening, but he pulled him down until they were both well below the crest and hidden from the fires. Sharpe heard the last fugitives pound past on the summit, the crackle of musketry, the shouts diminishing as the men ran back. He let go of Berry’s collar. He saw the white face turn to him in the darkness, there was a gasp.

  “My God. Captain Sharpe? Is that you?”

  “Weren’t you expecting me?” Sharpe’s voice was as cold as a blade in winter. “I was looking for you.”

  CHAPTER 19

  A spent musket ball whirred over Sharpe’s head; the sounds of the battle were fainter now that he was below the crest and the only light came from the eerie reflections of the deserted fires on the undersides of the battle-smoke that drifted from the plateau of the Medellin.

  “Sharpe!” Berry was still babbling. He lay on his back and tried to wriggle his way uphill away from the tall, dark shape of the Rifleman. “Shouldn’t we go, Sharpe, the French? They’re on the hill!”

  “I know. I’ve killed at least two of them.” Sharpe held his blade at Berry’s breast and stopped the wriggling. “I’m going back to kill a few more soon.”

  The talk of killing silenced Berry. Sharpe could see the face staring up at him but it was too dark to read the expression. Sharpe had to imagine the wet lips, the fleshy face, the look of fear.

  “What did you do to the girl, Berry?”

  The Lieutenant remained silent. Sharpe could see the slim sword lying forgotten on the grass; there was no fight in the man, no will to resist, just a pathetic hope that Sharpe could be placated.

  “What did you do, Berry?” Sharpe stepped closer and the blade flickered at Berry’s throat. Sharpe saw the face twist to and fro, heard the breath gulping in the Lieutenant’s throat.

  “Nothing, Sharpe, I swear it. Nothing.”

  Sharpe flicked his wrist so that the blade nicked Berry’s chin. It was razor sharp and he heard the gasp.

  “Let me go. Please! Let me go.”

  “What did you do?” Sharpe heard the distinctive sound of the rifles firing to his right. The rolling crackle of musketry was to the left, and he guessed that the French column had thrown its skirmishers out to the flanks to clear away the scattered groups that still offered resistance. He had not much time; he wanted to be with his men and to see what was happening on the hilltop, but first he wanted Berry to suffer as the girl had suffered, to fear as she had feared.

  “Did Josefina plead with you?” The voice was like a night wind off the North Sea. “Did she ask you to let her go?”

  Berry stayed silent. Sharpe twitched the blade again. “Did she?”

  “Yes.” It was a mere whisper.

  “Was she frightened?” He moved the point onto the flesh of Be
rry’s neck.

  “Yes, yes, yes.”

  “But you raped her just the same?”

  Berry was too terrified to speak. He made incoherent noises, rolled his head, stared at the blade which ran up to the dim, avenging shape above him. Sharpe could smell the pungent smoke of the musketry on the hill. He had to be quick.

  “Can you hear me, Berry?”

  “Yes, Sharpe. I can hear you.” There was the faintest hint of hope in Berry’s voice. Sharpe dashed it.

  “I’m going to kill you. I want you to know that so you are as frightened as she was. Do you understand?”

  The man babbled again, pleaded, shook his head, dropped his arms and held his hands together as if in prayer to Sharpe. The Rifleman stared down. He remembered a strange phrase he had once heard at a Church Parade in far-off India. A Chaplain had appeared and stood in his white surplice on the parade ground and out of the meaningless mumbles a phrase had somehow lodged in Sharpe’s mind, a phrase from the prayer book that came back to him now as he wondered whether he really could kill a man for raping his woman. “Deliver my soul from the sword, my darling from the power of the dog.” Sharpe had thought to let the man stand up, pick up his sword, and fight for his life. But he thought of the girl’s terror, let the picture of her blood on the sheets feed his anger once more, saw the babbling fleshy face beneath him and as if he were tired and simply wanted to rest, he leaned forward with both hands on the hilt of the sword.

  The babbling almost became a scream, the body thrashed once, the blade went through skin and muscle and fat and into Berry’s throat, and the Lieutenant died. Sharpe stayed bent on the sword. It was murder, he knew that, a capital offence but somehow he did not feel guilty. What troubled him was the knowledge that he ought to be guilty yet he was not. He had avenged his darling on the dog. His hands were wet and he knew, as he tugged the blade free, that he had severed Berry’s jugular. He would look like someone from a slaughterhouse but he felt better and grinned in the darkness as he dropped to one knee and ran his hands swiftly across Berry’s pockets and pouches. Revenge, he decided, felt good and he pulled coins from the dead man’s tunic and thrust them into his own pockets. He walked away from the body towards the sound of the rifles, walked slowly uphill to where the flashes spat bullets towards the French, and sank down beside Harper. The Sergeant looked at him and then turned back to face the hilltop and pulled his trigger. Smoke puffed from the pan, belched from the barrel, and Sharpe saw a Voltigeur fall backwards into a fire. Harper grinned with satisfaction.

  “He’s been annoying me, that one, so he has. Been jumping around like a regular little Napoleon.”

  Sharpe stared at the hilltop. It was like the paintings of hell he had seen in Portuguese and Spanish churches. Smoke rolled redly in weird patches across the hilltop, thickly where the column was pushing deeper through the fires that marked the British lines, and thinly where small groups fought the skirmishers who tried to clear the hilltop. Hundreds of small fires lit the battle, muskets pumped smoke and flame into the night, the whole accompanied by the shouts of the French and the cries of the wounded. The French skirmishers had suffered badly from the Riflemen. Harper had lined them in the shadows on the hill’s edge and they picked off the blue figures who ran through the fires long before the French were close enough to use their muskets with any accuracy. Sharpe pulled his own rifle forward and reached down for a cartridge.

  “Any problems?”

