Ten seconds Sharpe guessed, and he saw a Frenchman kneel and bring his musket into his shoulder. The musket was aimed at Sharpe, but the range was too great to cause worry. For a second Sharpe thought of poor Ensign McDonald who had so wanted to distinguish himself in the skirmish line. Damn Leroux.
Five seconds, and Sharpe could see his opposing Captain looking nervously left and right. The smoke from the cannons was thickening, the noise hammering at Sharpe’s eardrums. “Now!”
He had lost count of the number of times he had done this.
“Go! Go! Go!”
This was rehearsed. The Light Company broke into a run, the last thing the enemy expected, and they went left and right, confusing their enemy’s aim, and they closed the range to put pressure on the enemy’s nerve. The Riflemen stopped first, wicked guns at their shoulders, and Sharpe heard the first crack which spun the enemy officer backwards, hands up, blood spraying suddenly, and then Sharpe was on his knee, his own rifle at his shoulder, and he saw the puff of smoke where the man had been who was aiming for him and he knew the musket ball had gone wide. Sharpe aimed up the hill. He looked for the enemy Colonel, saw him on his horse, aimed slowly, squeezed, and grinned as he glimpsed the Frenchman fall back from the saddle. That would be Sharpe’s last shot in this battle. Now he would fight his men as a weapon.
More rifles cracked, firing into the smudge of smoke about the nearest gun. If the gunners could be killed, that was good, but at the least the bullets whistling about their weapon would slow their fire and spare the South Essex some of the ghastly canister.
“Sergeant Huckfield! Watch left!”
“Sir!”
The men fought in pairs. One man fired while the other loaded, and both sought targets for each other. Sharpe could see four enemy down, two of them crawling backwards, and he saw that unwounded men were hurrying to help the wounded. That was good. When the uninjured went to help their comrades it meant they were looking for an excuse to leave the battle.
Sharpe’s muskets were firing fast now and his men were going forward, paces at a time, and the enemy were going backwards. The field gun opposite the South Essex had slowed down and Sharpe smiled because he had nothing to do. His men were fighting as he expected them to fight, using their intelligence, pushing the enemy back, and Sharpe looked behind to see where the main Battalion was.
The South Essex were fifty yards behind, coming steadily forward, and on their muskets were bayonets, bright in the sun, and behind them, on the ridge slope, were the bodies broken by the cannon.
“Rifles! Go for the main line! Kill the officers!”
Make widows on this field! Kill the officers, crumble the enemy morale, and Sharpe saw Hagman aim, fire, and the other Riflemen followed. Lieutenant Price was directing the musket fire, keeping the enemy skirmishers pinned back and releasing the Rifles to fire above their heads. Sharpe felt a surge of pride in his men. They were good, so good, and they were showing the spectators just how a Light Company should fight. He laughed aloud.
They were at the foot of the slope now, the enemy Light troops driven back towards their own line, and in a few seconds the South Essex would catch up with their Light Company. They had a hundred yards to go into the attack.
Sharpe pulled his whistle from its holster, waited a few seconds, then blasted out the signal to form company. He heard the Sergeants repeat the signal, watched his men come running towards him for now their skirmishing task was done. Now they would form up on the left of the attacking line and go in like the other Companies. The men sprinted towards him, tugging out bayonets, and he clapped them on the shoulders, said they had done well. Then the Company was formed, marching, and they were climbing the knoll over the blood of their enemies.
The field gun had stopped firing. The smoke was drifting clear.
Sharpe walked in front of his men. The great sword scraped on the scabbard throat as it came clear.
The French line levelled their muskets.
Boots swished through the grass. It was hot. The powder smoke stung men’s nostrils.
“For what we’re about to receive,” a voice said.
“Quiet in the ranks! Close up!”
“Keep your dressing, Mellors! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get in line, you useless bastard!”
Boots in the grass, the French line seeming to take a quarter turn to the right as the muskets go back into the shoulders. The muzzles, even at eighty yards, look huge.
“Get your bayonet up, Smith! You’re not ploughing the bloody field!”
Sharpe listened to the Sergeants.
“Steady, lads, steady!”
