Sharpe's Fury

by Bernard Cornwell

  “It’ll be held,” Browne said cheerfully, “and you, Sir Thomas?”

  “We’re ordered north.” Sir Thomas pointed to the next watchtower on the coast. “I’m told there’s a village called Bermeja under that tower. We concentrate there. But don’t leave the hill, Browne, till we’re all there.” Sir Thomas sounded sour. Lapeña was scuttling away and Sir Thomas did not doubt that his two brigades would be required to fight a rearguard action at Bermeja. He would rather have fought here, where the hill gave his troops an advantage, but the liaison officer had brought Doña Manolito’s orders and they were specific. The allied army was to retreat to Cádiz. There was no more talk of striking inland to attack Chiclana; now it was just an ignominious retreat. The whole campaign was a waste! Sir Thomas was angry at that, but he could not disobey a direct order, so he would hold the hill to protect the army’s rear while it marched north to Bermeja. He sent aides to tell General Dilkes and Colonel Wheatley to continue north along the track concealed in the pinewoods. Sir Thomas followed, spurring out of the village into the trees, while Major Browne took his Gibraltar Flankers to the top of the hill that was called the Cerro del Puerco, though neither Browne nor any of his men knew that.

  The summit of the Cerro del Puerco was a wide shallow dome. On its seaward side was a ruined chapel and a stand of windswept trees. Browne discovered the five Spanish battalions lined just in front of the ruins. He was tempted to march past the Spaniards and take post on the right of their line, but he suspected their officers would protest if he took that place of honor, so he contented himself by putting his small battalion on the left of the line where the major dismounted and paced in front of his men. He had the grenadier and light companies from the 9th, 28th, and 82nd regiments, elite men from Lancashire, Silver Tails from Gloucestershire, and Holy Boys from Norfolk. The grenadier companies were the heavyweight infantry, big and hard men, selected for their height and fighting abilities, while the light companies were the skirmishers. It was an artificial battalion, put together for just this campaign, but Browne was confident of its abilities. He glanced at the Spaniards and saw that the battery of Spanish guns had deployed at the line’s center.

  The British and Spanish line, arrayed on the seaward crest of the Cerro del Puerco, was hidden from anyone inland; that meant the battalions could not see if any French troops approached from the east. Nor, of course, could they be bombarded by enemy cannon if the French did assault the hill, so Browne was content to let his Flankers stay where they were. But he wanted to see if anything threatened the hill and so he gestured to his adjutant and the two men picked their way across the coarse grass. “How are your boils, Blakeney?” Browne asked.

  “Recovering, sir.”

  “Nasty things, boils. Especially bum boils. Saddles don’t help them, I find.”

  “They’re not too painful, sir.”

  “Have the surgeon lance them,” Browne suggested, “and you’ll be a new man. Good God.”

  The two men had reached the eastern crest and the great heath, undulating toward Chiclana, was visible beneath them. The major’s last two words had been prompted by the sight of distant infantry. He could see the bastards half hidden by distant trees and hillocks, but where the blue-coated devils were going he could not work out. More immediately he could see three squadrons of French dragoons, green-coated devils, who were riding toward the hill. “You think those Frenchmen want to play with us, Blakeney?”

  “They seem to be coming this way, sir.”

  “Then we must make them welcome,” Browne said, and did a smart about-face and paced back toward the ruined chapel. In front of him now was a battery of five cannon and four thousand Spanish and British muskets. More than enough, he reckoned, to hold the hill.

  A flurry of hooves to the south gave him a moment’s alarm. Then he saw that allied cavalry had come to the hilltop. There were three squadrons of Spanish dragoons and two of the King’s German Legion hussars, all under the command of General Whittingham, an Englishman in Spanish service. Whittingham rode to Browne who was still dismounted. “Time to go, Major,” Whittingham said curtly.

  “Go?” Browne thought he had misheard. “I’m ordered to hold this hill! And there are two hundred and fifty Crapaud dragoons down there,” Browne said, pointing northeast.

