Sharpe 3-Book Collection 4: Sharpe's Escape, Sharpe's Fury, Sharpe's Battle

by Bernard Cornwell

  The French were recovering now. The two battalions in square had realized their mistake and were deploying back into columns. Aides were galloping among the battalions, ordering them to march on, to fire, to break the thin skirmish line with concentrated volleys of musket fire. The drums began again, beating the pas de charge and pausing to let the men shout "Vive l'empereur!" The first effort was feeble, but officers and sergeants bellowed at the men to shout louder, and the next time the war cry was firm and defiant. "Vive l'empereur!"

  "Tirez!" an officer shouted, and the front ranks of the 8th of the line poured a volley at the Portuguese skirmishers on their front. "Marchez! En avant!" Now was the time to accept the casualties and crush the skirmishers. The British cannon had switched their fire to the French battery, so no more shells slammed into the ranks. "Vive l'empereur!" The eight ranks behind the leading men of each column stepped over the dead and dying. "Tirez!" Another blast of musketry. Four thousand men were marching toward seven hundred. The French battery fired canister across the front of the columns and the grass bowed violently as though it were being swept by a sudden gust of wind. Portuguese cacadores and British riflemen were scooped up, bloodied and thrown down. The skirmish line was retreating now. The French muskets were too close and the six enemy cannon enfiladed them. There was a brief respite as the French gunners, about to be masked by the advancing columns, seized the drag ropes and, despite the round shot slamming about them, dragged their guns a hundred paces forward. They fired again and more skirmishers were turned to bloody rags. The French scented victory and the four leading battalions hurried. Their fire was ragged because it was hard to load while marching, and some men fixed bayonets instead. The British skirmishers ran back, almost to the wood's edge. Duncan's two left hand guns, seeing the danger, slewed around and blasted canister across the face of the nearest French battalion. Men in its leading ranks went down in a bloody haze as though a giant reaper's hook had savaged them.

  Then, suddenly, the wood's edge was thick with men. The Silver Tails were on the left of Wheatley's line and next to them were the two orphaned companies of Coldstreamers. Gough's Irish were on the right of the Guards, then the remaining half of the 67th, and last, next to the guns, two companies of the Cauliflowers, the 47th.

  "Halt!" The shouts echoed along the tree line.

  "Wait!" a sergeant bellowed. Some men had raised their muskets.

  "Wait for the order!"

  "Form on your right! On your right!"

  It was a confusion of voices, of officers shouting from their horses, of sergeants reordering ranks tumbled by the chaotic rush through the trees. "Look at that, boys! Look at that! Joy in the morning!" Major Hugh Gough, mounted on a bay gelding from County Meath, rode behind his battalion of the 87th. "We've got target practice, my lovelies," he shouted. "Wait a while, though, wait a while."

  The newly arrived battalions recovered their dressing. "Take them forward! Take them forward!" Wheatley's aides shouted, and the two-deep line paced onto the heath toward the dead and dying skirmishers. A French round shot skimmed through the 67th, cutting one man almost in half, spraying twelve others with the dead man's blood, and taking the arm of a man in the rear rank. "Close up! Close up!"

  "Halt! Present!"

  "Vive l'empereur!"

  "Fire!"

  The inexorable rules of mathematics now imposed themselves on the fight. The French outnumbered the British by two to one, yet the leading four French battalions were in columns of divisions, which meant that each battalion was arrayed in nine ranks and had, on average, about seventy-two men in a rank. Four battalions with leading ranks of seventy-two men made a frontage of fewer than three hundred muskets. True, the men in the second rank could fire over their comrades' shoulders, but even so, Leval's four thousand men could only use six hundred muskets against the British line in which every man could fire, and Wheatley's line was now fourteen hundred men strong. The skirmishers, who had done their job of delaying the French advance, ran to the flanks. Then Wheatley's line fired.

  The musket balls smacked into the heads of the French units. The redcoats were hidden by smoke behind which they reloaded. "Fire by platoons!" officers called, so now the rolling volleys would begin, half a company firing at once, then the next half, so that the bullets never stopped.