The French officers had their swords raised. The cannon smoke had cleared now and Sharpe could see that the field gun had gone. It had been taken back, away from the infantry.
“Take it like men, lads!”
Seventy yards and the French swords swept down and Sharpe knew they had fired too soon. The smoke rippled from the hundreds of muskets, the sound was like the falling of giant stakes, and the air was thick with the thrumming of the balls.
The attacking line was jerked by the balls. Some men fell backwards, some stumbled, most kept stolidly on. Sharpe knew the enemy would be frantically reloading, fumbling with cartridges and ramrods, and he instinctively quickened his pace so that the South Essex might close the gap before the enemy had recharged their weapons. The other officers hurried too, and the attacking line began to lose its cohesion. The Sergeants yelled. “It’s not a sodding steeplechase! Watch your dressing!”
Fifty yards, forty, and Major Leroy, whose voice was twice as loud as Forrest’s, bellowed at the South Essex to halt.
Sharpe could see some enemy muskets being rammed. The Frenchmen were looking nervously at their enemy so close.
Leroy filled his lungs.
“Level your muskets!”
The Light Company alone was not loaded. The other companies levelled their muskets and beneath each muzzle the seventeen inch bayonet pointed towards the French.
“Fire!”
“And charge! Come on!”
The crash of that volley, the smoke, and then the redcoats were released from the Sergeants’ discipline and they were free to take the blades up the hill to savage the enemy who had been shattered by the close volley.
“Kill the bastards. Go on! Get in with them!” And the cheer carried them up the slope, screaming mad, wanting only to get at the men who had threatened them during the long approach march, and Sharpe ran ahead of his men with his long sword ready.
“Halt! Form up! Hurry!”
The enemy had gone. They had fled the bayonets as Sharpe had guessed they would. The enemy Battalions were running full tilt back towards the main army, and the redcoats were left holding the small knoll which bore the dead and wounded of their enemy. The looting had begun already, practised hands stripping the casualties of clothes and money. Sharpe sheathed his unblooded sword. It had been well done, but now he wondered what was next. Twelve hundred British troops held the small hill, the only British troops on a plain that was peopled with more than fifty thousand Frenchmen. That was not his concern. He settled down to wait.
“They’ve run away!” La Marquesa sounded disappointed.
Lord Spears grinned. “That was only a ten guinea battle, my dear. For two hundred you get the whole spectacle; slaughter, dismemberment, pillage, and even a little rape.”
“Is that where you come in, Jack?”
Spears laughed. “I’ve waited so long for that invitation, Helena.”
“You’ll have to wait a little longer, dear.” She smiled at him. “Was that Richard Sharpe?”
“It was. A genuine hero, and all for ten guineas.”
“Which I doubt I’ll ever see. Is he truly a hero?” Her huge eyes were fixed on Spears.
“Good Lord, yes! Absolutely genuine. The poor fool must have a death wish. He took an Eagle, he was first into Badajoz, and there’s a rumour he blew up Almeida.”
“How
delicious.” She opened her fan. “You’re a little jealous of him, aren’t you?”
He laughed, because the accusation was not true. “I wish to have a long, long life, Helena, and die in the bed of someone very young and breathtakingly beautiful.”
She smiled. Her teeth were unusually white. “I rather want to meet a real hero, Jack. Persuade him to come to the Palacio.”
Spears twisted in his saddle, grimacing suddenly because the arm in its sling hurt. “You feel like slumming, Helena?”
She smiled. “If I do, Jack, I’ll come to you for guidance. Just bring him to me.”
He grinned and saluted. “Yes, Ma’am.”
The French would not be goaded into battle. They made no attempt to throw the British off the knoll. Marmont could not see beyond the great ridge and he feared, sensibly, to attack Wellington in a position of the Englishman’s choosing.
Smoke drifted from the knoll, dissipating into shimmering heat over the grass. Men lay on the ground and drank brackish warm water from their canteens. A few desultory fires burned from the musket fire, but no-one moved to stamp them out. Some men slept.
“Is that it?” Lieutenant Price frowned towards the French.
“You want more, Harry?” Sharpe grinned at his Lieutenant.
