Sharpe's Sword Page 9

  "To the celebration? Yes."

  "So’s the whole damned town. I just hope there’s something to celebrate."

  Sharpe grinned. "We’ll surprise them." He looked round to see his Company being marched into an alleyway and he gestured at their backs. "I must go."

  Three hundred and fifty men, the Light Companies of two brigades of the Sixth Division, were crammed into a street that ran behind the houses facing the wasteland. It was the closest cover to the centre fort, the San Cayetano, but no one, apart from a handful of officers, was allowed to look at the ground they had to cover. Surprise was everything. There were twenty ladders, each surrounded by its carrying party, and they would be the first to rush the two hundred yards towards the fort’s ditch. They would jump into the excavation and then put the ladders against the palisade.

  Sharpe could hear the crack of rifles, startling the swallows who flew in the dusk. Riflemen had surrounded the forts for the six days since the army had entered Salamanca, living uncomfortably in shallow pits of the waste ground, sniping at the French embrasures. The evening sounded normal. The French could not have detected anything unusual in the rhythm of the siege. The big guns fired intermittently, the rifles cracked, and as the light faded so did the sound of the firing. It would seem, Sharpe hoped, a peaceful night in the three forts built on the hill above the slow-sliding river Tormes.

  A big Sergeant with a scarred face tugged at a rung of one of the ladders. It bent, fractured, and the Sergeant spat moodily against a wall. "Bloody green wood!"

  Harper was loading his seven-barrelled gun, carefully measuring powder from his Rifleman’s horn. He grinned up at Sharpe. "Met that Irish priest while you were chatting with the Major, sir. Wished us luck."

  "Curtis? How the hell does he know? I thought this was secret."

  Harper shrugged, then tapped the butt of the huge gun on the ground. "Probably saw this lot march in, sir." He jerked his head at the Light Companies. "Don’t exactly look as if they’ve come for a Regimental dance."

  Sharpe sat and waited, head back against the wall, the loaded rifle between his knees. It seemed strange, on this perfect summer’s evening, the light fading into translucent grey, to think of the vast, secret war that shadowed the war of guns and swords. How had the priest known this attack was to take place tonight? Were there French spies in Salamanca who also knew? Who might have already warned the fortresses? Sharpe supposed there might be. It was possible that the French were ready, eagerly awaiting the first attack that they would shred with canister.

  Sharpe had only seen one French spy. He had been a small Spaniard, jolly and generous, who had purported to be a lemonade seller outside Fuentes d’Onoro. He proved to be a Corporal in one of the Spanish Regiments that fought for the French and Sharpe had watched the man hung. He had died with dignity, a smile on his lips, and Sharpe wondered what bravery it took to be such a man. El Mirador, Sharpe supposed, had that bravery. He had lived in Salamanca, under French occupation, and still he had sent his stream of intelligence towards the British forces in Portugal. Tonight Sharpe was fighting for that brave man, for El Mirador, and he looked up at the fading light and knew that the attack must come soon.

  "Sharpe?" A senior officer was looking at him. Sharpe struggled to his feet and saluted.

  "Sir?"

  "Brigadier General Bowes. I’m in command tonight, but I gather you have your own orders?" Sharpe nodded. Bowes looked curiously at the strange figure, dressed half as an officer and half as a Rifleman. The Brigadier seemed satisfied. "Glad you’re with us, Sharpe."

  "Thank you, sir. I hope we can be useful."

  Bowes gestured abruptly towards the hidden fort. "There’s a crude trench for the first seventy yards. That’ll cover us. After that it’s up to God." He looked with frank admiration at the wreath on Sharpe’s sleeve. "You’ve done this sort of thing before."

  "Badajoz, sir."

  "This won’t be as bad." Bowes moved on. The attackers were standing up, straightening their jackets, obsessively checking the last few details before the fight. Some touched their private talismans, some crossed themselves, and most wore the look of forced cheerfulness that hid the fear.

  Bowes clapped his hands. He was a short man, built strongly and he climbed on a mounting block set beside one of the houses. "Remember, lads! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet!" This was the Sixth Division’s first battle in Spain and the men listened eagerly, wanting to impress the rest of the army. "Ladders first. After me!"

