The French came at the back again, but this time they had assembled a large force of voltigeurs with orders to pour fire through the one window while a dozen men cleared the steps of bodies to make way for an assault party, who made the mistake of giving a huge cheer as they charged. Sharpe whipped open the door and Harper ordered the front rank to fire, then the second, then the third, and the bodies piled again at the foot of the steps, but the French kept coming, scrambling over the bodies, and a musket cracked just beside Sharpe's ear and he saw it was Sarah, firing into the persistent attack. And still more Frenchmen came up the steps and Harper had the reloaded first rank fire, but a blue-coated man survived the fusillade and burst through the door where Sharpe met him with the point of the sword. 'Second rank,' Harper shouted, 'fire!' and Sharpe twisted the blade out of the dying man's belly, pulled him into the house and slammed the door shut again. Sarah was watching the men reload and copying them. The door was shaking, dust flying from its bracing timbers with every bullet strike, but no one was trying to open it now, and the French musketry that had kept Sharpe's men away from the windows died down as the frustrated French retreated to the flanks of the house where they were safe from the fire. 'We're winning,' Sharpe said, and men grinned through the powder stains on their faces. And it was almost true.
Two of General Sarrut's aides completed the reconnaissance and, if sense had prevailed, their bravery would have finished the morning's excitement. The two men, both mounted on fit horses, had risked the cannon fire to gallop into the mouth of the valley that twisted behind the bastion the British called Work Number 119. Shells, rifle fire and even a few musket balls struck all around the two horses as they raced into the shadow of the eastern hill, then both riders slewed their beasts around in a flurry of turf and spurred back the way they had come. A shell banged close behind, spurting blood from the haunch of one horse, but the two exhilarated officers made their escape safely, galloped through the foremost skirmishers, jumped the small stream and reined in beside the General. 'The valley's blocked, sir,' one of them reported. 'There are trees, bushes and palisades blocking the valley. No way through.'
'And there's a bastion with cannon above the blockage,' the second aide reported, 'just waiting for an attempt on the valley.'
Sarrut swore. His job was done now. He could report to General Reynier, who in turn would report to Marshal Massena, that none of the guns was a fake and that the small valley, far from offering a passage through the enemy's line, was an integral part of the defenses. All he needed to do now was sound the recall and the skirmishers would retreat, the gun smoke dissipate and the morning would revert to silence, but as the two horsemen had returned from their excursion, Sarrut had seen brown-uniformed Portuguese cazadores coming from the blocked valley. The enemy, it seemed, wanted a fight, and no French general became a marshal by refusing such an invitation. 'How do they get out of their lines?' he wanted to know, pointing at the Portuguese skirmishers.
'Narrow path down the backside of the hill, sir,' the more observant of the aides answered, 'protected by gates and the forts.'
Sarrut grunted. That answer suggested he could not hope to assail the forts by the path used by the Portuguese, but he would be damned before he just retreated when the enemy was offering a fight. The least he could do was bloody their noses. 'Push hard into them,' he ordered. 'And what the devil happened to that picquet?'
'Gone to ground,' another aide answered.
'Where?'
The aide pointed to the farm that was ringed with smoke. The mist had just about gone, but there was so much smoke around the farm it looked like fog.
'Then dig them out!' Sarrut ordered. He had originally scoffed at the idea of capturing a mere picquet, but frustration had changed his mind. He had brought four prime battalions into the valley and he could not just march them back with nothing to show for it. Even a handful of prisoners would be some sort of victory. 'Was there any damn food in that barn?' he asked.
An aide held out a lump of British army biscuit, twice baked, as hard as a round shot and about as palatable. Sarrut scorned it, then kicked his horse through the stream, past the barn and out into the pastureland where there was more bad news. The Portuguese, far from being hit hard, were driving his chasseurs and voltigeurs back. Two battalions against four and the two were winning, and Sarrut heard the distinctive crack of rifles and knew those weapons were swinging the confrontation in the Portuguese favor. Why the hell did the Emperor insist that rifles were useless? What was useless, Sarrut thought, was pitting muskets against skirmishers. Muskets were for use against enemy formations, not against individuals, but a rifle could pick the flea off a whore's back at a hundred paces. 'Ask General Reynier to loose the cavalry,' he said to an aide. 'That'll sweep those bastards away.'
