Sharpe's Eagle (33 page)

"That was a terrible shot. Now let's get the hell out of here! They'll want revenge for
that!"

Sharpe grinned and sprinted back with the Sergeant towards the new skirmish line that was
seventy paces behind the stream. The air was full of the `boom-boom, boom-boom, boomaboom,
boomaboom, boom-boom, Vive L'Empereur' and the columns were splashing through the stream, the
whole plain smothered in French infantry marching beneath countless Eagles towards the thin
defensive line that was still being shelled by the guns on the Cascajal. The British guns had a
target they could not miss, and Sharpe watched as, time and time again, the solid shot lanced
into the columns, crushing men by the dozen, but there were too many men and the files closed,
the ranks stepped over the dead, and the columns came on. There was a cheer from the British
skirmishers when a spherical case shot, Britain's secret weapon developed by Colonel Shrapnel,
successfully detonated right over one of the columns, and the musket balls, packed in the
spherical case, splattered down onto the French and shredded half the ranks, but there were not
enough guns to check the attack, and the French took the punishment and kept coming.

Then, for ten minutes, there was no time to watch anything but the Voltigeurs to the front, to
do anything but run and fire, run and fire, to try and keep the French skirmishers pinned back
against their column. The enemy seemed more numerous, the drumming louder, and the smoke from the
muskets and rifles silted the air with an opaque curtain that surrounded Sharpe's company and the
white-coated Voltigeurs with their strange, guttural cries. Sharpe was taking the Light Company
back towards the spot where the South Essex should have been, widen-ing the gap between his
company and the German skirmishers. His company was down to less than sixty men and, at the
moment, they were the only troops between the column and the empty plain at the rear of the
British line. He had no chance of stopping the column, but as long as he could slow down the
advance then there was a hope that the gap might be filled and the sacrifice of his men
justified. Sharpe fought with the rifle until it was so fouled he could hardly push the ramrod
into the barrel; the Riflemen had long stopped using the greased patch that surrounded the bullet
and gripped the rifling instead; like Sharpe, they were ramming charge and naked ball into their
guns as fast as they could to discourage the enemy. Some men were running back, urinating into
their guns, and rejoining the battle. It was crude but the fastest method of cleaning the caked
powder out of a fouled barrel on the battlefield.

Then, at last, the blessed sound of raking volleys, of the platoon fire, as the troops of the
Legion and the Guards tore apart the heads of the French columns and shattered them, drove the
ranks back, destroyed the leading troops, hammering the volleys into the out-gunned columns.
Sharpe could see nothing. The Dutch Battalion had marched into the gap onto the flank of the 7th
Battalion of the King's German Legion and stopped. The Germans were fighting on two fronts, ahead
of them, and to the side where the South Essex should have been, and Sharpe could give them
little help. The Voltigeurs had disap-peared, back into the column to swell its numbers, and
Sharpe and his company, black-faced and exhausted, were left in the centre of the gap watching
the rear of the enemy column as it tried to roll up the flank of the Germans.

"Why don't they march on?" Lieutenant Knowles was beside him, bleeding from the scalp, and
with the face, suddenly, of a veteran.

"Because the other columns are being defeated. They don't want to be left on their own." He
accepted a drink from Knowles' canteen; his own was shattered, and the water was wonderfully cool
in his parched throat. He wished he could see what was happening but the sound, as ever, told its
own story. The drumming from the twelve French columns faltered and stopped; the cheers of the
British rose into the air; the volleys paused while bayonets scraped from scabbards and clicked
onto muskets. The cheers became vengeful screams, and from the top of the Medellin the General
Officers watched as the first line of the French attack disintegrated and the line of Germans and
Guardsmen chased them backwards, pursuing the shattered columns at bayonet point across the
stream, past the horse artillery which had simply been abandoned by the enemy without firing a
shot.

"Oh God," Sharpe groaned in disbelief.

