Sharpes assassin, p.4
Sharpe's Assassin, page 4
“The lads know what to do,” Sharpe reassured Price, who was new to the Light Company, “your job is to pull them back before the enemy skirmishers overwhelm them. Best job in the army, Harry, commanding a Light Company! You’ll love it!”
Sharpe went back to his bivouac, where Harper was making tea.
“How’s Mister Price?”
“Nervous, but he’ll do. He’s a natural Light Company officer.”
“Irresponsible?”
“Daring and quick-thinking.”
Harper broke a double-baked biscuit in two and handed one piece to Sharpe. “You think they’ll attack us?”
“For the glory of France, it’s possible. But get some sleep.”
“They won’t come, Sharpe,” Vincent broke in. “Their job is to defend the town, not sally out for a fight.”
“We’re too tempting a target,” Sharpe said, “and all it needs is one ambitious bastard who wants an easy victory. They’ll come.”
“Five guineas says you’re wrong. The garrison will be tucked up in their beds by now.”
“Five guineas,” Sharpe agreed, drank his tea, and went to bed himself.
The sound of musketry woke Sharpe, though it took him a few seconds to realize where he was. Then he swore, rolled out of the cloak that served as a blanket, and reached for his rifle. The moon was nearly full, and high in the eastern sky, its light filtering through the thick trees where the battalion was camped. He kicked a sleeping lump. “Wake up! We’ve got visitors.”
“God save Ireland,” Harper groaned.
Another spatter of musketry sounded from the north of the trees and just then one of the picquets came running back. “Mister Sharpe! Mister Sharpe!”
“Calm down, lad, we’re awake.”
The picquet was Rifleman McGurk. “Mister Sharpe! There are hundreds of them! Coming up by the river!”
“Then we’ll just have to send them home,” Sharpe said. Harper was fully awake now. “Pat, stir the damn lot. I want the battalion at the northern edge of the trees, but in cover. Grenadier Company on the right.”
Sharpe plucked McGurk’s elbow. “Show me,” he said, and followed the rifleman through the trees, which grew dense at the top of a low hill. He stopped at the northern edge where the land fell very gently away toward the town of Valenciennes. To his left, the west, was the River Scheldt, beside which a rutted farm track came toward the woods where the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers had bivouacked, and on that track was what looked like a large battalion of enemy troops. The moon, glowing between two heaps of cloud, was bright enough to show that the advancing men were carrying muskets. “About a thousand of them,” Sharpe grunted, having done a swift count of the approaching ranks. “Where’s Captain Price?” Sharpe asked McGurk.
“Out there, sir,” McGurk pointed toward a hedgerow some two hundred yards north.
“Go find him,” Sharpe said, “and tell him to suck the buggers in to us.”
Sharpe, who had led a Light Company, trusted Price to know what he meant. Price’s picquets were firing at the approaching troops from the cover of the hedgerow. The leading French were a hundred paces beyond them, advancing in a long dark column. “No voltigeurs.” Pat Harper appeared beside Sharpe.
“None that I can see, Pat.”
“So what will they do?”
“Die,” Sharpe said nastily. “As the men arrive, make them lie down at the wood’s edge, and send Captain Jefferson to me.”
Harper vanished in the shadowed trees where men were hurrying. Vincent found Sharpe. “What’s happening, Colonel?”
“You owe me five guineas.”
“Damn.” Vincent stared at the approaching column. “Why are they bothering?”
Sharpe sighed. “There’s a French officer over there, Major, who wants to make a name for himself. He’s been stuck on garrison duty while other men do the fighting, and he knows how few we are and he thinks he’s got an easy victory. He’s a bloody idiot!” Sharpe saw Captain Jefferson, who commanded the Grenadier Company, coming. “Captain! Take your company out to the right flank. There’s a ditch there. Go halfway down the slope, then hide in the ditch. When we start filleting the buggers, join in, but wait for us to thin them out.”
“With pleasure, sir,” Jefferson said and turned away.
Major Vincent knelt beside Sharpe. “You think the enemy is led by an idiot?”
