The depressing thought made him stare at the hermitage, half hidden by trees, the unlikely place where Wellington’s hopes were pinned. Without Kearsey it was even more important that the Company should try to find the gold that night, but then those hopes, too, were dashed. Half the lancers rode with their prisoner to the village, but the other half, in a curving column, trotted towards the graveyard and its hermitage. Sharpe cursed beneath his breath. There was no hope now of finding the gold that night. The only chance left was to wait until the French had gone, till they had stopped using the village and the hermitage as their base for the campaign against the Partisans in the hills. And when the French did go, El Católico would come, and Sharpe had no doubt that the tall, grey-cloaked Spaniard would use every effort to stop the British from taking the gold. Only one man stood a chance of persuading the Partisan leader, and that man was a prisoner, wounded, in the hands of the lancers. He slid back from the skyline, turned and stared at the Company.
Harper slid down beside him. ‘What do we do, sir?’
‘Do? We fight.’ Sharpe gripped the hilt of the sword. ‘We’ve been spectators long enough. We get the Major out, tonight.’
Knowles heard him, turned an astonished face on them. ‘Get him out, sir? There’s two regiments there!’
‘So? That’s only eight hundred men. There are fifty-three of us.’
‘And a dozen Irish.’ Harper grinned at the Lieutenant.
Knowles scrambled down the slope, looking at them with a disbelieving stare. ‘With respect, sir. You’re mad.’ He began to laugh. ‘Are you serious?’
Sharpe nodded. There was no other choice. Fifty-three men must take on eight hundred, or else the war was lost. He grinned at Knowles. ‘Stop worrying! It’ll be simple!’
And how the hell, he thought, do we do it?
CHAPTER 6
Sharpe mocked himself. So simple. Just release the Major when two of the finest regiments in the French army were expecting a night attack. The wise course, he thought, was to go home. The French probably had the gold by now, the war was lost, and a sensible man would shoulder his rifle and think about making a living at home. Instead, like a gambler who had lost all but a handful of coins, he was staking everything on one last throw, a throw against odds of sixteen to one.
Which was not, he told himself as the Company filed down a goat track in the darkness, quite true. He had lain on the gully’s rim as the sun westered and watched the French preparations. They were thorough, but in their defence was their weakness, and Sharpe had felt the excitement well up inside, the incipient knowledge of success. The French expected an attack by Partisans, by small groups of silent men who would carry knives, or else who would fire muskets from the darkness, and they had prepared themselves for that ordeal. The village did not help them. The houses either side of the narrow street were jostled by low, ragged outbuildings; the whole making a maze of alleyways and dark corners where a silent assassin held the advantage. The French had no outlying sentries. To put a small group of men out in the fields was to write their death sentence, and the French, accustomed to this kind of fighting, had drawn themselves into makeshift fortresses. Most of the cavalry were in Cesar Moreno’s house with its ample stabling and high, encircling wall. The other fortress, the only other building with a wall high and strong enough, was the hermitage with its cemetery. Both buildings would be crowded, but both safe from the silent knives, and to make them safer the French had embarked on a crusade of systematic destruction. The cottages nearest the Moreno house had been flattened, the ringing of the big hammers on their stone walls carrying up into the gully, and every tree, every door, every stick of furniture, had been cut and splintered and piled into heaps that could be lit so an attacking Partisan would be denied the gift of darkness. The French held the advantage, but only against Partisans. In their wildest dreams they would not imagine the sudden appearance of British infantry, crossbelts vivid in the defensive firelight, muskets flaming disciplined death. Or so Sharpe hoped.
He had one other advantage, slight but important. Kearsey had obviously given his parole, his gentleman’s promise, to his captors that he would not attempt to escape, and Sharpe had seen the small Major limping round the village. Each time, Kearsey had gone back to Moreno’s house, and finally, as the light faded, Sharpe had seen the Major sitting on a balcony, on one of the few pieces of furniture left, so at least the rescuers knew where their goal lay. All that remained was to break into the house and for that speed was vital.