  Sharpe cautioned his own men to wait. Harper would lead the first squad, then Lieutenant Price, while Sergeant McGovern and Sergeant Huckfield had the others. He grinned at them. Huckfield was new to the Company, since Badajoz, promoted from one of the other companies. Sharpe remembered when, as a private, Huckfield had tried to lead the mutiny before Talavera. Huckfield owed his life to Sharpe, but the bargain had been good. He was a conscientious, solid man, good with figures and the Company books, and the memory of that distant day, three years before, when Huckfield had nearly led the Battalion into mutiny was faded and unreal.

  The street emptied, the attackers filing into the wasteland, and Sharpe still waited. He did not want his Company mixed with the others. He almost held his breath, listening for the first shot, but the night was silent. "All right, lads. Keep yourselves quiet."

  He went first, through the passage between the houses, and the ground dropped into a steep pit that had been made when the sappers threw up one of the flanking batteries. The nine-pounders were silent behind their fascines.

  He could see the other companies ahead, crammed into the shallow trench. It had not been made for the attack, instead it was the remnants of a small street and it gave cover because the destroyed houses either side were banks of rubble. He dared not raise his head to look at the San Cayetano. There was a hope that the French were dozing, not expecting trouble, but he had no reason to suppose that their sentries would be any the less watchful because the night was quiet.

  A ladder, far ahead, banged on rubble and there was the sound of loose stones falling. He froze, his senses acute for an enemy reaction, but still the night was quiet. There was a soft background noise, unceasing, and he realised it was the wash of water against the piles of the bridge arches. An owl sounded, south of the river. The light was pearl grey, the west soaked in crimson, the air warm after the day’s heat. The people of Salamanca, he knew, would be walking the stately circles in the great Plaza, sipping wine and brandy, and it would be a night of rich beauty in the city. Wellington was waiting, fearing surprise was lost, and Sharpe suddenly thought of La Marquesa, up on her roof or balcony, staring at the darkening shadows of the wasteland. A bell struck the half-hour past nine.

  He heard a scraping and clicking ahead and knew that the attackers were fixing bayonets ready to run from the cover and rush the jumbled waste ground towards the San Cayetano. Lieutenant Price caught Sharpe’s eye and gestured at one of his men’s bayonets. Sharpe shook his head. He did not want the blades to betray the position of his company, far back, and they had no business, anyway, in attacking the fort.

  "Go!" Bowes’ voice broke the silence, there was a scramble of feet and the sunken road ahead of Sharpe heaved with bodies that clambered over and through the rubble. This was the moment of danger, the first appearance, for if the French were ready, expecting them, the guns would fire now and decimate the attack.

  They fired.

  They were small guns in the forts, some were old and captured four pounders, but even a small gun, loaded with canister, can destroy an attack. Sharpe knew the figures well enough. A four pound canister was a tin can, packed with balls, sixty or eighty to a can, and when it was fired the tin burst apart at the gun’s muzzle and the balls spread, like duckshot, in a widening cone. Three hundred yards from the muzzle the cone would be ninety feet across, good odds for a single man in the line of fire, but not if several guns’ cones intersected. The San Cayetano, ahead of the attack, had only four guns, but the San Vincente, across the
gorge, the biggest fort, could bring twenty to bear on the flank of the British attack.

  They all fired. One first, followed in a handful of seconds by the rest, and the noise of the guns was different, deeper than usual, somehow more solid and Sharpe looked aghast at Harper. "They’re double shotted!"

  Harper nodded, shrugged. Two canisters to a gun, say seventy balls in each, and twenty four guns firing. Sharpe listened to the metal hell that was criss-crossing the rubble and tried to work out the figures. Three thousand musket balls, at least, had greeted the attack, ten to each man, and in the silence after the volley he could hear the screams of wounded and then the rattle of muskets from the French embrasures. He could see nothing. He looked at the Company. "Stay there!"

  He climbed the rubble side of the street, rolled over its crest and found cover behind a timber baulk. Bowes was alive, sword drawn, and ahead of the attack. "On! On!"

  Ladder parties, miraculously alive, came off the ground where they had dived for shelter and began struggling over the jumbled stones. Each ladder was thirty feet, cumbersome on the shadowed ground, but the men were moving and, behind them, more figures advanced towards the dark bulk of the San Cayetano.

