Sharpe 22 sharpes assa.., p.25
Sharpe 22 - Sharpe's Assassin, page 25
“Monsieur?”
“The tunnel,” Sharpe snarled. “Le tunnel. Où est-il?”
The man looked from Sharpe’s scarred face to Harper’s eyes and seemed to shiver. “In the cellar, monsieur.”
“And where’s that?”
The man was holding a big ladle that he dumbly pointed at a door. Sharpe wrenched it open and found himself in a hallway where a second door opened onto a dark flight of stairs leading down. “This way!” he called, and ran down the steps. “Harry!”
Captain Price caught up with Sharpe in the cellar that was stacked with barrels and with racks of wine bottles. “Sir?”
“Three men, Harry, stay here and make sure the bastards upstairs don’t follow us.”
“Sir,” Price said.
The cellar was dimly lit by lanterns, and in their light Sharpe could see a big wooden door on the far side. He dragged it open and there were more steps going down into darkness. “Time, Lieutenant?” he asked.
“A minute to midnight, sir,” Anderson answered after a pause.
“Then let’s go. You stay behind me, Lieutenant.”
Sharpe ran down the stone steps to find a tunnel some six or seven feet wide and low enough to make him stoop. Harper had brought one of the lanterns and Sharpe could see that the tunnel seemed to be hacked through a pale limestone. Harper paused beside him, the lantern in one hand, his volley gun in the other. The Irishman peered into the tunnel’s darkness. “Christ, it’s a lot of bloody work just to get cheaper wine.”
“According to Fox it started as a gypsum mine,” Sharpe said.
“Gypsum?”
“Plaster, Pat. The stuff the elephant’s made from. Are we all here?”
“All but Harry Price and his three men.”
“Then let’s go.” The tunnel sloped down for the first few yards then tilted upward. The lantern gave a feeble light, barely illuminating more than a few feet of the stone walls. “If your man’s expecting us,” Harper began and did not finish the thought, nor did he need to because Sharpe was wondering the same. If Lanier had men guarding the tunnel then it would be a bloody business to get through.
He reached the foot of the downward slope and now the tunnel seemed to stretch straight and slightly upward. “I hate tunnels,” Sharpe said.
“What’s that?” Harper had seen a faint red light far ahead. “Oh God, no.”
“Down!” Sharpe shouted and dropped to the floor.
Then the world ended, or it seemed to. There was a gout of brilliant flame at the tunnel’s distant end and a noise that sounded as if the earth itself had exploded. Smoke obliterated the flame as devils clawed and screeched at the tunnel’s walls. Something struck Sharpe’s right shoulder and a lance of pain streaked down to his arse. Behind him a man cried out. “Cannon,” Harper said.
Lanier was guarding his tunnel and had somehow managed to get an artillery piece underground and the wretched thing had just fired a round of canister. The small red glow had been the portfire about to touch the powder charge on the gun’s vent. “Are you hit, Pat?”
“No.”
Sharpe moved his right arm. He suspected one of the musket balls from the canister had struck his back just behind the shoulder, but the ball had not pierced. It still hurt though. He pulled his rifle forward, ignoring the pain, and fired a shot down the tunnel. “Lieutenant!”
“Sir?” Lieutenant Anderson was crouched behind Sharpe.
“This is why you’re here. Those bastards are reloading. Stop them.”
The tunnel would be impassable if the French had a cannon firing canister, a weapon all infantrymen feared. A canister was simply a tin tube crammed with musket balls and, fired from an artillery piece, the can disintegrated as it left the barrel and the musket balls spread out like duckshot. The tunnel could only concentrate that deadly blast, bouncing the balls off the stone roof and sides to form a concentrated blizzard of death. “Anyone hurt?” Sharpe asked.
“I think Potter’s dead, Mister Sharpe,” McGurk called. “Hit in the head.”