"What?" Knowles looked towards the stream, behind the backs of the Dutch Battalion who were
marooned in the middle of the field, to where the victorious Germans were in trouble. The first
French columns had fled, broken and defeated, but at the stream was a second line of columns, as
large as the first, and the shattered Frenchmen found shelter behind the waiting guns of their
reserve. The German and British troops, their blood roused, bayonets wet but muskets unloaded,
ran straight into the fire of the reserve French troops, and it was the turn of the British to be
shattered by musket volleys. They turned and fled, in total disorder, and behind them the second
line of columns, reinforced with the survivors of the first, struck up the drumbeats and started
to march into a plain where Simmerson's gap had been widened to half a mile and where the only
British troops were running in disorder.

Sir Henry, safe with the South Essex at the back of the Medellin, saw the second French
advance and breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment he had been terrified. He had watched the
French columns creep over the plain, the dust rising behind them, the Voltigeurs pushing ahead of
them. He had seen the sun flash silver off thousands of bayonets and burn gold off thousands of
badges as the trumpets and drums drove the Eagles of twelve columns right up to the stretched
British line. And stop. The musketry had gone up and down the British line like a running flame,
its thunder drowning all other sounds, and from his vantage point on the hillside Simmerson
watched as the columns shook like standing corn struck by a sudden wind as the volleys smashed
into them. Then the columns had crum-bled, broken, and run, and he could hardly believe that such
a thin line could throw back such an attack. He watched, dumbfounded, as the British cheered, as
the Union flags went forward, as the bayonets reached for the blue enemy and came back red. He
had expected defeat, and in its place saw victory; he had expected the French to carve their way
through the British line as though it did not exist, and instead the British were driving twice
their number in bloody chaos before them, and with them went his dreams and hopes.

Except the British went too far. The new French columns opened their fire, the Germans and the
Guards were split apart and broken, and a new French attack, even bigger than the first, was
driving its way forward from the stream. The cheers of the British had gone, the drums were back,
and the Union flags were falling back in chaos before the triumphant Eagles. He had been right
after all. He turned to point out his perspicacity to Christian Gibbons but instead of his nephew
he found himself looking into the eyes of a strange Lieutenant Colonel; or not so strange? He had
an idea that he had seen the man before but could not place him. He was about to ask the man what
he wanted, but the strange, elegant Lieutenant Colonel spoke first.

"You are relieved, Sir Henry. The Battalion is mine."

"What. , The man did-not wait to argue. He turned to a smiling Forrest and rapped out a stream
of orders. The Battalion was halting, turning, heading back for the battle. Simmerson rode up
behind the man and shouted a protest, but the Lieutenant Colonel wheeled on him with a drawn
sword and bared teeth, and Sir Henry decided that this was no place for an argument and reined in
his horse instead. The new man then looked at Gibbons.

"Who are you, Lieutenant?"

"Gibbons, sir."

"Ah yes. I remember. Of the Light Company?"

"Yes, sir." Gibbons flashed a frantic look at his uncle, but Simmerson was staring at the
advancing French. The new Colonel hit Gibbons' horse with the flat of his sword.

"Then join the Light Company, Mr. Gibbons! Hurry! They need help, even yours!"

The French advanced across a plain that was dotted with bodies, hung about by smoke, but
tantalisingly empty of troops. Sir Henry sat his horse and watched the South Essex march towards
the battle, saw another Battalion, the 48th, hurrying into the path of the enemy, and from the
far side of the gaping hole other British Battalions marched desperately to make a thin screen in
front of the massing Eagles. Staff officers kicked up dust as they galloped down the slope; the
long six-pounders reared back on their trails as they pounded the enemy; British cavalry hovered
menacingly to stop the enemy's horsemen trying to exploit the shattered British Battalions. The
battle was still not lost. Sir Henry looked round the hilltop and felt terribly alone.

Sharpe's view of the battle was blocked by the Battalion of Dutch troops and by the smoke
which drifted like strange fog patches in the burning Spanish heat. With the retreat of the first
line of French columns the Dutchmen had become a target for the British guns and, sensibly
enough, the white-coated troops had deployed from column into line. They now stood like a dirty
white wall at right angles to the stream and faced the fleeing remnants of the King's German
Legion who ran across their front. Sharpe could see the Dutchmen ramming and firing their muskets
at the broken Battalions, but they made no move to advance and finish off the survivors, and
Sharpe guessed that, with their Colonel shot by Hagman, the Battalion was uncertain what to do
and was waiting for the second French attack to catch up with them.

