Sharpe 16 sharpes enem.., p.25
Sharpe 16 - Sharpe's Enemy, page 25
‘Forward!’ Sharpe shouted again, his sword unblooded, and the two ranks stepped and stumbled over the dead bodies of the French, past the wounded who cried for help, and the joy was on Sharpe for now he was within a few seconds of this first success.
‘Left! Left! Left!’ The Fusilier Captain who led the Lancers shouted at them, circled towards the Castle, waved with his sword at the place of safety. Never in any of his wildest hopes had Sharpe wanted the untrained Rocket Troop to drive the charge home. They would have died like cattle in a slaughter-house, but they had done their job. They had forced the Battalion into square, into a solid target for another volley from the muskets, and as the horsemen swerved fast, water spraying from their horses’ hooves, and rode for the courtyard, Sharpe halted the line again. ‘Present!’
The French knew what was coming. Some called out, pleading for quarter, and some hunched down like men anticipating a storm of wind and rain, and then the great sword fell. ‘Fire!’
The splitting crash and hammer of the volley, the dirty throated cough of the half-Battalion’s muskets, and the balls converged and struck home into the huddled mass and again,‘Charge!’
The bugle sounded from the keep. ‘The enemy is cavalry’.
‘Back! Back! Back!’
They checked, skidded, turned, and ran as they had been told to run. A panicked rush for the eastern wall, a scramble away from the threat of French cavalry coming from the village, and at the wall they stopped, turned, and lined on the rubble that would destroy any charging horse. Then they cheered. They had done it. They had taken on a French Battalion, destroyed it, and the bodies littered the valley to prove it.
Sharpe walked back. He could see that the German Lancers were far away, unformed, and no threat. He looked towards the Convent and saw the huge figure of Harper standing on the roof. Blue-coated bodies on the road to the Convent showed where the single French Company had been pushed back. He waved to Harper and saw a raised hand in reply. Sharpe laughed.
Sharpe climbed the rubble of the wall, a rubble still marked by the explosion that had happened just yesterday. He looked at the Fusiliers. ‘Who said it couldn’t be done?’
Some laughed, some grinned. Behind them the artillerymen were gratefully sliding from saddles, leading their horses into the inner courtyard. They chattered noisily like men who had survived the valley of the shadow of death, and Sharpe saw Gilliland talking excitedly to the Fusilier Captain who had steered them safely to the Castle gate. Sharpe cupped his hands. ‘Captain Gilliland!’
‘Sir?’
‘Make your men ready!’
‘Sir!’
Sharpe had propped the sword against his thigh and he retrieved it, sheathed it, and looked at the Fusiliers. ‘Are we going to lose?’
‘No!’ They roared the message defiantly across the valley.
‘Are we going to win?’
‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’
Pierre, the aide-de-camp, appalled and alone on the watchtower hill, heard the triple shout and stared into the valley. The survivors of the Battalion were going back to the village, pressed on their way by the Rifles that still fired from Castle and Convent, leaving behind them the Gateway of God horrid with dead and wounded. He took out his watch, clicked the lid open, and jotted down the time. Three minutes past nine! Seven minutes of butchery planned by a professional, seven minutes in which a French Battalion had lost nearly two hundred dead and wounded. A second French Battalion was parading in front of the village, their ranks opening to let the survivors through, and the German Lancers were forming in squadrons at the foot of the hill. ‘Hey! Hey!’
It took a few seconds for the aide-de-camp to realize the hail was for him. The Colonel of the German Lancers tried again. ‘Hey!’
‘Sir?’
‘What’s up there?’
‘Nothing, sir! Nothing!’
Some men of the defeated Battalion went back for their wounded, but the Rifles’ bullets drove them back. They protested, holding up their arms to show they carried no weapons, but the Rifles fired again. They went back. Dubreton crossed to the Lancers, heard the shout and shook his head. ‘It’s a trap.’ Of course it was a trap. Dubreton had watched Sharpe lead the half Battalion into the valley and he had hated Sharpe for his skill and admired him for the achievement, and no soldier who could gut an Emperor’s Battalion in such short time would leave this hill unguarded.
The German Colonel waved at the aide-de-camp. ‘He’s there, isn’t he?’
