Sharpe's Company

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘Bloody hurts, sir.’

  Sharpe waited for the explosion, pushing himself down to the earth, imagining the kegs splintering and the wooden shards driven outwards. It must be soon! Perhaps Fitchett had used more fuse than he thought?

  The volley from the ramparts startled him. The French fired down the ravine and Sharpe heard the balls crash through the thorn spikes like the ripping of calico. A bird screeched indignantly, flapped up into the darkness, and he could hear the trampling of panicked feet downstream. Harper sneered. ‘Like wet bloody hens.’

  ‘What was it like?’

  Any reluctance Harper had felt about criticizing Rymer to Sharpe had disappeared with the flogging. He spat down the ravine. ‘Can’t make his mind up, sir.’ It was one of the worst crimes in a soldier’s book; indecision kills.

  There was no explosion. Sharpe knew that the fuse had been soaked, or had broken, but whatever the cause, the powder was intact. A minute must have passed. Sharpe heard a French officer shouting for silence. The man must be listening for noises downstream, but there was silence, and Sharpe heard more orders given. Light flared on the rampart and he knew more carcasses had been lit. He raised his head and saw three fiery bundles arc into the ravine and he wondered if the carcasses might inadvertently light the fuse, but seconds passed and there was no explosion, and then there were shouts from the fort. The powder had at last been seen.

  Sharpe began sliding back down the slope. ‘Come on.’

  The French were shouting, making enough noise to cover their movements. There was little time. Sharpe thought what he would do if he was the French officer and imagined fetching water that could be thrown down on to the kegs and whatever fuse remained. He needed to see what was left. He slammed to a stop and looked upstream. The new carcasses brilliantly lit the foot of the dam; the kegs were clearly visible and so was the fuse. One end had fallen from a bung-hole in the lowest row of powder barrels, the other had dropped into the stream which had extinguished the fire. Even without the water, the fuse would have been useless. Harper crouched beside him. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘I need ten men.’

  ‘Leave it to me, what then?’

  Sharpe jerked his head towards the rampart. ‘Six to take care of them and three to push those carcasses into the water.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Leave me one carcass.’ He began to load the rifle, hurrying in the darkness, not bothering with the leather patch that surrounded the bullet and gripped the seven grooves of the Baker’s barrel. He spat on the bullet and rammed it down. ‘Are we ready?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Harper was grinning. ‘I think this is a job for the Rifles.’

  ‘Why not, Sergeant?’ Sharpe grinned back. Damn Rymer, damn Hakeswill, Windham, Collett, all the new people who had disturbed the Battalion. Sharpe and his Riflemen had fought from the northern coast of Spain down through Portugal, then out again, to the Douro, to Talavera, to Almeida and Fuentes de Onoro. They understood each other, trusted each other, and Sharpe nodded to Harper.

  The Sergeant, as Sharpe thought of him, cupped his hands. ‘Rifles! To me! Rifles!’

  There were shouts from the ramparts, faces leaned over.

  Sharpe cupped his own hands. ‘Company! Skirmish order!’ That should spread them out, but would they obey the old voices? Muskets fired from the fort, the bullets tearing the thorns, and Harper shouted again.

  ‘Rifles!’

  Feet trampled up the ravine. An officer shouted from the rampart and Sharpe heard the sound of steel ramrods in French barrels.

  ‘They’re coming, sir.’

  Of course they were coming! They were his men. The first shapes came into sight, dark uniformed without the cross belt of the red coats. ‘Tell them what to do, Sergeant.’ He thrust his loaded rifle at Harper, grinned at him. It was like the old times, the good times. I’m going.’