“I’ve got a line of skirmishers out there, and they’re hurting the buggers, and the idiot hasn’t thought of putting out his own skirmishers. So his men are dying and mine aren’t. I reckon the idiot is planning a direct assault on the wood. It’ll fail.”
Vincent looked at Sharpe. “You sound confident, Colonel.”
Sharpe grimaced. “Garrison troops, Major, don’t know their arses from their belly buttons. We’ll suck them in, kill a few of them, then go back to sleep.”
“There’s a lot of them,” Vincent warned. He sounded nervous.
“I’ve got just under four hundred and fifty men and he’s got about a thousand,” Sharpe said, “but a thousand isn’t enough. Now excuse me, Major.”
Sharpe walked along the treeline, noting that his men were lying flat at the edge of the trees. “It’ll be a battalion volley first, lads,” he told them as he walked. “Wait for my orders. Don’t fire till I tell you! And aim low! You’ll hear rifle fire, ignore it! Wait for my order! This is nothing to get excited about!” The last men were arriving from the encampment where the fires glowed dully. The French could presumably see that faint glow through the trees and would aim for it, which meant they must climb the shallow rising field directly in front of Sharpe’s battalion. “They’re bloody idiots,” he grumbled to Harper. “Want to be heroes.”
“I’m not complaining,” Harper said.
“It annoys me,” Sharpe said. “The bloody war is over and they want to die? It’s a waste of men.”
“Frenchmen.”
“They’re good men, Pat. They deserve better.” Sharpe took the rifle from his shoulder, eased the cock back, then primed the gun with finely mealed powder from the horn every rifleman carried. The barrel was already charged with powder and a leather-wrapped ball.
“But you’ll shoot one of the good men?” Pat Harper asked, amused.
“With any luck the bastard who’s leading them,” Sharpe said.
Harper walked to the edge of the trees and gazed northward past the approaching enemy. “Where’s the rest of our army?”
“Long way north. Probably haven’t crossed the frontier yet.”
“So we’re all alone?”
“Just us, no one else,” Sharpe said. A crackle of muskets and the crisper sound of rifles sounded from the hedgerow where Harry Price’s hidden skirmishers were firing at the leading ranks of the French troops. Men were falling there, but the French kept coming, following the track that curved away from the river and led toward a gated gap in the hedge. From there the track arrowed straight to the moon-shadowed woods where Sharpe’s battalion waited with loaded muskets. Sharpe strolled back to join Vincent. “You think they know Napoleon lost the battle?” he asked.
“They’ll know,” Vincent said confidently. “Some fugitives must have come this way. Not many, probably, but some.”
“Then why fight?”
“Duty?” Vincent suggested. “Honor?”
“Stupidity,” Sharpe snarled, pulling back the rifle’s cock. He was tempted to add that what the French were doing was almost as stupid as the orders that had sent his battalion so far ahead of the British pursuit of the defeated French, but he suspected that Major Vincent had been the inspiration for those orders, which left Sharpe only one option; to obey them.
And to obey them he had to end this nonsense. “Not long now,” he said quietly. He was watching the first French ranks advance toward the gated gap in the hedge. Price’s Light Company was hitting those forward ranks hard, dropping more men as the range decreased and the muskets became more accurate. Then a bugle sounded from the French ranks and the column started to run.
“Now,” Sharpe said, “now!”
“Now?” Vincent asked.
“We suck them in, Major. Come on, man! Move!” the last words were directed at Captain Price, who was far too distant to hear them, but almost immediately the Light Company began to retreat across the field. An ill-aimed scatter of shots pursued them, the musket balls tearing noisily through the leaves above Sharpe’s head. “They’re firing high,” Sharpe said. “Badly trained troops, Major.”
“Garrison troops?”
“And the Garde Nationale,” Sharpe said, meaning the French equivalent of the militia. “They’ve been stuck in that town for years while real soldiers fight. Probably get two days’ training a month.”
“Then why attack us?”