The march in the darkness seemed to take forever, but Sharpe dared not hurry the men, for fear of getting lost. They slipped and cursed on the stones; their musket stocks banged hollowly on rock; they squinted in the tiny light that came from the sickle moon hazed by the northern clouds. To the east the stars pricked at the outline of the hills, and as they neared the valley floor and midnight approached, the French lit fires that beckoned the Company like a beacon in the dark night.
Harper was beside Sharpe. ‘They’ll blind themselves, sir.’
The French, in the security of their firelight, would see nothing beyond a musket shot from their walls. The circling night would be a place of fantasy and strange shapes. Even for Sharpe the landmarks, that had seemed so clear by day, now took on monstrous shapes, even disappeared, and he stopped often, crouched, and tried to filter the real from the imaginary. The men’s guns were loaded, but not cocked, their white belts hidden beneath greatcoats; their breathing loud in the darkness. They neared the village, angling north away from the house, going past the heavy barley and feeling naked and obvious in the wide valley. Sharpe strained his senses for a telltale sign that a sentry, high on Moreno’s house, had been alerted: the click of a carbine-lock, the scrape of an officer’s sword, or worst of all the sudden stab of flame as a picquet saw the dark shapes in the field. The crunching of the dry soil beneath his feet seemed to be magnified into a terrible loudness, but he knew it was the same for the enemy guards. This was the worst time of night, when fears took over, and the Hussars and lancers inside their walls would hear the wolves in the hills, the nightjars, and each sound would be a knelling for their death until the senses were blunted, distrusted, and the night merely became a horror to survive.
A flash of light. ‘Down!’ Sharpe hissed. Christ! Flames whipped crazily into the night, spewed sparks that spiralled away in the breeze, and then he realized that the cavalrymen had lit another fire, one of the timber piles out in the cleared space, and Sharpe stayed on the ground, listening to the pounding of his heart, and searched the dark shapes of the deserted cottages to his front. Or were they deserted? Had the French been clever and let any watcher in the hills think that they were all inside the protective, well-lit walls? Had the small cottages, the dark alleyways, been salted with men, waiting with sabres? He took a breath. ‘Sergeant?’
‘Sir?’
‘You and me. Lieutenant?’
‘Sir?’
‘Wait here.’
Sharpe and Harper went forward, dark uniforms blending with the night, and Sharpe could hear every rustle of his jacket, creak of his belt, and the looming walls seemed to hold danger in every shadow. He felt himself tense with anticipation, his teeth gritted, waiting for the mocking shot, but instead his hand reached out and touched a dry-stone wall, and Harper was beside him, and Sharpe went on, into an alleyway that stank of manure, and his instinct began to come back.
There was no one in the village. Harper, a vast shadow, crossed the alley and crouched by the main street. A fire flickered at its end, sending crazy shadows, but the cottages were deserted and Sharpe felt the relaxation of relief. They went back to the outer wall and Harper whistled softly, three small sounds, and the shadows in the barley humped and moved, the Company coming forward to the shelter of the wall.
Sharpe found Knowles. ‘We stay on this side of the house. Rifles first. Wait for the signals.’
Knowles nodded and his teeth flashed white as he grinned. Sharpe could feel the excitement o
f the Company, their confidence, and he marvelled at it. They were enjoying it, taking on sixteen times their number, and he did not understand that it was because of him. Harper knew, Knowles knew, that the tall Rifle Captain who was not given to rousing speeches could nevertheless make men feel that the impossible was just a little troublesome and that victory was a commonplace where he led.
They went in fits and starts beside the outer walls, the Riflemen scouting the dark shadows, the Company catching up, and the only breath-stopping moment was as they passed beneath the tall, dark tower of the church. A sound came from the belfry, a musical whisper, and the men froze, their eyes suddenly scared, and then came the sound of beating wings, receding in the blackness, and the Company sighed together as the owl, which had brushed a wing against the hanging bell, disappeared on its own hunt. Harper glanced up, saw the white flash, and thought of the barn owls that ghosted down the valley at Tangaveane, of the stream that leaked from the peat beds, of Ireland.
‘Halt!’ Sharpe’s voice was scarcely above a whisper. He pointed. ‘In there.’
