A few moments later a second rumor arrived, as strong as the first which had announced the assault, and this rumor, flashing through the camp, brought relief and frustration. Everything was postponed. They had all been given another twenty-four hours to live.
'Where are we going? someone shouted.
They laughed, forgetting Hakeswill's baleful presence. 'Badajoz!
Tomorrow.
CHAPTER 23
Suddenly there was optimism. Hogan's face, so long lined with concern, crinkled at the eyes; there was an urgency in his speech, a new hope. Two loyal Spaniards had escaped from the city, climbing the wall by the river, and had safely reached the British lines. Hogan's finger stabbed down on to the familiar map. 'There, Richard, there. Tomorrow we'll destroy it!
The finger was pointing towards the wall between the two breached bastions. The Spaniards said it was weak, that it had not been repaired properly after the previous sieges, and they swore that a few shots would bring the wall tumbling down. It would mean a third breach, a sudden breach, a gap that the French would have no time to fill with careful defences. Hogan's fist slammed on to the map. 'We've got them!
'Tomorrow then.
'Tomorrow!
April 6th dawned with a clear sky, and a light so pure that, before the siege batteries opened fire, the city could be seen with every roof, church, tower, and bastion delicately etched. It was a spring morning, full of hope as green as the new plants, a hope put there by a third, surprise breach. The gunners made their minimal adjustment, the trails inching around on the platforms, and then the order was given. Smoke jetted, thunder echoed over the lake, the balls smashed at the repaired masonry as the gunners slaved, dragged at their weapons, rammed, sponged, and rammed again, working with a knowledge of victory. To the south, dear of the smoke-fog on the lake, the Engineers peered at the unbroken stretch of wall. It jetted dust in a hazy cloud, started from the dry mortar by the cannon-strike, but it held all morning. The cannons hammered on, smiting the wall with shattering force until, early in the afternoon, the labor was rewarded.
The wall began to slide, not piece by piece as the bastions had given, but in one solid, spectacular chunk. Hogan jumped for the joy of it. 'It's going!
Then the view was lost. Dust boiled up like smoke from an explosion, the sound rolled across the water, and the gun crews cheered themselves hoarse. The dust drifted slowly away and there, where once there had been a seemingly solid wall, was now a third, huge breach; as wide as the others, but fresh, undefended, and the orders were given. Tonight, gentlemen, tonight at dusk. Into the breaches and the gates of Spain would belong to Britain.
All afternoon, as clouds came from the east, the guns fired so that the French could not work in the breaches. The gunners worked willingly. Their job was done and this was the last day of effort, the twenty-second day of the siege, and tomorrow there would be no more heaving and sweating and no more enemy counter-battery fire. Badajoz would be theirs. The Engineers counted ladders and hay-bags, stacked the huge axes that the leading troops would take into the attack, and thought of the comfortable beds that waited in the city. Badajoz was theirs.
The orders, just twenty-seven paragraphs, were issued at last and the men listened in silence as their officers told them the news. Bayonets were polished again, muskets checked, and they listened to the flat notes of the cathedral clock. First darkness and Badajoz was theirs.
Captain Robert Knowles, now part of the Third Division, stared up at the huge castle with its colony of kestrels. The Third Division, carrying the longest ladders, was to cross the stream and climb the castle rock. No one expected the attack to work, it was merely a diversion to keep troops pinned in the castle, but Knowles's men grinned at him and swore they would climb the wall. 'We'll show them, sir! And they would try, he knew, and so would he, and he thought how splendid it would be if he could reach Teresa first, in the house with two orange trees, and hand her and the child safely to Sharpe. He looked again at the vast castle, on its high, steep rock, and he vowed he would fight as Sharpe fought. The devil with a fake attack! They would attack for real.
The Fifth Division, brought back across the river, would mount another escalade with ladders; this time against the north-east bastion, the San Vincente, which towered above the slow river. Like the castle attack, it was intended to pin down enemy troops, to stop reinforcements going to the south-east corner, for it was there, at the three breaches, that Wellington knew he must win his victory.
The breaches. The Fourth and Light Divisions would make the real attack; the assault on the three breaches and the men, waiting as the clouds spread over the sky, imagined the boiling of troops in the ditch, the fighting that was to come, but they would win. Badajoz would be taken. The guns fired on.
Sharpe found a cavalry armourer who put the huge sword against a treadled wheel and the sparks flowed from the edge. He had checked his rifle and loaded the seven-barreled gun. Even though his own orders forbade him to go into the ditch he wanted to be ready. He was a guide, the only man who had already walked to the lip of the glacis, and his task was to lead the Forlorn Hope of the Light Division to the brink of the ditch opposite the Santa Maria bastion. There they would leave him and go on to attack the bastion and the new breach while, off to the right, the South Essex and the Fourth Division marched on the Trinidad. Once Sharpe had taken the Forlorn Hope to the ditch, he was to return and guide other battalions up the slope, but he hoped, against hope, that he could find a way into the fight and over the wall to his child.