Three men were wounded. Sharpe’s shoulder was stiffening and he could feel blood on his back, but he rolled aside to let Anderson’s men lug one of their rockets past him. Sharpe had first seen rockets in India where his enemies had used them, then he and Harper had tested them in Spain after the artillery claimed great things for the outlandish weapons, which were copied from the Indian models. Anderson had brought a half-dozen six-pounders, the smallest of the rockets, each one a thick stick over a man’s length trailing from a cylinder that contained the gunpowder that propelled the rocket with its explosive head. Sharpe had seen a handful of the rockets fired at Waterloo, tracing their erratic course through the gray sky, and that memory had prompted him to ask for the artillery’s assistance here. He feared meeting Lanier’s men in the tunnel, perhaps having to face most of the French battalion with just his small company, but the rockets would be fearful weapons in the confined space.
Sharpe started reloading his rifle as Anderson peered down the smoke-obscured passage to estimate the range. All that was really visible was a red trace where a gunner was swinging a portfire to keep it alight, but Anderson grimaced at how close the enemy appeared, then cut the fuse at a rocket’s base. He knelt and struck flint against steel, then blew the charred linen into a flame that he put to the weapon’s fuse. It fizzed to life and Anderson pushed the stick to move the rocket farther up the shallow slope. “Careful,” he said, and then the rocket lit up, its base flared noxious smoke and a searing flame, and the weapon leaped up the tunnel, struck the roof, bounced down to the floor and up to the roof again.
The problem with rockets, Sharpe remembered, was that they hardly ever went where they were aimed. They were as likely to turn in the air and come back at the men who had fired them as hit the enemy, though on the day before Waterloo he had seen one rocket explode right on a French gun team. Lieutenant Anderson’s first rocket might want to wander anywhere, but the tunnel acted as a gun barrel and the rocket flamed and seared its erratic path, slamming against the tunnel’s walls to leave a trail of sparks and smoke, then exploded at the tunnel’s far end. “Well done, Lieutenant,” Sharpe said, “now give them another.”
“Sir.” Anderson was already trimming another fuse.
The second rocket behaved like the first, scraping along the wall, bouncing from ceiling to floor and back again, but always channeled by the tunnel to its target where it exploded. The explosion was like a shell, bursting scraps of iron, and Sharpe hoped the two weapons had gutted the cannon’s crew. His ears were still ringing from the noise as he stood. “Let’s go!”
“You’re bleeding,” Harper said.
“A scratch.”
Sharpe had to stoop as he ran. The lantern had gone out so the tunnel was utterly dark, the smoke noxious and thick. If the bastards had survived Anderson’s rockets then another blast of canister would come soon and in the tunnel’s confines it would prove murderous. Best not to think of it, and then ahead, through the dense smoke, Sharpe saw a flickering red glow. Something was on fire there. Still the cannon did not fire. His shoulder was hurting now and the pain slowed him so that Harper pushed past him. Sharpe tried to keep up, stumbled on a rough patch and struck his head on the roof as he recovered, then heard Pat Harper bellow with rage as he reached the French gun. Sharpe noted it was another old six-pounder, the smallest cannon in the French arsenal, and he realized he had not seen many of the small guns since the early days of the war in Spain. The gun had been replaced by the larger eight-pounder, but presumably Lanier had found this weapon in a Paris arsenal and brought it to protect his precious tunnel. Sharpe reached the gun and leaned against the barrel as his riflemen streamed past. The French crew, there were three of them, were all dead, blasted by Anderson’s rockets. Behind the cannon was a wooden ramp sloping up. It was smoldering. And Sharpe could just hear the thorn-crackling sound of musketry. So the battalion had reached the estate and, with Kippen’s men, were advancing on the house. Sharpe had hoped that by attacking through the tunnel the Light Company would be a stab in the back to Lanier’s men who would be concentrating on the larger assault, but that had not worked. Lanier had guarded his tunnel, and now men were at the top of the ramp firing down into Sharpe’s company. One of Anderson’s artillerymen was crawling by the gun, spewing blood from his mouth, while a Frenchman was shouting for other men to join the group at the ramp’s head. Then a great crash sounded as Harper fired the volley gun, and the half-dozen men above Sharpe were snatched backward. The smoke thickened in the tunnel. “Up the ramp!” Sharpe called, and pushed off the small cannon.
“You’re hurt, sir!” Anderson was beside him.