The Company crowded into an alley, the firelight uncomfortably close, and Sharpe peered cautiously into the street, at the pile of new rubble, and for the first time he could properly see the front of Moreno’s house. The wall was high, eight or nine feet, but the great double gate through which the farm animals could be driven was wide open. Inside he could see white faces staring at the fires that were the main defence and behind those faces the dim shadows of mounted men. Knowles had not understood that the gate would be open, but it was obvious to Sharpe. He had seen through the telescope that the front wall of the courtyard had no fire-step, no platform on which men could stand and keep watch or fire down on attacking Partisans, so the French had little choice. They would, he knew, keep the gate open and light the area in front so that should any Partisan be foolish enough to attack, the lancers could sweep out into the killing-ground with their long, searching blades. And no Partisan would be foolish enough to attack the gate. The front of the house was brightly lit, the courtyard armed and ready, and the only danger from the front was an attack by trained troops, and that, the French knew, was an impossibility. Sharpe grinned.
The fire in front of the gate crackled and roared and its noise covered the scuffling and grunts in the alley. The Redcoats of the South Essex were struggling from their greatcoats, rolling them up and strapping the bundles to their packs. He grinned at them. The Riflemen, without white crossbelts to startle the enemy, crouched near him, some fidgeting with excitement, all wanting to start the action, to dispel the nervous thoughts of anticipation.
Knowles pushed through the men. ‘Ready, sir.’
Sharpe turned to the Riflemen. ‘Remember. Go for officers.’
The Baker rifle was a deadly weapon, slow to load but more accurate than any gun on the battlefield. The muskets, under Lieutenant Knowles, could spread death in a wide arc, but the rifles were instruments of precision. Once in the building, the Green Jackets should seek for enemy officers, kill them, and leave the cavalry leaderless. Sharpe turned again towards the house. He could hear the mutter of voices, the trampling of hooves in the yard, a man coughing, and then he touched Harper’s shoulder and the Riflemen slithered into the street, crawling on their bellies, hiding in the shadows till they had formed a line behind the rubble. The Rifles would go first, to draw the enemy fire, to start the chaos, and the rest was up to Knowles, to lead the Company into the cavalry’s nightmare. Sharpe waited. He inched his sword out of its scabbard, laid it in front of him, and waited as his men put the long bayonets on their rifles. It had been so long since he had faced the enemy.
‘Come on!’ He had ordered them to scream, to shout, to sound like the fiends of hell, and they scrambled over the rubble, the long rifles silent, and the guards at the gate whirled, jerked up carbines and fired too soon. Sharpe heard a bullet strike stone, saw Harper run forward to the fire and grab, with both hands, the unburnt end of a baulk of timber. The Sergeant whirled it around, and hurled the flaming wood at the waiting horsemen. It struck the ground, exploded in sparks, and the horses reared up, and Sharpe’s sword was reaching for the first guard who was trying to drop an empty carbine and snatch up his sabre. The sword took the Hussar in the throat; the man grabbed at the blade, seemed to shake his head, and slumped. Sharpe turned to the Riflemen. ‘Come on!’
The gate was empty, the cavalry frightened by Harper’s missile, and the Riflemen knelt at its edges and aimed at the fire-lit space. Voices shouted in strange languages, bullets chipped at the cobbled entrance, and Sharpe, desperately searching the courtyard for signs of its organized defence, heard the first distinctive cracks of the Baker rifles. Where the hell was Knowles? He turned round and saw the Redcoats running round the fire, being formed, their muskets deliberately untipped by bayonets, so as not to slow the loading of fresh rounds, and then Harper’s voice bellowed at him.
He heard a couple of rifle shots, turned, and saw a lancer riding for him. The horse was tossing its head, eyes reflecting firelight, the rider crouched on its neck, the steel blade reaching for Sharpe, and Sharpe slammed himself to one side, hitting the gatepost, saw the spear go past, and the horse smelt in his nostrils. Another rifle spat, and the beast screamed. The Pole’s arms went up and man and horse fell sideways, and Sharpe was running forward, into the courtyard.