  "Fire low!" an officer shouted.

  Canister slashed through the smoke. A man reeled away, an eye gone, his face a mask of blood, but there was much more blood in the French battalions where the bullets were turning the front ranks into charnel rows.

  "Bloody hell," Sharpe said. He had emerged from the wood at the right-hand side of the British line. Ahead of him, to his right, were Duncan's guns, each one bucking back three or more paces with every shot. Beside the guns were the remnants of the Portuguese skirmishers, still firing, and to his left was the redcoat line. Sharpe joined the brown-coated Portuguese. They looked haggard. Their faces were powder stained and eyes white. They were a new battalion and had never been in battle before, but they had done their job and now the redcoats were firing volleys, yet the Portuguese had suffered horribly and Sharpe could see too many brown-coated bodies lying in front of the French battalions. He could also see greenjackets there, all on the left of the British line.

  The French battalions were spreading their fronts. They were not doing it well. Each man tried to find a place to fire his musket, or else tried to find shelter behind braver colleagues, and sergeants were pushing them out in any order. Canister howled around Sharpe and he instinctively looked behind to make sure none of his men was hit. They were all safe, but a crouching Portuguese skirmisher close to Sharpe tipped onto his back with his throat torn open. "Didn't know you were with us!" a voice called, and Sharpe turned to see Major Duncan on horseback.

  "I'm here," Sharpe said.

  "Can your rifles discourage gunners?"

  The six French cannon were to the front. Two were already out of action, struck by Duncan's round shot, but the others were flailing the left of the British line with their hated canister. The problem of shooting at cannon was the vast cloud of filthy smoke that lingered after every shot, and the problem was made worse by the distance. It was long range, even for a rifle, but Sharpe pulled his men forward to the Portuguese and told them to fire at the French artillerymen. "It's a safe job, Pat," he told Harper, "not really fighting at all."

  "Always a pleasure to murder a gunner, sir," Harper said. "Isn't that right, Harris?"

  Harris, who had been most vocal about not joining any fight, cocked his rifle. "Always a pleasure, Sergeant."

  "Then make yourself happy. Kill a bloody gunner."

  Sharpe stared toward the French infantry, but could see little because the smoke of the muskets drifted across their front. He could see two eagles through the smoke, and beside them the small flags mounted on the halberds carried by the men charged with protecting the eagles. He could hear the drummer boys still beating the pas de charge even though the French advance had stopped. The real noise was of musketry, the pounding cough of volley fire, the relentless noise, and if he listened hard he could hear the balls striking on muskets and thumping into flesh. He could also hear the cries of the wounded and the screams of officers' horses put down by the balls. And he was amazed, as he always was, by the courage of the French. They were being struck hard, yet they stayed. They stayed behind a straggling heap of dead men, they edged aside to let the wounded crawl behind, they reloaded and fired, and all the time the volleys kept coming. Sharpe could see no order among the enemy. The columns had long broken into a thick line that spread wider as men found space to use their muskets, but even so the makeshift line was still thicker and shorter than the British line. Only the British and Portuguese fought in two ranks. The French were supposed to fight in three ranks when deployed in line, but this line was clumped together, six or seven men deep in some places.

  A third French gun was struck. A round shot shattered a wheel and the gun tipped down as the gunners j
umped out of the way. "Good shooting!" Duncan shouted. "An extra ration of rum for that crew!" He had no idea which of his guns had done the damage so he would give them all rum when the fighting was done. A gust of wind blew the smoke away from the French battery and Duncan saw a gunner rolling up a new wheel. Hagman, kneeling among the Portuguese, saw another gunner bring his linstock toward the closest French cannon, a howitzer. Hagman fired and the gunner vanished behind the short barrel.