  “Seen them,” Whittingham said. His face was deep-lined, shadowed by his cocked hat, beneath which he smoked a thin cigar that he kept tapping even though there was no ash to fall from its tip. “Time to withdraw,” he said.

  “I’m ordered to hold the hill,” Browne insisted, “until Sir Thomas has reached the next village. And he hasn’t.”

  “They’re gone!” Whittingham pointed to the beach where the last of the baggage train was plodding well north of the Cerro del Puerco.

  “We hold the hill!” Browne insisted. “Damn it, those are my orders!”

  A cannon, not fifty paces off to Browne’s right, suddenly fired, and Whittingham’s horse skittered sideways and tossed its head frantically. Whittingham calmed the beast and moved it back to Browne’s side. He dragged on his cigar and watched the dragoons who had appeared on the eastern skyline, or at least the helmeted heads of the leading squadron had shown over the crest and the Spanish artillerymen had greeted them with a round shot that screamed off into the eastern sky. A trumpeter sounded a call from the French ranks, but the man was so surprised or else so nervous that the fine notes cracked and he had to begin again. The trumpet did not prompt any extraordinary activity from the dragoons who, evidently surprised to see such a large force waiting for them, stayed just beneath the eastern crest. Two of the Spanish battalions put their skirmishers forward and those light infantrymen started a sporadic musket fire. “Range is much too long,” Browne said scathingly, then frowned up at Whittingham. “Why don’t you charge the buggers?” he asked. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?” Whittingham had five squadrons while the French had only three.

  “Stand here, Browne, and you’ll be cut off,” Whittingham said, tapping the cigar. “Cut off, that’s what you’ll be. Our orders are clear. Wait till the army’s gone past, then follow.”

  “My orders are clear,” Browne insisted. “I hold the hill!”

  More Spanish skirmishers were sent forward. The apparent inactivity of the dragoons was encouraging the light companies. The French horsemen, Browne thought, must surely withdraw for they must realize they had no hope of chasing a whole brigade off a hilltop, especially when that brigade was reinforced by its own artillery and cavalry. Then some of the enemy horsemen cantered northward and drew carbines from their saddle holsters. “Buggers want to make a fight of it,” Browne said. “By God, I don’t mind! Your horse is pissing on my boots.”

  “Sorry,” Whittingham said, kicking the horse a pace forward. He watched the Spanish light companies. Their musket fire was doing no evident damage. “Got orders to retreat,” he said obstinately, “as soon as the army’s passed the hill and that’s what they’ve done, they’ve passed the hill.” He sucked on the cigar.

  “See that? The buggers want to skirmish,” Browne said. He was looking past Whittingham to where at least thirty of the helmeted Frenchmen had dismounted and were advancing in a skirmish line to oppose the Spaniards. “Don’t see that much, do you?” Browne asked, sounding as carefree as a man noticing some phenomenon on a country walk. “I know dragoons are supposed to be mounted infantry, but they mostly stay in the saddle, don’t you find?”

  “No such thing as mounted infantry, not these days,” Whittingham said, ignoring the fact that the dragoons were disproving his point. “It doesn’t work. Neither fish nor fowl. You can’t stay here, Browne,” he went on. He tapped again and at last some cigar ash dropped onto his boot. “Our orders are to follow the army north, not stand around here.”

  The Spanish gun that had fired was now reloaded with canister and its team trained the weapon around to face the dismounted dragoons who were advancing in skirmish order across the hilltop. The artil
lerymen dared not fire yet because their own skirmishers were in the way. The sound of the muskets was desultory. Browne could see two of the Spanish skirmishers laughing. “What they should do,” he said, “is close on the bastards, hurt them, and provoke a charge. Then we could kill the whole damned lot.”

  The dismounted dragoons opened fire. It was only a smattering of musket balls that flicked across the hilltop and none of them did any damage, but their effect was extraordinary. Suddenly the five Spanish battalions were loud with orders. The light companies were called back, the gun teams were hurried forward, and, to Major Browne’s utter astonishment, the guns and the five battalions simply fled. If he had been kind he might have called it a precipitate retreat, but he was in no mood to be kind. They ran. They went as fast as they could, tumbling down the seaward slope, skirting the hovels of Barrosa and heading north. “Good God,” he said, “good God!” The enemy dragoons looked as astonished as Major Browne at the effect of their puny volley, but then the dismounted men ran back to their horses.