“I’m fine.” He was not. He could feel blood wet on his back, and his right shoulder was flaming with pain, but speed was everything. He drew his sword, flinching at the agony, and hurried up the ramp. A musket fired, the ball plucking at Sharpe’s left sleeve, then Rifleman Finn was past him and his sword-bayonet sliced into the man who had fired. Sharpe had expected to emerge into a vast cellar, instead he was in a small room lit by lanterns that hung from stone arches. A door was to his right. He tugged it open and there was the large cellar filled with trays of growing mushrooms.
“You’re bleeding badly.” Harper was beside him.
“Just a scratch, Pat.” He nodded at the volley gun. “Is that thing reloaded?”
“Not yet.”
“Load it. We might need it.”
The larger cellar appeared to be empty except for the mushrooms. Sharpe suspected Lanier had left a small squad of men with the cannon, confident that the canister would prove enough to defend the tunnel against any intruders. Harry Price appeared at Sharpe’s elbow. “Are you all right, sir?”
“Never better, Harry. I thought you were guarding our rear?”
“Sergeant Miller’s there, sir. Which way do we go now?”
“We find the stairs up to the house. Lieutenant Anderson!”
“Sir?”
“You did well, Lieutenant. Can your men load and fire that cannon?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Bang some more canister down the tunnel, quick!”
Anderson looked puzzled. “You want us—”
“Lanier will hear it and think the tunnel’s still being defended. Quick, Lieutenant.”
Anderson went back down the ramp as Sharpe headed toward the cellar’s far side. The crackle of musketry was louder here, an incessant noise that had the familiar rhythm of platoon fire. Then the small French six-pounder fired again, the report almost deafening Sharpe, but it was followed by another monstrous crash from above. “That’s another cannon,” Harper called from where he was ramming the balls down the volley gun.
Sharpe swore, knowing he had underestimated Lanier. Sharpe was reading the battle by sound, and the platoon volleys were closer than the rest of the musketry, which told him Lanier had trained his men to be as efficient with their muskets as the British and, worse, the Frenchman did not have one cannon, but two. “Three,” he said, as yet another cannon fired from above. He imagined the canister flensing across the vineyard, shredding the advancing ranks. It was a mess, and his fault. But then there was a stone stairway and Sharpe pounded up the steps, the Light Company following, and crashed through a door into a vast kitchen. A woman screamed, but went silent as Sharpe turned on her with his sword. “Stay here,” he told the woman, who crouched beside the stove.
“This way.” Sharpe headed for a door that evidently led into the main house. He paused before opening it. “Make sure you’re all loaded,” he told the Light Company. He waited till the last man had rammed a rifle or musket, then opened the door. The hallway stretched in front of him and it was empty. The noise of the battle was much louder now and it spoke of bad news. Sharpe could hear the disciplined fire of the defending French and could tell that the return fire was sporadic and, worse, ill-disciplined. Windows were shattering as the men under Morris’s command fired too high. God damn it, he should have led the battalion’s main attack, which had plainly stalled under the defending fire. “McGurk!”
“Mister Sharpe?”
“Go and tell Lieutenant Anderson to stop firing the cannon and bring me his last four rockets. You’ll find me upstairs.” There was no point in Anderson keeping up the six-pounder’s firing because any moment now Lanier would learn that Sharpe and his men were already in the house. McGurk went back into the kitchen while Sharpe led his men up the big stairway. He kept expecting to meet defenders, but the house seemed deserted. He went into the first room he found, a dark bedroom, and went to the shattered window from where he could look down onto the wide forecourt.
Lanier’s battalion was in line and, astonishingly, only a line of two ranks, which, Sharpe guessed, Lanier had copied from the British. They were kneeling, presumably to make it harder for the redcoats down the slope to hit them, but each company took turns to stand and fire. And they were good, reloading as fast as any redcoat battalion. A musket ball hammered above Sharpe’s head to hit the wall behind him. He stepped back from the window, not wanting to be killed by his own men, then peered out again as one of the cannons fired. There were two, one on each flank of Lanier’s battalion, and they were sending gouts of canister fire to shred the grapevines and shatter the men who sheltered in the rows. Harry Price appeared beside Sharpe and looked down at the carnage. “Christ,” he said.