Everything was too slow! Horses were tethered and he hacked at the ropes. ‘Hup! Hup! Hup!’ A man swung a sabre at him, missed, and Sharpe rammed his sword into the Hussar’s chest. It stuck. Riflemen ran past, screaming incoherently, long bayonets driving scattered Frenchmen into dark doorways, and Sharpe put his foot on the body and twisted his sword free. He saw Harper stamping forward, bayonet outstretched, driving back an officer who screamed for help against the giant Irishman. The man tripped, fell backwards, the screams becoming panic as he fell into a fire and Harper turned, forgot him, and Sharpe yelled to him to get out of the way. ‘Rifles!’
He blew his whistle, shouted at them, brought them over to the building where he stood. Stray horses skittered in the yard, galloped at the entrance, reared as the Company, white belts gleaming, filled the entrance, and Lieutenant Robert Knowles began the terrible commands that would chill any Frenchman who knew the firepower of British infantry. ‘Present! Front rank only! Fire!’
It was the last thing the Hussars and lancers could have expected. Instead of brigands and silent knives they were fighting a clockwork machine that could spit out four volleys a minute. The muskets flamed, smoke gouted into the courtyard, the three-quarter-inch musket balls hammered between the walls. ‘Rear rank! Look to the roof!’ The front rank were already taking the next cartridge from their ammunition pouch, biting the bullet from the paper-wrapped cylinder, pouring the powder into the gun, but saving a pinch for the pan. The left hand held the top of the barrel; the right poured the powder; the left gripped the paper and tore off most of it while the right kept the priming between finger and thumb. The paper was pushed loosely into the muzzle, the other three fingers of the right hand had the ramrod up in the air, a bullet spat into the gun, and down with the steel rod. Once was enough, and the ramrod was taken out, the gun swung up, and all the time they had to ignore the shouts of the enemy, the carbine bullets, the screaming horses, the fires, and put the pinch of powder into the pan after the flint was dragged back, and the rear rank had fired, flash and explosion in their ears, and Lieutenant Knowles, his voice calm, was ordering the slaughter. ‘Present! Fire!’ It was a mechanical job and no infantry in the world did it better, because no infantry in the world, except the British, ever practised with real ammunition. The clockwork killing. Fire, reload, present, fire, until their faces were blackened, their eyes smarting with the grains of powder thrown up by the priming just inches from their cheeks, their shoulders bruised by the kick of the gun, and the courtyard ahead was littered with the bodies of their enemy, sifted with smoke, and all the time Knowles had taken them forward, two steps at a time, and
the maddened horses had escaped behind them and Sharpe had watched as Hagman’s group of four Riflemen had shut the gates. Hardly a minute had passed.
‘Inside!’ Sharpe kicked at a door, Harper hit it, and the Rifles were inside the house. Someone fired at them, a pistol, but the bullet went wide and Sharpe was hacking with the sword. ‘Bayonets!’ The Riflemen formed line, snarled forward, and Sharpe saw they were in a hall which was officer country, the table littered with used bottles, stairs leading to bedrooms where men were waking to the sounds of battle.
Outside, in the courtyard, Lieutenant Knowles counted to himself, keeping the rhythm of the volleys, and at the same time looking desperately round to see where danger might threaten. He could see Hagman, kneeling to one side, the other Riflemen in his party loading for the small Cheshireman, and knew that any officer who showed his face on balcony or rooftop would be cut down by a rifle bullet. His own men, sweating in the firelight, advanced step by step, scouring the walls and windows, and it occurred to the Lieutenant that this was only his third real fight. He was pushing down the panic, the impulse to run for shelter, but his voice was calm and in the noise he hardly heard the carbine bullets that struck near him. He saw Redcoats falling, struck by enemy fire, saw Sergeant Read tending to them and then, with a ghastly realization, suddenly identified the bubbling and screaming noise that had been nagging at his eardrums for the last minute. He had stepped to one side, to avoid a fire, and saw, kicking in the flames, a French officer. The man seemed to be reaching for the Lieutenant, blackened hands curled like claws, and from his throat came the terrible noise. Knowles suddenly remembered the sword in his hand, the blade bought by his father, and with a grimace he stepped close to the man and shut his eyes as he pushed the tip at the dying man’s throat. He had stopped his orders, but the men neither noticed nor missed them. They fired their volleys into the shadows, and Knowles opened his eyes to see he had killed his first man with a sword, and then the voice of Sergeant Harper was dominating the courtyard. ‘In here, sir!’