  “Form square!” Major Browne shouted, knowing that a single battalion in a line of two ranks would make a tempting target for three squadrons of dragoons. The long, heavy, straight-bladed swords would already be whispering out of their scabbards. “Form square!”

  “You mustn’t stay here, Browne!” Whittingham shouted after the major. His cavalry had followed the Spaniards and the general now spurred after them.

  “Got my orders! Got my orders! Form square, boys!” The Gibraltar Flankers formed square. They were a small battalion, numbering just over five hundred muskets, but in square they were safe enough from the dragoons. “Pull up your breeches lads,” Browne shouted, “and fix bayonets!”

  The dragoons, all mounted again, came over the crest. Their swords were drawn. Their guidons, small triangular flags, were embroidered with a golden N for Napoleon. Their helmets were polished. “Fine looking beggars, aren’t they, Blakeney?” Browne said as he hauled himself back into his saddle. General Whittingham had disappeared, Browne did not see where, and it seemed the Flankers were alone on the Cerro del Puerco. The front rank of the square knelt. The dragoons had formed three lines. They were watching the square, knowing its first volley would cut down their leading rank, but wondering whether they could break the redcoats apart anyway. “They want to die, boys,” Browne shouted, “so we shall oblige them. It is our God-given duty.”

  Then, from behind the ruined chapel, came a single squadron of King’s German Legion hussars. They rode in two ranks, wore gray overalls, blue coats, and polished helmets, and carried sabers. They rode tight, boot to boot, and as they passed the corner of Browne’s square the front rank spurred into the gallop. They were outnumbered by the dragoons, but they charged home and Browne heard the clangor of saber against sword. The dragoons, who had not started their advance, were pushed back. A horse fell, a dragoon spurred out of the fight with a face cut to the skull, and a hussar rode back toward the square with a sword piercing his belly. He fell from his saddle fifty yards from Browne’s front rank and his horse immediately turned back to the fight that was a confusion of men, horses, and dust. The hussars, having hurled the first line of dragoons back, turned away and the French came after them, but then the trumpet threw the second line of Germans against the French and the dragoons were pounded back a second time. The first troop re-formed, the riderless horse taking its place in the rank. A sergeant and two men of the Holy Boys had fetched the wounded hussar into the square. The man was plainly dying. He stared up at Browne, muttering in German. “Pull the damned sword out!” Browne snapped to the battalion’s surgeon.

  “It will kill him, sir.”

  “What if it stays in?”

  “He’ll die.”

  “Then pray for the poor bugger’s soul, man!” Browne said.

  The hussars had come back now. The dragoons had retreated, leaving six bodies on the hill. They might have outnumbered the single squadron of Germans, but so long as the Germans stayed near the redcoated infantry, the dragoons were vulnerable to volley fire and so their commander took them down the hill’s slope to wait for reinforcements.

  Browne waited. He could hear musketry far to the north. It was volley fire, but it was someone else’s fight so he ignored the sound. He was commanded to hold the hill and he was a stubborn man, so he stayed under the pale sky in which the wind brought the smell of the sea. The leader of the hussar squadron, a captain, politely requested to enter the square and touched the brim of his helmet to Browne. “The dragoons, I think, will not bother you now,” he said.

  “Obliged to you, Captain, obliged I’m sure.”

  “I am Captain Dettmer,” the captain said.

  “Sorry about this fellow,” Browne said as he nodded at the dying hussar.

  Dettmer stared at the hussar. “I know his mother,” he said sadly, then looked back to Browne. “There is infantry coming to the hill,” he went on. “I saw it when we were fighting.”

  “Infantry?”

  “Too many,” Dettmer said.

  “Let’s look,” Browne said, and he ordered two files to leave the square, then led Captain Dettmer through the gap. The two men trotted to the hill’s eastern edge and Browne stared down at approaching disaster. “Dear God,” he said, “that’s not pretty.”