  He could trust Harper to do the rest. He broke from the cover of the trees and ran upstream, into the light. The French saw him and he heard the shouted orders. The ground was wet and slippery, dotted with smooth rocks, and once he skidded wildly, flailed his arms for balance, and sensed the musket balls banging down at him. It was a difficult shot for the French, almost straight downwards, and they were hurrying too much. He heard Harper behind him, shouting the orders, and then the distinctive sound of Baker rifles. He followed the white fuse, and the great, sloping earth dam was above him, holding the tons of water, and bullets flecked the slope as Sharpe threw himself at the base of the barrels. The fuse had fallen free and he pushed it into the bung hole, feeling the gritty resistance of the powder. The bung had gone! He looked round, trying not to hurry. The damn thing had disappeared. He tried to pull one loose from another keg, but it had been hammered tight. Then he thought of a stone and scrabbling with his hand, found one, and rammed it into the hole. A musket ball tore at his sleeve, burning the skin, but behind him the light was disappearing as his Riflemen kicked carcasses into the water. They were still firing, and he was aware of voices shouting, and then he was finished, the fuse tight, and he backed away, pushing the white line up the bank, away from the water. He needed fire! He turned and saw one carcass burning, on the far bank. He leaped over to it and the bullets hammered down from above, one hitting the carcass so that it seemed to jump like a live thing. His Riflemen must be reloading.

  ‘Give him fire!’ Harper’s voice rang clear. There were redcoats in the ravine, running and kneeling, aiming upwards, and Sharpe saw the new Ensign dancing in excitement, his sword drawn. Then the muskets fired and the balls scoured the ramparts and Sharpe had a glimpse of his Riflemen coming forward again, their guns reloaded.

  He would burn himself; there was no choice. The carcass flamed and he bent down, picked it up by its base, feeling the heat. A rock thrown from the fort, smashed into the straw and it flared on his face, burning, burning, and he turned with it, scorched by the terrible heat and in the corner of his eye, as he turned, he saw a yellow flame, huge and foreshortened, stab from the ravine towards him. Bullets plucked at him, hit him, and he knew he had been shot, but did not believe it, and hurled the carcass at the white fuse.

  He tried to run. Pain lanced his leg, his side, and he stumbled. He had thrown the carcass too far. He was falling. He remembered the flaming mass landing too close to the powder, and he remembered the yellow flame that seemed to come from the ravine side. Nothing made sense and then night turned to day.

  Flame and light, noise and heat, the deafening, rolling blast thundered up and out so that the men in the British trenches, digging the new batteries, saw the face of the San Pedro bastion lit with flame. The whole face of Badajoz, from castle to the Trinidad, was seared with the light and the dam’s fort was outlined black against the sheet of red that slammed up and belched smoke and fragments into the night. The blast was just a fragment of the explosion that had destroyed Almeida, but few men had seen that and lived, while this one was witnessed by thousands who watched the dark night split by fire, and felt the hot wind buffet the sky.

  Sharpe was thrown forward, snatched and hurled into the stream, bruised and deafened by the blast, blinded by the flame-sheet. The stream saved his life and he regretted it, knowing that in a second he would be crushed by the water, flattened by the falling tons of earth, rock and lake. He had not meant to throw the carcass as far as he did, but he had been scorched by flame, hit by bullets, and it hurt, it hurt. He would not see his child. He thought death came slowly and he tried to move as if he could out crawl the weight of falling water.

  Heat slammed back and forth in the ravine. Burning fragments hissed in the water. No muskets fired from the rampart. The blast had pushed the French away from the parapet, dazed by the noise that echoed off the vast city walk, thundered over the plain, and died in the night.

  Harper pulled Sharpe upright. ‘Come on, sir.’

  Sharpe could not hear. ‘What?’ He was dazed, senseless.

  ‘Come on!’ Harper pulled him downstream, away from
the fort, away from the dam that sail stood. ‘Are you hit?’

  Sharpe moved automatically, stumbling on rocks, going away. He tried to turn, to look at the dam. ‘It’s still there.’

  ‘Yes. It held. Come on!’

  Sharpe shook himself free. ‘It held.’

  ‘I know! Come on!’

  The dam still stood! Burning fragments lit the huge wall, scorched and gouged by the explosion, but intact. ‘It held!’

  Harper pulled at Sharpe. ‘Come on! For God’s sake, move!’

  A body was at Sharpe’s feet and he looked down. The new Ensign. What was his name? He could not remember, and the boy was dead, and for nothing!

