Sharpe's Eagle (10 page)

"Someone's got to do something!" Captain Sterritt frowned in bewilderment. War was not
supposed to be like this! It was glory and victory, not this humiliation.

"Someone's doing something!" Hogan nodded at the South Essex. A horseman had been released
from the square and was galloping towards the bridge.

"It's Lieutenant Gibbons." Sterritt raised a hand to his Colonel's nephew, who pulled his
horse to a violent stop. His features were stern, filled with the seriousness of the moment. He
looked down on Sharpe.

"You're to report to the Colonel."

"Why?"

Gibbons looked astonished. "The Colonel wants you. Now!"

Hogan coughed. "Lieutenant Sharpe is under my orders. Why does the Colonel want
him?"

Gibbons flung an arm towards the immobile French. "We need a skirmish line, Sharpe, something
to sting the French into action."

Sharpe nodded. "How far ahead of the square am I supposed to take my men?" He spoke in sweet
reasonable-ness.

Gibbons shrugged. "Near enough to move the cavalry. Hurry!"

"I'm not moving."

Gibbons stared down at Sharpe. "I beg your pardon."

"I will not kill my men. I go more than fifty yards from that square and the French will ride
us down like hares. Don't you know that skirmishers fall back from cavalry?"

"Are you coming, Sharpe?" Gibbons made it sound like an ultimatum.

"No."

The Lieutenant turned to Hogan. "Sir? Will you order Lieutenant Sharpe to obey?"

"Listen, laddie." Sharpe noticed that Hogan had broadened his Irish accent. "Tell your Colonel
from me that the sooner he gets back over the bridge the sooner we can put a hole in it, and the
sooner we get home. And, no, I will not instruct Lieutenant Sharpe to commit suicide. Good day,
sir."

Gibbons wrenched his horse round, tearing at its mouth with the bit, and clapped his spurs
into its side, shouted something unintelligible at Sharpe or Hogan, and gal-loped back towards
the impotent square in spurts of dust. Sterritt turned to them, appalled.

"You can't refuse an order!"

Hogan's patience snapped. Sharpe had never heard the little Irishman lose his temper but the
events had exaspe-rated him. "Don't you bloody understand? Do you know what a skirmish line is?
It's a line of men scattered in front of the enemy. They'll be ridden down like scarecrows!
Christ! What does he think he's doing?"

Sterritt blanched in front of Hogan's anger. He tried to placate the Engineer. "But someone's
got to do something."

"You're quite right. They've got to get back over the bloody bridge and stop wasting our
time!"

Some of Sterritt's company began tittering. Sharpe felt his own patience snap. He ignored
Sterritt's presence.

"Quiet!"

An embarrassed silence settled over the end of the bridge. It was broken by the giggling of
the three Spanish women.

"We can start with them." Hogan turned to them and shouted in Spanish. They looked at him, at
each other, but he shouted again, insisting. Reluctantly they walked their horses past the
Riflemen, past the officers, and back to the north bank.

"That's three less to get over the bridge anyway." Hogan looked at the sky. "It must be midday
already."

The French must have been as bored as anyone else. Sharpe heard the notes of a bugle and
watched as they formed into four squadrons. They still faced the bridge, their leading squadron
about three hundred yards beyond the Spanish square. Instead of the two long lines they
efficiently made ranks of ten men; their commander ironically saluted the squares with his sword,
and gave the order to move. The horsemen went into a trot; they circled towards the Spanish, kept
on circling; they were turning to ride away, back up the hill and off to the east where they
would rejoin Marshal Victor and his army waiting for Wellesley's advance.

The disaster happened when the French were at the closest point where a wide turn would take
them to the Regimienta de la Santa Maria. In frustration or in pride, but in complete stupidity,
the Spanish Colonel gave the order to fire. Every musket that could be brought to bear exploded
in flame and smoke, the balls shot uselessly away. A musket was optimistically effective at fifty
yards; at two hundred, the distance between the French and the Span-ish, the volley was simply
thrown away. Sharpe saw just two horses fall.

"Oh Christ!" He had spoken out loud.

