Sharpe's Escape

by Bernard Cornwell

  "Narrow path down the backside of the hill, sir," the more observant of the aides answered, "protected by gates and the forts."

  Sarrut grunted. That answer suggested he could not hope to assail the forts by the path used by the Portuguese, but he would be damned before he just retreated when the enemy was offering a fight. The least he could do was bloody their noses. "Push hard into them," he ordered. "And what the devil happened to that picquet?"

  "Gone to ground," another aide answered.

  "Where?"

  The aide pointed to the farm that was ringed with smoke. The mist had just about gone, but there was so much smoke around the farm it looked like fog.

  "Then dig them out!" Sarrut ordered. He had originally scoffed at the idea of capturing a mere picquet, but frustration had changed his mind. He had brought four prime battalions into the valley and he could not just march them back with nothing to show for it. Even a handful of prisoners would be some sort of victory. "Was there any damn food in that barn?" he asked.

  An aide held out a lump of British army biscuit, twice baked, as hard as a round shot and about as palatable. Sarrut scorned it, then kicked his horse through the stream, past the barn and out into the pastureland where there was more bad news. The Portuguese, far from being hit hard, were driving his chasseurs and voltigeurs back. Two battalions against four and the two were winning, and Sarrut heard the distinctive crack of rifles and knew those weapons were swinging the confrontation in the Portuguese favor. Why the hell did the Emperor insist that rifles were useless? What was useless, Sarrut thought, was pitting muskets against skirmishers. Muskets were for use against enemy formations, not against individuals, but a rifle could pick the flea off a whore's back at a hundred paces. "Ask General Reynier to loose the cavalry," he said to an aide. "That'll sweep those bastards away."

  It had started as a reconnaissance and was turning into a battle.

  The South Essex came from the eastern side of the hill on which Work Number 119 stood, while the Portuguese had come from its western side and those two battalions now blocked the entrance to the small valley. The South Essex was thus on the Portuguese right, a half-mile away, and in front of them was a stretch of pastureland edged by the flooded stream and the swamps which ringed the beleaguered farmstead. To Lawford's left was the shoulder of the hill, the flank of the Portuguese and, out in the valley in front of him, the swarm of voltigeurs and chasseurs whose scattered formations were punctuated by the exploding bursts of smoke from the British and Portuguese cannon. "It's a bloody mess!" Lawford protested. Most of the South Essex's officers had not had time to fetch their horses, but Lawford was up on Lightning and from the saddle's height he could see the track that crossed the bridge and led to the farmstead. That, he decided, was where he would go. "Double column of companies," he ordered, "quarter distance," and he glanced across at the farmhouse and realized, from the volume of fire and the thickness of the smoke, that the light company was putting up a stout resistance. "Well done, Cornelius," he said aloud. It might have been imprudent for Slingsby to have retreated to the farmhouse rather than to the hills, but at least he was fighting hard. "Advance, Major!" he told Forrest. Each company of the South Essex was now in four ranks. Two companies were abreast, so that the battalion was arranged in two companies wide and four deep, with number nine company on its own at the rear. To General Picton, watching from the heights, it looked more like a French column than a British unit, but it allowed the battalion to keep itself in good close order as it advanced obliquely, the marshland to its right and the open land and the hills to its left. "We'll deploy into line as necessary," Lawford explained to Forrest, "sweep those men away from the farm track, capture the bridge, then send three companies up to the buildings. You can take them. Brush those damned Frogs away, bring Cornelius's fellows out, rejoin, and we'll go back for dinner. I thought we might finish that peppered ham. It's rather good, isn't it? "

  "Very good."

  "And some boiled eggs," Lawford said.

  "Don't you find they make you costive?" Forrest asked.

