“That is pretty work! Ton my soul, but that’s very well done!” Captain Witherspoon had followed Sharpe and Harper to their vantage point and now applauded the skill of the gunners who were dropping the spherical case exactly in the right place; none falling short on the Guards, but all arcing onto the French attackers.
The musket-fire still hammered from the chateau’s walls. The French were faltering now, assailed from above and from their front. Some edged backwards, seeking the shelter of the trees, but the howitzers seemed to anticipate the move and the shrapnel blasts moved away from the chateau to flense the oaks in the wood of their leaves and branches. Each shell cracked apart with a sharper bang than common shell. In Spain Sharpe had noticed how the spherical case caused more wounds then deaths, but the sight of wounded men streaming back through the trees would shake the confidence of the French troops advancing in support of the first attack.
British skirmishers ran from the chateau’s northern flank into the field where Sharpe and Harper watched. The skirmishers ran south and added their fire from the corner of the farm buildings. The French were retreating fast now, going deep into the woods to escape the explosions and musketry.
“Opening honours to the Duke, wouldn’t you say?” Witherspoon was scribbling his comments in his notebook.
“It’ll be a very long day,” Sharpe warned.
“Not too long, I’m sure. Good old Blucher’s coming. He must be here soon. Did you hear about the poor fellow’s ordeal?”
“No.” Nor was Sharpe much interested, but Witherspoon was a friendly fellow and it would have been churlish not to have listened.
“Seems he was unhorsed and ridden over by the French cavalry at Ligny. He was lucky to survive at all, and the old boy must be seventy if he’s a day! Anyway, he rubbed himself with a liniment of garlic and rhubarb and now he’s on his way here. God speed his smelly march, I say.”
“Amen to that,” Sharpe said.»
The howitzer-fire ceased, one last shell leaving a wavering trail of smoke from its burning fuse that crashed the charge apart inside the wood. The French attack had failed, leaving the space between the wood and chateau sifted with smoke above a sprawl of blue-coated bodies. Some of those bodies cried for help. The failed attack had left an overpowering smell of rotten eggs, which was the familiar stench of exploded gunpowder. The smell of blood would follow, mingling with the sweeter scent of crushed grasses and crops.
British skirmishers advanced into the wood again, preparing to challenge the next attack‘. Beyond the chateau, in the wide valley that was now hidden from Sharpe, the noise of the French cannonade rumbled and cracked. Sharpe, his ears tuned to the familiar sounds of a battlefield, could tell that nothing there had changed. In battle, once the smoke had shrouded the field, the ears were often more useful than the eyes.
“I do believe“, Witherspoon said, ”that we should be departing hence.“ He gestured right, to where a battery of French eight-pounder guns was being dragged into the upper end of the hayfield. Other French troops, skirmishers, were filing from the woods into the rows of cut hay. Clearly these troops were destined for the chateau’s next ordeal, and just as clearly it was time to yield the hayfield to them.
Sharpe, Harper and Witherspoon trotted briskly out of the hayfield and up the earthen track to the ridge top. The battery of five-and-a-half-inch howitzers that had caused such damage to the French skirmishers stood with their stubby and blackened barrels elevated steeply upwards. Sharpe congratulated the battery’s commander, the same man who had fidgeted with his watch waiting for the battle to begin and who was now clearly pleased by the Rifleman’s compliment. A few more scraps of French shell casing smoked in the damp crops, and a few more infantry casualties caused by the shells were being helped back to the regimental surgeons, but otherwise there was no new threat to the ridge. It seemed as if the Emperor was content to keep up his cannonade on the main British line while his infantry struggled to capture the bastion of Hougoumont.
Reinforcements from the and Guards Brigade were posted to the ridge close behind the chateau. The Guardsmen were a part of the Prince of Orange’s dispersed corps and the Prince could not resist galloping forward to watch the battalions deploy in column of companies. They looked a brave sight as they advanced beneath their huge colours and with their bands playing. The Prince returned their salutes and called out his best wishes for a brave day. The Young Frog was in high spirits, elated by the music of the fifes and drums that mingled with the fizzing sound of French shell-fuses and the crash of their explosions. His gloom of the previous night seemed to have been dissipated by battle. He spoke cheerfully with the commander of the Guards, then saw Sharpe waiting higher on the ridge. “What are you doing there?” he shouted.