“I sort of expected more.” Price laughed and turned round to look at the ridge. A staff officer was riding his horse recklessly down the slope. “Here comes a fancy boy.”
“We’re probably being pulled back.”
Harper gave a massive yawn. “Perhaps they’re offering us free entrance to the staffbrothel tonight.”
“Isabella would kill you, Harps!” Price laughed at the thought. “You should be unattached, like me.”
“It’s the pox, sir. I couldn’t live with it.”
“And I can’t live without it. Hello!” Price frowned because the staff officer, instead of riding towards the Colours where the Battalion’s commanding officer would be found, was aiming straight for the Light Company. “We’ve got a visitor, sir.”
Sharpe walked to meet the staff officer who called out when he was still thirty yards away. “Captain Sharpe?”
“Yes!”
“You’re wanted at Headquarters. Now! Do you have a horse?”
“No.”
The young man frowned at the reply and Sharpe knew he was considering yielding up his own horse to expedite the General’s orders. The consideration did not last long in the face of the steep uphill climb. The staff officer smiled. “You’ll have to walk! Quick as you can, please.”
Sharpe smiled at him. “Bastard. Harry?”
“Sir?”
“Take over! Tell the Major I’ve been called to see the General!”
“Aye aye, sir! Give him my best wishes!”
Sharpe walked away from the Company, between the small fires, and up the hillside that was littered with the torn cartridge papers of his skirmishers. Leroux. It had to be Leroux who was pulling Sharpe back towards the city. Leroux, his enemy, and the man who possessed the sword Sharpe wanted. He smiled..He would have it yet.
Chapter 6
Wellington was angry, the officers about him nervous of his irritability. They watched Sharpe walk up to the General and salute.
Wellington scowled from the saddle. “By God, you took your time, Mr. Sharpe.”
“I came as fast as I could, my lord.”
“Dammit! Don’t you have a horse?”
“I’m an infantryman, sir.” It was an insolent reply, one that made the aristocratic aides-de-camp that Wellington liked look sharply at the dishevelled, hot Rifleman with the scarred face and battered weapons. Sharpe was not worried. He knew his man. He had saved the General’s life in India and ever since there had been a strange bond between them. The bond was not of friendship, never that, but a bond of need. Sharpe needed a patron, however remote, and Wellington sometimes had reluctant need of a ruthless and efficient soldier. Each man had a respect for the other. The General looked sourly at Sharpe. “So they didn’t fight?”
“No, sir.”
“God damn his French soul.” He was talking of Marshal Marmont. “They march all this bloody way just to pose for us? God damn them! So you met Leroux?” He asked the question in exactly the same tone in which he had damned the French.
“Yes, my lord.”
“You’d recognise him again?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Good.” Wellington sounded far from pleased. “He’s not to escape from us, d’you understand? You’re to capture him. Understand?”
Sharpe understood. He would be going back to Salamanca and his job, suddenly, was to trap the pale-eyed French Colonel who even had Wellington worried. “I understand, sir.”
“Thank God somebody does.” The General snapped. “I’m putting you under Major Hogan’s command. He seems to have the knack of making you to the line, God knows how. Good day, Mr. Sharpe.”
“My lord?” Sharpe raised his voice for the General was already wheeling away.
“What is it?”
“I have a whole Company that would recognise him, sir.”
“You do, do you?” Wellington’s bad mood had driven him into clumsy sarcasm. “You want me to strip the South Essex of a Light Company just to make your life easier?”
“There are three forts, my lord, a long perimeter, and one man can’t have eyes everywhere.”
“Why not? They expect it of me.” Wellington laughed, breaking his bad mood with an extraordinary suddenness. “All right, Sharpe, you can have them. But don’t you lose him. Understand? You will not lose him.” The blue eyes conveyed the message.
“I won’t lose him, sir.”
Wellington half smiled. “He’s all yours, Hogan. Gentlemen!”
The staff officers trotted obediently after the General, leaving Hogan alone with Sharpe.
The Irishman laughed quietly. “You have a deep respect for senior officers, Richard, it’s what makes you into such a great soldier.”
“I’d have been here sooner if that bastard had lent me his horse.”