‘So are the British.’ Dubreton’s eyes searched the tangles of thick thorn. ‘Call him down.’
The German shook his head. ‘And lose the hill? Perhaps they don’t have enough men to defend it?’
‘If he had half his number he’d defend it.’
The German twisted in his saddle and spoke to a Lieutenant, then looked back to Dubreton and grinned. ‘A dozen men, yes? They’ll search it better than that artist.’
‘You’ll lose them.’
‘Then I’ll revenge them. Go!’
The Lieutenant shouted at his men, led them into one of the winding paths, and the lances were held high so that the red and white pennons were bright against the blackness of the thorns. Dubreton watched them climb, saw how slow progress was in the thick bushes, and he feared for them. A Company of Voltigeurs came running from the village, French skirmishers sent to reinforce the climbing horsemen, and Dubreton wondered whether Sharpe had decided, after all, only to defend the two great buildings at the crest of the pass. Perhaps the German Colonel was right. Perhaps Sharpe did not have the men to hold all this ground, and the watchtower hill was horribly far from the Castle. Further, indeed, than the village was from the Castle gate.
The Voltigeurs, red epaulettes bright on blue uniforms, disappeared into the thorns, bayonets fixed on their muskets. Sixty men took a half dozen paths and Dubreton saw them climb. The Lieutenant was almost at the top. ‘We should have put a Battalion in there.’
The German Colonel spat, not at Dubreton’s words, but at the Riflemen who stopped the French fetching their wounded. ‘Bastards.’
‘They’ll make us carry a white flag. He’s buying time.’ Dubreton shook his head. Sharpe was a hard enemy.
The Lancer Lieutenant broke clear of the last thorns and grinned at the aide-de-camp. ‘You’ve taken the hill, sir!’ His French was broken.
Pierre shrugged. ‘They’ve gone!’
‘Let’s make certain, sir.’
The Lancers spread out, blades dropped, but this was no place for a heart-stopping cavalry charge, hooves thundering on turf and blades searing at an enemy. This was a cramped, pocked hilltop surrounded by dark thorn and the horses walked slowly forward so the cavalry could peer into the deep wet spines.
Frederickson watched them. A pity, this. He had hoped for a Company, at least, not such few men, but a man must take what fate gives him. ‘Fire!’
Only the Rifles fired, Rifles that outnumbered the Lancers nearly seven to one, and the big horses fell; screaming, and the lance blades toppled, and Frederickson tore himself clear of the thorns. ‘Forward!’
One Lancer was alive, miraculously alive, and he stood with his lance extended and shook his head as Frederickson shouted at him in German. Then more German voices called to him, Riflemen, and the Lancer still obstinately refused to surrender but challenged them with his long weapon. He lunged at Frederickson, but the sabre easily turned the lance aside, and Sergeant Rossner hooked the Lancer’s feet from underneath him, sat on the man’s chest, and bellowed at him in angry German.
‘Come on!’ Frederickson rushed the hilltop, waving his men left and right, listening to the curses and shouts and they pulled themselves from the thorns. ‘Skirmishers in front!’ A musket bullet flattened itself on the tower. ‘Kill those bastards!’
Frederickson was not worried by a Company of French Skirmishers. He spent his life fighting Voltigeurs, as his men did, and he left his Lieutenants to push them back while he walked to the gun facing north and pulled the nail out of the touch-hole. A sketch-book had fallen under the trail of the gun and he stooped, wiped the mud from the open page, and saw the drawing of the tower doorway.
‘Captain?’ A grinning Fusilier came round the tower, bayonet in the back of the aide-de-camp. The Frenchman looked terrified. He had run at the first bullets, dived into the gunpit, and then the hilltop was swarming with British troops. Now he faced the most villainous man he had ever seen, a man with one eye, the other socket raw and shadowed, a man whose top front teeth were missing, and a man who smiled wolfishly at him.
‘Yours?’ Frederickson asked, holding the sketch pad out.
‘Oui, monsieur.’
The vile looking Rifleman looked at the sketch, looked back to the Frenchman, and this time Frederickson spoke in French. ‘Have you been to Leca do Balio?’
‘No, monsieur.’