  Harper pulled him downstream into the cover of the trees, dragging Matthews’ body in his other hand. Sharpe staggered, the pain shooting up his leg, and he felt tears in his eyes. It was failure, miserable and complete, and the boy was dead who should not have died, and all because Sharpe had tried to prove he was more than a messenger boy or baggage minder. Sharpe felt as if there was some malevolent fate that had decided to destroy him, his pride, his life, all his hopes; and, in mockery, to make the failure more complete, the fates had shown him something worth living for. Teresa would have heard the explosion, would even now be rocking his child into a restless sleep, but Sharpe, stumbling through the night, felt that he would never see the child. Never. Badajoz would kill him, as it had killed the boy, as it was killing all he had worked and fought for in nineteen years of soldiering.

  ‘You stupid bastards!’ Hakeswill appeared in the darkness, his voice like the croaking of the thousands of frogs that lived upstream. He sneered at them, punched at Harper. ‘You pig-brained Irish bastard! Move!’ He thrust at them with the squat barrels of the huge gun and Harper, still helping Sharpe, smelt the burnt powder from the seven barrels. The gun had been fired and Harper had a vague memory, no more than an impression, of bullets coming from the ravine that had struck Sharpe down. Harper turned to look for Hakeswill, but the Sergeant had gone into the night and Sharpe, his leg bleeding and hurt, slipped and the Irishman had to hold him and pull him up the slope.

  His words were drowned by a sudden clamor of bells. Each bell in Badajoz, from every church, hammered into the darkness and for a second Harper thought they were celebrating the failure of the night’s fight. Then he remembered. Midnight had turned and now it was Sunday, Easter Sunday, and the bells rejoiced for the greatest of all miracles. Harper listened to the cacophony and promised himself a most unchristian promise. He would perform his own miracle. He would kill the man who had tried to kill Sharpe. If it was the last thing he would do on this earth, he would kill the man who could not die. Dead.

  Chapter 18

  ‘Hold still!’ the doctor muttered, not so much to Sharpe who was rigid, but because he always said the words when operating. He twiddled the probe in his fingers, looking at it, then wiped it on his apron before pushing it delicately into the wound in Sharpe’s thigh. ‘You’ve been wounded a fair bit, Mr. Sharpe.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Sharpe hissed the words. His leg felt as if a serpent with red hot fangs was tearing at him.

  The doctor grunted, pushed down. ‘Ah! Splendid! Splendid!’ Blood welled from the bullet wound. ‘I have it.’ He pushed, feeling the bullet grate beneath the probe’s tip.

  ‘Jesus!’

  ‘A very present help in trouble.’ The doctor said the words automatically. He straightened up, leaving the probe in the wound. ‘You’re a lucky man, Mr. Sharpe.’

  ‘Lucky, sir?’ His leg was on fire, streaking pain from ankle to groin.

  ‘Lucky.’ The doctor picked up a glass of claret that his orderly kept always full. He stared at the probe. ‘To leave or not to leave, that is the question.’ He glanced at Sharpe. ‘You’re a healthy bastard, yes?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ It came out as a groan.

  The doctor sniffed. His cold had not improved since Harper’s flogging. ‘It could stay in there, Mr. Sharpe, but I think not. You’re lucky. It’s not deep. The ball must have lost most of its force. ‘ He looked behind him and selected a long, thin pair of pincers. He inspected the ridged tips, spotted a piece of dirt, and spat on the instrument, wiping it dry on his sleeve. ‘Right! Hold still, think of England!’ He pushed the forceps into the wound, following the track of the probe, and Sharpe hissed imprecations at him which the doctor ignored. He felt (or the bullet, brought out the probe, pushed down again with the forceps, and then tightened his grip. ‘Splendid! A moment more!’ He twisted, Sharpe’s leg exploded with agony, and the doctor pulled out the forceps and dropped them, the bullet in their jaws, on the table behind him. ‘Splendid! Nelson should have known me. Right. Tie him up, Harvey. ‘

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The orderly let go of Sharpe’s ankles and rooted around under the table looking for a clean bandage.

  The doctor took the bullet, still in the forceps, and shook the blood from it in a pail of discolored water. ‘Ah!’ He held the bullet up.’ A pistol bullet! No wonder it didn’t penetrate. The range must have been too great. Do you want it?’

  Sharpe nodded and held out his hand. It was no musket bullet. The grey ball was just half an inch across and Sharpe remembered the fore-shortened yellow flame. The seven-barreled gun used half-inch bullets. ‘Doctor?’