The bell tolled six, then the quarter, and on the half, the men lined up out of sight of the city. They carried no packs, just weapons and ammunition, and their Colonels inspected them, not to check on uniforms, but to grin at them and encourage them, because tonight the common man, the despised soldier, would write a page in history and that page had better be a British victory. Tension stretched as the sun sank, imagination making fears real, and the officers passed the rum rations down the ranks and listened to the old jokes. There was a sudden warmth in the army, a feeling of difficulties that would be shared, and the officers who came from the big houses felt close to their men. Imagination did not spare the rich, nor would the defenders, and tonight the rich and poor in the ditch would need each other. The wives made their farewells and hoped for a live husband on the morrow, and the children were silent, awed by the expectancy, while in the doctors' tents the instrument cases were opened and the scalpels honed. The guns fired on.
Seven o'clock. A half-hour only left and Sharpe and the other guides — all except the Rifleman were Engineers — joined their battalions. The Forlorn Hope of the Light Division was half composed of Riflemen, hoping for the laurel-wreath badge. They grinned at Sharpe and joked with him. They wanted the thing done and over in the way that a man facing the surgeon's knife hastened the fatal clock. They would move at half-past seven and by half-past nine the issue would be decided. Those that lived would be drunk by ten and the wine would be free. They waited, sitting on the ground with their rifles between their knees, and prayed the clock on. Let it be over, let it be over, and darkness came and the guns boomed on, and the orders had to come.
Half-past seven, and the orders still not given. There was a delay and no one knew why. The troops fidgeted, grew angry against unseen staff officers, cursed the bloody army and the bloody Generals because in the darkness the French would be swarming on the breaches, preparing traps for the British! The guns stopped firing, as they should have done, but there were still no orders and the men waited and imagined the French working on the new breach. Eight o'clock sounded, and then the half, and horses galloped in the darkness. Men shouted for information. There were still no orders, but rumored explanations. The ladders had been lost. The hay bags were missing and they cursed the Engineers, the lousy army, and the French worked on.
Nine o'clock, and murder was being prepared in the breaches. Delay it, Sharpe thought, let it be tomorrow! The attack should go in on the heels of th
e guns, in the minutes of darkness when there was a trace of light so that the battalions would not get lost on the glacis. Still the time ticked away and still they waited and still the enemy were given precious minutes to work on the defences. Then there was a stir in the darkness. Orders, at last, and there would be no delay.
Go, go, go, go, go. The ranks moved with the clinking of metal and thumping of rifle and musket stocks. There was a sense of relief to be moving in the darkness, in the bleak, total darkness, and the six thousand five hundred men, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Portuguese moved against the city. The guides ordered quiet and the orders went back, but they were moving at last and no one could silence the thousands of boots that scraped and scuffed by the road that led between the flood and the Pardaleras Fort. Far to the north, the Third Division filed over the bridge by the broken mill that spanned the Rivillas and the air was filled with the croaking of frogs and the fears of men. The city waited in darkness. Silence in Badajoz.
The Lieutenant who was leading the Forlorn Hope touched Sharpe's elbow. 'Are we too far to the left?
They had lost all touch with the Fourth Division. It was dark, utterly dark, and there was no sound from the fort or from the city. Sharpe whispered back. 'We're all right.
Still there was no firing, no sound from the city or from the Pardaleras that was now behind them. Silence. Sharpe wondered if the attack would be a surprise to the French. He wondered if perhaps the enemy had been fooled by the delay, perhaps the troops had relaxed, were waiting for another day and if the greatest gift the gods can give a soldier, surprise, had been given to the British. They were close now. The dim, dark shadow of the fortress blotted out half the sky. It was huge in the night, vast, unimaginably strong, and the slope of the glacis was beneath Sharpe's feet and he paused as the sixty men of the Forlorn Hope aligned themselves and thrust their ladders and hay-bags to the front. The Lieutenant scraped his sword from the scabbard. 'Ready.
There was firing from the right, far off, where the Third Division had been spotted. It sounded miles away, like someone else's battle, and it was difficult to believe that the sound had anything to do with the dark glacis leading to the fortress in front. Yet the sound would alert all the French sentries and Sharpe hurried up the slope, angling to his left, and still there was no sound from walls or bastions. He tried to make sense of the shadows, to recognize the shapes he had seen just three nights before, and his footsteps sounded loud on the grass and he could hear the panting of men behind him. Surely the French would hear! At any moment, he almost cringed at the reality of the imagination, the grapeshot would stab down from the walls. He saw the corner of a bastion, recognized the Santa Maria, and a relief went through him as he knew he had brought the Hope to the right place.
Sharpe turned to the Lieutenant. "This is it. He wished he was going with him, that he was leading the Hope, but it was not to be. The glory belonged to the Lieutenant who made no reply. Tonight he was a god, tonight he could do no wrong, because tonight he was leading a Forlorn Hope against the biggest citadel the British army had ever attacked. He turned to his men.
They went. Silent. The ladders scraped over the stone lip of the glacis, down into the ditch, and the men scrambled down, slithering on the rungs, falling on to the thrown hay-bags. It had begun.