  "Eggs? Make you costive? Never! I try to eat them every day and my father always swore by boiled eggs. He reckoned they keep you regular. Ah, I see the wretches have noticed us." Lawford spurred Lightning up the narrow space between the companies. The wretches he had seen were chasseurs and voltigeurs who were gathering ahead of his battalion. The French had been attacking the right flank of the Portuguese, but now saw the redcoats approaching and turned to face the new threat. There were not enough of them to stem the battalion's advance, but Lawford still wished he had his light company to go out ahead and drive the skirmishers back. He knew he would have to take some casualties before he was in range to offer a volley that would finish the French nonsense and so he rode to the front so that the men saw him share their danger. He glanced over at the farm and saw the fighting was still fierce there. A shell cracked into flame and smoke a hundred yards ahead. A musket ball, fired at far too long a range, fluttered close above Lawford's head to strike the yellow regimental color, and then he heard the bugles and he stood in the stirrups and saw, way across the far side of the valley, columns of horsemen cascading out of the hills. He noted them, but did nothing yet, for they were too far away to pose any danger. "Go right!" Lawford shouted at Forrest who was by the grenadier company that was on the right flank at the front. "Head up! Head up!" He pointed, meaning that the battalion should march for the bridge. A man stumbled in the front rank, then stayed on the ground, holding his thigh. The files behind opened to march past him, then closed again. "Two men to help him, Mister Collins," Lawford called to the nearest Captain. He dared not leave an injured man behind, not with cavalry loose in the valley. Thank God, he thought, that there was no French artillery.

  The horsemen had crossed the stream now and Lawford could see the bright glitter of their drawn sabers and swords. A mix of horsemen, he noted: green-coated dragoons with their long straight swords, sky-blue hussars and lighter green chasseurs with sabers. They were a good mile away, evidently intent on taking the Portuguese on their far flank, but a glance back showed that the cazadores were alive to the danger and were forming two squares. The horsemen saw it too and swerved eastwards, the soft turf flying up behind their horses' hooves. Now they were coming at the South Essex, but they were still far off and Lawford kept marching as voltigeurs scattered from the horsemen's path. Shells exploded among the cavalry and they instinctively spread out and Lawford had a mischievous impulse. "Half distance!" he shouted. "Half distance!"

  The companies now increased the intervals between each other. Like the cavalry they were spreading out, no longer resembling a close column, but showing stretches of daylight between each unit and so inviting the cavalry to penetrate those gaps and rip the battalion apart from the inside. "Keep marching!" Lawford called to the nearest company which was looking nervously towards the cavalry. "Ignore them!" Less than half a mile now. The cavalry had spread into a line that thundered across the valley and the South Essex were marching across their front, the left flank of each rank exposed to the horsemen. Now it was all down to timing, Lawford thought, pure timing, for he did not want to form square too soon and so persuade the horsemen to sheer off. How many were there? Three hundred? More, he reckoned, and he could hear their hooves on the soft turf, see their pennants, and he saw the line go into the gallop and he reckoned they had committed themselves too soon because the ground was soft and their horses would be blown by the time they reached his battalion. A shell burst among the leading horsemen and a dragoon went down in a flurry of hooves, bridle, blood and sword. The second line of cavalry swerved around the thrashing horse and Lawford reckoned it was time. "Form square!"

  There was something beautiful in good drill, Lawford thought. To watch the rearmost companies halt and march backwards, see the center companies swing out, the forward companies mark time, and all the separate parts come seamlessly together to make a misshapen oblong. Three companies formed the long sides
, two were at the northern edge and a single company made the southern face, but what mattered was that the square was made and was impenetrable. The outside rank went onto one knee. "Fix bayonets!"