“Obeying your orders, sir. Watching the right flank.”
“I think we can abandon that idea, Sharpe!” The Prince’s tone implied utter scorn for anyone who seriously believed the French might attempt a flanking march. “It’s going to be a straightforward mill. You can tell that from their gun placements. From now on it will be toes on the scratch and heavy thumping!” The Prince feinted a punch at Sharpe to illustrate his prize-fighting metaphor, then pointed at the chateau. “I want you in Hougoumont.”
“To do what, sir?” Sharpe had ridden close to the Prince whose horse skittered sideways as a shell exploded higher up the slope.
Sharpe had assumed that the chateau’s defenders were quite capable of deciding that for themselves, but he recalled Rebecque’s lecture on the need for tact, so just nodded. “Very good, sir.”
The Prince suddenly looked past Sharpe. “Witherspoon! Is that really you? My dear Witherspoon! We haven’t met since Eton! I thought you were destined for the Church, not the army! Or are you a vicar in disguise today? Isn’t this a splendid day? Such good sport!”
Sharpe left the happy reunion behind as he spurred towards the chateau. Harper, despite his sworn promise that he would not expose himself to danger, followed. The two Riflemen could hear the splintering crackle of musketry from the woods beyond the chateau, evidence that a new attack was gathering force. They galloped past the huge haystack that was built close to the northern entrance and Sharpe shouted at the defenders to open the gates. A startled Coldstreamer sergeant poked his head over the farmyard wall, saw the two men galloping towards him, and hastily shouted for the huge double gates to be unbarred. Once inside the farmyard Sharpe slid out of his saddle and unsheathed his rifle. Harper took the reins of both horses and tied them to a metal ring embedded in the stable wall.
A Coldstreamer captain, alarmed by the Rifleman’s sudden arrival, ran from the farmhouse to greet Sharpe. “You bring orders?”
“Ignore us.”
“Gladly!” The Captain ran back to the house which faced towards the woods where the French infantry was massing for their next rush.
A French roundshot crashed into the farmhouse roof, showering slates and splinters into the yard. Sharpe looked up at the damaged rafters and grimaced. “God knows what we’re doing here.”
“You’re keeping the wee boy happy, sir.” Harper looked at the nearest defenders. “My God, but we’re in high and mighty company, so we are. I’ve never fought with the Coldstreamers before. I’d better polish my boots.”
“You’d better stay out of bloody trouble.” Sharpe rammed the charge down his rifle barrel, then slotted the ramrod back into place. The cobbled yard was long and thin, surrounded by sturdy farm buildings amongst which was a small chapel where the wounded from the first attack were being tended. A dungheap was piled against the chapel’s wall, while barrels of unripe apples lay beside a pigsty that had lost its inhabitants, presumably to the Coldstreamers’ cooking pots. A cat, clearly sensing that the troubled times could only get worse, was carrying her kittens one by one from a huge barn to the main house. Three bandaged Guardsmen sat outside the chapel. The only other Guardsmen in sight were a lieutenant and his squad of men who were evidently the garrison’s reserve, and thus ready to reinforce any part of the chateau’s perimeter that was dangerously threatened by the imminent French attack.
“It’s a grand place, so it is.” Harper looked approvingly round the farm buildings. Men had started to fire from the upper rooms of the farmhouse, while a volley of musketry sounded loud from the walled garden beyond the barn. The noise of the fighting forced
Harper to raise his voice. “They must own a lot of land to fill all these barns!”
“It’s good land, too!” Sharpe agreed.
Muskets crashed close behind them, coming from the stables which formed the western defences. Sharpe ran into the stables to see Guardsmen taking their turns at the loopholes. Other men were awkwardly perched on the roof beams, firing through holes they had made in the slates. Smoke from the muskets was thick among the
