stopped.
There was a new sound in the ditch, a sound so mad that he had turned, the sword bright in his hand, and he looked unbelievingly behind him. The survivors of the South Essex, their yellow facings smeared with blood, were struggling towards him. They had seen their Light Company carve a path to the ravelin, and now they wanted tojoin the madness, but it was their voices that had stopped Sharpe.
'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe! They chanted it senselessly, a war cry, and men who did not know what it meant picked up the sound, and the ditch stirred, and the shout bellied into the night. 'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe!
'What are they saying, March?
'It sounds like «sharp», my Lord.’
The General laughed because moments before he had wished for one thousand Sharpes, and now, perhaps, that rogue was giving him the city. His aides-de-camp, hearing the grim tone of the laughter, did not understand and did not like to ask.
The gunners, high on the wall, heard the chant and did not understand. They were massacring the newest attack on the Trinidad, hurling it back as they had hurled the others back, but then they saw the ravelin's top dark with men, and the men were shouting, and the whole ditch was moving that they had thought filled with corpses, and the corpses had come to life and were coming to them, for their revenge, and the dead were shouting. 'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe!
The madness was on Sharpe, the glory of it, the song of battle shrieking in his ears, so he did not hear the gunfire, or feel the blast of the shot, or know that, behind him, crossing the diamond, the men were falling, and the guns were tangling the air with death. He jumped. He had crossed the ravelin, running, the heat of the fire close on his right side, and the drop was huge. The new ditch was strangely empty, and he jumped, seeing a stone leap from a musket strike. The jump winded him, pitched him forward, but he was up and running.
'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe!
I will die here, he thought, in this empty ditch with the strange white bundles that stirred in the small breeze. He remembered the wool-padding that had protected the two breaches and wondered at a mind that could notice such irrelevant things at the point of a death.
'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe!
I will die here, he thought, just at the foot of the slope, and then he hated the bastards who would kill him and the anger drove him up, slipping on the rubble, unable to fight, only to climb, to carry the sword to the French flesh. There were men around him, screaming unintelligibly, and the air was thick with smoke, grapeshot, and flame. Harper was passing him, the huge axe held easily, and Sharpe, refusing to be second, drove his legs towards the dark sky beyond the row of shining blades.
'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe!
Private Cresacre was dying, his guts strung blue on his lap, his tears for himself and for his wife, who he would suddenly miss though he had beat her cruelly. And Sergeant Read, the Methodist, the quiet man who never swore, or drank, was blind, and could not cry because the guns had taken his eyes. And past them, mad with lust, a battle madness, went the dark horde who followed Sharpe and tore their hands on the rough stone, going up the slope, up, where they had never dreamed to go, and some went back, torn by the guns, piling the new ditch as the other was piled, but the fine madness was on them.
'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe!
You save your breath for climbing, but shouting dulls the fear, and who needs breath when death waits at the summit? A bullet clanged on Sharpe's sword, jerking it in his hand, but it was whole, and the blades were near. He went to the right, his whole brain singing with the scream of death, and a stone moved beneath his left hand, throwing him, and a huge hand pushed at him, heaved him, and Sharpe grabbed at the thick chain that anchored the Chevatix de Frise. The top, death's peak.
'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe!
The French fired once more, the guns slamming backwards, and the new breach was'taken, two vast men standing at its crest, untouched by fire, and the French ran with nowhere to run, and Harper screamed at the sky because he had done a great thing.
Sharpe leaped, downhill, into the city, and the sword was a live thing in his hand. A breach was taken, death cheated, and death wanted a payment. The sword chopped down on the blue uniforms, and he did not see men, just enemy, and he ran, slipping, falling, down the breach until the ground was firm beneath him and he was inside. Inside! Badajoz. And he snarled at the bastards, killed them, found a gun crew cowering by a wall and remembered the song of death, the leaping flames. The sword hacked at them, cut them, chopped them, and an axe was whirled at them, and the French abandoned the new, low wall behind the breaches, because the night was lost.
A dark tide flowed over the breach, over the other breaches, a tide that made now no coherent sound. It was terrifying in its incoherence, the sound of the banshee, the keening of too much sorrow, too much death, and the madness turned to insensate rage, and they killed. They killed till their arms were tired, till they were soaked with blood, and there were not enough men to kill and they turned into the streets, a scrabbling, dark flood, up into Badajoz.
Harper leaped the wall built behind the breaches. A man cowered there, pleading, but the axe dropped and Harper's lips were drawn back around his teeth and he was sobbing an anger at the city. There were more men ahead, blue-uniformed, and he ran at them, the axe circling, and Sharpe was there, and they killed because so many were dead, so much blood, an army had nearly died, and these were the bastards who had jeered at it. Blood and more blood. An account to be balanced with a ditch full of blood. Badajoz.
Sharpe was crying. Venting an anger that had waited for this moment. He stood, the sword dark red, and he wanted more Frenchmen to come to his. sword, and he stalked them, teeth bared, screaming at the night, and a body moved, a blue arm lifted, and the blade whirled, bit, was lifted again, and bit down once more, clean to the pavement.
A Frenchman, a mathematician conscripted as an artillery officer, who had counted forty separate attacks on the Trinidad and had repulsed them all, stood quiet in the shadows. He was still, quite still, waiting for this madness to pass, this blood lust, and he thought of his fiancee, far away, and prayed she would never see anything as horrid. He watched the Rifle officer and prayed for himself that he would not be seen, but the face turned, the eyes hard-bright with tears, and the mathematician called out. 'No! Monsieur, no! The sword took him, disemboweled him as Cresacre had been disemboweled, and Sharpe sobbed in rage as he ripped again and again, thrusting down at the gunner, ripping him, mutilating the bastard, and then the giant hands gripped Mm. 'Sir! Harper shook him. 'Sir!
'Christ!
'Sir! The hands pulled on Sharpe's shoulders, turning him.
'Christ.
'Sir! Harper slapped him. 'Sir.
Sharpe leaned back against the wall, his head back, touching the stone. 'Oh Jesus. Oh God. He was panting, the sword arm limp, and the pavement ahead was shredded with blood. He looked down at the artillery officer, torn into a grotesque death. 'Oh God. He was surrendering.
'It doesn't matter. Harper had recovered first, the axe shattered in a killing strike, and he had watched in awe as Sharpe had killed. Now he quieted Sharpe, soothed him, and watched the sense come back even as the madness climbed up the city streets.
Sharpe looked up, calm now, his voice bereft of all feeling. 'We did it.
'Yes.
Sharpe leaned his head back again, on to the wall, and his eyes closed. It was done, the breach. And to do it he had discovered that a man must banish fear as never before, and with that fear must go all other emotion except rage and anger; humanity must go, feeling, all must go except rage. Only that would conquer the unconquerable.
'Sir? Harper plucked at Sharpe's elbow. No one else could have done this, Harper thought, no one but Sharpe could have led men past death's peak.
'Sir?
The eyes opened, the face came down, and Sharpe stared at the bodies. He had slaked his pride, carried it through a breach, and it was done. He looked at Patrick Harper. 'I wishI could play the flute.
