‘Sir?’
‘You will open fire!’
‘Sir! ’Talion! Level!‘ A pause. The slim sword swept down. ’Fire!‘
Thank God for the hours of training, thank God that, for all its sometimes stupidity, the British army was the only army that trained its infantry with real ammunition. The first volley jerked four French skirmishers backwards, startled the others, and the Fusiliers went into the motions that were second nature to a soldier. Fire, load, fire, load, fire, four times a minute, biting the bullets from the paper cartridges, ignoring the enemy, seeing nothing beyond the dirty smoke that spread ragged over the trench, pouring in powder, ramming the bullet and wadding down the thirty-nine inch barrel, propping the ramrod against the body, bringing the heavy musket to the shoulder and waiting for the officer’s order to fire. There was nothing to aim at, just a smoke cloud that hid God knows what horrors, a smoke cloud that sometimes twitched as an enemy bullet sprang through it, and then the platoon next in the line fired, the officer shouted, and the butt crashed back into the shoulder, the powder in the pan stung the face, and the three-quarter inch ball of lead slammed into the smoke and down the field.
And men fell. Some climbed to their feet, teeth gritted against the pain, and went on firing, while others crawled to the back, bleeding and hurt, their life going as their eyes faded, and Sharpe shouted at the Sergeants that the wounded were not to be helped. Men used the excuse of helping the wounded to escape battle, and Sharpe’s voice rose clear over the platoon volleys, over the sound of the drums. ‘Any man who leaves the line is to be shot. You hear me, Sergeants!’
They heard, and the wounded must bleed unaided, and the muskets flamed and slammed back, and the platoon volleys ran like stabs of red light down the face of the half Battalion.
It was working, too. Seven hundred musket balls in a minute were making the front of the trench a savage place, and the Voltigeurs split left and right. Sharpe had gone forward, to the side of the musket volleys, and he saw through the smoke the French coming from the left and he turned. ‘Captain Brooker! Left files back ten paces! Incline!’
And the right! What the hell could he do at the right? There were not enough men to fill the gap in the broken wall, and he screamed at the Riflemen. ‘Watch right!’
Brooker’s Company was angling their fire now, slamming shots towards the advancing column, but they could not put up enough bullets to drive the Voltigeurs back. Sharpe saw the French darting forward, kneeling, another stab of flame, and a ball clanged off the steel tip of his scabbard, making the sword wrench in its slings, and he heard the Rifles from the gatehouse and saw the man who had fired at him sink down, making small movements with one hand as if paddling the air for support, and then the Frenchman was crumpled on the turf.
And the column came. It had not far to come from the village, a three minute march at most, and the drums were louder now, the drums that were the French music of conquest, and Sharpe ran right as Brooker’s men reloaded because he was worried about his right.
Smoke from the thorns, stabbing flames, French going back, shouting in alarm, and Sharpe grinned. Frederickson had sent help, and Sharpe knew he should have thought to ask for it, but it did not matter now because the Riflemen were driving the French back. A mounted Voltigeur officer spurred towards the place, shouting at his men to take bayonets into the thorns, and Sharpe guessed the man was hit by four or five bullets for he seemed to be dragged backwards off his horse, his jacket suddenly splashed with red, and the horse screamed, turned, and galloped across the Castle’s front and was struck by a volley of musket fire.
Back to the left, the air filled with battle noise, with muskets, shouts, cries of pain, the scrape of ramrods, the clicking of the heavy flints backwards, the drums, always the drums. The Voltigeurs took their toll of the Fusiliers, eating at the files, throwing a man down, and the platoon volleys were replaced by men firing as fast as they could, loading, firing, their faces blackened by the powder, their mouths gritty with the stuff, their fear only governed by the drill that they had practised again and again.
An Ensign crawled from Brooker’s Company, vomiting blood, his eyes giving Sharpe one last accusing look, and then he slumped, only to twitch as a French bullet thumped into his dead body.
