Sharpe’s company, oblivious of their danger, confident in their ecstasy that these British would collapse as easily as the two squares. Sharpe watched them come at a reckless gallop, saw the clods of turf thrown up by the hooves, the bared teeth and flying manes of the horses. He waited, kept talking in a measured, loud voice.
“Wait for them! Wait! Wait!” Forty yards, thirty. At the last moment the French officer realised what he had done. Sharpe watched him saw at his horse’s bit, but it was too late.
“Fire!”
The Chasseurs disintegrated. It was a small volley, only a couple of dozen muskets, but he fired it murderously close. The horses fell; a couple skidded almost to the front rank; riders were hurled onto the ground in a maelstrom of hooves, sabres and arms. Not one Chasseur was left.
“On your feet! Forward!”
He stepped in front again and led them past the bloody remains of their attackers. One Frenchman was alive, his leg broken by his falling horse, and he slashed upwards at Sharpe with his sabre. Sharpe did not bother to cut back. He kicked the wounded man’s wrist so that the blade fell from his hand. The company stepped round the dead men and horses; they began to hurry; the fight round the colours was being lost, the British being forced back, the French inching forward behind the searing blades. Sharpe saw the long pikes of the Sergeants who guarded the colours being used; one of them swung over the chaos; it crashed on to a horse’s head so that it reared up, throwing its rider, blood streaming from its forelock. The discipline of the square had vanished with the French carbine fire. Sharpe could see no officers; they had to be there, but now the French were close to the colours and men from the shattered square were running towards Sharpe and the safety of his levelled bayonets. He beat them aside with his sword, screamed at them to go to the side. He had to halt, unable to make headway against the fugitives, and he swung the flat of his blade at them. Harper joined him and beat at the fugitives with his rifle butt; the Irishman’s huge bulk forced the running men to the flanks, where they could safely join Sharpe’s company. Then it was clear and he went on, the blade still swinging, his blood seething with the joy of it. He had not intended a bayonet charge but there was so little time. The colours were swaying, a Frenchman’s hand on a staff was cut down by an officer’s sword, and then the colours collapsed.
Sharpe screamed unintelligible words; he was running, the men behind him stumbling on bodies and slipping on the smears of new blood. A dismounted Chasseur came for him, the sabre cutting at him in a great sweep. He put up his blade, the Frenchman’s sword shattered, he cut at his neck, felt the man fall and stumbled on. Horses blocked his sight of the colours; there were the cracks of the rifles; a man fell. He caught a glimpse of Harper bodily pulling a Chasseur off his horse; the Sergeant’s face was a terrible mask of rage and strength. Another horseman came, heaving on his rein to clear his swing at Sharpe, and disappeared backwards as Sharpe cracked his great sword into the horse’s jaw. He saw the horse rear up, screaming, the Chasseur let go of his sabre and Sharpe caught a glimpse of the shining blade hanging from its wrist strap as man and horse fell backwards. There was still a group of redcoats by the fallen colours, surrounded by horsemen, and Sharpe saw two Frenchmen dismount to pull at the last defenders with their bare hands.
Then the red jackets seemed to disappear; there were only Chasseurs and French shouts of triumph as the dead were heaved from the staffs and the colours snatched up. Sharpe turned and held the blood-covered blade high over his head.
“Halt! Present!” He was directly in their line of fire and he threw himself flat, pulling Harper down, as he screamed the order to fire. The volley smashed overhead, and then they were up and running. The musket balls had plucked the Frenchmen from the colours, the flags had fallen again, but this time surrounded by enemy as well as British dead.