There was a simple mathematics to what happened next. The Spanish had shot their volley and
would take at least twenty seconds to reload. A galloping horse could cover two hundred yards in
much less time. The French Colonel had no hesitation. His column was sideways to the Spanish, he
gave his orders, the bugle sounded, and with a marvellous precision the French turned from a
column of forty ranks of ten men each into ten lines of forty men. The first two spurred straight
into the gallop, their sabres drawn; the others trotted or walked behind. There was still no
reason for them to succeed. An infantry square, even without loaded muskets, was impervious to
cavalry. All the men had to do was stay still and keep the bayonets firm and the horses would
sheer away, flow down the sides of the square, and be blasted by the loaded muskets at the sides
and backs of the formation.

Sharpe ran a few paces forward. With a dreadful certainty he knew what would happen. The
Spanish soldiers were ill-led, frightened. They had fired a volley terrifying in its noise and
smoke, but their enemy was suddenly on them, the horses baring their teeth through the veils of
musket smoke, the riders tall in their stirrups, shrieking, sabres aloft, and galloping straight
for them. Like beads off a burst string the Spanish broke. The French launched another two lines
of cavalry as the first crashed into the panicked mass. The sabres fell, rose bloodied, and fell
again. The Chasseurs were literally hacking their way into the packed square, the horses unable
to move against the crush of screaming men. The third line of Frenchmen swerved away, checked
their line, and launched themselves against the Spaniards who had broken clear and were running
for their lives. The Spanish dropped their muskets, ran for safety, ran towards the South
Essex.

The French were among them, riding along with the running men, hacking down expertly on the
heads and shoulders of the fugitives. Behind them more lines of cavalry were trotting knee to
knee into the attack. The French sabres came down right and left, more Spaniards broke from the
mass, the colours went down, they were sprinting towards the British square, desperate for its
safety. The South Essex could not see what was happening, only the Spanish coming towards them
and the odd horsemen in the swirling dust.

"Fire!" Sharpe repeated the word. "Fire, you idiot."

Simmerson had one hope for survival. He had to blast the Spanish out of his way; otherwise the
fugitives would break into his own square and let the horsemen through after them. He did
nothing. With a groan Sharpe watched the Spanish reach the red ranks and beat aside the bayonets
as they scrambled to safety. The South Essex gave ground; they split to let the desperate men
into the hollow centre; the first Frenchman reached the ranks, cut down with his sabre, and was
blasted from the saddle by musket fire. Sharpe watched the horse stagger from bullet wounds; it
crashed sideways into the face of the square, dragging down all four ranks. Another horseman came
to the gap; he hacked left and right, then he too was plucked from his horse by a volley. Then it
was over. The French came into the gap, the square broke, the men mixed with the Spanish and ran.
This time there was only one place to go. The bridge. Sharpe turned to Sterritt.

"Get your company out of the way!"

"What?"

"Move! Come on, man, move!"

If the company stayed at the bridge it would be swamped by fugitives. Sterritt sat on his
horse and gaped at Sharpe, stunned and overwhelmed by the tragedy before him. Sharpe turned to
the men.

"This way! At the double!"

Harper was there. Dependable Harper. Sharpe led, the men followed, Harper drove them. Off the
road and down the bank. Sharpe saw Hogan alongside.

"Get back, sir!"

"I'm coming with you!"

"You're not. Who'll blow the bridge?"

Hogan disappeared. Sharpe ignored the chaos to his right, he ran down the bank, counting his
steps. At seventy paces he judged they had gone far enough. Sterritt had disappeared. He whirled
on them.

"Halt! Three ranks!"

His Riflemen were there; they had needed no orders. Behind him he could hear screams, the
occasional cough of a musket, but above all the sound of hooves and of blades falling. He did not
look. The men of the South Essex stared past him.

"Look at me!"

They looked at him. Tall and calm.

"You're in no danger. Just do as I say. Sergeant!"

"Sir!"

"Check the flints."

Harper grinned at him. The men of Sterritt's company had to be calmed down, their hysteria
smoothed by the familiar, and the big Irishman went down the ranks, forcing the men to take their
eyes off the slaughter ahead and look at their muskets instead. One of the men, white with fear,
looked up at the huge Sergeant. "What's going to happen, Sarge?"

