The Captain whose horse was nervous had ridden to the great gate into the keep. The archway was blocked with stones, waist high, and he could see the empty inner courtyard beyond. His horse was still frightened by something, and that was strange, but he rubbed the neck, spoke fondly to it, and turned towards the stable-block. He could hear the boots of the leading Companies coming towards the Castle.
The Colonel of the Battalion waved grumpily to another Captain who wheeled his troops right, onto the Convent road, and then the Colonel looked back to the gatehouse. A fine building once, he thought.
The Captain put spurs to his horse and trotted back towards the Castle gate. He could at least confirm the abandonment of the Castle, and he grinned as he stroked his horse's neck, and then the horse shied again for the gatehouse was suddenly swarming with men. An officer, a Riflernan, had appeared from the gate leading to the northern ramparts, and a lad was beside him, bugle to his mouth, and the notes jerked into the valley. More men poured from a small door in the gatehouse, Riflemen, who ran into the tunnel and knelt with their weapons aimed. They seemed to ignore him, as did the other green-jacketed men who ran past the officer to the northern wall, and then there was a shout, a cheer, and a rush of feet behind him.
Redcoats were climbing from the keep, sprinting for the fallen eastern wall of the Castle, Sergeants bellowing at them, officers shouting, and the French Captain was alone' in a courtyard of the enemy and he put hand to his sword and then saw the Rifle officer on the northern rampart waving to him. The wave was obvious. Dismount. Surrender. Next to the officer a Greenjacket knelt with levelled gun.
The Captain swore bitterly, dismounted, and the first guns split the morning.
Sharpe turned back. The leading French Company was thirty yards from the Castle as the rifle bullets dropped the front rank, then the second, and he glanced to his left to watch other Riflemen aiming for the officers. Rifles snapped from the turret at the gatehouse top and Sharpe saw the French Colonel thrown backwards from his horse, blood spattering his uniform, and then another volley of rifle bullets drove into the leading Company and the French officers were shouting at their men, forming them into line, and the deadly rifles on the ramparts picked the officers off and then went for the men in the single gold Sergeants' stripes.
'Keep playing, lad. The bugler had stopped for breath.
A half-company of redcoats thundered into the gateway, lined in front of the arch, and the muskets flamed, the smoke thick in their front, and Sharpe knew that the French could not succeed in a desperate frontal charge. That had been their one hope, if their officers had lived to realize it, and now Sharpe ran back into the gatehouse, down the stairs, and out into the courtyard towards the eastern wall.
Stop them at the gate, then take them in the flank. He could hear the French shouting, hear the rattle of ramrods desperate in muskets, and then he was across the wall and the officers were shouting behind him, forming the half Battalion of Fusiliers into two ranks, a line to sweep north across the valley, and he turned to face them.
He waited as redcoats stumbled into place, checked their dressing, and Sharpe did not hurry them. This had to be perfect, for this was the one chance they would have to fight in the open valley and he did not want the Fusiliers to go forward in a hurry, their concentration broken by excitement and fear, and he waved at one gap between Companies. 'Close them up, Sergeant!
'Sir!
'Fix Bayonets!
The rattle and scrape along the line. Rifles sounded by the gatehouse, the crash of muskets, then, at last, the first French replies as the dazed Battalion formed a ragged line at the crossroads.
Sharpe turned, drew the great sword. 'Forward!
He would have liked a band at this moment, he wanted to hear the music in his ears as he went forward, the crash of a good tune such as 'The Downfall of Paris' or, better still, the Rifle's song 'Over the Hills and Far Away', but there was only the bugle still sounding. He looked left and still no more French troops were visible. He feared the cavalry and had an officer with Cross's second bugler on the keep to sound a warning if it appeared.
He looked to his front again. The Riflemen on the Convent roof were biting into the back of the French. They were panicking now, the enemy, crowding eastwards towards the village and Sharpe wanted that. He inclined the line to the left, forcing the French east, and the Riflemen from the gateway sprinted further left as the Fusiliers blocked the line of fire from the gate.
The nervousness was gone now, the hours of doubt as the night crawled by, the moments of waiting to unleash this small force against the enemy, and Sharpe felt the roadway beneath his boots and saw the French fifty yards ahead, and already he was picking his way through their dead. A musket ball went close to his head, a fluttering noise that left a tiny slap of wind, and he saw a Frenchman who had died with a look of utter astonishment on his young face. Behind Sharpe the Sergeants called. 'Close up! Close up! They were taking casualties.
Sharpe stopped, listened to the boots behind him, heard the Rifles from the gatehouse, and the two rank line came up to him. 'Fusiliers! Present!
The twin line of muskets, steel tipped, went to the shoulders. To the French it seemed as if the red line had made a quarter turn to the right.
'Fire!
Flames gouted into smoke, a killing volley at short range, and the cloud spread in front of the Fusiliers obscuring their view.
'Left wheel! This would be ragged, but this did not matter. His ears rang with the bellow of the muskets.
'Charge!
Bayonets from the smoke, swords in the hands of officers, and Sharpe bellowed with them as he ran out of the smoke cloud and saw the French running as he had known they would run. Timing was all. This had been rehearsed in his head again and again, thought through in the lonely hours, dreamed of as the rain fell on the weed strewn cobbles of the yard. 'Halt! Dress!
A wounded Frenchman cried and crawled towards the Fusiliers. Their dead were thick at the crossroads where they had taken the single volley of musket fire at a range so close that hardly a weapon could miss. The Battalion was going back towards the village, leaderless and frightened, and Sharpe was standing close to the fallen Colonel. The man's horse was running free in the valley.
Sharpe re-lined the Fusiliers, still listening for the bugle call that would warn of the French cavalry, and he bellowed at the men to load. This was clumsy because the long bayonets skinned their cold knuckles as they rammed the shots home, but he needed one more volley from them. Gilliland! Where the hell was Gilliland?
The French officer at the watchtower saw them first, Lancers! The English had no Lancers! Yet there they were, coming across the skyline to the south, riding like the very devil down the small valley that split Castle and watchtower. They looked ragged and unprofessional, but that might have been because the horses had to negotiate the thorns, and then the French Battalion saw them and the officers and the Sergeants who still lived screamed at their men. 'Form square! They knew what the Lancers would do to scattered infantry, knew how the long blades would tear into them and slaughter them, and the French leaders pulled at men, struck them, and formed the rallying square as the greatcoated horsemen burst out into the valley's pasture.
'Forward! Sharpe shouted again, his sword unblooded, and the two ranks stepped and stumbled over the dead bodies of the French, past the wounded who cried for help, and the joy was on Sharpe for now he was within a few seconds of this first success.
'Left! Left! Left! The Fusilier Captain who led the Lancers shouted at them, circled towards the Castle, waved with his sword at the place of safety. Never in any of his wildest hopes had Sharpe wanted the untrained Rocket Troop to drive the charge home. They would have died like cattle in a slaughter-house, but they had done their job. They had forced the Battalion into square, into a solid target for another volley from the muskets, and as the horsemen swerved fast, water spraying from their horses' hooves, and rode for the courtyard, Sharpe halted the line again. 'Present!
The French knew what was coming. Some called out, pleading for quarter, and some hunched down like men anticipating a storm of wind and rain, and then the great sword fell. 'Fire!
The splitting crash and hammer of the volley, the dirty-throated cough of the half-Battalion's muskets, and the balls converged and struck home into the huddled mass and again, 'Charge!
The bugle sounded from the keep. 'The enemy is cavalry'.
