'Do? We fight. Sharpe gripped the hilt of the sword. 'We've been spectators long enough. We get the Major out, tonight.
Knowles heard him, turned an astonished face on them. 'Get him out, sir? There's two regiments there!
'So? That's only eight hundred men. There are fifty-three of us.
'And a dozen Irish. Harper grinned at the Lieutenant.
Knowles scrambled down the slope, looking at them with a disbelieving stare. 'With respect, sir. You're mad. He began to laugh. 'Are you serious?
Sharpe nodded. There was no other choice. Fifty-three men must take on eight hundred, or else the war was lost. He grinned at Knowles. 'Stop worrying! It'll be simple!
And how the hell, he thought, do we do it?
CHAPTER 6
Sharpe mocked himself. So simple. Just release the Major when two of the finest regiments in the French army were expecting a night attack. The wise course, he thought, was to go home. The French probably had the gold by now, the war was lost, and a sensible man would shoulder his rifle and think about making a living at home. Instead, like a gambler who had lost all but a handful of coins, he was staking everything on one last throw, a throw against odds of sixteen to one.
Which was not, he told himself as the Company filed down a goat track in the darkness, quite true. He had lain on the gully's rim as the sun westered and watched the French preparations. They were thorough, but in their defence was their weakness, and Sharpe had felt the excitement well up inside, the incipient knowledge of success. The French expected an attack by Partisans, by small groups of silent men who would carry knives, or else who would fire muskets from the darkness, and they had prepared themselves for that ordeal. The village did not help them. The houses either side of the narrow street were jostled by low, ragged outbuildings; the whole making a maze of alleyways and dark corners where a silent assassin held the advantage. The French had no outlying sentries. To put a small group of men out in the fields was to write their death sentence, and the French, accustomed to this kind of fighting, had drawn themselves into makeshift fortresses. Most of the cavalry were in Cesar Moreno's house with its ample stabling and high, encircling wall. The other fortress, the only other building with a wall high and strong enough, was the hermitage with its cemetery. Both buildings would be crowded, but both safe from the silent knives, and to make them safer the French had embarked on a crusade of systematic destruction. The cottages nearest the Moreno house had been flattened, the ringing of the big hammers on their stone walls carrying up into the gully, and every tree, every door, every stick of furniture, had been cut and splintered and piled into heaps that could be lit so an attacking Partisan would be denied the gift of darkness. The French held the advantage, but only against Partisans. In their wildest dreams they would not imagine the sudden appearance of British infantry, crossbelts vivid in the defensive firelight, muskets flaming disciplined death. Or so Sharpe hoped.
He had one other advantage, slight but important. Kearsey had obviously given his parole, his gentleman's promise, to his captors that he would not attempt to escape, and Sharpe had seen the small. Major limping round the village. Each time, Kearsey had gone back to Moreno's house, and finally, as the light faded, Sharpe had seen the Major sitting on a balcony, on one of the few pieces of furniture left, so at least the rescuers knew where their goal lay. All that remained was to break into the house and for that speed was vital.
The march in the darkness seemed to take forever, but Sharpe dared not hurry the men, for fear of getting lost. They slipped and cursed on the stones; their musket stocks banged hollowly on rock; they squinted in the tiny light that came from the sickle moon hazed by the northern clouds. To the east the stars pricked at the outline of the hills, and as they neared the valley floor and midnight approached, the French lit fires that beckoned the Company like a beacon in the dark night.
Harper was beside Sharpe. 'They'll blind themselves, sir.
The French, in the security of their firelight, would see nothing beyond a musket shot from their walls. The circling night would be a place of fantasy and strange shapes. Even for Sharpe the landmarks, that had seemed so clear by day, now took on monstrous shapes, even disappeared, and he stopped often, crouched, and tried to filter the real from the imaginary. The men's guns were loaded, but not cocked, their white belts hidden beneath greatcoats; their breathing loud in the darkness. They neared the village, angling north away from the house, going past the heavy barley and feeling naked and obvious in the wide valley. Sharpe strained his senses for a telltale sign that a sentry, high on Moreno's house, had been alerted: the click of a carbine-lock, the scrape of an officer's sword, or worst of all the sudden stab of flame as a picquet saw the dark shapes in the field. The crunching of the dry soil beneath his feet seemed to be magnified into a terrible loudness, but he knew it was the same for the enemy guards. This was the worst time of night, when fears took over, and the Hussars and lancers inside their walls would hear the wolves in the hills, the nightjars, and each sound would be a knelling for their death until the senses were blunted, distrusted, and the night merely became a horror to survive.
A flash of light. 'Down! Sharpe hissed. Christ! Flames whipped crazily into the night, spewed sparks that spiralled away in the breeze, and then he realized that the cavalrymen had lit another fire, one of the timber piles out in the cleared space, and Sharpe stayed on the ground, listening to the pounding of his heart, and searched the dark shapes of the deserted cottages to his front. Or were they deserted? Had the French been clever and let any watcher in the hills think that they were all inside the protective, well-lit walls? Had the small cottages, the dark alleyways, been salted with men, waiting with sabres? He took a breath. 'Sergeant?
'Sir?
'You and me. Lieutenant?
'Sir?
'Wait here.
Sharpe and Harper went forward, dark uniforms blending with the night, and Sharpe could hear every rustle of his jacket, creak of his belt, and the looming walls seemed to hold danger in every shadow. He felt himself tense with anticipation, his teeth gritted, waiting for the mocking shot, but instead his hand reached out and touched a dry-stone wall, and Harper was beside him, and Sharpe went on, into an alleyway that stank of manure, and his instinct began to come back.
There was no one in the village. Harper, a vast shadow, crossed the alley and crouched by the main street. A fire flickered at its end, sending crazy shadows, but the cottages were deserted and Sharpe felt the relaxation of relief. They went back to the outer wall and Harper whistled softly, three small sounds, and the shadows in the barley humped and moved, the Company coming forward to the shelter of the wall.
Sharpe found Knowles. 'We stay on this side of the house. Rifles first. Wait for the signals.
Knowles nodded and his teeth flashed white as he grinned. Sharpe could feel the excitement of the Company, their confidence, and he marvelled at it. They were enjoying it, taking on sixteen times their number, and he did not understand that it was because of him. Harper knew, Knowles knew, that the tall Rifle Captain who was not given to rousing speeches could nevertheless make men feel that the impossible was just a little troublesome and that victory was a commonplace where he led.
They went in fits and starts beside the outer walls, the Riflemen scouting the dark shadows, the Company catching up, and the only breath-stopping moment was as they passed beneath the tall, dark tower of the church. A sound came from the belfry, a musical whisper, and the men froze, their eyes suddenly scared, and then came the sound of beating wings, receding in the blackness, and the Company sighed together as the owl, which had brushed a wing against the hanging bell, disappeared on its own hunt. Harper glanced up, saw the white flash, and thought of the barn owls that ghosted down the valley at Tangaveane, of the stream that leaked from the peat beds, of Ireland.
'Halt! Sharpe's voice was scarcely above a whisper. He pointed. 'In there.
The Company crowded into an alley, the firelight uncomfortably close, and Sharpe peered cautiously into the street, at the pile of new rubble, and for the first time he could properly see the front of Moreno's house. The wall was high, eight or nine feet, but the great double gate through which the farm animals could be driven was wide open. Inside he could see white faces staring at the fires that were the main defence and behind those faces the
