Sharpe’s Regiment

by Bernard Cornwell

  Somewhere in that land of fogs and rains and lightning and night-howling cold, they had crossed into France. No one was certain exactly where. One moment they were in Spain, and the next the word went through the ranks that they had entered the land of the enemy. No one cheered. They were in an army that had fought and struggled since 1793 to cross this frontier, but they were too tired to raise a cheer. The straps of their packs had chafed through the wet uniforms, their boots were filled with water, and the sergeants had threatened to crucify any man who let his powder get wet.

  'Remember one thing, Charlie.' Harper tossed the dregs of his tea away. 'Get yourself a French pack soon as you bloody can. More comfortable.' It was possible to tell the veterans of the Regiment, not just by their faded uniforms that were patched with brown Spanish cloth, but by their good French packs. Weller grinned. His red coat, which had been so bright in Chelmsford, had turned a strange pink, the cheap dye washed by the rain to drip onto his grey trousers which were now reddened about the thighs. 'Will we fight today?'

  'That's what we're here for.' Harper stared down at the French-held hills. The British held the higher ground, but between them and the southern plains of France was this last range of enemy-held hills, hills protected by fortifications, trenches, and marshy, treacherous ground in the valleys. Wellington, whose men had prised the French from the higher peaks in weeks of hard, confused fighting, wanted to be out of these hills before the snows came. No army could winter here. If the forts that had been hacked out of the rocks on the last foothills were not taken, then the British would have to slink back into Spain. Harper turned round. 'Private Clayton!'

  'Sarge?'

  'Look after this little bugger.' Harper cuffed Weller. 'Don't want him dying in his first battle. And, Charlie?'

  'Sarge?'

  'Keep your bloody dog away from the Portuguese. They eat them when they get hungry.'

  Weller, landing at Pasajes in early October, had adopted the first stray dog that he found. It was a mongrel of startling ugliness, with one ear missing and a tail shortened by a fight. It proved to be a coward against all other dogs, but devoted to its new master, who had tried to christen it Buttons. The name did not stick. The rest of the Light Company, because of its ugliness and cowardice, called the dog Boney.

  Major Richard Sharpe had let it be known throughout the Battalion that dogs would make suitable pets for soldiers. As a result of Sharpe's encouragement, the Prince of Wales' Own Volunteers looked, at times, as if they had collected every stray mongrel and flighty bitch in Europe.

  Major General Nairn had greeted Sharpe like a long lost friend. During the three weeks that the Battalion was given to re-order its Companies and train the new men to fight in the way of the veterans, Nairn often rode over to share an evening meal with Sharpe and listen to the stories brought from England. He met Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood briefly. 'Is he mad, Sharpe?' They were sitting in the wine-shop that was the officers' Mess.

  'He just keeps himself to himself, sir.'

  'He's mad!' Nairn stared reverently into his glass of whisky. Sharpe had brought two cases from London and presented them to the General. 'Mad!' Nairn said. 'Reminds me of a Minister I knew in Kirkcaldy. The Reverend Robert MacTeague. Ate nothing but vegetables! Can you credit that? Thought his wife was pregnant of a moonbeam. She probably was, I doubt if he knew his business in that area, and all those cabbages? Must sap a man, Sharpe. He didn't drink, either, not a drop! Said it was the devil's brew.' He turned and stared towards the door of Girdwood's room. Light showed beneath the door which had remained closed all evening. 'What does he do in there?'

  'Writes poetry, sir.'

  'Christ!' Nairn stared at Sharpe, then drank a good swallow of whisky. 'You're not serious?'

  'I am, sir.'

  The old Scotsman shook his head sadly. 'Why doesn't the bugger resign?'

  'I really couldn't say, sir.' Sharpe did not know whether his request to Lawford had borne fruit and that the threat of court-martial and disgrace had forced Girdwood to Spain, or whether the man, from his tortuous dreams of glory, simply wanted to fight his battle against the French. 'He's here, sir, that's all I know.'

  'While you,' a finger stabbed at Sharpe, 'are commanding this Battalion, yes? You're a clever bastard, Mr Sharpe, and when you've driven that poor fool mad I'll make sure you get a real bastard of a colonel to run you ragged.'