  The British had no music to inspire them. There had been no space on the ships to bring instruments, but the bandsmen had come, armed with muskets, and now those men did their usual battle job of rescuing the wounded, taking them back to the trees, where the surgeons worked. The rest of the redcoats fought on. They did what they were trained to do, and what they did was fire a musket. Load and fire, load and fire. Take out a cartridge, bite off the top, prime the lock with a pinch of powder from the bitten end of the cartridge, close the frizzen to keep the pinch in place, drop the musket butt to the ground, pour the rest of the powder down the hot barrel, thrust the paper on top as wadding, ram it down, and inside the paper was the ball. Bring the musket up, pull back the cock, remember to aim low because the brute of a gun kicked like a mule, wait for the order, pull the trigger. "Misfire!" a man shouted, meaning his lock had sparked, but the charge in the barrel had not caught the fire. A corporal snatched the musket away from him, gave him a dead man's gun, then laid the misfired musket on the grass behind. Other men had to pause to change flints, but the volleys never stopped.

  The French were becoming more organized, but they would never fire as fast as the redcoats. The redcoats were professionals, while most of the French were conscripts. They had been summoned to their depots and given training, but were not permitted to practice with real gunpowder. For every three bullets the British fired in battle, the French fired two, so the rules of mathematics favored the redcoats again, but the French still outnumbered the British, and as their line spread, the gods of mathematics tipped the balance back toward the men in the blue coats. More and more of the emperor's soldiers brought muskets to bear, and more and more redcoats were carried back to the pinewood. On the left of the British line, where no artillery helped, the Silver Tails were being hit hard. Sergeants commanded companies now. They were opposed two to one, for Leval had sent one of his supporting battalions to add their fire and that new unit came into line and struck hard with fresh muskets. The fight now was like two boxers toeing the line and striking again and again, and every bare-knuckle blow started blood, and neither man moved, and it was a contest to see which could sustain the greatest pain.

  "You, sir, you!" A voice snapped behind Sharpe and he turned, alarmed, to see a colonel on horseback, but the colonel was not looking at Sharpe. He was glaring at Captain Galiana. "Where the devil are your men? Do you speak English? For Christ's sake, someone ask where his men are."

  "I have no men," Galiana admitted hastily in English.

  "For God's sake, why doesn't General Lapeña send us men?"

  "I shall find him, señor," Galiana said and, with something useful to do, turned his horse toward the woods.

  "Tell him I want them on my left," the colonel roared after him, "on my left!" The colonel was Wheatley, commanding the brigade, and he rode back to where the 28th, the Dandies, the Silver Tails, the Slashers, were being turned into dead and dying men. That suffering battalion was closest to the Spanish troops at Bermeja, but Bermeja was over a mile from the fighting. Lapeña had nine thousand men there. They sat on the sand, muskets stacked, and ate the last of their rations. A thousand of the Spaniards watched the French across the Almanza Creek, but those French were not moving. Any battle beside the Rio Sancti Petri had long died and the herons, encouraged by the silence between the armies, had come back to hunt among the reeds.

  Sharpe had taken out his telescope. His riflemen were still firing at the French gunners, but only one of the enemy cannon was still undamaged. That was the howitzer, and Duncan had shredded its crew with a finely judged burst of shrapnel. "Take these nearest bastards," Sharpe told his men, indicating the French line, and he now watched that line through the glass. The view was of smoke and blue coats. He lowered the telescope. He sensed that the battle had reached a pause. It was not that the killing had stopped, nor that the muskets had ceased firing, but that neither side was making a move to change the situation. They were thinking, waiting, killing while they waited, and it seemed to Sharpe that the French, despite being outfought by the musket fire of the redcoats, had gained the advantage. They had more men, so could afford to lose the musket duel, and their right and center were edging forward. It did not look like a deliberate move, but rather the result of pressure from the men in the rear ranks who were thrusting the French line toward the sea. The French left was stalled, for they were being flayed by Duncan's guns that had already knocked the French artillery out of the fight, but the French right and center were unaffected by the guns. They had already stepped over the line of dead men that was all that was left of their original front ranks and they were getting bolder. Their fire, inefficient though it was by redcoat standards, was taking its toll. With the widening of the French line and the commitment of one of their two reserve battalions, the laws of mathematics had tipped back to favor the French. They had taken the worst the British could give them, they had survived, and now they edged forward toward their weakened enemy.