Sharpe went back to the rubble, climbed, and he saw where Voltigeurs were close, so close to the trench, in places just twenty yards, and he glimpsed, too, in the skirling smoke, the unmoving bodies of two Riflemen, and he looked left. The column, bayonets bright, was close and still marching. He could see the mouths of the French open, knew they were shouting ‘Vive L’Empereur‘, and Gilliland plucked at Sharpe’s sleeve. ’Now?‘
‘No! Wait!’
Wait while the Voltigeurs grew bolder, ran a pace or two, knelt, and another Fusilier screamed and was thrown backwards, while blood spattered the ranks and still they loaded and fired, and men cursed as flints broke and the Sergeants brought them the muskets of the dead, and still they fired.
The Voltigeurs were joining the column. It was close now, almost the time for Sharpe to unleash the rockets, and he felt the respite as the Voltigeur bugles called them back, called them to swell the ranks of this overpowering attack, as the drums kept rolling, the sticks frantically wielded by the drummer boys as if by hitting the stretched skins they could personally drive the column into the Castle.
A French Colonel died in front of the column. On the gatehouse one of Cross’s men grinned. ‘Four.’ He bit another cartridge, began to reload.
In front of the Convent, Patrick Harper had his seventeen Rifles firing across the valley. They could not miss the column at that range, but they could not hope to stop it.
The General’s fingers tapped on his writing case to the rhythm of the drums. He looked at Dubreton as the front of the column seemed to be swallowed in the musket smoke. ‘That’s that, Alexandre. Good training for them, eh?’
On the watchtower hill Frederickson and the captured aide-de-camp stood together. Frederickson scratched beneath his eye-patch. ‘Now! Now!’
Sharpe cupped his hands. ‘Riflemen back!’
He could see the column now as clear as his own men. He could see the young ones of the front rank who were trying to grow the thick moustaches beloved by the French infantry, he could see the muskets coming down for the single ragged volley that the front rank would fire before the bayonets were unleashed.
‘Rocket troop!’ He waited. Fifty yards. They could not miss. They had never been used on land against the enemy. One thing destroyed a column faster than any other weapon; artillery, and Sharpe was about to unleash a barrage of shells. He saw the French muskets come up for the hurried volley. ‘Fire!’
The first rockets were already lying in the troughs, the linstocks touched fuses, and for a second nothing happened. The French volley, just fifty musket balls, busied the air, but Sharpe was not aware of it. He heard the first shout from the French, the first triumphant calls of victory, and then it was drowned by the rushing sound of the flaring exhausts, the smoke and sparks and flame bellowing and billowing from the trench, and they were away.
Like fire-balls hurled at unbelievable speed, like the bad dreams of a soldier, death from the ground, searing from the trench, the rockets given no chance to rise into the air, only to hurtle in front of the licking flame torch, bury themselves into the column, rockets coming from front and right, and the French who had started to run saw the sudden unbelievable smoke, a bank thicker than fog, and in the thickness was the serried rank of giant flame, leaping flame, and the rockets drove their heads into the column, file after file, rank after rank, thrusting in, scorching with their tails, shrieking noise louder than the drums, and the first shell-head exploded.
‘Fusiliers! Fire! Fire! Fire!’ The Fusiliers had gone back from the angry rush of flame and now stood, aghast, as they saw the weapon for the first time. Sharpe put anger into his voice. ‘Fire! You bastards! Fire!’
God, but he had let them come close. He ne
eded the volleys to pluck at the leading ranks, because the French could still win this if they had the wit to rush forward.
More rockets, the second volley, some teams quicker to load the metal troughs than others, a hasty duck as the tail flamed overhead, and then swing another twelve pound rocket into the cradle and touch fire to its tail.
‘Faster! Faster!’ Gilliland was almost jumping up and down in his excitement. ‘Faster!’
One rocket managed to climb, screaming up into the valley’s air, a streak of flame that stacked smoke behind it, and the French at the village saw it, saw the strange thing climb into the low cloud.
‘What the hell?’ The General could see nothing at the Castle, only a huge spread of smoke that seemed shot through with intermittent glow of flame.
‘An explosion?’ Ducos frowned.