  ‘Sharpe?’

  ‘The other wound. Is the bullet still in?’

  ‘No.’ The doctor was wiping his hands on his apron, already stiff with blood. It was the mark of seniority in his profession. ‘Straight through, Sharpe, all it did was break the skin. Here. ‘ He held out a tumbler of brandy.

  Sharpe drank it and leaned back on the table while the orderly washed and bandaged his leg. He felt no particular anger that Hakeswill had tried to kill him, merely a curiosity and a thankfulness that he had survived. He was certainly not shocked. Had he been holding the volley gun, and had he seen Hakeswill, he would have pulled the trigger and sent the Sergeant spinning to the devil, and all without a second thought. He looked at the doctor. ‘What’s the time, sir?’

  ‘Dawn, Sharpe, dawn. An Easter dawn, when all men should rejoice.’ He sneezed violently. ‘You should take things gently.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He swung his legs off the table and pulled on the cavalry overalls. There was a neat hole in the leather reinforcements of the right inner thigh where the bullet had entered. The doctor looked at the hole and laughed.

  ‘Three inches higher and you’d have been the last of your line.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Very droll. He tested his weight and found his leg could take it.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘For nothing, Sharpe, except my small skill and humble duty. Half a bottle of rum and you’ll be skipping like a lamb. A credit to the Medical Board and the Apothecary General whose obedient servant I am.’ He pulled open the flap of his tent. ‘Come and see me if you ever need a limb removed.’

  ‘I shall see no one else, sir.’

  The troops had stood down from the morning alert, had piled arms, and were finishing meager breakfasts. The guns were hard at work, firing now at the Santa Maria bastion as well as the Trinidad, and Sharpe imagined the smoke lying over the lake. Damn the powder! The amount of powder needed had been grossly under-estimated otherwise Sharpe, Harper and the Riflemen would be heroes this morning. As it was they were pariahs. Trouble was brewing, Sharpe could smell it. The night’s failure needed scapegoats.

  Bells clamored from the city. Easter. Sharpe limped towards his shelter and, to his right, saw a group of Portuguese or Spanish women, followers of the army, picking small, white flowers from a ditch bank. Spring was softening the landscape. Soon it would open the roads and the rivers to the French armies and Sharpe wondered if it was his imagination or were the guns today firing at a faster tempo? Pounding at a city that the British must take if they were to carry the war into the heart of Spain. The guns of Badajoz could be heard by the troops far to the north, at Alcantara and Caceres, and east at Merida, where British outposts stared down the empt
y roads waiting for a French relief army and listened to the growl of the distant thunder. The guns. They dominated the Easter service, wrenching the thoughts of the people in the cathedral away from the celebrations. The High Altar was resplendent in a white and gold facing, the Virgin draped in gorgeous, bejeweled robes, but the sound of the guns started dust from the high, gold-painted cornice that circled the Cathedral’s interior, sifted it down past the Stations of the Gross, and the women prayed, told their beads, and the guns foretold a bloody assault. Badajoz knew what was to come; the city had a long memory of other sieges when Moors and Christians had taken turns to massacre the inhabitants. Be with us now and in the hour of our need.

  ‘Sharpe!’ Major Collett, tired and irascible, gestured from Windham’s tent.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘How’s the leg?’ The question was grudging.

  ‘It hurts.’

  Collett offered no sympathy. “The Colonel wants you.’

  The light was yellowed inside the tent, the canvas giving Windham’s face a tint of jaundice. He nodded at Sharpe, not unfriendly, and gestured at a wooden crate. ‘You’d better sit.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ The leg was shooting pain into his groin. He was hungry.

  Collett came in behind Sharpe and pulled the flap shut. The Major was short enough to stand upright beneath the ridgepole. For a few seconds there was silence and it struck Sharpe, suddenly, that Windham was embarrassed. He felt a sympathy for the Colonel. It was not Windham’s fault that Rymer had purchased the commission, it was not his choice to follow Lawford, and Windham, in the little Sharpe knew of him, seemed a decent enough man. He looked up at the Colonel. ‘Sir?’

  The word broke the silence. Windham gestured irritably. ‘Last night, Sharpe. A pity.’