  The attackers cheered, still confident despite the first, shattering discharge, and it was a miracle to Sharpe that so many had lived through the screaming cones. He slid his rifle forward, leafed up the sight, and then the second shots sounded from the French.

  This volley was more ragged than the first. The gunners were loading as fast as they could, single canister only, and the faster crews would fire first. The balls bellowed from the embrasures, clattered on the stones, whirled the dead and wounded in limp disarray, and Sharpe cursed the French. They had known! They had known! There had been no surprise! They had double shotted the guns, had the matches ready for the fuses, and the attack stood no chance. The canisters burst and spread their death over the attackers, gun after gun, the shots coming singly or in small groups, and the lead balls hammered like hard rain on the stones, timber and bodies in the wasteland.

  The two forts were ringed with smoke. The third, off to Sharpe’s left, was silent as if its guns, insultingly, were not needed. He could hear the French now, cheering their work as the gunners heaved at their weapons, loaded and fired, loaded and fired, and their flames sprang across the ditch, split the smoke, and licked behind the shredding canister.

  "Rifles!"

  There was not much they could do, but anything was better than being a spectator of this slaughter. He shouted again. "Rifles!"

  His Riflemen poured over the lip of the rubble. He had trained a half dozen of the redcoats to use the Bakers, weapons left by men killed in the last three years, and they came, too. Harper dropped beside him, eyebrows raised, and Sharpe gestured at the nearest fort. "Go for the embrasures!"

  They might kill a gunner or two, not much, but something. He heard the first shots, fired himself when the smoke showed a target, but the attack was done. The British did not know it. The men still went forward, shoulders hunched as if pushing into a storm, and they left their dead and wounded on the ground. Screams pierced the harsh sound of guns and Sharpe prayed with each new discharge of canister that a ball might end the screaming. Bowes was still up, still going ahead, taking his sword against the artillerymen and, behind and to each side, the survivors refused to give up. They were scattered now, less susceptible to the rain of lead, but too few to hope for victory. A ladder party actually made the ditch. Sharpe saw them jump in, heard the muskets fire from the palisade, and then he saw the Brigadier, limned against the spreading pall of smoke, and Bowes was hit. He seemed to dance on the spot, feet skittering to keep him upright and his sword fell as his hands clutched at his stomach. His head went back in a silent scream, more shots threw him forward and still he tried to stand, and then it was as if a whole barrel load of canister slammed the quivering figure, threw it flat, and the wasteland was suddenly empty of running men.

  The attackers had gone to ground, defeated, and the French jeered at them, shouted insults, and the cannon fire died away.

  There were no more men to throw into the attack, except Sharpe’s Company and he was not going to sacrifice them to the gunners. At Badajoz the army had gone on attacking, again and again into worse fire than this, in a smaller space, until it had seemed to Sharpe that all the canister in all the world could not go on killing the stream of men that had poured at the breaches. This attack had started with three hundred and fifty men, and there were no more. It was done.

  The cannon smoke turned the dusk into false night and the French threw a lighted carcass, packed straw soaked with oil and bound in canvas, over their parapet. Shouts came from the wasteland. "Back! Back!"

  Some men risked the fire, stood up, and ran. The French stayed silent. More men plucked up courage and the survivors, bit by bit, began their retreat. Still the French held their fire, happy that the British had given up, and men stopped to pick up their wounded. Sharpe looked at his Riflemen. "Back you go, lads."

  They were silent, depressed. They were used to victory, not defeat, but Sharpe knew they had been betrayed. He looked at Harper. "They knew we were coming."

  "Like as not." The huge Irishman was easing the flint of his rifle, unfired, into the safe position. "They had the guns double-loaded. They knew."

  "I’d like to get the bastard who told them."

  Harper did not reply. He gestured ahead of them and Sharpe saw a man, staggering in the rubble, coming towards them. He had the red facings of the 53rd, the Shropshires, and his face was the colour of his uniform. Sharpe stood up, slung his rifle, and called to the man. "Here! Over here!"

  The man seemed not to hear. He was walking, almost drunkenly, weaving on the stones, and Sharpe and Harper ran towards him. The man was moaning. Blood poured from his skull. "I can’t see!"