  Major General Nairn was right in his surmise that Sharpe had arranged for Girdwood to command the Battalion because it enabled Sharpe to be the real commander. Girdwood, shamed and humbled by Sharpe in England, could not compete with him in Spain. The Lieutenant Colonel had tried. On their first formal parade, when the Battalion, strengthened and filled by the men from Foulness, had formed up before the storehouses of Pasajes, Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood had publicly reprimanded Major Sharpe. It was his attempt to assert his authority, to make, as he had said in private to Sharpe, a new beginning with old things forgotten.

  The parade had been a formal affair, the Companies lined in their proper order, with Captains in front and Sergeants behind. Before the hoisted Colours, facing the whole parade, Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood sat his horse. Four paces behind the Colours, in the allotted place of the senior major, Sharpe stood.

  'Major Sharpe!' Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood, surveying his command, shouted over the heads of the Colour party.

  'Sir!'

  'Retire two paces, if you please!' The manual of drill did, indeed, stipulate that the senior major should be six paces behind the rear ranks.

  Every man in the Battalion, not just those from Foulness, but the veterans too, recognised this as a trial of strength. A small thing, no doubt; but if Major Sharpe, so publicly reprimanded for his lack of military precision, took the two backward paces then Girdwood would have succeeded in asserting his formal authority over all these men. The Colonel, recognising the moment, chose to speak in a clipped, loud voice. 'Now, if you please, Major!'

  'Sir!' Major Sharpe said. He filled his lungs. "Talion! 'Talion will march two paces forward on my word of command! 'Talion, move!'

  Since that moment, which had brought smiles to every face in the Battalion, Sharpe had commanded. From that moment on he paraded beside Girdwood, in the front of the Battalion, and, though he was careful to be seen consulting with the Lieutenant Colonel, and though Girdwood still presided silently in the Mess, there was not a man in the Prince of Wales' Own Volunteers who did not know who truly gave the Battalion its orders.

  Major General Nairn, on his last visit to Sharpe before the Battalion was ordered forward through the mountains, had stared astonished at the still closed door. 'You're not being a bit hard on him, Sharpe?'

  'Yes, sir. I am.' Sharpe admitted. 'At Foulness, sir, that bugger gave orders that deserters were to be shot out of hand. I saw one killed. Guessing from the books I'd say he had about a dozen others shot. No trial, no nothing. Just bang. He also hunted men in the marshland as if they were rats. He stole a lot of money.' Sharpe frowned. 'So have I, in my time, but only from the enemy. I don't steal from my men. Besides, he wants to see a battle, so I'm doing him a favour.'

  'A favour?'

  ‘I’ll fight his bloody battle for him, which means we stand a chance of winning.' Sharpe laughed at his own immodesty.

  'Any other enemies here, Major Sharpe?' Nairn asked with mock innocence.

  Sharpe smiled, thought of Sergeant Lynch, and lied. 'No, sir.'

  'Doesn't look any different to Spain, does it?' Harper, with a fresh mug of tea, stood beside Sharpe on the great hill and looked down on the enemy's last fortresses before the open country.

  Sharpe propped a broken mirror above a bowl of water and stropped his razor on the side of his right boot. 'Buggers didn't have trenches in Spain.' He had searched the French positions with his telescope. He did not much like what he saw. The French had made the great hump of hill beneath him into a remarkable fortress. They had built dry stone walls that connected their small forts, dug trenches,
and at the very end of the hill, that lay like a ridge among lesser hills, there was a series of concentric walls that surrounded a pinnacle of rock. The rock was crowned with embrasures, packed, doubtless, with muskets that could not be reached by British cannon, for no cannon could be placed in a position to reach the pinnacle. This, Sharpe knew, would be an infantryman's job. An attack uphill, against stone and trenches, against an enemy fanatical to protect their homeland.

  The Battalion's orders, given to Girdwood, but taken by Sharpe, instructed the Prince of Wales' Own Volunteers to attack behind two other Battalions. The first two Battalions would take the outworks, clear the first trenches, and let the Prince of Wales' Own Volunteers go through them for the task of finishing the job. Sharpe's men were to scour the last defences and take the pinnacle, the last fortress. To the right and left of the enemy hill were others, crowned by similar works, to be screened or attacked by other Battalions. By nightfall, if all went well, the road out of the mountains would be cleared and France, with its full barns and winter pastures, would be at Wellington's disposal.

