'Did I ever tell you you're a useful man to have around?'
'Tell my Ma, sir. She wanted to throw me back. I was so little.' One of the Fusiliers laughed almost hysterically. His jacket was fresh and bright, a recruit, and Harper grinned at him. 'Don't worry, lad, they're far more scared of you than you are of them.' The boy was guarding the door onto the northern rampart, a rampart that had been clear of the enemy for no attack threatened from that side.
Sharpe went to the doorway that led to the turret's top and peered cautiously inside. An empty stair going up. A voice swore in the other staircase, a bayonet scraped on the wood of the blockage, but Sharpe had no fears now of an attack from below. He was frightened of this stairway, though. The men at the top would know by now that there was an enemy below. He was tempted to leave them there, but he knew that he could defend the summit of the gate-tower far more easily than this room. 'I'll go first.'
'With respect, sir, the gun's handier.' Harper hefted the seven barrels. It was true, but Sharpe could not let someone else lead.
'You follow.'
The staircase was like the first, bending inconveniently to the right, and Sharpe pushed away the inconsequential thought that Captains of the past must have sent their left-handed swordsmen first into stairways like this. He was frightened. Each step added to the fear, each step revealing another stretch of dark, blank wall. A single man with a musket would have no difficulty in killing him. He stopped, listening, wishing he had thought to remove his boots so that their ascent would be quieter.
Beneath him he heard muskets, a shout, and then the calm voice of the Fusilier Sergeant. The man could easily defend the chamber for a few minutes, but Sharpe half expected his small party to be marooned in this Castle for hours. He had to have the turret top and he thought of the defenders waiting up these stairs and he wished devoutly that he did not have to climb them. He could hear Harper fidgeting and grunting behind him and he shushed him irritably.
The Irishman pushed something at him. 'Here, sir.'
It was his green jacket. Sharpe understood. Hang the jacket on the sword tip because the defenders, nervous themselves, were just waiting for something to appear in the gloom of the stairway. Harper grinned and motioned with his gun, telling Sharpe to stay close to the shaft of the staircase so the Sergeant could fire past him and trust to the ricocheting of the seven bullets. Sharpe pushed the bloody, tip of the sword into the collar of the jacket and, in the half-light, he could see the laurel wreath badge that was sewn onto the sleeve. Sharpe wore one himself, the coveted badge that said a Rifleman had gone first into a defended breach, yet Badajoz seemed so long ago now, the utter fear of it just a dulled memory, while the fear of this moment was so huge and paralysing. Death was so channelled and directed by this staircase, yet Sharpe had learned that the steps a man feared most were the ones that had to be taken. He climbed. The jacket was ahead of him, a dark shape in the gloom, and he tried to remember how tall the gatehouse was, and how many steps it would take to reach the top, but he was confused. The turning of the stair had taken away his sense of direction, the fear turned each scrape of his boots' soles on the cold stone into a jab of alarm as he imagined the bullet striking from above.
The sword blade jarred on the central pillar. The jacket jerked with each step. It was a pathetic ruse, looking nothing like a man, but he told himself that the defenders would be nervous too. They were rehearsing in their minds what kind of attack would burst up these stairs, they were imagining death too on this Christmas Day.
The volley, when it came, was sickeningly close, and the bullets snatched at the jacket, billowed it, tore it, and Sharpe involuntarily ducked for the staircase seemed full of shrieking metal striking stone, and then the seven-barrelled gun exploded next to his ear, deafening him, and Sharpe screamed a challenge that he could not hear, twitched the jacket free of the sword point and charged up the stairs.
The jacket saved his life. He had thought only to discard it, to free the blade, but his right foot stepped on it, threw him painfully forward and tumbled Harper behind him. The Irishman crushed the breath from Sharpe, drove his ribs against the corners of the steps, and as they fell so the second volley, saved for this moment, flamed over their heads. Harper felt the hot breath of the guns, knew that the shots had missed, and he clawed his way forward over Sharpe's body and used the massive gun as a club in the doorway of the small turret that carried the staircase onto the tower's top.
Sharpe followed, his head ringing with the explosion of the seven-barrelled gun, and on the confined roof space his sword was the better weapon. The fear would have its outlet now, like a clawed animal released from a stinking cage, and he killed with the blade. He could hear nothing, only see the enemy who went back before him and he knew these men had drawn his nerves steel tight, had forced fear on him in a small place, and he killed with the efficient skill of his sword arm.
