“He wanted one?”
Lennox laughed. “Keen as mustard. I suspect he thinks Napoleon himself is coming.”
Sharpe turned and stared down the road. Nothing moved. “They’re not far away. I can feel it.”
Lennox looked at him seriously. “You think so? I thought it was us Scots who had the second sight.” He turned and looked with Sharpe at the empty horizon. “Maybe you’re right, Sharpe. But they’re too late.”
Sharpe agreed and walked onto the bridge. He chatted with Knowles and Denny and, as he left them to join Hogan, he reflected gloomily on the atmosphere in the officers’ mess of the South Essex. Most of the officers were supporters of Simmerson, men who had first earned their commissions with the Militia, and there was bad feeling between them and the men from the regular army. Sharpe liked Lennox, enjoyed his company, but most of the other officers thought the Scotsman was too easy with his company, too much like the Riflemen. Leroy was a decent man, a loyalist American, but he kept his thoughts to himself as did the few others who had little trust in their Colonel’s ability. He pitied the younger officers, learning their trade in such a school, and was glad that as soon as this bridge was destroyed his Riflemen would get away from the South Essex into more congenial company.
Hogan was up to his neck in a hole in the bridge. Sharpe peered down and saw, in the rubble, the curving stonework of two arches.
“How much powder will you use?”
“All there is!” Hogan was happy, a man enjoying his work. “This isn’t easy. Those Romans built well. You see those blocks?” He pointed to the exposed stones of the arches. “They’re all shaped and hammered into place. If I put a charge on top of one of those arches I’ll probably make the damn bridge stronger! I can’t put the powder underneath, more’s the pity.”
“Why not?”
“No time, Sharpe, no time. You have to contain an explosion. If I sling those kegs under the arch all I’ll do is frighten the fishes. No, I’m going to do this one upside down and inside out.” He was half talking to himself, his mind full of weights of powder and lengths of fuse.
“Upside down and inside out?”
Hogan scratched his dirty face. “So to speak. I’m going down into the pier, and then I’ll blow the damn thing out sideways. If it works, Sharpe, it’ll bring down two arches and not just one.”
“Will it work?”
Hogan grinned happily. “It should! It’ll be one hell of a bang, I promise you that.”
“How much longer?”
„I’ll be finished in a couple of hours. Perhaps sooner.“ Hogan heaved himself out of the hole and stood beside Sharpe. “Let’s get the powder up here.” He turned towards the convent, cupped his hands to his mouth, and froze. The Spanish had arrived, their trumpeters in front, their colours flying, the blue-coated infantry straggling behind. “Glory be,” Hogan said. “Now I can sleep safe at nights.”
The Regimienta marched to the convent, past the South Essex who were being drilled in the field, and kept on marching. Sharpe waited for the orders which would halt the Spaniards, but they were never given. Instead the trumpeters paced their horses onto the bridge, the colours followed, then the gloriously uniformed officers and finally the infantry itself.
“What the hell do they think they’re doing?” Hogan stepped to the side of the bridge.
The Regimienta picked its way past the broken section and past the hole Hogan had dug. The Engineer waved his arms at them. “I’m going to blow it up! Bang! Bang!” They ignored him. Hogan tried it in Spanish but the tide of men flowed on past. Even the priest and the three white-dressed ladies walked their mounts carefully round Hogan’s hole and on to the south bank, where Captain Lennox had hastily moved the Light Company out of their path. The Regimienta was followed by an apoplectic Simmerson trying to find out what the hell was happening. Hogan shook his head wearily. “If it had been just you and I, Sharpe, we’d be on our way home by now.” He waved to his men to bring the kegs of powder out to the hole. “I’m tempted to blow it up with that lot on the wrong side.”
“They’re our allies, remember.”
Hogan wiped his forehead. “So’s Simmerson.” He climbed back into the excavation. Til be glad when this lot’s over.“
The kegs of powder arrived, and Sharpe left Hogan to pack the gunpowder deep in the base of the arches. He walked back to the south bank where his riflemen waited and watched as the Santa Maria paraded in a long line across the road that led to the distant skyline. Lennox grinned down from his horse.