  "You’ll be all right!" Sharpe could not see the man’s face through the blood. His hands, musket discarded, were clutched at his stomach. He seemed to hear Sharpe, the blood-soaked head quested towards the sound, and then he fell into Sharpe’s-arms. The hands came away and blood pumped onto Sharpe’s jacket and overalls. "It’s all right, lad, it’s all right!"

  They laid him down and the man began to choke. Harper twisted his torso over, cleared the man’s throat with his finger, and shook his head at Sharpe. The Shropshire man vomited blood, moaned, and muttered again that he could not see. Sharpe undid his canteen, poured water on his eyes, and the blood, soaked there from a canister wound on his forehead, cleared slowly away. "You’ll be all right!"

  The eyes opened, then shut immediately as a pain spasm shook him and blood seemed to well from his midriff. Harper tore at the man’s uniform. "God save Ireland!" It was a miracle he was still alive.

  "Here!" Sharpe undid his officer’s sash, handed it across, and Harper pushed it beneath the body, caught the end, and tied it as a crude bandage round the horrid wound. He looked at Sharpe. "Head or legs?"

  "Legs."

  He took the man’s ankles, they lifted him, and struggled with the burden back towards the houses. Other men were limping on the stones. The French were silent.

  They put the man down in the street, full now once again with men, and Sharpe bellowed for bandsmen. The soldier was fighting for his life, the air scraping in his throat, and it seemed impossible that he could survive the wounds. Sharpe shouted again. "Bandsmen!"

  An officer, his uniform unstained by dust or blood, his red facings and gold lace new and pristine, looked past Sharpe. "Dale. No musket." He was dictating to a bespectacled clerk.

  "What?" Sharpe turned and looked at the Lieutenant. Harper raised his eyes to heaven, then looked at Sergeant McGovern. The two Sergeants grinned. They knew Sharpe and knew his anger.

  "Equipment check." The Lieutenant looked at Sharpe’s rifle, then at the great sword, then at the Rifleman’s shoulder. "If you’ll excuse me, sir."

  "No." Sharpe jerked his head towards the wounded man. "Are you planning to charge
him?"

  The Lieutenant looked round for escape or support, then sighed. "He has lost his musket, sir."

  "It was broken by French shot." Sharpe’s voice was quiet.

  "I’m sure you’ll put that in writing, sir."

  "No. You will. You were out there, weren’t you?"

  The Lieutenant swallowed nervously. "No, sir."

  "Why not?"

  "Sir! I was ordered to stay here, sir!"

  "And no one ordered you to make life a bloody misery for the men who went out, did they? How many battles have you been in, Lieutenant?"

  The Lieutenant’s eyes looked round the circle of grim, interested faces. He shrugged. "Sir?"

  Sharpe reached over to the clerk-Corporal and took the notebook out of his hand. "You write "destroyed by enemy" against everything, understand? Everything. Including the boots they lost last week."

  "Yes, sir." The Lieutenant took the notebook from Sharpe and gave it to the clerk. "You heard the man, Bates. "Destroyed by enemy"." The Lieutenant backed away.

  Sharpe watched him go. His anger had not vented itself and he wanted to strike out at something, at someone, because the men had died through treachery. The French had been ready, warned of the attack, and good men had been thrown away, and he bellowed again. "Bandsmen!"

  Two musicians, doing their battlefield job offending the wounded, came and crouched by the injured Dale. They lifted him clumsily onto a stretcher. Sharpe stopped one of them as they were about to go. "Where’s the Hospital?"

  "Irish College, sir,"

  "Look after him."

  The man shrugged. "Yes, sir."

  Poor bloody Dale, Sharpe thought, to be betrayed in his first battle. If he survived he would be invalided out of the army. His broken body, good for nothing, would be sent to Lisbon and there he would have to rot on the quays until the bureaucrats made sure he had accounted for all his equipment. Anything missing would be charged to the balance of his miserable wages and only when the account was balanced would he be put onto a foul transport and shipped to an English quayside. There he was left, the army’s obligation discharged, though if he was lucky he might be given a travel document that promised to reimburse any parish overseer who fed him while he travelled to his home. Usually the overseers ignored the paper and kicked the invalid out of their jurisdiction with an order to go and beg somewhere else. Dale might be better offdead than face all that.