Six men cowered in a corner of the turret, weapons discarded, hands held up in supplication. Those the Riflemen ignored. Three men still fought, and those three died. Two with the sword, the third Harper picked up bodily and heaved into the courtyard, his dying scream being the first sound that penetrated Sharpe's fuddled, deafened ears.
He lowered the sword, his eyes grim on the terrified men who pressed back against the castellations. He breathed deep, shook his head. 'Jesus.'
Harper took the two bodies at the stairhead, one at a time, and hurled them after the other man. He looked at his officer. 'Stairways cleared and Castles taken. We should go into business, sir.’
’I didn't enjoy that.’
’Nor did they.'
Sharpe laughed. They had done it, they had taken the turret's top and he wondered who had last climbed those stairs in a fight and how many years before. Had it been before gunpowder? Had the last man to come into the sunlight of this rampart been in uncomfortable armour, swinging a short mace that would crush in the confined deathtrap of the winding stair? He grinned at Harper, slapped his arm. 'Well done.' Whoever had been last up these stairs, fighting up, had done exactly what Sharpe did now. He shouted down the stairway, shouted loud, and waited for the man to bring what he wanted. Bullets fluttered about their heads from the Castle's keep, but Sharpe ignored them. He shouted again, impatient, and here they were, staffs broken, but it did not matter.
On the old battlements, facing east, facing the Fusiliers and the Rifle Companies, Sharpe hung the Colours. They were discoloured by smoke, torn by explosion and bullet, but they were the Colours. Banners hanging from a Castle wall, the boast of a fighting man, banners hung by Sharpe and Harper. The gatehouse was taken.
Chapter 13
It had been a piece of pure bravado to hang the Colours on the gate-tower, each one fixed by driving an enemy bayonet through the flag and into the crumbling mortar of the battlements. It crossed Sharpe's mind that he and Harper had saved these Colours from Sir Augustus' impetuosity, from the man's stupidity, and Sharpe looked down at the place where Farthingdale had fallen. Smoke still drifted there, and then Sharpe swore and ducked as a bullet from the valley chipped at the stone by the flags. Someone down there thought the Colours had been captured, that the enemy was flaunting them.
'Sir?' Harper pointed north towards the Convent.
The Rocket Troop had arrived. The fight at the eastern wall had meant their passage of the pass, close to the Castle's northern wall, had been undisturbed. Now the wagons were parked on the road leading to the Convent, the troopers watching curiously the confusion of the failed attack.
Who was in charge down there? Was Sir Augustus alive? Sharpe had assumed Kinney's death, certainly the Welshman was hard hit, so who was giving the orders to the Companies that had escaped the explosion? Bullets made the air above the gate-tower a deadly place, bullets fired from both sides, from keep and from valley. Sharpe sat down and watched Harper load the seven-barrelled gun. 'We wait.' There was nothing Sharpe could do from the high turret. He had plucked some Fusiliers from the chaos, saved t
he Colours, and now they would have to sit it out until the Castle fell. He wished he had eaten some breakfast.
Sharpe had raised the Colours in bravado, but to the Fusiliers they were a taunt of failure. They did not see that it was Riflemen on the high battlement, they only saw their pride, their Colours, tacked to an enemy fortress. Men did not fight for King and Country so much as they fought for those squares of fringed silk, and the Fusiliers, recovering their order, saw the flags and no power on earth was going to stop them attempting to recover them. Six Companies had been untouched by the explosion, two others hardly affected, and now they turned, charged, and Frederickson launched his Riflemen ahead of them.
No one noticed that the guns in the watchtower had ceased firing. The battle was no longer being directed, it was now an expression of anger.
The bullets had stopped flickering about the gate-tower and Sharpe risked a look, saw the surge of men coming from the valley and turned back. 'Muskets!' He pointed to the guns that had belonged to the half-dozen prisoners who still cowered against the stones.
Harper raked the muskets towards them, selected four that were still loaded, and raised his eyebrows towards Sharpe.
'The cannon.'