“What do you think of this, Sharpe?” He waved at the Spaniards, who resolutely faced an empty skyline.
“What are they doing?”
“They told the Colonel that it was their duty to cross the bridge! It’s something to do with Spanish pride. We got here first so they have to go further.” He touched his hat to Simmerson, who was re-crossing the bridge. “You know what he’s thinking of doing?”
“What? Simmerson?” Sharpe looked after the retreating Colonel, who had pointedly ignored him.
“Aye. He’s thinking of bringing the whole Battalion over.”
“He’s what?”
“If they cross, we cross.” Lennox laughed. “Mad, that’s what he is.”
There were shouts from Sharpe’s Riflemen and he followed their pointing arms to look at the horizon. “Do you see anything?”
Lennox stared up the track. “Not a thing.”
A flash of light. “There!” Sharpe climbed onto the parapet and dug into his pack for his only possession of value, a telescope made by Matthew Berge of London. He had no idea of its real worth but he suspected it had cost at least thirty guineas. There was a brass plate curved and inset into the walnut tube, and engraved on the plate was an inscription. “In gratitude. AW. September 23rd, 1803.” He recalled the piercing blue eyes looking at him when the telescope had been presented. “Remember, Mr Sharpe, an officer’s eyes are more valuable than his sword!”
He snapped the tube open and slide the brass shutters that protected the lens apart. The image danced in the glass, he held his breath to steady his arms, and panned the tube sideways. There! Damn the tube! It would not stay still.
„Tendleton!“
The young Rifleman came running to the bridge and, on Sharpes’ instructions, jumped onto the parapet and crouched so that Sharpe could rest the telescope on his shoulder. The skyline leapt towards him, he moved the glass gently to the right. Nothing but grass and stunted bushes. The heat shimmered the air above the gentle slope as the telescope moved past the innocent horizon.
“Do you see anything, sir?”
“Keep still, damn you!” He moved the glass back, concentrating on the spot where the white, dusty road merged with the sky. Then, with the suddenness of an actor coming through a stage trapdoor, the crest was lined with horsemen. Pendleton gasped, the image wavered, but Sharpe steadied it. Green uniforms, a single white cross-belt. He closed the glass and straightened up.
“Chasseurs.”
There was a murmur from the Regimienta; the men nudged each other and pointed up the hill. Sharpe mentally split the line in half, then in half again, and counted the distant silhouettes in groups of five. Lennox had ridden across.
“Two hundred, Sharpe?”
“That’s what I make it.”
Lennox fiddled with his sword hilt. “They won’t bother us.” He sounded resentful.
A second line of horsemen appeared. Sharpe opened the tube again and rested it on Pendleton’s shoulder. The French were making a dramatic appearance: two lines of cavalry, two hundred men in each, walking slowly towards the bridge. Through the lens Sharpe could see the carbines slung on their shoulders, and on each horse there was an obscene lump behind the stirrup where the rider had strapped a netful of forage for his mount. He straightened up again and told Pendleton he could jump down.
“Are they going to fight, sir?” Like Lennox the young boy was eager for a brush with the French. Sharpe shook his head.
>
“They won’t come near. They’re just having a look at us. They’ve nothing to gain by attacking.”
When Sharpe had been locked in the Tippoo’s dungeon with Lawford the Lieutenant had tried to teach him to play chess. It had been a hopeless task. They could never remember which chip of stone was supposed to represent which piece, and their jailers had thought the scratched grid on the floor was an attempt at magic. They had been beaten and the chessboard scratched out. But Sharpe remembered the word ‘stalemate’. That was the position now. The French could not harm the infantry and the infantry could not harm the French. Simmerson was bringing the rest of the Battalion across the bridge, threading them past an exasperated Hogan and his excavation, but it made no difference how many men the allies had. The cavalry were simply too quick; the foot-soldiers would never get anywhere near them. And if the cavalry chose to attack they would be annihilated by the dreadful close-range volleys, and any horse that survived the bullets would swerve away or pull up rather than gallop into the close-packed, steel-tipped ranks. There would be no fight today.