Sharpe had already answered that question more than once, but he knew it came from Vincent’s nervousness. The major was a brave man, as all exploring officers had to be, but he was not accustomed to the carnage of battle. “They’ll attack us,” Sharpe said patiently, “because their damned commanding officer wants to get a Légion d’honneur, or more likely wants to impress his poxy mistress.”
The French had reached the gap, pushed open the big wooden gate, and were now filing through.
“Someone’s got a lick of sense,” Sharpe commented as he watched the enemy troops spread across the field’s lower edge. “They’ll attack in line.”
“Don’t they always?” Vincent asked.
“Buggers usually attack in column,” Sharpe said, “which makes it easier to kill them. But this idiot,” he gestured toward the French, “must have read his bulletin.”
“Bulletin?” Vincent asked.
“The columns always lose,” Sharpe said, “because only the men in the front rank and the side files can fire their muskets, while every man in a line can pour musketry into them. But last Sunday they were trying to deploy into line, which suggests someone ordered them to stop committing suicide by attacking our lines with columns.”
“It didn’t work for them last Sunday, though.”
“Of course not. They fire too slowly, and we’re better.” Sharpe grinned at the major. “Don’t worry, we’ll beat them.”
Harry Price found Sharpe. “Can my boys keep firing?” he asked. His Light Company was now back among the trees.
“Your riflemen can pick off the officers, rest of you wait for the battalion volley. And well done.”
“We ran away well?” Price asked, amused.
“Couldn’t have done it better myself, Harry. Those idiots think they’re winning. Tell your riflemen to look for the officers.”
Price took the redcoats of his company to the left of the line, while his green-jacketed riflemen spread themselves among the remainder of the battalion. The riflemen kept firing as the French arranged themselves in three ranks. Sharpe reckoned the field was some two hundred paces deep, and he would wait till the enemy was halfway to the trees before he opened fire with his muskets. Vincent was still at Sharpe’s elbow. “Are we going to be saddled with our wounded?” the major asked, plainly worried that coping with injured men would slow the journey.
“We’ll put them in the nearest farmhouse, leave some money to pay for their care, and let the army deal with them when they get here.”
The French had brought some drummers, who now began beating their instruments, provoking the whole line forward. They stumbled on the uneven turf. The bright moonlight glinted from shako badges and the metal furniture of the muskets. No bayonets were fixed. The drumbeats were slow, which meant the advance was slow. Sharpe stepped back into deeper shadow and unslung his rifle. He could see an officer at the center of the advancing line, a man wearing a bicorne hat with a white plume. The man carried a sword, and Sharpe guessed he was the commander of the garrison. He steadied the rifle against the trunk of an oak and folded up the rear sight, then saw there was not enough moonlight to show the sights clearly, so folded it down again. “By guess and by God, Dan,” he muttered, then peered along the barrel. He aimed at the officer’s moonlit plume, reckoning the ball would drop to hit the man in the chest. He heard the other rifles firing, saw a man stumble and fall, then pulled the trigger.
The flint fell on the striker, ignited the priming with a small shower of sparks and, a heartbeat later, the rifle fired, kicking back into Sharpe’s shoulder as a fleck of burning powder landed on his cheek. A billow of smoke hid the enemy, and Sharpe moved sideways until he could see again. The officer had vanished, and Sharpe reloaded the rifle.
He reloaded without thinking what he was doing, nor did he need to think. Sharpe had begun his career in the ranks of the 33rd, a soldier who had been taught how to load and fire a musket and, though it was ten years since he had been commissioned as an officer, he still carried a longarm. For Sharpe a rifle was a soldier’s proper weapon, even more so than the heavy cavalry sword he wore at his left hip. The sword denoted that he was an officer, but the rifle said he was a soldier, one of the green-jacketed killers who had haunted the French through the long wars. He rammed the leather-wrapped ball hard down the rifled barrel, slotted the ramrod back in place, and saw the French were halfway up the field.
“South Essex!” he bawled, using the battalion’s old name. “Stand!”
The French stopped instantly when they saw the soldiers suddenly appear from the shadows of the wood. The redcoats made a line of two ranks that was almost as wide as the French line. “Present!” Sharpe bellowed. “And aim low!”