‘A very similar doorway. You’d like it. And some fine lancet windows in the clerestory. And below it, too. A Templar’s church, which might explain the foreign influence.’ But Frederickson could have saved his breath. The aide-de-camp had fainted clean away, and the Fusilier grinned at Frederickson. ‘Shall I kill him, sir?’
‘Good God, no!’ Frederickson sounded pained. ‘I want to talk to him!’
Rifles cracked from the top of the tower, Rifles that drove confusion in the ranks of the Lancers. The German Colonel swore, grimaced, and blood was on his thigh. He clamped a hand on the wound, looked up the hill, and swore again.
The Voltigeurs were going back, hunted through the thorns that crackled as the Rifle bullets spun through them. The French Voltigeur Captain saw more troops appear, red-coated and equipped with bayonets. ‘Back! Back!’
Dubreton turned his horse and spurred back to the village. They had done everything Sharpe had known they would do, everything! They had played into his hand and now they would be forced to do the next thing Sharpe had planned. They would be forced to ask for a truce to rescue their wounded. Sharpe wanted time, and they would hand it to him on a plate!
‘Colonel!’ The General shouted. Behind the General an aide-de-camp was already skewering one of the white cloths from the inn onto a sword.
‘Yes, sir. I know.’
The aide-de-camp unhappily spread the cloth out and Dubreton could see the stains of last night’s wine. It seemed so long ago, and already his dinner guests had bloodied French pride in the grass. The next time it would not be so easy for them. Dubreton turned and spurred his horse between the ranks of the new Battalion, the aide-de-camp following him.
The firing died in the Gateway of God, the powder smoke drifting westward on the breeze, and Sharpe walked out into the pasture-land that he had spattered with the dead and waited for his enemy.
CHAPTER 21
‘Major Sharpe.’
‘Sir.’ Sharpe saluted.
‘I should have known, shouldn’t I?’ Dubreton was leaning forward on his saddle. ‘Did Sir Augustus die in the night?’
‘He found he had business elsewhere.’
Dubreton sighed, straightened up and looked at the wounded. ‘The next time it won’t be so easy, Major.’
‘No.’
The French Colonel gave Sharpe a wry smile. ‘It’s no good telling you that this is futile, is it? No.’ His voice became more formal. ‘We wish to rescue our wounded.’
‘Please do.’
‘May I ask why you fired on the parties we sent forward to do just that?’
‘Did we hit anyone?’
‘Nevertheless I wish to register our protest.’
Sharpe nodded. ‘Sir.’
Dubreton sighed. ‘I am empowered to offer a truce for the time it takes to clear the field.’ He looked over Sharpe’s head and frowned. Fusiliers were digging at the graves which had been dug the day before.
Sharpe shook his head. ‘No, Colonel.’ The French could bring gun limbers and have their wounded off the field in thirty minutes. ‘Any truce must last till mid-day.’
Dubreton looked to his right. The wounded who were still conscious shouted at him for help, they knew why he had come, and some, more horrible still, pulled themselves by their arms towards him. Others lay in their blood and just cried. Some were silent, their lives shattered, their future to be cripples in France. Some would live to fight again and a few of them limped on the road towards the village. The French Colonel looked back to Sharpe. ‘I must formally tell you that our truce will last only as long as it will take us to rescue our men.’
‘Then I must formally instruct you to send no more than ten men to their aid. Any others will be fired on, and my Riflemen will be ordered to kill.’
Dubreton nodded. He had known, as Sharpe had known, how this conference would go. ‘Eleven o’clock, Major?‘
Sharpe hesitated, then nodded. ‘Eleven o’clock, sir.‘
Dubreton half smiled. ‘Thank you, Major.’ He gestured towards the village. ‘May I?’
‘Please.’
Dubreton waved vigorously and the first men ran out from the ranks of the waiting Battalion, some holding stretchers, and then there was a bigger disturbance in the ranks and two of the strange French ambulances were galloping along the road. They were small covered carts, sprung for the comfort of the wounded, and they were the envy of the British soldiers. More men survived an amputation if their limb was removed within minutes of the battle wound, and the French had developed the fast ambulances to take the casualties to the waiting surgeons. Sharpe looked up to Dubreton. ‘You had them very close, considering you were not expecting to fight.’