  When he had last looked the heath was a wilderness of sand, grass, pines, and thickets. He had seen infantry in the distance, but now the whole heath was covered in blue. The whole wide world was a mass of blue coats and white crossbelts. He could see battalion after battalion of Frenchmen, their eagles shining in the morning sun as their army advanced on the sea. “Dear God,” Browne said again.

  Because only half the French army was marching on the pinewood that hid them from the sea. The other half was coming for Browne and his five hundred and thirty-six muskets.

  Coming straight for him. Thousands.

  SHARPE CLIMBED the tallest sand dune in sight and leveled his telescope across the Rio Sancti Petri. He could see the backs of the Frenchmen on the beach and the musket smoke dark around their heads, but the image wavered because the glass was unsteady. “Perkins!”

  “Sir?”

  “Bring your shoulder here. Be useful.”

  Perkins served as a telescope rest. Sharpe stooped to the eyepiece. Even with the telescope held steady it was hard to tell what was happening because the French were in a line of three ranks and their powder smoke concealed everything beyond them. They were firing continually. He could not see all the French line, for dunes hid their left flank, but he was watching at least a thousand men. He could see two eagles and suspected there were at least two more battalions hidden by the dunes.

  “They’re slow, sir.” Harper had come to stand behind him.

  “They’re slow,” Sharpe agreed. The French were firing as battalions, which meant that the slowest men dictated the rate of fire. He guessed they were not even managing three shots a minute, but that seemed sufficient because the French were taking very few casualties. He edged the telescope very slowly along their line and saw that only six bodies had been dragged behind the ranks to where the officers rode up and down. He could hear, but not see, the Spanish muskets and once or twice, as the smoke thinned, he had a glimpse of the Spanish in their lighter blue, and he reckoned their line was a good three hundred paces from the French. Might as well spit at that distance. “They’re not close enough,” Sharpe muttered.

  “Can I look, sir?” Harper asked.

  Sharpe bit back a sour comment to the effect that this was not Harper’s fight, and instead yielded his place at Perkins’s shoulder. He turned and looked out to sea where the waves fretted about a small island crowned by the ancient ruins of a fort. A dozen fishing boats were just beyond the line of surf that ran toward the beach. The fishermen were watching the fight, and more spectators, attracted by the crackle of musketry, were riding from San Fernando. No doubt there would soon be curious folk arriving from Cádiz.

  Sharpe took the teles
cope back from Harper. He collapsed it, his fingers running over the small brass plate let into the largest barrel that was sheathed in walnut. IN GRATITUDE, AW, SEPTEMBER 23RD, 1803, the plate said, and Sharpe remembered Henry Wellesley’s flippant line that the telescope, which was a fine instrument made by Matthew Berge of London, was not the generous gift Sharpe had always supposed it to be, but instead a spare glass that Lord Wellington had not wanted. Not that it mattered. 1803, he thought. That long ago! He tried to remember that day when Lord Wellington, Sir Arthur Wellesley back then, had been dazed and Sharpe had protected him. He thought he had killed five men in the fight, but he was not sure.

  The Spanish engineers were laying the chesses over the last thirty feet of the pontoon bridge. Those planks, which formed the roadway, were kept on the Cádiz bank to stop any unauthorized crossing of the bridge, but evidently General Zayas now wanted the bridge open and Sharpe saw, with approval, that three Spanish battalions were being readied to cross the bridge. Zayas had evidently decided to attack the French from their rear. “We’ll be going soon,” he said to Harper.

  “Perkins,” Harper growled, “join the others.”

  “Can’t I look through the telescope, Sergeant?” Perkins pleaded.

  “You’re not old enough. Move.”

  It took a long time for the three battalions to cross. The bridge, constructed from longboats rather than pontoons, was narrow and it rocked alarmingly. By the time Sharpe and his men had joined Captain Galiana, there were almost a hundred curious onlookers arrived from San Fernando or Cádiz and some were trying to persuade the sentries to let them cross the bridge. Others climbed the dunes and trained telescopes on the distant French. “They’re stopping everyone crossing the bridge,” Galiana said nervously.