Powder stung his face, the kick slammed his shoulder, the smoke blinded him. He tossed the musket down, picked up his sword, and Leroux was hit! He was clutching his left leg, blood showing, and the ball must have passed through the flesh of his thigh, through the saddle, and stung the horse. It reared up in sudden pain and Leroux had to snatch at its mane, he tried to control it, but it reared again and he was falling.
The square had surrendered. Some Germans already pushed their way into its centre and one of them took a strip of the tasselled gold cloth that had been the French standard and waved it high, shouting at his comrades. The French soldiers sat down, muskets beside them, resigned to their fate.
Leroux struck the ground, was winded, and the pain in his left leg made him wince. He had dropped the Kligenthal and he could not see because his big, round, fur hat had slipped over his eyes. He knelt up, pushed the hat back, and the Kligenthal was on the ground. A boot was across the blade. Leroux slowly looked up, past the black trousers, past the tattered green jacket, and he saw his own death in the eyes of the Rifleman.
Sharpe saw the fear in the pale eyes. He stepped back a pace, releasing the Kligenthal, and smiled at Leroux. “Get up, you bastard.”
CHAPTER 28
The two French Battalions at the rear were not shaken by the breaking of the squares. They fired coolly, their discipline tight, and the German horsemen were cut down by the volleys.
In the small valley the squares had been broken. Prisoners were being herded, many with the dreadful cuts on their heads and shoulders where the great blades had fallen. The horses heaved to get their breath. Cavalrymen stood still, disbelieving what they had done, and their swords were held low and blood dripped from the tips. They had done the impossible. Some men laughed in relief, an almost wild laughter, and the French prisoners, now passion was spent, offered the victors wine from their canteens.
Patrick Harper threaded his way into the third square and looked down on Sharpe and Leroux. The Frenchman still knelt, the Kligenthal was still on the ground. Harper looked at Sharpe. “What’s his trouble?”
“Won’t fight.” Sharpe’s sword was still clean.
Leroux stood up, wincing as the wound in his left leg hurt. “I surrender.”
Sharpe swore at him, then gestured at the sword. “Pick it up.”
“I surrender.” Leroux’s pale eyes looked right for help, but Harper blocked the view.
Sharpe tried to see a likeness between this man and La Marquesa, but he could not. What in her was beauty had become hard in her brother. “Pick up the sword.”
Leroux brushed grass from the fur trim of his red jacket. “I have surrendered.”
Sharpe swung the flat of his sword so it hit the fur hat, knocking it off. “Fight, you bastard.” Leroux shook his head. Sharpe would not take the surrender. “You surrendered before, remember? Not this time, Captain Delmas.”
Leroux smiled, gestured at the Kligenthal. “You have my sword.”
Sharpe crouched, his eyes still on Leroux, and picked up the Kligenthal in his left hand. It was beautiful, balanced to perfection, a weapon made by a master. He tossed it towards Leroux. “Fight.”
Leroux let the blade fall. “I am your prisoner.”
“Kill the bastard, sir.” Harper growled.
“I’m going to.” Sharpe levelled his sword, put it to Leroux’s breast, and pushed. The Frenchman went backwards. Sharpe stooped and picked the Kligenthal up once more. He held it out, handle towards the Frenchman, and went forward again and again. Leroux went backwards. The French soldiers watched.
Then Leroux could go no further. He was backed into a corner of the square and Sharpe brought his sword up so that the tip was at Leroux’s throat. The Rifleman smiled. “I’m going to kill you. I don’t give a damn whether you fight or not.” He pressed with the sword, Leroux’s head went back, and suddenly the pale eyes showed alarm. He really was to die and his arm came up, snatched at the Kligenthal, and Sharpe stepped backwards. “Now fight, you bastard.”
Leroux fought. He fought because he thought that if he won this fight, then he could surrender. He knew Sharpe would kill him, he had recognised that, so he must kill Sharpe. And if he succeeded in killing the Rifleman then there was always hope. He might escape again, make his way back to France, and it would always be possible to arrange for Curtis’ capture. He fought.
