His exclamation came because the single French Battalion in front of the village was moving south, towards the watch-tower, and Sharpe saw the men in the rear Companies splashing through the stream by the road. So it was to be the watchtower! He had toyed with the idea that the French might be in a hurry, and might come straight for Castle and Convent, but time, it seemed, was not their prime concern. They would do this thing properly. He could see the one Battalion moving south, he guessed from the rifle shots that another was out of sight beyond the hill, and soon Frederick-son would have his hands full. He grinned at Brooker. 'Go! Good hunting!
Brooker and Cross would leave the Castle by the great hole knocked in the southern side of the keep, the hole through which so many of Pot-au-Feu's followers had temporarily escaped. Sharpe thought with satisfaction of the presence of Hakeswill, bound in the dungeons, and then wondered what would happen to those prisoners if the French over-ran the Castle. If. It occurred to him that he had wanted to hold out two days, and very nearly a quarter of that time had passed already, yet he also knew that he had yet to be tested by the veterans who massed behind the village.
'Sir? The bugler, still lugging Sharpe's rifle, pointed at the watchtower.
'What?
'Can't see him now, sir, but there's a man running toward us, sir. Running like hell. A Rifleman, sir.
What could have gone wrong? There was no firing from the hill yet, no smoke drifting on the breeze that was suddenly freezing. He had put his gloves down somewhere in the night and had forgotten where, so he blew on his hands and looked up at the clouds. They bellied low and dark, reaching down again for the summit of the watchtower, bringing a promise of snow that would make the pass treacherous and the journey of a relief force long and slow.
'There he is, sir! The bugler pointed.
A Rifleman had burst out of the thorns where the stream ran into the valley. He glanced right at the French, saw he was in no danger, and sprinted towards the Castle. He was fit, whoever he was, running with Rifle and pouches, jumping the trench and coming to Sharpe. The man was breathing too hard to speak, but just held out a folded piece of paper. His breath made thick clouds in front of his face and he just managed to pant out the one word. 'Sir!
There was a strange drawing of a wild boar on the paper that Sharpe did not understand, a drawing over which a message had been scrawled in dark pencil. 'You remember the F. Counter-attack at Salamanca? I can see it. Behind village. Ten Guineas says it's Coming Your Way. Skirmishers All to the West. 8 Batt's. Thought you promised me a fight! 2 F. Officers came too close. Bang bang. S.W. Sharpe laughed. Sweet William.
Eight Battalions? Dear God! And Sharpe had just sent half his Riflemen and a fifth of his muskets off into the thorns. Suppose the French attacked both positions? Suppose they cut Frederickson off from the Castle? He turned. 'Ensign!
'Sir?
'My compliments to Mr Brooker, and he's to come back as fast as he can! Captain Cross as well.
The Ensign ran.
'Gawd, sir! The bugler was staring at the village.
And so he should, by God. The Battalion that had moved south had done so to make way for the troops that were to assault the Castle, troops who spilled out into the valley, shepherded by mounted officers, troops who blackened the eastern end of the pasture land.
'Oh God!
'Sir? The bugler was worried.
Sharpe was smiling, his head shaking in disbelief. 'Lambs to the bloody slaughter, lad. Oh God, oh God, oh God! He turned. 'Captain Gilliland!
'Sir? Gilliland came out from the shadow of the Gate-tower, out into the chill breeze.
'Do you see that, Captain?
Gilliland looked at the village, his face registeringdisbelief and shock. 'Sir?
'Here beginneth the first lesson, Captain. Gilliland did not understand Sharpe's sudden pleasure. 'You're going to see a French column, Captain. It's the biggest bloody target in the world, and you're going to tear it into shreds. Do you hear me, man? Sharpe was grinning with delight, the cold forgotten. 'We're going to murder them! Get your troughs out!
Thank God for the Prince of Wales. Thank God for fat Prinny and his mad father, and thank God for Colonel Congreve, and thank God for a French General who was doing what any other soldier would do in his place. Sharpe grinned at the bugler. 'You're lucky to be here, lad! You're lucky to see this!
'I am, sir?