"Happen? You're going to earn your money, lad. You're going to fight." He tugged at the man's
flint. "Loose as a good woman, lad, screw it up!" The Sergeant looked down the ranks and laughed.
Sharpe had saved eighty muskets and thirty rifles from the rout, and the French, God bless them,
were about to have a fight.

It was a shambles. Four minutes ago sixteen hundred infantry had been ranked on the field,
officered and organised; now most of them were running for the bridge; they threw away muskets,
packs, anything that might slow them down and bring the methodical sabres of the French closer to
their heels. The French Colonel was good. He concentrated some of his men on the fugitives,
driving them at a trot, cutting left and right as simply as on the practice field, driving the
panicked mass to the killing ground at the bridge's entrance. More horsemen had been ordered
against the remnants of the British square, a huddle of men fighting desperately round the
colours, but Sharpe could see more cavalry, standing motionless in two ranks, the French reserve
which could be thrown in to sustain the attack or break any sudden resistance from the
infantry.

There was no point in defending the bridge. It was well enough protected from the French by
the turbulent mass of men struggling for its dubious safety. Sharpe guessed that perhaps a
thousand men were trying to thread themselves on to a roadway just wide enough for an ox-cart. It
was an unbelievable sight. Sharpe had seen panic on a battlefield before, but never quite like
this. Less than a hundred horsemen were driving ten times their number in horrific flight. The
crowd at the bridge could not move forward, the press of bodies was too great, but Spanish and
British fought and seethed, clawed and shoved, desperate to escape the Chasseurs who cut at the
fringes of the crowd. Even those who succeeded in pushing their way onto the bridge were not
safe. Sharpe caught a glimpse of men falling into the water where the bridge was broken and where
Hogan had destroyed the parapets. Other men, harried by sabres, joined the back of the crowd. The
French had no chance of cutting their way through that immense barrier of bone and flesh; nor
were they trying to get to the bridge. Instead the Chasseurs kept the panic boiling so that the
men had no chance to reform and turn on their pursuers with loaded muskets and raised bayonets.
The horsemen were almost lackadaisical in their sabre cuts. Sharpe saw one man cheerfully urging
the fugitives on with the flat of his sword. It took effort to kill a man, especially if he was
wearing his pack and had turned his back. Inexperienced horsemen swept their blades in impressive
arcs that slammed into a soldier's back; the victim would collapse, only to discover, astonished,
that his injury was merely a sliced pack and greatcoat. The veteran Chasseurs waited until they
were level with their targets and then cut backwards at the unprotected face, and Sharpe knew
there would be far more wounded than dead, horribly wounded, faces mangled by the blades, heads
opened to the bone. He turned to his front.

Here there was proper fighting. The colours of the South Essex were still flying, though the
men surrounding them had lost all semblance of a proper formation. They had been forced into a
crude ring, pressed back by horsemen, and they fought off the sabres and hooves with sword and
bayonet. It was a desperate fight. The French had thrown most of their men against the small
band; they may have stood no chance of capturing the bridge, but inside the terrified ring was a
greater prize. The colours. For the French to ride off the field with captured colours was to
ride into glory, to become heroes, to know that the tale would be told throughout Europe. The man
who captured the colours could name his own reward, whether in money, women, or rank, and the
Chasseurs tried to break the British resistance with a savage fury. The South Essex were fighting
back, no less desperate, their efforts fired by the fanatical determination that their flags
should not fall. To lose the colours was the ultimate disgrace.

It had taken Sharpe only a few seconds to comprehend the utter chaos in front of him; there
were no choices to be made; he would go forward towards the colours, hoping the ring of survivors
could hold out against the horsemen long enough for his company to bring their muskets and
bayonets into range. He turned to the men. Harper had done his work well. Riflemen were scattered
through the ranks to bolster the frayed nerves of the men from Sterritt's company. The men in
green jackets grinned at Sharpe. The men in red stood appalled and nervous. Sharpe noted that
Harper had put a file of Riflemen at each end of the company, the vulnerable flanks which would
be the weakest points of his force and where only steady nerves and rigid bayonets would deter
the swooping horsemen. Two nervous Lieutenants had been pushed into the files, and like the other
men of Sterritt's company they flicked their eyes at the crowd near the bridge. They wanted to
run, they wanted the safety of the other bank, but Sharpe could also see two steady Sergeants who
had seen battle before and calmly waited for orders.