voltigeurs were not forcing home their attack, but trying to stay out of range of the deadly rifles. They were just children, he thought, snatched from a depot and marched to war. It was cruel.
The French column advanced behind the voltigeurs. It looked formidable, but columns always did. This one was thirty files wide and sixty ranks deep: a great solid block of men who had been ordered to climb an impossible slope into a gale of fire. It would be murder, not war, but it was the French commander who was doing the murdering. Sharpe called in his Light Company, then sent them back to join Smith's picquet. If the French Dragoons rode ahead of the approaching garrison then the riflemen could pick off the horsemen.
'But you stay here, ' Sharpe told d'Alembord. 'I've got a job for you.'
The column lost its cohesion as it tried to cut across the corners of the zig-zagging road. They were getting close now, little more than a hundred paces away, and Sharpe could see the men were sweating despite the day's cold.
They were wearing, too, and whenever they looked up they saw nothing except a group of officers waiting on the crest. The line of redcoats had pulled back out of sight of the enemy, and Sharpe did not plan to bring them forward until the very last moment.
'Cutting it fine, sir, ' d'Alembord observed.
'Give it a minute yet, ' Sharpe said. He could hear the drums in the column's centre now, thought whenever the drummers paused to let the men shout 'Vive l'Empereur! ' the response was feeble. These men were winded, wearing and wary.
And only fifty paces away.
'Now, Sergeant Major, ' Sharpe said, and he stepped back through the advancing ranks and tried not to feel sorry for the Frenchmen he was about to kill.
«Fire!» Harper shouted, and this time the whole line fired in unison so that their bullets smacked home in one lethal blow. 'Platoon, fire! ' Harper shouted before the echo of the volley had died away. 'From the centre!»
Sharpe could see nothing of the enemy now, for they were hidden behind a thick cloud of grey-white powder smoke, but he could imagine the horror. Probably the whole French front rank was dead or dying, and most of the second rank, too, and the men behind would be pushing and the men in front stumbling on the dead and wounded, and then, just as they were recovering from the first volley, the rolling platoon fire began. 'Aim low! ' Harper shouted. 'Aim low!»
The air filled with the rotten-egg stench of powder smoke. The men's faces were flecked with burning powder scraps, while the paper cartridge wadding, spat out behind each bullet, started small, flickering fires in the grass.
On and on the volleys went as men fired blindly down into the smoke, pouring death into a small place, and still they loaded and rammed and fired, and Sharpe did not see a single man in his own regiment fall. He did not even hear a French bullet. It was the old story, a French column was being pounded by a British line, and British musketry was crushing the column's head and flanks and flecking its centre with blood.
Sharpe had posted a man wide of the line so that he could see past the smoke.
'They're running, sir! They're running! ' the man shouted excitedly. 'Running like hell!»
'Cease fire! ' Sharpe bellowed. 'Cease fire!»
And slowly the smoke cleared to show the horror on the winter grass. Blood and horror and broken men. A column had met a line. Sharpe turned away. 'Mister d'Alembord.'
'Sir?'
'Take a white flag and ride to the southern road. Find the garrison commander.
Tell him we broke a French brigade and that we'll break him in exactly the same manner if he doesn't surrender.'
'Sir! Sir! Please sir! ' That was Ensign Nicholls, jumping up and down beside d'Alembord. 'Can I go with him, sir? Please, sir. I've never seen a Frog. Not close up, sir.'
'They've got tails and horns, ' d'Alembord said, and smiled when Nicholls looked alarmed.
'If you can borrow a horse, ' Sharpe told the ensign, 'you can go. But keep your mouth shut! Let Mister d'Alembord do the talking.'
'Yes, sir, ' Nicholls said, and ran happily away while Sharpe turned back to the north. The French had broken and run, and he doubted they would be back, but he was not willing to care for their wounded. He had neither the men nor the supplies to do that, so someone would have to go down to the enemy under a flag of truce and offer them a chance to clear up the mess they had made.
Just in time for Christmas.
Colonel Caillou watched the two red-coated horsemen approach under their flag of truce and felt an immense rage surge inside him. Gudin would surrender, he knew it, and when that happened Caillou would lose the Eagle that the Emperor himself had presented to the 75th.
He would not let it happen, and so, in a blind fury, he drove back his spurs and galloped after Gudin.
Gudin heard him coming, turned and waved him back, but Caillou ignored him.
Instead he drew his pistol. 'Go back! ' he shouted in English to the approaching officers. 'Go back!»
D'Alembord reined in his horse. 'Do you command her, monsieur?' he asked Caillou in French.
'Go back! ' Caillou shouted angrily. 'We do not accept your flag. You hear me?
We do not accept it. Go! ' He leveled the pistol at the younger officer who held the offending flag of truce, a white handkerchief tied to a musket's ramrod. «Go!» Caillou shouted, then spurred his horse away from Gudin who had moved to intervene.
'It's all right, Charlie, ' d'Alembord said. 'He won't shoot. It's a flag of truce.' He looked back to Caillou. 'Monsieur? I insist upon knowing if you command here.'
'Just go! ' Caillou shouted, but at that moment Nicholls's horse stumbled a pace forward and Caillou, overwhelmed with rage for the anticipated shame of surrender, pulled the pistol's trigger.
The white flag toppled slowly. Nicholls stared at Caillou with a look of astonishment on his young face, then he turned in puzzlement to gaze at d'Alembord. D'Alembord reached out a hand, but Nicholls was already falling.
The bullet had broken through one of the gold laces his mother had sewn onto his jacket and then it had pierced his young heart.
Caillou seemed suddenly shocked, as if he had only just realized the enormity of his crime. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. Instead, a second pistol sounded and Caillou, just like Nicholls, toppled dead from his horse.
Colonel Gudin put his pistol back in its holster. 'I command here, ' he told d'Alembord in English. 'To my shame, sir. I command here. You have come to offer terms?'
'I have come to fetch your surrender, sir, ' d'Alembord said, and saw from Gudin's face that he would get it. The battle was over.
SHARPE heard of Nicholls's death while he was still watching the French take their dead from the northern slope. He swore when he heard the news, and then he stalked back to the village with pure bloody murder in his head.
A ground of unarmed French soldiers stood nervously outside the tavern, and he pushed his angry way through them and then kicked open the door. 'What bastard Frenchman dared killed my officer?' he shouted, storming into the room with one hand on the hilt of his heavy cavalry sword.
A tall, grey-haired French officer stood to face him. 'The man who killed your officer is dead, monsieur, ' the Frenchman said. 'I shot him.'
Sharpe stopped and stared. His hand fell from the sword and his mouth dropped open. For a second he seemed unable to speak, but then he found his voice.
'Colonel Gudin?' he asked in amazement.
Gudin smiled. 'Oui, Caporal Sharpe.'
'I'm a major now, sir, ' Sharpe said, and he stepped forward with his hand outstretched, but Gudin ignored the hand and instead clasped Sharpe in both arms and kissed him on both cheeks. D'Alembord watched, smiling.