“He won’t be much help, Harry, but split your riflemen into two squads. One to the right and one to the left. Each squad to find a window and kill the gunners.”
“Yes, sir.”
A loud volley crashed from the vineyard and Sharpe saw that Kippen’s Prussians had fired and were now advancing in a line of three ranks. He could see the cannon on the right of Lanier’s line being slewed around to face the threat. The two guns had been firing diagonally across the slope, but now that right-hand gun would aim straight down the rows of vines to eviscerate Kippen’s men. He could see a gunner swabbing the barrel, another carrying the powder charge ready to be rammed down the cleansed gun, while a third had the canister ready. “Hurry!” Sharpe muttered to his riflemen, who would be finding a room from which to shoot. He sheathed his sword, flinching at the pain in his shoulder, and unslung his own rifle. It was loaded, but in his haste at the tunnel’s far end he had not wrapped the bullet with its leather patch, which meant this shot would be inaccurate. He raised it to his shoulder and aimed at the man holding the canister. Pain was racking his back, but he forced the gun’s butt into his shoulder and lined the sights on the man, raised the rifle’s barrel a half inch, and pulled the trigger. Smoke billowed from the barrel, Sharpe cried aloud at the pain, then stepped to one side of the window. The smoke cleared slowly and he saw that he had missed. The man had fallen, but appeared uninjured and was picking up the canister that he slammed into the muzzle, and a second man rammed it down the tube. The Prussians were getting closer, their bayonets reflecting the moonlight.
The cannon to the left of Lanier’s line fired, evidently aimed at the redcoats among the vines. They should have been attacking alongside Kippen, but it was plain the remaining companies were farther down the slope and sheltering between the rows of vines. Sharpe had given Kippen two of his companies, but there was no sign of them, and he suspected Morris had somehow held them back. “I’m going to kill the bastard,” Sharpe said aloud.
“Sir?” Private Bee asked nervously.
“Never mind. Talking to myself.” Then Sharpe flinched as the French cannon fired and he saw the center of Kippen’s line reduced to mangled men. The Prussians closed ranks and kept coming as the right-hand end of Lanier’s line stood and aimed muskets.
Then the riflemen started firing from the upper story, and the gunners went down. The Prussians were cheering and running. More fell as Lanier’s men fired into their ranks, but Kippen’s Prussians, their bayonets fixed, stormed through the two-deep line and had reached the warehouse where his men were streaming through the big doors. Kippen and his Prussians had done well, but Sharpe’s battalion were still far from the house, sheltering among the bullet-riddled vines. “The kipper will be trapped in there,” Sharpe said. It was shameful. His men were cowering, while the Prussians had captured the warehouse, only to be faced by a company of Lanier’s superbly trained men who now blocked the warehouse’s single entrance. Sharpe was reloading the rifle, this time using a leather patch, and it hurt like hell to ram the bullet down the barrel. And Lanier now knew an enemy was behind him, because he was already sending a company into the house.
“God save Ireland.” Harper found Sharpe and was looking down onto the forecourt. He raised the volley gun to fire down at the men jostling to get under the entrance portico, but Sharpe touched the Irishman’s elbow. “Save it, Pat. Back to the stairs, use it there.”
Because Sharpe was also trapped. He had brought his men upstairs so they could look down on the fight, but now Lanier’s men were filling the hallway below and firing up the stairway to where a dozen redcoats of the Light Company shot back. “Have you seen McGurk?” Sharpe asked Harper.
“He’s here somewhere, sir.”
“Find him. Harry!”
“Sir?” Price’s voice called from the end of the long passageway that ran the width of the house.
“Bring all your men here! And hurry!”
Because there was a stairway to defend and a monster to kill. And Sharpe was trapped.
Chapter 13
More men were gathering in the hallway, firing their muskets up the stairway, while Harry Price was ordering furniture to be dragged from the bedrooms to make a barricade at the top of the flight of stairs. Sharpe was reloading his rifle when McGurk appeared with the last four rockets. “Lieutenant Anderson says he’s no more ammunition…” he began.
