good weapon. “Rifles!” He pointed to the open end of the line, nearest the French. “Move! Load properly!”
The sound of the French was close, overwhelming, and he wanted to cringe from it, to turn and watch it, but he dared not. His men were loading again, their training overcoming their fear, and he watched as the ramrods came up and out of the barrels and were propped against mens’ bodies. The muskets were levelled towards the French. He glanced to his left and saw that number Five Company had already fired and he had to trust that no man in the Company disliked him enough to aim deliberately at him. “Fire!”
The balls hammered past him. “Load!” He watched them, daring them to move. The Riflemen were now in a small group at the open end of the line and he looked at them. “Kill their officers. Fire in your own time.” He looked back at the men. “We stay here. Aim at the corner of the column.” He suddenly grinned at them. “Nice to be back.” He turned round, his back to the Company, and now all he could do was stand, to be still, to deny this tiny patch of grassland to the French. He stood with his legs apart, the sword resting on the ground, and the great column was shouting and drumming its way towards them.
The small volleys of the South Essex battered the column’s nearest corner, threw men down so that the ranks behind edged right to avoid the bodies, and still the Company volleys came from the South Essex and the Frenchmen, who had been raked with shrapnel and canister, lanced with roundshot, angled their march so they would go past the single Battalion. The breakwater was holding. The French fired at them as they marched, but it was hard to load a musket and keep walking, harder still to aim in the rhythm of the march, and the column did not win by firepower. It was designed to win by sheer weight, by fear, by glory. The drums hypnotised the valley and drove the Frenchmen on and they passed just fifty yards in front of Sharpe. He watched the packed ranks, saw their mouths open rhythmically when the drums paused and the great shout went up, Vive 1’Empereur!“ Another volley pitted the corner, more men fell, and then an officer tried to drag a group of men out of the column to fire at the Light Company and Daniel Hagman put a bullet through the Frenchman’s throat. Sharpe watched the enemy infantry strip the dead officer as they marched past, successive ranks bending down to go through the officer’s pockets and pouches, and still the drums bore them on and the shout filled the valley, and Sharpe wondered where the Sixth Division were and what was happening on the rest of the field.
He watched the enemy soldiers, so close, and except that they liked moustaches, they looked little different to his own men. Sometimes a Frenchman would catch Sharpe’s eye and there was a curious moment of recognition as though the enemy face was that of an old half-remembered comrade. He saw the mouths open again. “Vive 1’Empereur!” One man caught Sharpe’s eye as he chanted the words, shrugged and Sharpe could not help grinning back. It was ridiculous.
“Fire!” Lieutenant Price’s voice shouted. The Company pulled their triggers and the column jerked spasmodically away from the balls. Sharpe was glad to see the man who had shrugged at him was still alive. He turned round. “Stop firing!”
There was no point in firing now. They might kill a few men on the column’s flanks, but their job had been to push the ponderous column a few yards to its right, and they had done it. They could save their loaded muskets for the column’s retreat, if it did retreat, and Sharpe nodded to Price. “The Company can retire, Lieutenant, as far as the hill.”
The rear of the column was marching past now and Sharpe saw the wounded limping behind, trying to catch up with their comrades, and some of them fell to add to the droppings of the great attack. He looked south, into the smoke, and he could see no cavalry yet, no guns, but they could come. He turned and walked towards his Company and the men grinned at him, called out to him, and he was ashamed because he had feared that one might aim for him. He nodded to them. “How are you?”
They pounded his back, shouted at him, and they all seemed to have inane grins on their faces as though they had won a great victory. He pushed through them, noticing how foul was their breath after his month away from troops, but it was good to be back. Lieutenant Price saluted. “Welcome back, sir.”
“It’s nice to be back. How is it?”
Price glanced at the closest men, then grinned at Sharpe. “Still the best Company in the Battalion, sir.”
“Without me?”
“They had me, sir.” They both laughed to cover a mutual pleasure. Price glanced at Sharpe’s stomach. “And you, sir?”
“The doctors say another month.”
“Harps said it was a miracle.”
Sharpe smiled. “He performed it, then.” He turned to watch the column go on. It was like some mindless machine that was grinding its way northwards, aiming at the city, and he knew that soon the valley would fill with French guns and cavalry unless the column could be stopped. One of his men shouted over the swell of drums and French cheers.
“Harps says you was living in a palace with Duchess!”
“Harps is a bloody liar!” Sharpe pushed through the knot of men and grinned at the big Sergeant. “How are you?”
“I’m doing all right. Yourself, sir?”
“It’s fine.” Sharpe looked north to where the valley was littered with bodies. “ Casualties?”
Harper shook his head. He sounded disgusted. “Two wounded. We went back too bloody fast.” He nodded at Sharpe’s shoulder. “You got the rifle back?”
“Yes. But I need ammunition.”
„I’ll fix that for you, sir.“ Harper turned as a new sound filled the valley. It was like a hundred children dragging sticks along park railings, the sound of the volleys that the Sixth Division were slamming into the column’s head. The Sixth swore that this day they would restore the reputation that had been sullied by the time they took to capture the three fortresses. They had approached the great column in small columns and then, in the enemy’s face, they swung into line and waited for the French to come into musket range.
The two-deep line curled round the head of the column. The men fought like automatons, biting the cartridges, loading, ramming, firing on command so that the volleys’ flames ran down the face of the line, again and again, and the bullets twitched at the fog of powder smoke and hammered the French. The British volleys made the column’s head into a pile of dead and wounded men. Frenchmen who had thought themselves safe in the fourth or fifth rank suddenly had to cock their muskets and fire desperately into the smoke bank. The column checked. The drums still sounded, but they no longer paused for the great shout. The drummer boys worked their sticks as if they could force the men over the barricade of the dead and onto the Sixth Division, but the men at the column’s front were flinching from the murderous fire. The men behind pressed forward, the column crushed and bulged, and the drummer boys faltered. Some officers, brave beyond duty, tried to take men forward, but it was hopeless. The bravest died, the others shrank back from the British fire, and the column heaved and jerked like some I giant snared animal.
There was a pause in the British volleys. It was filled with a new sound, a scraping and clicking as the hundreds of long bayonets were taken from belt-scabbards and fixed on the muskets. Then a cheer, a British cheer, and the long line came forward with their blades level and the great column, that had so nearly turned the battle, turned instead into a panicked crowd. They ran.
The French had tried to send galloper guns through the small valley to blast the Sixth Division away, but the guns had been broken by the British artillery. The French gunners who still lived put their wounded horses out of their agony with their short carbines. The valley floor was thick with the remains of battle. Bodies, guns, canteens, pouches, haver-sacks, spent cannon balls, dead horses, the wounded. Everywhere the wounded. The French column was a running mass of fugitives, fleeing the steady line of the Sixth Division that came forward into the small valley which was covered by a tenuous awning of smoke. The sun touched the smoke layer with red. The Fourth Division reformed itself, drew bayonets, and went on with the Sixth. The British went forward, the French back, and Clausel’s centre was gone. It had extracted a price for its defeat, a high price, but it was over. The Eagles/Went back, they left the Greater Arapile, the French were^running from the field. The French left had been destroyed, utterly destroyed, in just forty minutes. The centre had tried and failed, and now all that could be done was for the French right to form a barrier on the edge of the plain to stop the British pursuit.
The sun was sinking into a cushion of gold and scarlet, it touched the killing ground with crimson and it promised to give enough light for a little time more. Time enough for more blood to be spilt on an earth that already reeked with the stench of it.