A Frenchman came through the smoke, fearful and lost, his bayonet bright, and he saw the men in the trench and he knew his duty. The Riflemen, ordered to stay with the Rocket troop, saw him and two fired. The Frenchman fell back and a rocket lodged in his body, began to turn, spewing sparks and thick smoke, and a Rifle Corporal ran to it, kicked the head free, and it slithered faster and faster on the grass, disappearing into its own smoke.
The northernmost part of the column was escaping the rockets. They heard the noise, the screams, saw the explosions that seemed to come twenty yards inside the ranks, but they pressed ahead and Sharpe called the target to Brooker’s Company. ‘Fire!’
A small volley, but it checked them, put a barrier of dead on the grass, and then Gilliland pushed past Sharpe, hammered a trough into the grass with his boot, and an artilleryman laid a rocket into the trough. Another man struck fire onto a linstock with his pistol-grip steel and flint, and Sharpe stepped away from the terror of flame. ‘How many more launchers have you got?’
‘Four!’
‘Get them!’
The close-packed bodies of the French soaked up the terrible force of the rockets. The missiles slammed home, slowed as they ploughed through the ranks, and then they would stop, lodged in flesh, and the flames of the propellant would make a swathe of scorching space, and then the shell, its fuse hidden in the metal tube, would spatter blood and iron fragments into the French.
No man could go into that flame-lanced cloud. The noise of the drums was drowned utterly, obliterated by the howling rush of the rockets, by the coughing explosions, and still the rockets came, still they searched further into the ranks, gouging new channels of destruction, exploding, and the French could see nothing but smoke, flames to left and right, and their ears were filled by the noise, by screams that came from dying comrades, and they went back.
More rockets had risen over the heads of the column, one drove through at head height and slammed into the open valley, over the trampled grass, and it veered left, climbed, and the French staff watched it in awe. The noise filled the valley, the smoke was stretched behind the long flame, and then the shell exploded north of the village and the fragments smashed outwards from the black smoke and the stick, burning, tumbled to earth.
Ducos watched the smoke of the explosion as if mesmerized. ‘Colonel Congreve.’
‘What?’
‘Congreve’s rocket system.’ He snapped the telescope shut.
The General shook his head, looked back at the column. Its rear seemed unshaken, the ranks still formed, but he could see the explosions now, and the front of his huge column seemed to be buried in a writhing flame-filled cloud. ‘They’re not moving.’
Two more rockets arced over the column, struck the ground, bounced, cartwheeled, and exploded in the valley. Two more went north, climbing insanely over the Convent, but most were burying themselves in the column, twisting and flaming their way into the human target, searing noise and fire, exploding in the ranks, and the Fusiliers still fired.
‘Alexandre!’ The General put spurs to his horse. He could not watch while his men died, and he spurred into a gallop down the road and shouted at Dubreton. ‘What the hell are rockets?’
‘Artillery!’
The General swore, again and again. He could hear the weapons now, and he could hear, too, that the drums had stopped. He could hear shouting and screams, the sound of panic, and he knew that at any second the carefully disciplined ranks would dissolve into a panicked mob. ‘Why in God’s name would they bring them here?’
Dubreton shouted the horrid truth back. ‘They knew we were coming!’
‘Keep firing!’ Sharpe yelled at his men. ‘You’re beating the bastards! Fire! Fire!’
Science at war. Death pushed by fire, and still the rockets shook themselves clear of the troughs, dropped to the grass, slid in front of the flame, faster and faster, rose a few inches and leaped towards the enemy. Some went at knee height, cutting down file after file, others cannoned off men and angled through the French mass, and the French ran. They broke, the explosions and the flames seemingly filling the valley so that they lived in a place that was mysterious death and thick smoke and jagged shell fragments and always the roaring things from hell that came at them faster than lightning and dinned the eardrums and killed and killed and killed.
‘Keep firing!’
Frederickson’s men were out of the thorns now, loading and firing, aiming at any officer who seemed to be controlling a group of men, and the Fusiliers hammered their volleys into the obscuring smoke, and ahead there were screams, more screams, but the drums had stopped.