  Sharpe scraped the razor over his skin without benefit of hot water. He flinched, then stolidly scraped on. 'I'm giving you a special squad, Patrick.'

  'Special, sir?'

  Sharpe dipped the blade into the icy, dirty water that had already been used by nine other officers. 'We can't make a formal bloody assault on that place. Too many god-damn rocks.' It would be like threading through a maze of ditches and walls that would tear a tight formation into ruin. 'We're going in two columns, Light and Grenadier Companies leading, but I'm giving you your own squad. Go in the centre, and if you see either column in trouble, go in on their flank. Don't wait for my orders, just keep going.'

  'Yes, sir,' Harper grinned happily. He liked such independence. 'Can I pick my men, sir?'

  'I've already done it.' Sharpe wiped his face on his officer's sash. 'O'Grady, Kelleher, Rourke, Callaghan, Joyce, Donnell, the Pearce brothers, O'Toole, Fitzpatrick, and Halloran.' He looked at Harper's wide grin. 'And I thought perhaps you ought to take an extra sergeant. Just to help you.'

  'And who might that be, sir?'

  'I don't know.' Sharpe pulled on his old jacket and began to button it. 'Lynch, perhaps?'

  'I think the boys would be happy with that, sir.'

  Sharpe gave an atrocious imitation of Harper's Donegal accent. 'Grand, Patrick, just grand. And would you be minding if I finished your tea?'

  'Whatever you want, sir.' Harper laughed. 'Christ, but it's good to be back.'

  At eight o'clock the Battalion was ordered down to the valley. They left the thin sunshine, going into shadow. The tracks, made by goats, forced the Companies to go in single file. Servants led their officers' horses. Sharpe, like most of the veteran officers, had left his horse with the baggage.

  He had bought himself a fine seven year old mare in England, replacing the cheap saddle horse he had bought on his second journey to Foulness. Jane Gibbons had named the mare Sycorax.

  'I can't even spell it!" Sharpe had growled,

  'I suppose you'd call her Florence, or Peggotty.' Jane stroked the mare's nose. 'Sycorax she is.'

  'Why Sycorax?'

  'She was a nasty witch with a pretty name. She was Caliban's mother, and this is your horse.' She laughed at him. 'And it is a pretty name, Richard.'

  So Sycorax she stayed, a sturdy, dependable beast with a witch's name, bought with the proceeds of the diamonds.

  Maggie Joyce was pouring the money from the diamonds into St Alban's Street where it was converted into four per cent stock. Sharpe had taken some of the jewels back. Jane had necklaces, ear-rings, and bracelets that had once been worn by a Spanish Queen. Sharpe had also taken a second necklace, the fragile, beautiful piece of filigreed gold hung with pearls and diamonds, which he had wrapped, cased, and sent by special messenger to a London address.

  The reply reached him the day before the Battalion sailed from Portsmouth. "Dear Major Sharpe, How can I possibly accept such a splendid Gift? With Gratitude and astonishment, of course. You are too Generous a man. Be lucky. Anne, Countess Camoynes." There was a post-script. "You may see from the Public Papers that Lord Fenner has resigned. He no Longer has the Wealth to Sustain his position. For all Your Services, I will Remember you fondly, as I trust you will me for mine."

  The Battalion formed up in the valley. From above them, dulled by distance and the convex hill slope that hid the events from the waiting men, came the sound of muskets. Sharpe ordered the Colours uncased, the Colours of the First Battalion that were stained and shredded by war. He had been commanded to add the insignia of the three white feathers onto the Battalion's badge, but there had not yet been time to put them on the flags. A wind, that carried the musket smoke into the upper air, rippled the heavy silks and stirred the yellow tassels. Cannon sounded, not British, but French mountain guns that guarded the rock fortresses. The new men looked nervously upwards, the veterans waited, and to Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood, who had dreamed so often of this moment when he would go into proper battle, the sounds seemed like a cacophony of hell and glory and trembling and death. He waited.