The gun on the eastern wall, hard by the keep, was still the one weapon that could hurt the attack. It was a long shot for a musket, but the balls flying about the gunners' ears would at least discourage them. Sharpe levelled an unfamiliar French musket over the wall. It felt clumsy. He could see the gunners behind their embrasure, one holding the portfire which would spark the priming tube and slam the canister from the muzzle, and he aimed a little above the man's head and pulled the trigger. The gun hammered his shoulder, smoke blotted out his view, and then Harper's musket sounded in the next embrasure. Sharpe took the second musket, cocked it, and waited till the smoke of the first shot had thinned a little. Damn this still air!
The gunners had ducked, were looking wildly about for the source of the shots. Sharpe grinned, aimed lower, and once more a flint sparked on steel, priming exploded in his face, the burning powder stinging his cheek, and again the smoke obscured his view. Then there were cheers from the rubble, shouts of alarm from the courtyard, and Sharpe and Harper stood up and watched the scene from above.
Pot-au-Feu had no defence against this second attack. He had pinned all his hopes on the destructive power of the mine added to the desperation of his men, and now his defence collapsed. Sharpe saw, with satisfaction, the gunners leaving the cannon unfired, scrambling for the safety of the keep, and their example was being followed by the rabble in the courtyard. Red uniforms were flooding over the rubble, a line of green Riflemen ahead of them, and the Fusiliers were in no mood for mercy. They took the slim, seventeen-inch bayonets to the enemy, stabbed, and the blades came back reddened while Pot-au-Feu's men clamoured and fought to gain the safety of the single arched door that led into the keep.
A bugle was playing, a double note in the centre of each call that drove men to the charge, and Frederickson's Riflemen with their longer bayonets drove more fugitives towards the stable block beneath the western ramparts. They jumped the low wall, shouted their challenges, and the enemy ran.
Bayonets were not used often on the battlefield, at least not to kill. The force of the weapon was in the fear it provoked and Sharpe had witnessed dozens of bayonet charges when the blades never reached the enemy. Men would turn and run rather than face the edged steel. Yet here, in the confines of the courtyard, the Riflemen and Fusiliers had trapped an enemy with no space to run. They killed, as they had been trained to kill, and it took time before individual soldiers saw that some of the deserters were surrendering, and then the attackers began defending the unarmed prisoners against the fury of other men who still hunted with dripping blades.
Sharpe saw Frederickson, his patch and teeth removed, sending troops up the staircase which led, beside the stable block, to the western wall. The Castle was falling.
'Let's go down.'
Two more Fusiliers had come to the turret's top and Sharpe left them guarding the prisoners. He and Harper clattered down the staircase, mundane now that it was not a place of stifling fear, and they came into the large room where the wounded moaned and the Fusilier Sergeant turned a worried face to Sharpe. 'Our lads, sir?'
'Yes. Keep shouting down the stairs. They'll know your name, won't they?'
'Yes, sir.'
Sharpe opened the door that led to the northern wall. The rampart was empty. At its far end the firestep entered a tunnel in the north-western turret before turning left onto the western wall. As he watched he saw a figure appear in the turret, drop to one knee and bring up a rifle. Sharpe stepped into the sunlight. 'Don't shoot!'
Thomas Taylor, the American, jerked his rifle safely upwards. He grinned, knowing he had frightened Sharpe, then called over his shoulder. Frederickson appeared, sabre in hand, and his face showed astonishment and then pleasure. He ran down the rampart. 'Was that you on the top?'
'Yes.'
'Christ! We thought it was enemy. Jesus! I thought you were dead, sir!'
Sharpe looked at the courtyard where Pot-au-Feu's men made a desperate defence at the gateway to the keep. Otherwise it was chaos as Fusiliers took prisoners, searched them, and shouted triumphantly over their booty. 'Who's in charge?'
'Damned if I know, sir.'
'Farthingdale?'
'Haven't seen him.'
Sharpe could imagine what would happen if the Fusiliers reached the liquor that Pot-au-Feu undoubtedly had within the keep. He gave orders to Frederickson, shouted more to Captain Cross whose Riflemen now lined the eastern wall, and turned to Harper. 'Let's see if we can find that bloody gold we delivered.'
'God! I'd forgotten it!' The Sergeant grinned. 'After you, sir.'