Dubreton shrugged. ‘They were used to bring last night’s food and wine, Major.’ Sharpe wished he had not spoken. The last time he had met Dubreton a gift had passed between them, now they were enemies on a field. The Colonel looked at the Pioneers who were shovelling the loose earth from the graves. ‘I assume, Major, that we will undertake no military works for the duration of the truce?’
Sharpe nodded. ‘I agree.’
‘So I assume that is not a defensive trench?’
‘A grave, sir. We lost men, too.’ The lie came smoothly off his tongue. Three Fusiliers had died, and eight were wounded, but the grave was not being enlarged for the dead.
Sharpe turned to the Castle and waved, as Dubreton had waved, and the French Captain was released by the sentries on the gate. He rode into the field, trotted towards Dubreton, and he looked aghast at the carnage that had been wreaked on his Battalion. Behind him Fusiliers rolled the cart into the archway, sealing it.
Sharpe waved towards the Captain and spoke to Dubreton. ‘Captain Desaix had the misfortune to be in the Castle yard when the fighting begun. He has given me his parole and undertaken not to bear arms against His Britannic Majesty, or his allies, until he has been exchanged for an officer of equal rank. Till then he is in your charge.’ It was a pompous speech, but a necessary formality, and Dubreton nodded.
‘It will be done.’ He spoke in French to the Captain, jerking his head towards the village, and the young man spurred away. Dubreton looked back to Sharpe. ‘He was lucky.’
‘Yes.’
‘I hope luck stays with you, Major.’ Dubreton gathered his reins. ‘We shall meet again.’
He turned, his spurs touched the flanks of his horse, and Sharpe watched him go. An hour and a half, a little more, and the fighting would begin again.
He stopped by the Fusilier Pioneers who scraped in the graves. A Sergeant looked up at the officer. ‘Bloody horrid, sir. What do we do with them?’
The bodies had been uncovered, their nakedness horribly white and stained by earth, their wounds somehow unreal. ‘They weren’t buried deep, were they?’
‘No.’ The Pioneer Sergeant sniffed. The bodies were scarce one foot under the earth, no protection against the carrion eaters that would scrape them up and tear at the dead flesh.
Sharpe jerked his head towards the southernmost part of the trench, the excavation nearest to the thorn covered hillside. ‘Put them up there. Dig it deep. I want most of this trench free.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And hurry.’
The Sergeant shook his head. ‘We could do with some help, sir.’
Sharpe knew there were enough men. ‘If it isn’t ready in an hour and a half, Sergeant, I’ll leave you here when they attack.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The formal politeness barely disguised the hatred the Sergeant felt. As Sharpe walked away he heard the sound of the man spitting, but then there were bellowed orders, shouts for the Pioneers to get on with it, and Sharpe let the Sergeant be. It was a horrid job, but the Pioneers of a Battalion often got the horrid jobs, the worst of the digging and the least thanks. At least this time their work would not be wasted. Sharpe would need the trench to bury his dead in when this business was done.
He climbed to the ramparts of the keep and settled himself with his telescope and a cup of tea. He could see Frederickson’s men dragging thorn bushes from the slope facing the village, some men hacking at trunks with saw-backed bayonets, others pulling at the thorns so that a wide path was being cleared up the hillside. The bushes were being taken to the southern slope, the vulnerable slope, and Sharpe wondered what cunning had devised the orders. Doubtless he would find out soon. He expected the watchtower to be the next point of attack, and he expected it to fall by mid-afternoon, and he rehearsed in his mind the plan he had to evacuate the garrison. Strictly speaking, whatever Frederickson was doing on the hill broke the terms of the truce, but the French were not meticulous in it either. Through the lens of his glass Sharpe could see the artillery coming into the village. Twelve pounders, the kings of the battlefield, big bastards to make the next hours into misery and death.
For once in the morning he wanted company, but there was no soldier he would want to talk to. Teresa, maybe, but even she would have given short shrift to his fears of defeat. Common wisdom said that an attacker needed a three to one advantage over a well-sited defence, and Sharpe’s defence was as good as he could make it. Yet he lacked artillery to batter the French guns, and the French could bring far more than three attackers to each defender. There were the rockets, of course, but they would be useless against the artillery. For them Sharpe had other plans.