  Most of the horsemen pulled away, but at least a hundred stayed straight and so rode directly into Lawford's volley. The western face of the square vanished in smoke, there were the screams of horses and as the smoke cleared Lawford could see men and beasts galloping away to leave a dozen bodies on the ground. Voltigeurs were firing at the square now, grateful to have such a huge target, and the casualties were being lifted into the square's center. The only answer to the skirmishers was half-company volley fire, and that worked, each blast driving a group of Frenchmen back and sometimes leaving one writhing on the ground, but, like wolves around a flock, they pressed back and the horsemen circled behind them, waiting for the redcoat battalion to open its ranks and give them a chance to attack. Lawford was not going to give it to them. His battalion would stay closed up, but that gave the skirmishers their target and he realized, slowly, that he had marched into a perilous dilemma. The best way of ridding himself of the voltigeurs was to open ranks and advance, but that would invite the cavalry to charge, and the cavalry was the greater danger so he had to stay closed up, yet that gave the French muskets a tempting target, and the voltigeurs were gnawing him to death one injury or death at a time. The artillery was helping Lawford. The shells were exploding steadily, but the ground was soft and the guns were firing from the heights so that many of the shells buried themselves before they exploded and their force was thus cushioned by the ground or wasted upwards. The shrapnel was deadlier, but at least one of the gunners was cutting the fuses too long. Lawford edged the battalion northwards. Moving in square was hard, it had to be done slowly, and the wounded men in the square's center had to be carried with the formation, and the battalion was forced to pause every few seconds so that another volley could blast out at the skirmishers. In truth, Lawford realized, he had been snared by the voltigeurs and what had seemed an easy task was suddenly bloody.

  "I wish we had our rifles," Forrest muttered.

  Lawford was irritated by the wish, but he also shared it. It was his fault, he knew, for sending the light company out as a picquet and trusting that they would not get into trouble, and now his own battalion was in trouble. It had begun so well: the march in close order, the beautiful drill-book example of forming square, and the easy defeat of the cavalry charge, but now the South Essex was near the center of the valley and had no support except for the distant guns, while more and more voltigeurs, smelling blood, were closing on the battalion. So far he had not suffered many casualties, only five men dead and a score wounded, but that was because the French skirmishers were keeping their distance, wary of his volleys, yet every minute brought another musket strike and the closer he went to the farm track, the more isolated he became. And Picton was watching, Lawford knew, which meant his battalion was on display.

  And it was stuck.

  Vicente came down the ladder to report that a redcoat battalion was marching to their rescue, but that it was threatened by cavalry and so had formed square a half-mile away. Sharpe looked through the window and saw from the regimental color that it was the South Essex, but the battalion might as well have been a hundred miles away for all the help they could offer him.

  The French, after the repulse of their last attack, had concealed themselves behind the farm buildings, well out of sight of the rifles firing from the farmhouse roof. The track to the farm, which had been thick with voltigeurs, was empty now. Sharpe had brought two riflemen downstairs, placed them with himself and Perkins at the front windows and they had used the voltigeurs for target practice until the French, outranged and in the open, had either run into cover at the sides of the house or else gone back to the dryer part of the valley to help the attack on the beleaguered square. "So what do we do now, Mister Bullen?" Sharpe asked.

  "Do, sir?" Bullen was surprised to be asked.

  Sharpe grinned. "You did well to get the men here, very well. I thought maybe you had another good idea about how to get them out."

  "Go on fighting, sir?"

  "That's usually the best thing to do," Sharpe said, then peered quickly out of the window and drew no musket fire. "The Frogs won't last long," he said. That seemed an optimistic forecast to Bullen because, as far as he could see, the valley was full of Frenchmen, both infantry and cavalry, and the redcoat square was plainly balked. Sharpe had reached the same conclusion. "Time to earn all that money the King pays you, Mister Bullen."

  "What money, sir?"

  "What money? You're an officer and a gentleman, Mister Bullen. You've got to be rich." Some of the men laughed. Slingsby, sitting in the hearth with the canteen on his lap, was asleep, his head back against the masonry and his mouth open. Sharpe turned and looked through the window again. "They're in trouble," he said, nodding at the battalion. "They need our help. They need rifles, which means we've got to rescue them." He frowned at the prisoners, an idea half forming. "So Major Ferreira told you to surrender?" he asked Bullen.

  "He did, sir. I know it wasn't his place to give orders, but ... "

  "It wasn't his place," Sharpe interrupted, more interested in why Ferreira would have been so willing to fall into French hands. "Did he say why you were to surrender?"

  "I was to make a bargain with the French, sir. If they let the civilians go then we'd give up."