There was no resistance at the doorway that led from the ramparts into the keep. The Riflemen were already through, spreading out into the floors built about the keep's central courtyard. Prisoners were dragged from hiding places, booted down steep winding stairs, and Sharpe could hear the screams of women and the cries of frightened children. Then, looking through a crumbled and widened arrow slit at the southern side of the keep, he swore.
'Sir?'
'Look.'
It was his fault. One patrol of Rifles in the early morning would have discovered that there was an escape into the hills direct from the keep. Sharpe could not see it, but he guessed that the stones had fallen from part of the lower wall, and he could see the remnants of Pot-au-Feu's band scrambling through the thorns to the clearer turf of the hilltop. Scores of them; men, women and children, all escaping. He swore again. This was his fault. He should have scouted to the south.
Harper swore too, then pointed through the arrow-slit. 'More lives than a basketful of bleeding cats.'
Hakeswill, mounted on a horse, the long neck easily visible as he spurred the horse onto the hilltop. Harper climbed out of the embrasure. 'Won't get far, sir.'
Most would not get far. The winter and the Partisans would see to that, but Hakeswill had gone, slipped out into the world where he would plan more evil. Harper still tried to gloss over the failure. 'We must have got half of them, sir. More!'
'Yes.' It was a success, no doubt of that. Adrados would be seen to be avenged, the hostages had been rescued, the women captured on the Day of the Miracle had been saved, the priests who had preached Britain's calumny from their pulpits would have to eat humble pie. It was a success. Yet Sharpe could see his enemy on the hilltop, an enemy who paused, turned in his saddle, then rode over the crest. 'They'll have taken the bloody gold with them.’Like as not.'
Shouts, musket shots, the noises of hunters and hunted still came from the castle rooms. Redcoats were running through the floors now, looking for loot or women, and Sharpe and Harper elbowed them aside as they went downstairs into the courtyard. A bellow attracted them and they saw Frederickson, sabre still drawn, threatening Fusiliers. He saw Sharpe and grinned. 'Liquor's in there, sir.' He jerked his ghast
ly face at a door behind him. 'Enough to get London drunk.'
Prisoners were herded into the corners of the yard, a repetition of the scene last night in the Convent, and Sharpe watched as Fusilier officers took control of their men. It was over, all done, a Christmas Day's work. He looked at Frederickson who was marking the fight's end by donning his eye-patch. 'Anything else interesting?'
'You should look in the cellars, sir. Something nasty in the dark.'
The darkness was lifted by straw torches carried by curious men into the dungeons of the Castle. It was a miserable place. One vast room, low vaulted, wet and freezing, and Sharpe pushed through the crowd of Fusiliers and stopped at the edge of the horror. He saw a Sergeant. 'Don't just stand there! Get a detail of prisoners. Get rid of this!'
'Yes, sir.'
'Hakeswill?' Harper asked.
'Who knows? We can find out if any of the bastards will tell the truth.' Someone had been busy. The band of deserters at the Gateway of God had not been over brotherly. There had been punishment here, too, and the punishment was worse than any the army ever handed out. It stank in the cellar. Men had been mutilated here and Sharpe, looking into the grisly shadows, saw that women had been brought to this place of punishment as well. The bodies looked as though a madman had attacked them with an axe, then left them as rat food, and only one body, naked and stiff, was whole. It appeared to be untouched and Sharpe, curious, walked so he could see the man's head. 'Hakeswill did this.'
'How do you know?'
Sharpe tapped a fingernail against the skull. It sounded metallic. 'He's been killed with a flat headed nail.'
'What? Hammered in?'
'Not exactly. I saw him do it before. In India.' Sharpe told Harper the story and the Fusiliers listened. He told of being captured by the troops of the Sultan Tippoo and how he had been taken to the prison cells in Seringapatam and had watched, through the half-moon windows that looked out at ground level, the torture of British prisoners. Perhaps torture was too strong a word, for the men had died swiftly enough. The Tippoo Sultan, for his own pleasure and the pleasure of his women, employed Jetties, professional strong-men, and Sharpe had watched as men from the 33rd had been dragged over the sand to where the muscled men waited. The heels of the prisoners had left scuff marks, he remembered. They killed in two ways that day. The first was to clamp their massive forearms either side of the victim's head and, on a signal from the Tippoo, they would take a breath then jerk the head through half a circle. Another Jettie would hold the body still and, whatever the resistance of the prisoners, their necks would be wrung swift as a chicken.