  Sharpe went back a few paces and looked behind the British line. No Spanish troops were in sight and he knew there were no British reserves. If the men on the heath could not do the job, then the French must win and the army would be turned into a rabble. He went back to his men who were now firing at the nearest French infantry. An eagle showed above them, and near the eagle was a group of horsemen. Sharpe leveled the glass again and, just before the musket smoke obscured the standard, he saw him.

  Colonel Vandal. He was waving his hat, encouraging his men to advance. Sharpe could see the white pom-pom on the hat, could see the narrow black moustache, and he felt a surge of utter fury. "Pat!" he shouted.

  "Sir?" Harper was alarmed by the tone of Sharpe's voice.

  "Found the bastard," Sharpe said. He took the rifle from his shoulder. He had not fired it yet, but he cocked it now.

  And the French sensed victory. It would be a hard-won triumph, but their drummers found new energy and the line lurched forward again. "Vive l'empereur!"

  * * *

  AT LEAST thirty officers had ridden south from San Fernando. They had stayed on the Isla de León when Sir Thomas's forces had sailed, and this Tuesday morning they had been woken by the sound of gunfire. Because they were off duty, they had saddled their horses and ridden south to discover what happened beyond the Rio Sancti Petri.

  They went south along the Isla de León's long Atlantic beach, where they joined a crowd of curious horsemen from Cádiz who also rode to witness the fighting. There were even carriages being whipped along the sand. It was not every day that a battle was fought close to a city. The sound of gunfire rattling windows in Cádiz had prompted scores of spectators to head south along the isthmus.

  The surly lieutenant guarding the pontoon bridge did his best to prevent those spectators from crossing the river, but he was effectively outgunned when a curricle was whipped along the track. Its driver was a British officer, his passenger a woman, and the officer threatened to use his whip on the lieutenant if the barricade was not removed. It was not so much the threat of the whip as the officer's lavish display of silver lace that persuaded the lieutenant to yield. He watched sourly as the curricle crossed the precarious bridge. He hoped a wheel would slip off the cresses and tip the passengers into the river, but the two horses were in expert hands and the light vehicle crossed safely and accelerated along the far beach. The other carriages were too big to cross, but the crowd of horsemen followed the curricle and spurred after it.

  What they saw when they passed the makeshift Spanish fort guarding the pontoon bridge was a beach
filled with resting Spanish soldiers. Cavalry horses were picketed while their riders rested with hats over their faces. Some played cards and cigar smoke drifted in the breeze. Far ahead was the hill above Barrosa and that was wreathed with a different smoke, and more smoke rose in a dirty plume above a pinewood to the east, but on the beach beside the river all was calm.

  It was calm in Bermeja where General Lapeña took a lunch of cold ham with his staff. He watched in surprise as the curricle dashed past, its two wheels throwing up great sprays of sand from the track leading past the village church and the watchtower. "A British officer," he observed, "going the wrong way!"

  There was polite laughter. Some of the general's staff, though, were embarrassed that they did nothing while the British fought, and that sentiment was felt most strongly by General Zayas, whose men had forced Villatte's division off the beach. Zayas had requested permission to take his troops farther south and join the fighting, a request that was strengthened when Captain Galiana arrived on a sweat-whitened horse with Colonel Wheatley's plea for help. Lapeña had curtly refused the request. "Our allies," he declared grandly, "are merely fighting a rearguard action. If they had followed orders, of course, no fighting would have been necessary, but now we must remain here to make certain they have a position to which they can retreat in safety." He had stared belligerently at Galiana. "And what business do you have here?" he had demanded angrily. "Are you not posted to the city garrison?" Galiana, whose nervousness at approaching Lapeña had made his request harsh, even peremptory, had not even deigned to answer. He just gave the general a look of utter scorn, then turned his tired horse and spurred back toward the pinewood. "His father was an insolent fool," Lapeña said harshly, "and the son's the same. He needs lessons in discipline. He should be posted to South America, somewhere where there's yellow fever."