"Sir! Sir!" Ensign Denny tugged Sharpe's jacket and pointed. Through the hanging smoke from
the Medellin guns Sharpe saw a British Battalion marching down the hill. "It's ours, sir! Ours!"
Denny was excited, jumping up and down as the single standard cleaved the smoke and came into
full sight on the hillside. They were still a quarter of a mile away, and behind them, dimly
glimpsed through the smoke, Sharpe could see another Battalion marching for the gap to put itself
in front of this second, larger French attack. He could hear the drums again, as persistent as
ever, and he sensed that the crisis of the battle was coming and, as if in confirmation, the
French guns started again and from their searing hot barrels threw shell after shell into the
British Battalions that were racing to form a new line to meet the next attack. Victory was so
close for the French, they had only to break through the scratch defence that was scrappily
forming, and the day was theirs.

Sharpe's men were forgotten. They were a small band in the bottom of a shallow valley on the
edge of a great fight. Battalions had been broken on both sides, there were hundreds of dead, the
brook was running with blood and now, in the smoke and noise, thousands of Frenchmen marched at
the splintered British line. At any moment the attack would strike stunningly home and the
British reserves would crumble or hold, and Sharpe stood, sword in hand, uncertain what to do.
Harper tapped his arm and pointed to a horseman who was coming slowly towards them from the
Medellin. "Lieutenant Gibbons, sir!"

Sharpe turned back to the fight. Presumably Gibbons was coming with orders from Simmerson, but
Sharpe had no confidence in the Colonel and was not particularly interested in whatever message
Gibbons was bringing. The South Essex was still some moments away from opening fire on the
white-coated Battalion in front, and when they did Sharpe knew the Dutchmen would turn on their
attackers and he had no trust in Simmerson's ability to fight the Battalion. It was best to
ignore the South Essex.

The Dutchmen were covered in smoke. As the fighting grew to a new intensity the powder smoke
thickened into a dirty-white cloud that hid everything, and the far sounds of cavalry trumpets
took on a sinister threat. Sharpe relaxed. There were no decisions to make, the battle was being
decided by thousands of men beyond the Dutch musket smoke, and the South Essex Light Company had
done its duty. He turned to Harper and smiled.

"Can you see what I see?"

Harper grinned, his white teeth brilliant against his powder-blackened face. "It's very
tempting, sir. I was thinking of it myself."

Two hundred yards away, in the centre of the Dutch line, was an Eagle. It flashed gold in the
light, its out-stretched wings shadowing the pole on which it was mounted. Harper stared at the
backs of the Dutch infan-try, who fired at an unseen target in the smoke beyond. "It would make a
great story, so it would."

Sharpe plucked a blade of grass and chewed it, then spat it out. "I can't order you to
come."

The Sergeant smiled again, a big, happy smile on a craggy face. "I've nothing better to do. It
will take more than the two of us."

Sharpe nodded and grinned. "Perhaps Lieutenant Gib-bons might lend a hand?"

Harper turned and stared at Gibbons, who now hovered fifty yards behind the company. "What
does he want?"

"God knows. Forget him." Sharpe walked in front of his men and looked at them. They squatted
on the grass, their faces filthy, their eyes red and sunken from the powder smoke and the strain
of battle. They had done more than well. They looked at him expectantly.

"You've done well. You were good and I'm proud of you." They grinned, embarrassed at the
praise, pleased by it. "I'm not asking a thing more of you. The Battalion's on its way here, and
in a minute Mr Denny will take you back and form you up on the left as usual." They were puzzled,
their grins gone. "Sergeant Harper and I are not coming. We think it's bad that our Battalion
only has one colour, so we're going to fetch another one. That one." He pointed at the Eagle and
saw the men look past him. One or two grinned; most looked appalled. "We're going now. Any-one
who wants to come is a fool but they'll be welcome. The rest of you, all of you if you like, will
go back with Mr Denny, and the Sergeant and I will join you when we can."