forward over Sharpe's body and used the massive gun as a club in the doorway of the small turret that carried the staircase onto the tower's top.
Sharpe followed, his head ringing with the explosion of the seven-barrelled gun, and on the confined roof space his sword was the better weapon. The fear would have its outlet now, like a clawed animal released from a stinking cage, and he killed with the blade. He could hear nothing, only see the enemy who went back before him and he knew these men had drawn his nerves steel tight, had forced fear on him in a small place, and he killed with the efficient skill of his sword arm.
Six men cowered in a corner of the turret, weapons discarded, hands held up in supplication. Those the Riflemen ignored. Three men still fought, and those three died. Two with the sword, the third Harper picked up bodily and heaved into the courtyard, his dying scream being the first sound that penetrated Sharpe's fuddled, deafened ears.
He lowered the sword, his eyes grim on the terrified men who pressed back against the castellations. He breathed deep, shook his head. 'Jesus.
Harper took the two bodies at the stairhead, one at a time, and hurled them after the other man. He looked at his officer. 'Stairways cleared and Castles taken. We should go into business, sir.’
’I didn't enjoy that.’
’Nor did they.
Sharpe laughed. They had done it, they had taken the turret's top and he wondered who had last climbed those stairs in a fight and how many years before. Had it been before gunpowder? Had the last man to come into the sunlight of this rampart been in uncomfortable armour, swinging a short mace that would crush in the confined deathtrap of the winding stair? He grinned at Harper, slapped his arm. 'Well done. Whoever had been last up these stairs, fighting up, had done exactly what Sharpe did now. He shouted down the stairway, shouted loud, and waited for the man to bring what he wanted. Bullets fluttered about their heads from the Castle's keep, but Sharpe ignored them. He shouted again, impatient, and here they were, staffs broken, but it did not matter.
On the old battlements, facing east, facing the Fusiliers and the Rifle Companies, Sharpe hung the Colours. They were discoloured by smoke, torn by explosion and bullet, but they were the Colours. Banners hanging from a Castle wall, the boast of a fighting man, banners hung by Sharpe and Harper. The gatehouse was taken.
CHAPTER 13
It had been a piece of pure bravado to hang the Colours on the gate-tower, each one fixed by driving an enemy bayonet through the flag and into the crumbling mortar of the battlements. It crossed Sharpe's mind that he and Harper had saved these Colours from Sir Augustus' impetuosity, from the man's stupidity, and Sharpe looked down at the place where Farthingdale had fallen. Smoke still drifted there, and then Sharpe swore and ducked as a bullet from the valley chipped at the stone by the flags. Someone down there thought the Colours had been captured, that the enemy was flaunting them.
'Sir? Harper pointed north towards the Convent.
The Rocket Troop had arrived. The fight at the eastern wall had meant their passage of the pass, close to the Castle's northern wall, had been undisturbed. Now the wagons were parked on the road leading to the Convent, the troopers watching curiously the confusion of the failed attack.
Who was in charge down there? Was Sir Augustus alive? Sharpe had assumed Kinney's death, certainly the Welshman was hard hit, so who was giving the orders to the Companies that had escaped the explosion? Bullets made the air above the gate-tower a deadly place, bullets fired from both sides, from keep and from valley. Sharpe sat down and watched Harper load the seven-barrelled gun. 'We wait. There was nothing Sharpe could do from the high turret. He had plucked some Fusiliers from the chaos, saved the Colours, and now they would have to sit it out until the Castle fell. He wished he had eaten some breakfast.
Sharpe had raised the Colours in bravado, but to the Fusiliers they were a taunt of failure. They did not see that it was Riflemen on the high battlement, they only saw their pride, their Colours, tacked to an enemy fortress. Men did not fight for King and Country so much as they fought for those squares of fringed silk, and the Fusiliers, recovering their order, saw the flags and no power on earth was going to stop them attempting to recover them. Six Companies had been untouched by the explosion, two others hardly affected, and now they turned, charged, and Frederickson launched his Riflemen ahead of them.
No one noticed that the guns in the watchtower had ceased firing. The battle was no longer being directed, it was now an expression of anger.
The bullets had stopped flickering about the gate-tower and Sharpe risked a look, saw the surge of men coming from the valley and turned back. 'Muskets! He pointed to the guns that had belonged to the half-dozen prisoners who still cowered against the stones.
Harper raked the muskets towards them, selected four that were still loaded, and raised his eyebrows towards Sharpe.
'The cannon.
The gun on the eastern wall, hard by the keep, was still the one weapon that could hurt the attack. It was a long shot for a musket, but the balls flying about the gunners' ears would at least discourage them. Sharpe levelled an unfamiliar French musket over the wall. It felt clumsy. He could see the gunners behind their embrasure, one holding the portfire which would spark the priming tube and slam the canister from the muzzle, and he aimed a little above the man's head and pulled the trigger. The gun hammered his shoulder, smoke blotted out his view, and then Harper's musket sounded in the next embrasure. Sharpe took the second musket, cocked it, and waited till the smoke of the first shot had thinned a little. Damn this still air!
The gunners had ducked, were looking wildly about for the source of the shots. Sharpe grinned, aimed lower, and once more a flint sparked on steel, priming exploded in his face, the burning powder stinging his cheek, and again the smoke obscured his view. Then there were cheers from the rubble, shouts of alarm from the courtyard, and Sharpe and Harper stood up and watched the scene from above.
Pot-au-Feu had no defence against this second attack. He had pinned all his hopes on the destructive power of the mine added to the desperation of his men, and now his defence collapsed. Sharpe saw, with satisfaction, the gunners leaving the cannon unfired, scrambling for the safety of the keep, and their example was being followed by the rabble in the courtyard. Red uniforms were flooding over the rubble, a line of green Riflemen ahead of them, and the Fusiliers were in no mood for mercy. They took the slim, seventeen-inch bayonets to the enemy, stabbed, and the blades came back reddened while Pot-au-Feu's men clamoured and fought to gain the safety of the single arched door that led into the keep.
A bugle was playing, a double note in the centre of each call that drove men to the charge, and Frederickson's Riflemen with their longer bayonets drove more fugitives towards the stable block beneath the western ramparts. They jumped the low wall, shouted their challenges, and the enemy ran.
Bayonets were not used often on the battlefield, at least not to kill. The force of the weapon was in the fear it provoked and Sharpe had witnessed dozens of bayonet charges when the blades never reached the enemy. Men would turn and run rather than face the edged steel. Yet here, in the confines of the courtyard, the Riflemen and Fusiliers had trapped an enemy with no space to run. They killed, as they had been trained to kill, and it took time before individual soldiers saw that some of the deserters were surrendering, and then the attackers began defending the unarmed prisoners against the fury of other men who still hunted with dripping blades.
Sharpe saw Frederickson, his patch and teeth removed, sending troops up the staircase which led, beside the stable block, to the western wall. The Castle was falling.
'Let's go down.
Two more Fusiliers had come to the turret's top and Sharpe left them guarding the prisoners. He and Harper clattered down the staircase, mundane now that it was not a place of stifling fear, and they came into the large room where the wounded moaned and the Fusilier Sergeant turned a worried face to Sharpe. 'Our lads, sir?
'Yes. Keep shouting down the stairs. They'll know your name, won't they?
'Yes, sir.
Sharpe opened the door that led to the northern wall. The rampart was empty. At its far end the firestep
