punctured bag. They would stand back, cover their ears and the gunner would touch the linstock to the reed and just then Sharpe heard the boom and almost instantly there was an almighty crash inside the tower itself and he realized the shell had come right through the hole at the top of the truncated staircase and now it fell down, fuse smoking in a wild spiral, to lodge between two of the packs that held their food and Sharpe stared at it, saw the wisp of smoke shivering upward, knew they must all die or be terribly maimed when it exploded and he did not think, just dived. He scrabbled at the fuse, knew he was too late to extract it and so he dropped onto the shell, his belly smothering it, and his mind was screaming because he did not want to die. It will be quick, he thought, it will be quick, and at least he would not have to make decisions any more and no one else would be hurt and he cursed the shell because it was taking so long to explode and he was staring at Daniel Hagman who was staring back at him, eyes wide and the forgotten flute held just an inch from his mouth.
„Stay there much longer,” Harper said in a voice that could not quite hide the strain he was feeling, „and you’ll hatch the bloody thing.”
Hagman started to laugh, then Harris and Cooper and Harper joined in, and Sharpe climbed off the shell and saw that the wooden plug that held the fuse was blackened by fire, but somehow the fuse had gone out and he picked up the damned missile and hurled it out of the hole and listened to it clatter down the hill.
„Sweet Jesus,” Sharpe said. He was sweating, shaking. He collapsed back against the wall and looked at his men who were weak with laughter. „Oh, God,” he said.
„You’d have had a bellyache if that had popped, sir,” Hagman said and that started them all laughing again.
Sharpe felt drained. „If you bastards have nothing better to do,” he said, „then take out the canteens. Give everyone a drink.” He was rationing the water like the food, but the day was hot and he knew everyone would be dry. He followed the riflemen outside. Vicente, who had no idea what had just happened, but only knew that a second shell had failed to explode, looked anxious. „What happened?”
„Fuse went out,” Sharpe said, „just went out.”
He went down to the northernmost redoubts and stared at the gun. How much bloody ammunition did the bastards have? The rate of fire had slowed a little, but that seemed more to do with the gunners’ weariness than a shortage of shells. He watched them load another round, did not bother to take cover and the shell exploded up behind the watch-tower. The howitzer had recoiled eight or nine feet, much less than a field gun, and he watched as the gunners put their shoulders to the wheel and shoved it back into place. The air between Sharpe and the gun wavered because of the day’s heat, which was made more intense by a small grass fire ignited by the cannon’s blast. That had been happening all day and the howitzer’s muzzle flame had left a fan-shaped patch of scorched grass and ferns in front of the barrel. And then Sharpe saw something else, something that puzzled him, and he opened Christopher’s small telescope, cursing the loss of his own, and he steadied the barrel on a rock and stared intently and saw that an officer was crouching beside the gun wheel with an upraised hand. That odd pose had been what puzzled him. Why would a man crouch by the front of a gun’s wheels? And Sharpe could just see something else. Shadows. The ground there had been cleared, but the sun was now low in the sky and it was throwing long shadows and Sharpe could see that the cleared ground had been marked with two half-buried stones, each maybe the size of a twelve-pounder’s round shot, and that the officer was bringing the wheels right up to the two stones. When the wheels touched the stones he dropped his hand and the men went about the business of reloading.
Sharpe frowned, thinking. Now why, on a fine sunny day, would the French artillery officer need to mark a place for his gun’s wheels? The wheels themselves, iron-rimmed, would leave gouges in the soil that would serve as markers for when the gun was repositioned after each shot, yet they had taken the trouble to put the stones there as well. He ducked down behind the wall as another blossom of smoke heralded a shell. This one fell fractionally short and the jagged-edged iron scraps rattled against the low stone walls that Sharpe’s men had built. Pendleton poked his head above the redoubt. „Why don’t they use round shot, sir?” he asked.