It had started as a reconnaissance and was turning into a battle.
The South Essex came from the eastern side of the hill on which Work Number 119 stood, while the Portuguese had come from its western side and those two battalions now blocked the entrance to the small valley. The South Essex was thus on the Portuguese right, a half-mile away, and in front of them was a stretch of pastureland edged by the flooded stream and the swamps which ringed the beleaguered farmstead. To Lawford's left was the shoulder of the hill, the flank of the Portuguese and, out in the valley in front of him, the swarm of voltigeurs and chasseurs whose scattered formations were punctuated by the exploding bursts of smoke from the British and Portuguese cannon. 'It's a bloody mess!' Lawford protested. Most of the South Essex's officers had not had time to fetch their horses, but Lawford was up on Lightning and from the saddle's height he could see the track that crossed the bridge and led to the farmstead. That, he decided, was where he would go. 'Double column of companies,' he ordered, 'quarter distance,' and he glanced across at the farmhouse and realized, from the volume of fire and the thickness of the smoke, that the light company was putting up a stout resistance. 'Well done, Cornelius,' he said aloud. It might have been imprudent for Slingsby to have retreated to the farmhouse rather than to the hills, but at least he was fighting hard. 'Advance, Major!' he told Forrest. Each company of the South Essex was now in four ranks. Two companies were abreast, so that the battalion was arranged in two companies wide and four deep, with number nine company on its own at the rear. To General Picton, watching from the heights, it looked more like a French column than a British unit, but it allowed the battalion to keep itself in good close order as it advanced obliquely, the marshland to its right and the open land and the hills to its left. 'We'll deploy into line as necessary,' Lawford explained to Forrest, 'sweep those men away from the farm track, capture the bridge, then send three companies up to the buildings. You can take them. Brush those damned Frogs away, bring Cornelius's fellows out, rejoin, and we'll go back for dinner. I thought we might finish that peppered ham. It's rather good, isn't it? '
'Very good.'
'And some boiled eggs,' Lawford said.
'Don't you find they make you costive?' Forrest asked.
'Eggs? Make you costive? Never! I try to eat them every day and my father always swore by boiled eggs. He reckoned they keep you regular. Ah, I see the wretches have noticed us.' Lawford spurred Lightning up the narrow space between the companies. The wretches he had seen were chasseurs and voltigeurs who were gathering ahead of his battalion. The French had been attacking the right flank of the Portuguese, but now saw the redcoats approaching and turned to face the new threat. There were not enough of them to stem the battalion's advance, but Lawford still wished he had his light company to go out ahead and drive the skirmishers back. He knew he would have to take some casualties before he was in range to offer a volley that would finish the French nonsense and so he rode to the front so that the men saw him share their danger. He glanced over at the farm and saw the fighting was still fierce there. A shell cracked into flame and smoke a hundred yards ahead. A musket ball, fired at far too long a range, fluttered close above Lawford's head to strike the yellow regimental color, and then he heard the bugles and he stood in the stirrups and saw, way across the far side of the valley, columns of horsemen cascading out of the hills. He noted them, but did nothing yet, for they were too far away to pose any danger. 'Go right!' Lawford shouted at Forrest who was by the grenadier company that was on the right flank at the front. 'Head up! Head up!' He pointed, meaning that the battalion should march for the bridge. A man stumbled in the front rank, then stayed on the ground, holding his thigh. The files behind opened to march past him, then closed again. 'Two men to help him, Mister Collins,' Lawford called to the nearest Captain. He dared not leave an injured man behind, not with cavalry loose in the valley. Thank God, he thought, that there was no French artillery.