There were only a few yards to go but there were more horsemen spurring in towards the place where so many had died for the possession of the colours. Sharpe threw himself over the bodies, scrambled on blood and limbs, reached for a staff and pulled it towards him. It was the Regimental Colour, its bright yellow field torn with fresh holes, and he jammed his sword point downwards into a corpse and swung the staff like a primitive club at the horsemen. The King’s Colour was too far away. Harper was going for it, but a horse cannoned into the Sergeant and threw him back. Another horse reared and swerved from the great billow of yellow silk in Sharpe’s hand, a sword struck the staff and Sharpe saw splinters fly from the new wood; then he was hit by the net of forage strapped to the saddle and thrown over. He could smell the horses, see the hooves in the air over him, the face of the Frenchman framed by his silver shako chain bending towards him to pluck the colour from his hands. He held on. A hoof came down by his face, the horse twisted away from the corpses it had stepped on, the rider tugged and suddenly let go. Sharpe saw Harper swinging a great sergeant’s pike. He had hit the rider in the spine with its blade and the man slid gently on top of Sharpe, his last breath sighing softly in the Rifleman’s ear.
Sharpe pulled himself from beneath the body. He left the colour there; it was as safe as in his hands. Harper was swinging the pike, keeping the horsemen at bay. Where was the company? Sharpe looked round and saw them running towards the fight. They were so slow! He looked for his sword, found it, and plucked it from the body where he had thrust it. The horsemen still came, trying desperately to force their unwilling horses onto the mounds of dead. Sharpe screamed again; Harper was bellowing, but there was no enemy within sword’s length. He went forward towards the King’s Colour. He could see it lying beneath two bodies some five yards away. He slipped on blood, stood again, but there were three dismounted Frenchmen coming for him with drawn sabres. Harper was beside him; one Chasseur went down with the pike blade in his stomach, the other sank beneath Sharpe’s blade which had cut through the sabre parry as though the Frenchman’s sword was made of fragile ivory. But the third had got the Union Jack, had tugged it from the bodies and was holding it out to the mounted men behind. Sharpe and Harper lunged forward; the pike thunked into the Chasseur’s back but he had done his job. A horseman had snatched the fringe of the flag and was spurring away. There were more Frenchmen coming, clawing at the two Riflemen for the second colour, too many!
“Hold them, Patrick! Hold them!”
Harper whirled the pike, screamed at them, was Cuchulain of the Red Hand, the inviolable. He stood with his legs apart, his huge height dominating the fight, begging the green-uniformed Frenchmen to come and be killed. Sharpe scrambled back to the Regimental Colour, pulled it from the body, and threw it like a javelin at the advancing company. He watched it fall into their ranks. It was safe. Harper was still there, growling at the enemy, defying them, but there was no more fight. Sharpe stood beside him, sword in hand, and the Frenchmen turned, found horses, and mounted to ride away. One of them turned and faced the two Riflemen, lifted a bloodied sabre in grave salute, and Sharpe raised his own red sword in reply.
Someone slapped his back; men shouted as though he had won a victory when all he had done was halve the victory of the French. The company was with them, standing with the dead, watching the Chasseurs trot away with their trophy. There was no hope of retrieving the King’s Colour; it was already three hundred yards away, surrounded by triumphant horsemen at the beginning of its long journey which would take it over the Pyrenees to be mocked by the Parisian mob before it joined the other colours, Italian, Prussian, Austrian, Russian and Spanish, that marked French victories round Europe. Sharpe watched it go and felt sickened and ashamed. The Spanish colours were there too, both of them, but they were not his concern. His own honour was tied up with the captured flag, his reputation as a soldier; it was a question of pride.
He touched Harper on the elbow. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, sir.” The Sergeant was panting, still holding the pike, which was bloodied for half its length. “Yourself?”
“I’m fine. Well done. And thank you.”
Harper shook the compliment off but grinned at his Lieutenant. “It was a rare one, sir. At least we got one back.”
Sharpe turned to look at the colour. It hung above the company, tattered and blood-stained, lost and regained.
An officer was below it and Sharpe recognised Leroy, morose, solitary Captain Leroy, whom Lennox had described as the only other decent soldier in the Battalion. His face was masked in blood, and Sharpe pushed through the ranks towards him.
“Sir?”
“Well done, Sharpe. This is a miserable shambles.” The Captain’s voice was strange, the accent unusual, and Sharpe remembered he came from America; one of the small band of loyalists who still fought for the Mother country. Sharpe indicated Leroy’s head.
“Are you hurt badly?”