The Kligenthal felt good. He gave two short, hard strokes that loosened his wrist, and he felt the shock of the blades’ meeting, and then he settled into a rhythm, probing the Rifleman’s weakness, letting the Kligenthal tease the older blade to one side in preparation for the lunge. The point always beats the edge.
Sharpe went backwards, letting Leroux get out of the corner, and Harper rode alongside just as if he were the referee at a prize fight. Some of the French shouted for Leroux, but not many, and some of the Germans came to watch.
Sharpe watched Leroux’s pale eyes. The man was strong, and faster than Sharpe remembered. The blades rang like anvils. Sharpe was content to let his long, straight sword do the work for him, he let its weight soak up the attacks, and he planned this man’s death. La Marquesa, Leroux’s sister, had asked him once if he enjoyed killing, had even accused him of enjoying it, but that was not true. Some deaths a man can enjoy, the death of an enemy, and Sharpe was paid to have enemies. Yet he did not wish death on the French. There was more satisfaction in seeing a surrendered enemy, a defeated enemy, than in seeing a slaughtered enemy. A field after battle was a more horrid place than anything the people in England, who would soon celebrate Salamanca, could imagine. Death stopped war from being a game, it gave it glory and horror, and soldiers could not be squeamish about death. They might regret the moment when rage conquers fear, when it banishes all humanity and makes a man into a killer, but that rage could keep a man from being dead and so the regret was mixed with relief and a knowledge that, to be a good soldier, the rage would one day be back.
Sharpe parried a lunge, twisted his sword over the Kligenthal so the blades scraped, and lunged himself, checked, lunged again, and he saw the pain in the pale eyes as Leroux was forced onto his back foot. Sharpe would kill this man, and he would enjoy it. He would enjoy the retribution as a man could enjoy the death of a child-murderer at Tyburn, or the shooting of a deserter after battle. Death was sometimes public because people needed death, they needed retribution, and Tyburn’s gallows gave more pleasure than pain. That might be bad, but that is the way of people, and Sharpe’s sword tip hit the guard of the Kligenthal, forced it wide, came free when Leroux’s arm was off balance and Sharpe brought the blade scything back so it cut across Leroux’s chest, then back again so the sword cut Leroux’s forearm, and Sharpe knew this man would die.
He would die for McDonald, for Windham, for the unnamed Spaniards, for Spears, for El Mirador, for Sharpe himself, and Leroux knew it, for he became desperate. His right arm was wounded so he held his wrist with his left hand and scythed the Kligenthal in a glittering, air singing blow and Sharpe stepped back, let the blade pass, and then shouted his exultation as he lunged forward, picking his spot, and he did not hear Hogan shouting at him, nor Harper’s cry of acclamation, for the blade was going into Leroux’s body at the exact place where Leroux had wounded Sharpe, and Leroux let the Kligenthal go, his mouth opened, and his hands clutched at the blade that still pierced him, a flesh-hook that tortured him, that went through skin and muscle and tore the scream from him.
He fell. He was not dead yet. The pale eyes were wide. He drew up his legs as Sharpe had drawn up his legs, he gasped air into his lungs so that the scream could fight the pain that he had made Sharpe fight for two weeks, and then Sharpe twisted the sword free, held the point above Leroux’s throat, and finished him off.
He left his sword swaying above the lifeless Frenchman and stepped back. Leroux was dead.
Hogan had watched Sharpe’s anger. He rarely saw the Rifleman fight. He had been awed by Sharpe’s skill, troubled by the turbulence of his friend, and he saw the distaste that crossed Sharpe’s face when it was all done. Leroux was no longer the enemy, no longer Napoleon’s man, he was a pathetic, cringeing corpse. Hogan’s voice was mild. “Wouldn’t he surrender?”
“No, sir.” Sharpe shook his head. “He was a stubborn bastard.”
Sharpe picked up the Kligenthal, the sword he had wanted so much, and it could have been made for him. It settled in his right hand like a part of himself. It was a beautiful and deadly weapon.
He undipped Leroux’s snake-clasp belt, tugged the sword slings free from the body, and strapped the