“He probably paid two hundred guineas for it. He reckons it’s worth more than you are. On the other hand that nag cost ten pounds, and you can borrow it.” Hogan was pointing towards his servant who was leading a spare horse towards them. Hogan had anticipated Sharpe arriving on foot and he waited as the Rifleman climbed clumsily into the saddle. “I’m sorry about the panic, Richard.”
“Is there a panic?”
“God, yes. Your piece of paper started it.”
Sharpe hated riding. He liked to be in control of his destiny, but horses seemed not to share that wish. He gingerly urged it forward, hoping it would keep pace with Hogan’s walking animal and, somehow, he managed to stay abreast. “The list?”
“Didn’t it look familiar?”
“Familiar?” Sharpe frowned. He could only remember a list of Spanish names with sums of money beside them. “No.”
Hogan glanced behind to make sure his servant was out of earshot. “It was in my handwriting, Richard.”
“Yours? Good God!” Sharpe’s hands fumbled with the rein while his right boot had come out of the stirrup. He never understood how other people made riding look easy. “How in hell’s name did Leroux get a list in your handwriting?”
“Now there’s a question to cheer up a dull morning. How in hell’s name did he? Horse dealers!” He said the last words scornfully, as if Sharpe had been at fault.
The Rifleman had managed to get his foot back into the stirrup. “So what was it?”
“We have informants, yes? Hundreds of them. Almost every priest, doctor, mayor, shoemaker, blacksmith and anyone else you care to mention sends us snippets of news about the French. Marmont can’t break wind without ten messages telling us. Some of them, Richard, are very good messages indeed, and some of them cost us money.” Hogan paused as they passed a battery of artillery. He returned a Lieutenant’s salute, then looked back at Sharpe. “Most of them do it out of patri
otism, but a few need money to keep their loyalty intact. That list, Richard, was my list of payments for the month of April.” Hogan looked and sounded sour. “It means, Richard, that someone in our headquarters is working for the French, for Leroux. God knows who! We’ve got cooks, washerwomen, grooms, clerks, servants, sentries, anyone! God! I thought I’d just misplaced that list, but no.”
“So?”
“So? So Leroux has worked his way through that list. He’s killed most of them in ways that are pretty horrid, and that’s bad enough, but the really bad news is yet to come. One man on that list, a priest, just happened to know something that I’d rather he hadn’t known. And now, I think, Leroux knows it.”
Sharpe said nothing. His horse was ambling happily enough, going westward on the track that led behind the ridge. He would let Hogan tell his unhappy tale at his own pace.
The Irish Major wiped sweat from his face. “Leroux, Richard, is damned close to hurting us really badly. We can afford to lose a few priests and mayors, but that’s not what Leroux wants. We can afford to lose Colquhoun Grant, but that isn’t what Leroux came here to do either. There’s one person, Richard, we can’t afford to lose. That’s the person Leroux came to get.”
Sharpe frowned. “Wellington?”
“Him too, maybe, but no. Not Wellington.” Hogan slapped irritably at a fly. “This is the bit I shouldn’t tell you, Richard, but I’ll tell you a little of it, just enough so you know how important it is for you to stop that bastard getting out of the forts.” He paused again, collecting his thoughts. “I told you we have informants throughout Spain. They’re useful, God knows they’re useful, but we have informants of much more value than that. We have men and women in Italy, in Germany, in France, in Paris itself! People who hate Bonaparte and want to help us, and they do. A regiment of Lancers leaves Milan and we know it within two weeks, and we know where they’re going and how good their horses are, and even the name of their Colonel’s mistress. If Bonaparte bawls out a General, we know about it, if he asks for a map of Patagonia we hear about it. Sometimes I think we know more about Bonaparte’s empire than he does, and all, Richard, because of one person who just happens to live in Salamanca. And that person, Richard, is the person Leroux has come to find. And once he’s found them, he’ll torture them, he’ll find out all the names of the correspondents throughout Europe, and suddenly we’ll be blind.”
Sharpe 3-Book Collection 5: Sharpe's Company, Sharpe's Sword, Sharpe's Enemy Page 34