Simmerson thought otherwise. He waved his drawn sword cheerfully at Lennox. “We’ve got them, Lennox! We’ve got them!”
“Aye, sir.” Lennox sounded gloomy; he would have liked a fight. “Doesn’t the fool realise they won’t attack us? Does he think we’re going to lumber round this field like a cow chasing a fox? Damn it! We’ve done the job, Sharpe. We’ve mined the bridge, and it’ll take an hour to get this lot back over.”
“Lennox!” Simmerson was in his element. “Form your company on the left! Mr Sterritt’s company will guard the bridge and, if you please, I’ll borrow Mr Gibbons from you as my aide de camp’t‘
“Your gain is my loss, sir.” Lennox grinned at Sharpe. “Aide de camp! He thinks he’s fighting the Battle of Blenheim! What will you do, Sharpe?“
Sharpe grinned back. “I’m not invited. I’ll watch your gallant efforts. Enjoy yourself!”
The cavalry had stopped half a mile away, lined across the road, their horses’ uncropped tails swishing at the summer flies. Sharpe wondered what they made of the scene in front of them: the Spanish advancing clumsily in four ranks, eight hundred men round their colours marching towards four hundred French horsemen while, at the bridge, another eight hundred infantry prepared to advance.
Simmerson assembled his company commanders and Sharpe listened as he gave his orders. The South Essex were to form line, in four ranks like the Spanish, and advance behind them. “We’ll wait and see, gentlemen, what the enemy does and deploy accordingly! Unfurl the colours!”
Lennox winked at Sharpe. It was farcical that two clumsy Regiments of foot thought they could attack four hundred horsemen who would dance out of the way and laugh at the efforts made against them. The French commander probably did not believe what was happening and, at the very least, it would provide him with an amusing story to tell when he rejoined Victor’s army. Sharpe wondered what Simmerson would do when it finally dawned on him that the French would not attack. Probably the Colonel would claim that he had scared the enemy away.
The Ensigns pulled the leather covers from the South Essex colours, unfurled them, and hoisted them into their sockets. They made a brave sight even in the middle of this comedy, and Sharpe felt the familiar pang of loyalty. The first raised was the King’s Colour, a great Union Jack with the Regiment’s number in the centre, and next the South Essex’s own standard, a yellow flag emblazoned with the crest and with the Union flag stitched in the upper corner. It was impossible to see the flags, the morning sun shining through them, and not be moved. They were the Regiment; should only a handful of men be left on a battlefield, the rest slaughtered, the Regiment still existed“ if the colours flew and defied the enemy. They were a rallying point in the smoke and chaos of battle, but more than that; there were men who would hardly fight for England’s King and Country but they would fight for the colours, for their Regiment’s honour, for the gaudy flags that cost a few guineas and were carried in the centre of the line by the youngest Ensigns and guarded by veteran Sergeants armed with long wicked-bladed pikes. Sharpe had known as many as ten men to carry the colours in battle, replacing the dead, picking up the flags even though they knew that then they became the enemy’s prime target. Honour was all. The flags of the South Essex were new and gleaming, the Regimental Colour devoid of battle honours, neither was torn by bullet or roundshot, but seeing them filled Sharpe with a sudden emotion, and it changed the farce of Simmerson’s mad hopes into an affair of honour.
The South Essex followed the Regimienta towards the horsemen. Like the Spanish the British line was a hundred and fifty yards wide, its four ranks tipped with bayonets, the company officers riding or walking with drawn swords. The Spanish had halted, some four hundred yards up the road, and Simmerson had no choice but to stop the Battalion to find out what the Regimienta intended. Hogan joined Sharpe and nodded at the two Regiments.
“Not joining in the battle?”
“I think it’s a private party. Captain Sterritt and I are guarding the bridge.”
Sterritt, a mild man, smiled nervously at Sharpe and Hogan. Like his Colonel he was appalled at the appearance of these veteran soldiers and secretly frightened that the enemy might prove to be as tough and carefree as the Rifleman or the Engineer. Hogan was wiping his hands on a piece of rag and Sharpe asked him if the job was finished.