The muskets came up to the shoulders. A few French muskets fired, the shots whipping overhead.
“Fire!” Sharpe bellowed, and the long line of muskets flamed and belched smoke. “Reload!”
The last command had been unnecessary because the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers were as well trained as any battalion in the army. And they could fire three shots a minute which, Sharpe guessed, was at least twice the rate of the opposing Frenchmen. “Platoon fire!” Sharpe bellowed. “Number Two Company first!”
A small night wind drifted the smoke toward the river and, as it cleared, Sharpe saw his opening volley had struck the French hard. There were gaps in the line and dark shapes heaped on the grass. The attackers, bereft of orders, had not continued their advance, but were now reloading muskets. Sharpe’s men began the platoon firing from the right, the half company volleys following each other in a deadly rhythm.
The French, staggered by the initial volley, began advancing again, but unsteadily. Portions of their line came forward, others hesitated. Sharpe saw men still reloading their muskets, and just then Jefferson unleashed a volley from the Frenchmen’s left flank. Sharpe saw the enemy recoil, but knew he dared not leave his Grenadier Company exposed for too long. The platoon volleys were still firing, hammering a steady rhythm of musket balls into the moon-shadowed enemy. Sharpe slung his rifle and took a step forward. “Cease fire!” he shouted. “And fix swords!”
The command was a rifleman’s order, because only riflemen carried the longer sword-bayonet, but the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers were accustomed to Sharpe’s ways and they obediently slotted their bayonets onto their muskets. “If you’re loaded,” Sharpe bellowed, “present!”
About half of the battalion’s muskets were raised to shoulders. “Fire!” Sharpe paused to let the sound of the volley fade. “Battalion will advance! March!”
Another volley crashed from the grenadiers as Sharpe drew his sword and took his place between companies Four and Five. Major Vincent fell into step beside him. “Careful, Major,” Sharpe growled, “I’m supposed to keep you alive.”
“They’re shooting high,” Vincent said.
“Not all of them.” Sharpe had seen some of his men fall and heard the sound of enemy balls striking musket stocks.
The battalion went forward in line while the enemy’s progress stopped entirely. The few French drums had gone silent, but Sharpe could hear their remaining officers urging their men forward, but the sight of a long line of bayonets advancing on them had taken away the enemy’s resolve. Sharpe still kept the battalion at a walk, and it was not till he had halved the distance that he shouted his next command. “Charge!”
The Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers let out a cheer as they began to run, and the sound, or else the sight of the closing bayonets, decided the enemy. They turned and ran, a mob streaming for the gate in the hedge, some even throwing down their heavy muskets. Sharpe ran ahead of his advancing line and waved them to a stop. “Let them go!” he bellowed. “Let them go!”
“’Talion, halt!” Harper roared, and the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers came to a stop.
The French nearest the redcoat battalion gate turned and stared at their enemy, apparently puzzled. Sharpe walked toward them, sword in hand. “Who commands you?” he shouted in French. “Tell him to come here!”
He shouted it again, then stood amid the French casualties, waiting. Eventually two officers came from the enemy still crushed about the gate. Sharpe pointedly pushed his sword into its scabbard, then nodded a curt greeting as the two stopped a few paces away. “You can rescue your wounded,” he said. “There’s a hospital in Valenciennes?”
“Oui, monsieur,” one of the two said. Both were young, and both looked nervous.
“Then carry the wounded back. The dead you can bury later. And if you disturb our sleep again you’ll have more dead to bury.” He turned away and began to walk toward his men.
“Monsieur?” one of the French officers called.
Sharpe turned back. “Yes?”
“Is it true? The Emperor lost the battle?”
“He lost it,” Sharpe said curtly. He went on walking, and saw Private Bee gaping at a dead Frenchman. “Bee!”
“Sir?”
Sharpe pointed at the dead man. “Steal that bugger’s knapsack. Leave yours here.”
“His knapsack, sir?”
“It’s more comfortable than the one the army gives you,” Harper explained. The British knapsack with its narrow shoulder straps and tight chest strap was famously painful to wear. “And search his pockets for coins,” Harper added.