Sharpe stood on the rubble, the wind stirring his black hair, and a thought crossed his mind that perhaps the French planned to punch through the gap between Castle and Convent, but he could cope with that. The rockets could be swung round to face north as easily as they faced east, and he watched the cumbersome dressing of the French ranks in front of the village and he noticed how the centre line of the first rank was well to the road's right, and he knew they were coming for him. He glanced at the watchtower. That growing mass would be a tempting target for Frederickson's gun, but Sharpe had given orders that the gun was only to be used for the hill's defence. Frederickson would have to bide his time.
He looked for the other Ensign who carried his messages, and he ordered three Companies of Fusiliers into the courtyard with all the remaining Rifles. The only problem now was the French skirmishers, a veritable cloud of them, and they must be kept decently back from the trench. He walked forward to the puny excavation.
Thirty yards were usable, and in those thirty yards Gilliland's men were carving fifteen troughs in the parapet, troughs that aimed straight ahead, and Sharpe changed the angle so they covered the centre of the valley. He crouched behind the troughs, seeing where the rockets would go if they went in a straight line, and he saw where they would bisect the line of the attack just fifty yards ahead. He nodded. 'Perfect!
The gunners put their metal troughs into the earth beds. They were nervous, terrified, but Sharpe grinned at them, joked with them, told them of the victory they would win, and his mood spread to them. He clapped Gilliland on the shoulder. 'Bring them out. Do it casually, a few at a time! He had dressed the rocket troop in infantry overcoats, hiding the weapon till the very last moment.
The Riflemen were in the courtyard, staring at the solid mass of enemy, and Sharpe called them forward. He ordered them to lie down in front of the trench, their job to keep the Voltigeurs away from the rockets, and he lined the three Companies of Fusiliers on the rubble. Some would die because of the French skirmishers, but their volleys would make a killing ground in front of the Riflemen.
Two artillerymen served each trough. Others waited in reserve. One man would put the weapons on the metal cradle, the other would light the fuse, and both would duck into the trench as the propellant flamed overhead. And they would fire as fast as they could, rocket after rocket, each trough capable of five shots a minute giving over seventy missiles in a minute, missiles tipped with shells, death flaming from the trench at a target that was still being assembled at the village.
Cross was back in the courtyard, breathing heavily and looking worried. Sharpe put five of his Riflemen on the gate-tower, the rest in front of the trench, and he added Brooker's company to the Fusiliers lined on the rubble. The men looked terrified, as well they might, a double rank of four Companies was facing a French column, the instrument that had brought down kingdoms, and their only help Was the spindly rockets lying in the trench, rockets that had been contemptuously dismissed as toys.
'Load! Sharpe watched them. 'On the order to fire you will commence platoon firing! Your job is to keep the skirmishers away from the trench! Captain Brooker!
'Sir? Brooker's company was closest to the gate-tower.
'Watch that open flank of the trench! If those skirmishers get into the trench we're all dead. So don't let them! And don't worry about the column. That's dead already! He grinned at them. 'You're doing this for Colonel Kinney! Let him see those bastards going to hell!
And then the first drums sounded, the drums that had driven columns to Madrid and Moscow, that had piled Paris with captured Colours, the
drums that beat the pas-de-charge, the rhythm that accompanied all French attacks, that stopped only with victory or defeat. Boom-boom, boom-boom, boomaboom, boomaboom, boom-boom.
And this time they were for Sharpe, just for Sharpe, a compliment from the Emperor to a man from a London Foundling Home, and he turned to face them, saw the French lurch into motion, and he laughed, mouth open to the wind, laughed because of the pride that suddenly took hold of him, swept him up, because the drums, at last, were for him.
CHAPTER 23
The General fidgeted. He had the feeling that there was some gesture he ought to make, perhaps to ride at the head of his men or stand to one side and salute them as they went forward, but he dismissed the thought irritably. The drums and the raised Colours stirred emotions that were hardly suitable for the pitiable enemy who would be crushed by this massive blow. A sledgehammer to crack a nut! He smiled, because he knew it to be true, but if the sledgehammer did, the work swiftly, then it was worth it.