Another growing crescendo of the noise that was like no other noise on earth, like a great waterfall that hissed and seethed and roared, and the flames drove sparks and smoke backwards and Sharpe saw the glows going far into the smoke fog, some rising, and the red glows did not stop as they struck men, but went on out of sight and he called the cease fire.
The order was repeated by officers and sergeants. ‘Cease fire! Cease fire!’
Silence. No, not silence. A seeming silence because the death was not sounding now, just the dying. Moans, cries, sobbing, calls for help, curses for a life ended, and in the wash of that pain Sharpe felt the anger of fighting ebb from him. ‘Captain Brooker?’
‘Sir?’
‘Two ranks on the rubble. You may attend to your wounded.’
‘Sir.’ Brooker’s face seemed appalled. He had not wanted to fight here, he had thought Sir Augustus Farthingdale a man of prudence and sense, and he could not believe that they had fought and won.
Sharpe’s voice was irritable. ‘There’s more to come, Captain ! Get on with it!’
‘Sir!’
More to come. But the smoke cleared slowly, lifted by the breeze that carried it over the British dead and wounded, and as the smoke went Sharpe saw the fruits of his work.The scorch marks that fanned out from the shallow earthwork, and then the blood. It hardly looked like bodies after battle, it looked as if a giant hand had squeezed the enemy to death, had scattered fragments of flesh and blood on the winter grass beneath the lowering clouds, and then he saw distinct bodies, broken and burned, and the wounded stirred in the carnage like creatures heaving up from a pall of blood.
The Rocket Troop had burned hands and faces, scorched marks on their uniforms, but they grinned as they stood up in their trench, grinned because they had lived, and they beat soil from their greatcoats and trousers and then turned to look at their enemy.
Sharpe looked too, looked where the rockets had pierced and twisted through the ranks. Flames showed where the sticks burned, one giving fire to a wounded Frenchman’s uniform and the man could not struggle free and his ammunition pouch exploded, gouting more smoke on the grass, and the dead seemed to stretch halfway back to the village, and Sharpe had not seen a field after battle like it. It sounded like a field after battle, the noise, the small noise usually, of men who are dying.
‘Captain Gilliland?’
‘Sir?’
‘I thank you for your efforts. Tell your men so.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Gilliland’s voice was subdued, like Sharpe’s. The Rifle off
icer still stared at the field. He could see two horsemen halfway to the village, horsemen who stared as he stared, while beyond them the French infantry was slowly ordered into ranks before the village. Sharpe shook his head. Fifteen cannons firing canister would have caused more destruction, but there was something about the scorch marks, the burned dead, the spread of the wounded and corpses that was unlike anything he had seen. ‘I suppose one day all battlefields will look like this.’
‘Sir?’
‘Nothing, Captain Gilliland. Nothing.’ He shook the mood off him, turned, and saw the Bugler still had his rifle on one skinny shoulder. Sharpe took the rifle from him, dragging the sling free of the left arm, tears stinging his eyes because the boy had a musket ball buried in his brain. It would have been quick, but the boy would never be a Rifleman.
The first flake of snow fell as Sharpe walked away. It fell soft as love, seemed to hesitate, then settled on the bugler’s forehead. It melted, turning red, and disappeared.
Chapter 24
The second truce in a day, a truce that would last till four o‘clock. This time the General had ridden forward with Dubreton so he could see this Sharpe for himself, and he had agreed to the four hour truce because he knew there would be no passage of the pass this day. He needed time to draw up new orders to get round the delay imposed on him by the tall, scarred, grim looking Rifleman. He needed time to collect the wounded from in front of the Castle, to take them from that place of roasted flesh and scorched grass.
So many wounded, so many dead. Sharpe had tried to count from the gatehouse turret, but the bodies were too dense on the valley floor, and he wrote on a piece of paper merely that they had destroyed more than a Battalion of the enemy. Most were wounded, overcrowding the French surgeons’ rooms, carried back by the light ambulances or on slow stretchers through the falling snow.
Sharpe 3-Book Collection 5: Sharpe's Company, Sharpe's Sword, Sharpe's Enemy Page 83