„Howitzers don’t have round shot,” Sharpe said, „and it’s hard to fire a proper gun uphill.” He was brusque for he was wondering about those stones. Why put them there? Had he imagined them? But when he looked through the glass he could still see them.
Then he saw the gunners walk away from the howitzer. A score of infantrymen had appeared, but they were merely a guard for the gun which was otherwise abandoned. „They’re having their supper,” Harper suggested. He had brought water for the men in the forward positions and now sat beside Sharpe. For a moment he looked embarrassed, then grinned. „That was a brave thing you did, sir.”
„You’d have done the bloody same.”
„I bloody wouldn’t,” Harper said vehemently. „I’d have been out of that bloody door like a scalded cat if my legs had bloody worked.” He saw the deserted gun. „So it’s over for the day?” he asked.
„No,” Sharpe said, because he suddenly understood why the stones were there.
And knew what he could do about it.
Brigadier Vuillard, ensconced in the Quinta, poured himself a glass of Savages’ finest white port. His blue uniform jacket was unhooked and he had eased a button of his breeches to make space for the fine shoulder of mutton that he had shared with Christopher, a dozen officers and three women. The women were French, though certainly not wives, and one of them, whose golden hair glinted in the candlelight, had been seated next to Lieutenant Pelletieu who seemed unable to take his bespectacled eyes from a cleavage that was deep, soft, shadowed and streaked where sweat had made rivulets through the white powder on her skin. Her very presence had struck Pelletieu almost dumb, so that all the confidence he had shown on first meeting Vuillard had fled.
The Brigadier, amused by the woman’s effect on the artillery officer, leaned forward to accept a candle from Major Dulong that he used to light a cigar. It was a warm night, the windows were open and a big pale moth fluttered about the candelabra at the table’s center. „Is it true,” Vuillard asked Christopher between the puffs that were needed to get the cigar properly alight, „that in England the women are expected to leave the supper table before the cigars are lit?”
„Respectable women, yes.” Christopher took the toothpick from his mouth to answer.
„Even respectable women, I would have thought, make attractive companions to a good smoke and a glass of port.” Vuillard, content that the cigar was drawing properly, leaned back and glanced down the table. „I have an idea,” he said genially, „that I know precisely who is going to answer the next question. What time is first light tomorrow?”
There was a pause as the officers glanced at each other, then Pelletieu blushed. „Sunrise, sir,” he said, „will be at twenty minutes past four, but it will be light enough to see at ten minutes to four.”
„So clever,” the blond, who was called Annette, whispered to him.
„And the moon state?” Vuillard asked.
Pelletieu blushed an even deeper red. „No moon to speak of, sir. The last full moon was on the thirtieth of April and the next will be… „His voice faded away as he became aware that the others about the table were amused by his erudition.
„Do go on, Lieutenant,” Vuillard said.
„On the twenty-ninth of this month, sir, so it’s a waxing moon in its first quarter, sir, and very slight. No illumination in it. Not now.”
„I like a dark night,” Annette whispered to him.
„You’re a veritable walking encyclopaedist, Lieutenant,” Vuillard said, „so tell me what damage your shells did today?”
„Very little, sir, I’m afraid.” Pelletieu, almost overwhelmed by Annette’s perfume, looked as though he was about to faint. „That summit is prodigiously protected by boulders, sir. If they kept their heads down, sir, then they should have survived mostly intact, though I’m sure we killed one or two.”
„Only one or two?”
Pelletieu looked abashed. „We needed a mortar, sir.”
Vuillard smiled. „When a man lacks instruments, Lieutenant, he uses what he has to hand. Isn’t that right, Annette?” He smiled, then took a fat watch from his waistcoat pocket and snapped open the lid. „How many rounds of shell do you have left?”
„Thirty-eight, sir.”
„Don’t use them all at once,” Vuillard said, then raised an eyebrow in mock surprise. „Don’t you have work to do, Lieutenant?” he asked. The work was to fire the howitzer through the night so that the ragged forces on the