Time. Always damned time. He had asked the time as the first skirmishers walked forward into the open field. Quarter to mid-day. Forty-five minutes to assemble the column, which was not bad, but it was still forty-five minutes lost. Well, there would be an end to this impudent enemy by mid-day, and then he could send the Lancers into the pass, start feeding the Battalions after them, and then the cumbersome supply carts that had to carry food and ammunition for this mid-winter blow.
A Colonel of Artillery reined in beside the General. The man was silent and resentful, wanting to unleash the power of his guns on the defenders of the Castle, but the General had derided the idea. To bombard the enemy would waste more time, and he suspected that the British could shelter behind stone walls that would take his gunners hours to reduce to rubble. No, the infantry could do this swiftly, lose some men in the front ranks, then surge over the rubble of the eastern wall and open the pathway to Portugal.
On the watchtower hill Pierre accepted a drink from Captain Frederickson's canteen and nodded towards the valley. 'I think you're about to lose.
Frederickson grinned. 'Would you want to bet on it?
A smile and shrug from the Frenchman. 'I am not a betting man.
Frederickson looked at the top of the tower. 'Anything for us? He shouted.
'No, sir.
He looked back to the valley. The skirmishers were in loose order in front of the huge column, hundreds of damned skirmishers, and Frederickson did not like the look of them. They would threaten the fragile earthwork in which, he knew, Sharpe had hidden the rockets. He had watched the strange weapons being carried forward, watched fascinated through his telescope as the troughs were aligned, and he could see now the weak line of Riflemen who would have to fight off the Voltigeurs. They would be hard-pressed. 'Lieutenant Wise!
'Sir?
Frederickson sent half his Riflemen, forty men, westward. The Lieutenant was to take them until they were almost abreast of the trench and then, from the edge of the thorns, was to fire across the Voltigeurs' advance. Frederickson shouted them on their way way. 'And, kill their bastard officers!
In the Castle Sharpe was giving the same orders to his Riflemen, and especially to the marksmen on the gatehouse. 'Officers! Go for the officers!
Captain Gilliland, trying to control his nervousness, stood beside Sharpe on the northern end of the rubble. 'We could fire now, sir.
'No, no, no. The column was three hundred yards away, its noise filling the valley with the thunder of drums, and Sharpe had no faith in the accuracy of the rockets. At this range at least three quarters would miss, probably more, and he would wait. He would wait till the weapon could not miss.
But God! The Voltigeurs worried him. They outnumbered his defenders by themselves! He would wait, but while he waited the Voltigeurs would press close, and then a Rifle cracked from the gatehouse and the shot provoked a ragged volley from the French, a volley fired too far away, but the musket balls worried the air about the eastern wall and Sharpe glanced to his right and saw the fear on the faces of the Fusiliers.
And no wonder, by God. The column was marching south-west, direct at the Castle, a massive hammerblow of men driven by drums, a great block of troops a hundred feet wide and eighty yards deep, and to the watchers on the hill it seemed as if they had trampled a great swathe of pasture land flat leaving a mark like a heavy roller across the valley.
The Rifles were firing now, their smoke over the trench, their bullets snatching at the Frenchmen with swords, but still the Voltigeurs came forward. They fought in pairs, one man kneeling and firing, the other reloading, and the Riflemen were hopelessly outnumbered. The Greenjackets had to lie flat, to avoid the volleys of the Fusiliers, and a rifle was a hard weapon to load lying down. Sharpe watched the men bracing the butts on their feet, thrusting down with the ramrods, then rolling onto their bellies to aim and fire again.
And the musket balls plucked at the Fusiliers. A man screamed, his cheekbone shattered, another fell backwards in silence, his body still on the rubble, and the Sergeants began to close the files. The field was thick with skirmishers, the flashes of their muskets constant, the smoke like clouds above the grass.
'Fusiliers will advance to the trench! Sharpe bellowed at them. To move was better than to suffer in immobility, and it would take them twenty yards nearer the enemy and give their muskets a better chance of scouring these damned skirmishers from his front.
The officers gave the orders. Not that they could march on the broken stone, but they scrambled forward and Sharpe yelled at them to dress the ranks properly, kept them busy with his orders, and then he looked left and saw the first Voltigeurs were just forty yards from the trench. 'Captain Brooker?
'Sir?
'You will open fire!
'Sir! 'Talion! Level! A pause. The slim sword swept down. 'Fire!
