Sharpe smiled. In the morning, he thought, they would give this General Calvet a fight to remember, and afterwards, when it was over, but that did not bear thinking about. Then, suddenly, he stared at his friend. ‘Ein schiff?“ Sharpe asked, ”what was it again?“
„Ein schifflein sah ich fahren,“ Frederickson said slowly. ”I saw a small ship sailing.“
“God damn it!” Sharpe’s helplessness suddenly vanished with the burgeoning of an idea as bright as a shell’s explosion. “I’m a fool!” He faced defeat for want of a ship, and a ship existed. Sharpe scrambled to his feet and shouted into the yard for a rope to be fetched. “You’re to stay here, William. Prepare for an assault on the gate, you understand?”
“And you?”
“I’m going out. I’ll be back by dawn.”
“Out? Where?”
But Sharpe had gone to the ramparts. A rope was fetched so he could climb down to the sand where the French corpses still lay, and so that, in a wet night, he could make a devil’s pact that might bring deliverance to the fools of the Lord.
CHAPTER 18
In the morning the rain fell in a sustained cloudburst. It hammered and seethed and bounced on the fort and ran from the ramparts to slop in bucketfuls on to the puddled courtyard. It seemed impossible for rain to be so savage, yet it persisted. It drummed on men’s shakoes, it flooded into the galleries carved into the ramparts, and its noise made even the firing of the twelve-pounders seem dull. It was like the rains before the great flood; a deluge.
It doused the cooking fires of the French and flooded the hovels where Calvet’s men had tried to sleep. It turned the powder in musket pans to gritty mud. The fire-rate of the artillery was slowed because each serge bag of powder had to be protected from the rain and each vent had to be covered until the last second before the portfire was touched. The artillery colonel cursed that the damned British had burned out the mill’s roof with their sortie, and cutsed again because his howitzers had to give up the unequal struggle when their pits filled with yellow-coloured floodwater.
“Bacon for breakfast!” Calvet spoke with delighted anticipation.
His cooks, working under a roof, fried bacon for the general. The smell tormented those poor souls who huddled against hovel walls and cursed the rain, the mud, the god-damns, and the war.
The cavalry, who had vainly cast south for Sharpe’s force, had been sent north in the dawn. A cavalry sergeant, his cloak plastered wet to his horse’s rump, splashed back with news that, because the wind was so small this morning, the
Thuella was being towed down the Arcachon channel by two longboats.
“Bugger the wind,” Calvet said, “and bugger the rain.” He stumped through mud to the sand-dunes and stared north. Far off, drab, black, and with wet sails dropping from her yards, the big schooner was just visible. “We won’t attack,” Calvet growled, “till the damn thing’s in place.”
“Perhaps,” Favier ventured cautiously, “Captain Killick’s guns won’t fire in this weather?”
“Don’t be a damned fool. If anyone can make guns fire in the wet it has to be a sailor, doesn’t it?” Calvet took out his glass, wiped the lenses, and stared at the fortress. The gate was a heap of rubble, a mound of wet stone, a causeway to victory. He went back to his bacon with confidence that this morning’s business would not take long. The British rifles would be useless in this rain and their lime would be turned into whitewash.
Calvet looked at his orderly who was putting an edge on to his sword. “Make sure the point’s wicked!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Won’t be a day for the edge, Favier.” Calvet knew that wet uniforms resisted a sword cut much better than dry. “It’ll be a day for stabbing. In and out, Favier, in and out!” Calvet, feeling far better for his breakfast, glanced at the door where Ducos had suddenly appeared. “You look damp, Ducos, and I ate your bacon.”
Ducos did not care that the general goaded him. Today he would capture Richard Sharpe and it would be a consolation to Pierre Ducos amidst the tragedies that beset France. “There’s a wind stirring.”
“Splendid.”
“The schooner should be anchored soon.”
“God bless our allies,” Calvet said. “It might have taken them twenty damned years to join the war, but better late than never.” He went to the doorway and saw that the Thuella had indeed used the freshening wind to hasten her progress. A splash of water showed as the forward anchor was let go. “I think,” Calvet said as the schooner’s gunports opened, “that we are at last ready.” He called for his horse and, from its saddle,“ saw his wet, dispirited troops forming into their attack column. ”We shall give our gallant allies twenty minutes of target practice,“ Calvet said, ”then advance.“
Ducos was staring at the Thuella. ‘If Killick opens fire at all,“ he said. The schooner lay silent in the channel. Her wet sails were being furled on to the yards, but otherwise there was no sign of movement on the sleek vessel. ”He’s not going to fire!“ Ducos said savagely.
“Give him time.” Calvet also watched the Thuella and imagined the rain seething on the wooden decks.
“He’s broken his word,” Ducos said bitterly, then, quite suddenly, the schooner’s battle ensign broke open and flames stabbed across the water, smoke billowed above the channel, and the Thuella’s broadside opened the final attack on the Teste de Buch.
Cornelius Killick’s qualms about honour had evidently been settled, and the American had opened fire.
The American grapeshot whistled over Sharpe’s head. A few balls struck the flag of St George, but the rest went high above the fortress. Sharpe sat beneath the wet flag, his back against the ramparts. He was weary to the very heart of his bones. He had returned to the fort a half hour before sunrise, narrowly evading French cavalry, and now, after yet another night’s lack of sleep, he faced a French attack.
“Are the Frogs moving?” he shouted to Frederickson who waited beside the breach.
“No, sir.”
Sharpe’s wounded men, bloodied bandages soaking in the rain, lay oh the western rampart. Marines, faces pale in the wan, wet light, crouched behind granite as a second American broadside spat overhead. Sharpe, huddling low, nodded to Harper. “Now.”
The huge Irishman used his sword bayonet to cut the wet ropes which bound the flagpole to the merlon. He sawed, cursing the tough sisal, but one by one the strands parted and, just after Killick’s third broadside, the pole toppled. The flag of St George, its white tablecloth stained red by dye from the sleeves which had formed the cross, fell.
“Cease firing!” Sharpe heard Killick’s voice distinct over the water. “Stop muzzles!”
Sharpe stood. The American captain, wearing a blue jacket in honour of this day, was already climbing down to one of the Thuella’s two longboats. The American crew, grinning by their guns, stared at the fortress.
Which Richard Sharpe had just surrendered.
General Calvet also stared at the fort. The smoke from the American broadsides drifted in the small wind, obscuring the view, but Calvet was sure the British had struck their colours.
“Do I keep firing, sir?” The artillery colonel, uniform soaked by rain, splashed through puddles towards the general’s horse.
“They’re not showing a white flag,” Pierre Ducos said, “so keep firing.”
“Wait!” Calvet snapped open his glass. He saw figures on the ramparts, but could not tell what happened. “Colonel Favier!”
“Sir?”
“Go forward with a flag of truce,” Calvet ordered, “and find out what the bastards are doing. No, wait!” At last Calvet could see something that made sense. Men had come to the southern wall which faced the French and there they shook out a great cloth to hang down the wet, battered ramparts. The cloth signified that the fortress of Teste de Buch was no longer held by the British, but had been surrendered to the United States of America. “God damn,”