Sharpe watched the walls. They were dark and silent. Behind him, at the foot of the glacis, he could hear the tramp of feet as the battalions approached and then, ahead, he heard the Lieutenant shout at his men and the first scrambling of boots on the breach. It had started. Hell had come to Badajoz.
CHAPTER 24
In the cathedral that day the prayers had been unceasing, muttered, sometimes hysterical; the words had accompanied the beads as the women of Badajoz feared for the dead who would come to their streets that night. Just as the British army knew the assault was coming, so, too, did the defenders and inhabitants of Badajoz. A host of candles flickered before the saints as if the tiny flames could keep at bay the evil that surrounded the city and came pressing closer as the night gloom filled the cathedral.
Rafael Moreno, merchant, trickled powder into his pistols and hid them, loaded and primed, beneath the lid of his writing desk. He wished his wife were with him, but she had insisted enjoining the nuns in the cathedral, foolish woman, and praying. Prayers would not deflect the soldiers, bullets might, but it was more likely they could be bribed by the cheap red wine he had put in his courtyard. Moreno shrugged. The most valuable possessions were hidden, well hidden, and his niece insisted she had friends among the British. He could hear Teresa upstairs, talking to her child, and doubtless she had the heathen rifle loaded and ready. He liked his niece, of course, but there were times when he thought that his brother Cesar's family were more than a little too wild. Downright irresponsible even. He poured himself wine. That child upstairs, improving in health, God be praised, but a bastard! And in his house! Moreno sipped the wine. The neighbors did not know, he had seen to that. They thought she was a widow whose husband had died in last year's battles between the French and the disintegrating Spanish armies. He heard the clock in the cathedral tower begin wheezing as it wound itself up to strike the bell. Ten o'clock in Badajoz. He emptied his glass and called for a servant to refill it.
The bell sounded, and below, in the cathedral, beneath the vaulted ceiling and the gold ledges, below the huge, dark chandelier, and beneath the sad eyes of the Virgin, the women heard the crackle of muskets begin far away. They looked up, over the glow of the candles, at the Mother of God. Be with us now and in the hour of our need.
Sharpe heard the first toll of the hour, and then no more. As it sounded, so the first fireball rose from the battlements, arced its spark-path in the blackness, and then plummeted to the ditch. It was the first of a storm, the tight packed balls flaming and falling as the carcasses were rolled on to the breach, and suddenly the breaches, the ditch, the ravelin, the obstacles, and the tiny figures of the Forlorn Hope were swamped in light, light poured from above, by flames that caught on the obstacles in the ditch, and the Hope began to climb as the fire was bright on their bayonets.
The battalions behind cheered. Silence was done. The front ranks reached the ditch and the ladders scraped over. Men hurled themselves after the hay-bags and scrambled down ladders, a flow of men in desperate haste to cross the ditch and climb the huge ramps of the breaches. They were cheering, urging themselves on, even as the first tongues of quicksilver flame raced down the breaches of the Santa Maria and Trinidad.
Sharpe dropped as the mines exploded. Not one or two, but tons of powder packed in the ditch, on the lower slopes of the ramps, was ignited and exploded outwards, and the Forlorn Hope was gone. Taken in an instant, ground into fragments of wet horror, all dead, as the first files of the first battalions were hurled backwards by the flame and flying stone.
The French cheered. They lined the parapets, the bastions; and the guns that had been handled round to fire down into the ditch, guns which had been double shotted with canister, were unmasked. Muskets spat, were drowned by the cannon flames. The enemy cheered and shouted obscenities, and all the time the carcasses were thrown, lighting the targets, and the ditch was slopping with fire, a container of flames that would only be drowned in blood, and still the men went down the ladders and into the ditch.
The third breach was silent, the new breach. It lay between the bastions, a huge fresh scar that could lead into the city, but Sharpe saw the French had worked well. The ditch in front of the wall was huge, as wide as a parade ground, but filled with the squat, half-finished ravelin. The ravelin was twenty feet high, shaped like a diamond, and the only way to the new breach was to go round it. The way was blocked. Carts had been tipped over in the approach ditches, then covered with timbers, and the fireballs had lit the obstacles so that they flamed huge and fierce, and no attacker could get close. Only the breaches in the bastions, the Santa Maria and the Trinidad, could be approached, and those were dominated by the enemy guns. They fired
again and again, the ammunition hoarded against this night, and still the British tried, and still they died yards from the breaches' base.
Sharpe went back down the glacis, into the shadows, and turned once to see the high, great walls of the battle lit by fire. Flames jetted from the embrasures, writhing smoke into the maelstrom below, and in the light of the fires he saw strange patterns at the top of the breaches. He stopped and stared, trying to make sense of the shapes glimpsed through the harrowing fire and smoke, and saw that the French had crowned each breach with Ckevaux de Prise. Each one was a timber, thick as a battleship's main mast, and from each chained timber there sprang a thousand sabre blades; the blade barrier, thick as a porcupine's coat, to hook and tear any man who reached the summit. If any did.
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