“Aye. It’s all done. Ten kegs of powder snuggled down, fuses laid, and the hole filled in. As soon as these gallant soldiers get the hell out of the way I can find out whether it works or not. Now what’s happening?”
The Spanish were forming square. A good Battalion could march from line into square in thirty seconds but the Spanish took four times as long. It was the proper formation when faced by attacking cavalry, but as the French showed no lunatic inclination to charge four times their own number the Spanish convolutions were hardly necessary. Sharpe watched as the officers and sergeants harried and chivvied their men into the rough semblance of a square, a slightly lopsided square, but it would do. Sharpe remembered the three women. He could not see them with the Regimienta, and he looked round to see them watching decorously from the river-bank. One of them saw his glance and raised a gloved hand.
“It’s a good job the French don’t have those guns.”
Hogan raised his eyebrows. I’d forgotten that rumour. That would heat things up.“
There was no more fatal combination than cavalry and artillery for men on foot. Infantry in square were totally safe from cavalry; all the horsemen could do was ride round and round the formation, hacking uselessly at the bayonets. But if the cavalry were supported by cannons the square became a deathtrap. Grapeshot would blast holes in the ranks; the cavalry would ride into the gaps and slice down with their sabres. Sharpe looked at the skyline. There were no guns.
Simmerson had watched the Regimienta form their square. He was obviously nonplussed. It must have occurred to him that he could not attack the French, so the French had to attack him. There was a pause in proceedings. The Spanish had formed their rough square on the right of the track; Simmerson gave his orders and with a marvellous precision the South Essex demonstrated, on the left, how a Battalion should form a square. Even at half a mile Sharpe could see the horsemen clapping ironically.
Now there were two squares, the Spanish nearer the French, and still the horsemen made no move. Time passed. The sun climbed higher in the sky, the grassland shivered in the haze, the French horses lowered their necks and cropped at the thin pasture. Captain Sterritt, guarding the bridge with his company, became plaintive.
“Why don’t they attack?”
“Would you?” Sharpe asked.
Sterritt looked puzzled. Sharpe could understand why. Simmerson was looking increasingly foolish, he had marched to war with drawn sword and unfurled banners and the enemy was refusing to fight. Now he was stranded, like a beached whale, in a defensive square. It was virtually impossible to make an
ordered march while in a square formation; it was easy enough for the leading edge, they marched forwards, but the sides had to step sideways, and the rear edge walk backwards, all of them fighting off encircling horsemen. It was not impossible, Sharpe had done it, but when survival depends on doing the impossible then men will find a way. Simmerson wanted to move but he did not want his neat, ordered square to be torn out of alignment as he advanced. He could have resumed the line formation but then he would look even more foolish for having formed a square at all. So he stayed where he was and the French looked on, filled with wonderment at the strange antics of the enemies.
“Someone’s got to do something!” Captain Sterritt frowned in bewilderment. War was not supposed to be like this! It was glory and victory, not this humiliation.
“Someone’s doing something!” Hogan nodded at the South Essex. A horseman had been released from the square and was galloping towards the bridge.
“It’s Lieutenant Gibbons.” Sterritt raised a hand to his Colonel’s nephew, who pulled his horse to a violent stop. His features were stern, filled with the seriousness of the moment. He looked down on Sharpe.
“You’re to report to the Colonel.”
“Why?”
Gibbons looked astonished. “The Colonel wants you. Now!”
Hogan coughed. “Lieutenant Sharpe is under my orders. Why does the Colonel want him?”
Gibbons flung an arm towards the immobile French. “We need a skirmish line, Sharpe, something to sting the French into action.”
Sharpe nodded. “How far ahead of the square am I supposed to take my men?” He spoke in sweet reasonableness.
Gibbons shrugged. “Near enough to move the cavalry. Hurry!”
“I’m not moving.”
Gibbons stared down at Sharpe. “I beg your pardon.”
“I will not kill my men. I go more than fifty yards from that square and the French will ride us down like hares. Don’t you know that skirmishers fall back from cavalry?”
“Are you coming, Sharpe?” Gibbons made it sound like an ultimatum.