  Harper shook his head and grinned. “Target practice.”

  “The rest of the company?”

  The Sergeant jerked his head backwards. “Most of them are down below with Mr. Knowles, sir. I told him they weren’t needed here.”

  For an instant Sharpe wondered whether anyone had seen him murder Berry but he dismissed the thought. He trusted his instinct, an instinct that warned him of the enemy and on this night every man had been his enemy until Berry had died. No-one had seen him. Harper grunted as he rammed another bullet into his rifle.

  “What happened, sir?”

  Sharpe grinned wolfishly and said nothing. He was reliving the instant of Berry’s death, feeling the satisfaction, the relief of the pain of Josefina’s ordeal. Who had said revenge was stale and unprofitable? They were wrong. He primed the rifle, cocked it, and slid it forward but no Voltigeurs were in sight. The battle had passed off to the left, where it flashed and thundered in the darkness.

  “Sir?”

  He turned and looked at the Sergeant. He told him, flatly and simply, what had happened and watched the broad Irish face turn bleak with anger.

  “How is she?”

  Sharpe shook his head. “She lost a lot of blood. They beat her.”

  The Sergeant searched the ground in front of him, sifting through the firelight and the humped shadows, the far musket flashes that could be French or English. When he spoke his voice was soft. “And the two of them? What will you do?”

  “Lieutenant Berry died in tonight’s battle.”

  Harper turned and looked at his Captain, at the blade which lay red beside him, and smiled slowly. “The other one?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  Harper nodded and turned back to the batde. The French had been held, judging by the position of the musket flashes, as if in pushing ever deeper into the lines they had marched into a thickening opposition they at last could not break. Sharpe searched the darkness to his right. The French must have sent more troops, but there was no sign of them. The ground in front was bare of movement. He turned round.

  “Lieutenant Knowles!”

  “Sir!” The voice came from the darkness but was followed by Knowles’ anxious face coming up the slope. “Sir? You’re all right, sir?”

  “Like a dog with a bone, Lieutenant.” Knowles could not understand Sharpe’s seeming content. Rumours had run through the company since Harper and the Riflemen had returned without the Captain. “Tell the men to fix bayonets and come up here. It’s time we joined in.”

  Knowles grinned. “Yes, sir.”

  “How many men do we have?”

  “Twenty, sir, not counting the Rifles.”

  “Good! To work then.”

  Sharpe stood up and walked onto the hilltop. He waved the Riflemen forward and waited for Knowles and his group to climb into the light. Sharpe waved left and right with the sword.

  “Skirmish order! Then slowly forward. We’re not trying to take on the column but let’s flush out their skirmishers.”

  The bayonets gleamed red in the firelight, the line walked steadily forward, but the enemy skirmishers had disappeared. Sharpe took them to a hundred yards from the enemy column and waved the men down. There was nothing they could do except watch a demonstration of British infantry at its best. The French had ploughed their way almost to the end of the hill but had been checked by a Battalion that Sharpe guessed must have marched from the foot of the hill and now stretched itself ahead of the French like an impassable barrier. The Battalion was in line and firing in controlled platoon volleys. It was superb. No infantry could stand against Britain’s best, and the Battalion was shredding the column with musketry that rolled up and down the Battalion’s line, the ramrods flashing in unison, the platoons firing in sequence, an irresistible hammering of close range musket fire that poured into the tight French ranks. The enemy wavered. Each volley decimated the column’s leading ranks. Their commander tried to deploy into line but he was too late. The men at the back of the column would not go forward into that hail of lead that rippled methodically and murderously from the British muskets. Groups of blue-coated French began to melt into the dark; a mounted British officer saw it and raised his sword, the red ranks cheered and went forward with levelled bayonets and, as suddenly as it had begun, the battle was done. The French went backwards, stepping over the dead, retreating ever faster from the reaching blades. The enemy had done well. A single column had so nearly captured the hill, even without another two columns that had never arrived, but now the French Colonel had to go back
, had to take his men from the musket fire that overwhelmed them. As they drew level with the skirmish line some of Sharpe’s Riflemen lifted their weapons, but Sharpe shouted to let them go. There would be killing enough tomorrow.

  Sharpe crouched by a fire and wiped the blade free of the sticky blood with a dead Frenchman’s jacket. It was the time for collecting the dead and counting the living. He wanted Gibbons to worry about Berry, to feel fear in the night, and he felt the elation again of the killing stroke. From the town came the bells of midnight, and he thought briefly of the girl lying in the candlelight and he wondered if she thought of him. Harper squatted beside him, his face black with powder smoke, and held out a bottle of spirits.

  “Get some sleep, sir. You need it.” Harper grinned briefly. “We have a promise to keep tomorrow.”

  Sharpe lifted the bottle towards the Sergeant as if in a toast. “A promise and a half, Sergeant. A promise and a half.”

  CHAPTER 20

  It was a short, bad night. After the repulse of the French the army rescued the wounded and, in the thin firelight, searched and piled the dead that could be found. Battalions that had thought themselves safe in an imaginary second line now posted sentries, and the brief night was broken by frequent rattles of musketry as the nervous picquets imagined fresh enemy columns in the dark. The bugles sounded at two in the morning, the fires were restored to life, and hungry men shivered round the flames and listened to the distant French bugles rousing the enemy. At half past three, when a silvery grey light touched the flanks of the Medellin, Berry’s body was found and carried to the fire, where Simmerson and his officers sipped scalding tea. Gibbons, appalled at the great wound disfiguring his friend’s throat, looked at Sharpe with pale and suspicious eyes. Sharpe looked back and smiled, saw the suspicion, and then Gibbons turned abruptly away and shouted for his servant to clear up the blankets. Simmerson flicked a glance round the officers. “He died a brave death, gentlemen, a brave death.”