Thank God for the hours of training, thank God that, for all its sometimes stupidity, the British army was the only army that trained its infantry with real ammunition. The first volley jerked four French skirmishers backwards, startled the others, and the Fusiliers went into the motions that were second nature to a soldier. Fire, load, fire, load, fire, four times a minute, biting the bullets from the paper cartridges, ignoring the enemy, seeing nothing beyond the dirty smoke that spread ragged over the trench, pouring in powder, ramming the bullet and wadding down the thirty-nine inch barrel, propping the ramrod against the body, bringing the heavy musket to the shoulder and waiting for the officer's order to fire. There was nothing to aim at, just a smoke cloud that hid God knows what horrors, a smoke cloud that sometimes twitched as an enemy bullet sprang through it, and then the platoon next in the line fired, the officer shouted, and the butt crashed back into the shoulder, the powder in the pan stung the face, and the three-quarter inch ball of lead slammed into the smoke and down the field.
And men fell. Some climbed to their feet, teeth gritted against the pain, and went on firing, while others crawled to the back, bleeding and hurt, their life going as their eyes faded, and Sharpe shouted at the Sergeants that the wounded were not to be helped. Men used the excuse of helping the wounded to escape battle, and Sharpe's voice rose clear over the platoon volleys, over the sound of the drums. 'Any man who leaves the line is to be shot. You hear me, Sergeants!
They heard, and the wounded must bleed unaided, and the muskets flamed and slammed back, and the platoon volleys ran like stabs of red light down the face of the half Battalion.
It was working, too. Seven hundred musket balls in a minute were making the front of the trench a savage place, and the Voltigeurs split left and right. Sharpe had gone forward, to the side of the musket volleys, and he saw through the smoke the French coming from the left and he turned. 'Captain Brooker! Left files back ten paces! Incline!
And the right! What the hell could he do at the right? There were not enough men to fill the gap in the broken wall, and he screamed at the Riflemen. 'Watch right!
Brooker's Company was angling their fire now, slamming shots to
wards the advancing column, but they could not put up enough bullets to drive the Voltigeurs back. Sharpe saw the French darting forward, kneeling, another stab of flame, and a ball clanged off the steel tip of his scabbard, making the sword wrench in its slings, and he heard the Rifles from the gatehouse and saw the man who had fired at him sink down, making small movements with one hand as if paddling the air for support, and then the Frenchman was crumpled on the turf.
And the column came. It had not far to come from the village, a three minute march at most, and the drums were louder now, the drums that were the French music of conquest, and Sharpe ran right as Brooker's men reloaded because he was worried about his right.
Smoke from the thorns, stabbing flames, French going back, shouting in alarm, and Sharpe grinned. Frederickson had sent help, and Sharpe knew he should have thought to ask for it, but it did not matter now because the Riflemen were driving the French back. A mounted Voltigeur officer spurred towards the place, shouting at his men to take bayonets into the thorns, and Sharpe guessed the man was hit by four or five bullets for he seemed to be dragged backwards off his horse, his jacket suddenly splashed with red, and the horse screamed, turned, and galloped across the Castle's front and was struck by a volley of musket fire.
Back to the left, the air filled with battle noise, with muskets, shouts, cries of pain, the scrape of ramrods, the clicking of the heavy flints backwards, the drums, always the drums. The Voltigeurs took their toll of the Fusiliers, eating at the files, throwing a man down, and the platoon volleys were replaced by men firing as fast as they could, loading, firing, their faces blackened by the powder, their mouths gritty with the stuff, their fear only governed by the drill that they had practised again and again.
An Ensign crawled from Brooker's Company, vomiting blood, his eyes giving Sharpe one last accusing look, and then he slumped, only to twitch as a French bullet thumped into his dead body.
Sharpe went back to the rubble, climbed, and he saw where Voltigeurs were close, so close to the trench, in places just twenty yards, and he glimpsed, too, in the skirling smoke, the unmoving bodies of two Riflemen, and he looked left. The column, bayonets bright, was close and still marching. He could see the mouths of the French open, knew they were shouting 'Vive L'Empereur!’ and Gilliland plucked at Sharpe's sleeve. 'Now?’
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