  The horses were left with the servants in the valley. Sharpe, no longer pretending to consult Girdwood, gave the orders. The Battalion would advance in two columns. The Grenadier Company would lead the right hand column, the Light Company the left, while RSM Harper and his detail would go in the centre, ahead of Sharpe and the Colour party. 'I don't want any god-damned foolishness. We're not on a parade ground. You can't keep the ranks dressed up there, so just keep going! Listen for orders, but if you can't hear any then you won't do anything wrong if you just attack to the front. Attack! All the time!' He looked round the faces, staring especially at the new men like Captain Smith and Captain Carline. 'And don't let your men settle into safe holes, understand? They like to do that, so keep them moving! Roust them out, take them forward.' He described what he had seen through his telescope; the nightmare landscape of trenches and walls, of blank culverts where men could be trapped with French sharp-shooters above them, a jumbled, rocky landscape designed for defence. 'It has to be fast work! If they drive us into the ground, we're done for! So tell your men to fire on sight, not to wait for orders, and warn them there'll be sticking work.' Captain Smith looked worried at the thought of bayonets. 'We go in fast. Tell them the French are more scared than we are.'

  'They must be bloody terrified then,' Lieutenant Price said, and raised a smile from the officers.

  'They are,' Sharpe said, 'because they know they're fighting us.' And oddly, even the new men who had never fought, and who had been given a new lease on their shabby careers, suddenly knew that they could win. They followed a soldier, and they went to a fight.

  It took more than two hours to climb the hill and catch up with the first attacking Battalions. Charlie Weller, pushed into the back file of the Light Company, saw his first enemy dead; a man crumpled on the rocks, his blood congealed by the cold. Another dead Frenchman's beard was frosted white.

  He saw British dead, one with an arm seemingly torn from the socket, another blown apart by a cannon ball with his guts blue on the rocks. More terrible than the dead were the wounded. Charlie passed groups of Frenchmen, one sobbing because his eyes were gone, another gasping out his life in terrible, huge, clouding breaths. His belly had been laid open by a sword. A British private gave him wine to sip, but the man could not take it.

  A British sergeant whose left thigh was torn open to the bone and whose blood, despite the leather belt twisted into his groin, pulsed onto the ground, grinned at Weller. 'Go on, lad! Give 'em hell.' Weller thought he was more likely to vomit. He stumbled on, following the pack of men in front, wondering if he would remember to clear the ramrod from his musket before he fired. Ahead, seemingly closer all the while, was the sound of the guns.

  Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood walked beside Sharpe. Without the pitch in his moustache he seemed punier. His small, black eyes darted about the unfamiliar scener
y. He too saw the dead, but he had seen men torn by bullets before. Yet never in Ireland had he seen men struck by artillery fire. Somehow the gobbets of flesh, like the work of a demented, drunken butcher, seemed unreal. He shied away once as a dog ran across his front.

  The sun was fitful between clouds. The smoke of the French mountain guns was like a thin skein above the Battalion, bringing its filthy smell of powder smoke. Somewhere a man screamed, the scream rising and falling in a dreadful cadence. It was silenced suddenly and Girdwood shuddered.

  The Lieutenant Colonel could not make sense of what he saw. He could not tell where the enemy positions were, or how far the leading Battalions had reached in their attack. He could see, at the ridge's northern end, the steep pinnacle of rock, wreathed in smoke, but dead ground lay before the pinnacle and Girdwood was confused. Once, through a shifting mist of smoke, he saw red uniforms running forward, a loose knot of men not in any proper order, and he wondered if he heard a cheer, but was not sure. He watched Sergeant John Lynch, plodding ahead of him, and thought that if Lynch showed no fear, then nor need he.

  Sergeant Lynch was terrified. He had sensed that there was some purpose to his attachment to this band of Irishmen, and it was a purpose he did not like. He had let his accent flower for them, sounding more Irish than they, but he felt their scorn and he was scared.

  He had never been in a group like this. He knew how many Irish fought in this army, but he had thought of them merely as rank-fillers, peasants who could be pushed around and forced into obedience. He had never seen their pride. These men were sure that Major Sharpe had grouped them together because he wanted the best in front, and who were better than they? They spoke filthily of England's King, despised the officers whom Lynch admired, but went to this fight, beneath a flag not their own, with a relish that was almost contagious. 'You know why God made Ireland so small?' one of them, sharpening his bayonet with long strokes of a stone, asked Lynch.