  "Sneaky bastard," Sharpe said. Ferreira, utterly cowed and with a huge bruise on his temple, stared up at Sharpe. "So you want to get to the lines before us?" Sharpe asked him. Ferreira said nothing. "Not you, Major," Sharpe said, "you're a military man and you're under arrest. But your brother now? And his men? We can let them go. Miss Fry? Tell them to stand up."

  The four men stood awkwardly. Sharpe had Perkins and a pair of redcoats point guns at them as Harper untied their feet, then their hands. "What you're going to do," he told them, letting Sarah translate, "is get out of here. There are no Frenchmen out front. Sergeant Read? Unblock the front door." Sharpe looked back at Ferragus and his three companions. "So you can go as soon as the door's open. Run like hell, cut across the marsh and you should make it to those redcoats."

  "The French will shoot them if you make them go," Vicente protested, still a lawyer at heart.

  "I'll bloody shoot them if they don't go," Sharpe said, then turned as there was a flurry of fire from the yard at the back of the house. The remaining riflemen in the roof answered it and Sharpe listened, judging from the noise whether another attack was coming, but it seemed to him the French were merely firing at random. The volleys of the South Essex came dull across the tongue of wetland while, farther away, the sound of the Portuguese rifles was crisper.

  Major Ferreira, at the far end of the room, spoke in Portuguese to his brother. "He said," Sarah translated for Sharpe, "that you will shoot them in the back if they go."

  "Tell them I won't. And tell them that if they go fast they'll live."

  "The door's unblocked, sir," Read said.

  Sharpe looked at Vicente. "Get all the riflemen out of the attic." He would miss their fire and he could only hope that the absence of powder smoke from the battered roof did not encourage the French, but he had an idea, one that could just do some real damage to the enemy. "Sergeant Harper!"

  "Sir?"

  "You're going to line up six riflemen and six redcoats, match them for size and make them change jackets."

  "Change jackets, sir?"

  "You heard me! Get on with it. And when the first six are done, do another six. I want every rifleman in a red coat. And once they're dressed they can put their packs on." Sharpe turned to look at the wounded men who were in the room's center. "We're going out," he told them, "and you're staying here." He saw the alarm on their faces. "The French won't hurt you," he reassured them. The British looked after French wounded and the French did the same. "But they won't take you with them either, so when this mess is over we'll come back for y
ou. But the Frogs will steal anything valuable, so if you've got something that's precious give it to a friend to keep for you."

  "What are you doing, sir?" one of the wounded men asked.

  "Going to help the battalion," Sharpe said, "and I'll be back for you, that's a promise." He looked at the first riflemen reluctantly pulling on the yellow-faced red coats. "Get on with it!" he snapped, and just then Perkins, who had been helping to guard the civilian prisoners, gave a grunt of pain and surprise. Sharpe half turned, thinking an errant bullet must have come through the window, and he saw that Ferragus, released from his bonds, had hit Perkins, and that the redcoats dared not fire at the brute for fear of hitting the wrong man in the crowded room, and Ferragus, free, vengeful and dangerous, was now coming for Sharpe.

  Colonel Lawford watched the voltigeurs thicken to the west and north. There were only a few to the south, and none to the east where the ground was flooded or waterlogged. The cavalry waited behind the voltigeurs, ready for the moment when the musket fire so weakened the South Essex's square that another charge would be possible. For now the French musketry was still at too long a range, but it was hurting and the center of the square was slowly filling with wounded men. The gunners on the hilltop were helping a little, for as the voltigeurs concentrated on the square they made a more inviting target for the shells and shrapnel, but the French skirmishers to the north, who were facing one of the square's narrower sides, were receiving less shell fire because the gunners feared striking the South Essex, and so those skirmishers pressed ever closer and inflicted increasing damage. More voltigeurs ran to that side, understanding that they would receive less volley fire there than from the longer side of the square that faced west.

  "I'm not sure," Major Forrest came across to Lawford, "that we can reach the farm now, sir."