Sharpe's Waterloo (46 page)

Peter d‘Alembord lay on the unfolded backboard of a cart that was serving as a surgeon's table. The wooden boards of the cart were soaked with blood, while the surgeon's hands were so steeped in it that the skin of his fingertips had gone soft and wrinkled. ‘Are you ready, Major?' The surgeon had a strong West Country accent.

‘I'm ready.' D'Alembord had refused to drink any rum to dull the agony of the surgery, nor would he accept the leather gag to bite on. It was important that he showed no reaction to the pain, for such stoicism was expected of a soldier.

‘There are no bones broken,' the surgeon said, ‘and there's not even a major blood vessel cut, so you're a lucky man. Hold his leg, Bates!' The orderlies had already cut away the sash d‘Alembord had used as a bandage and slit open the expensive breeches which he had worn to the Duchess's ball. The surgeon wiped away the welling blood from the lips of the wound with his fingers. ‘This won't be half as bad as having a baby, Major, so be grateful.' He thrust a cigar into his mouth and picked up a blood-stained probe.

A pain like a lance offire streaked up d‘Alembord's thigh and into his groin. The surgeon was probing for the bullet with a long thin metal rod. D'Alembord dared not cry aloud, for he had watched a man of his own battalion lose a leg not a moment since, and the man had uttered not a sound as the bone-saw ground away at this thigh bone. Besides, Patrick Harper was close by and d'Alembord would not shame himself by making any noise in front of Harper.

‘I've got the little bastard!' the surgeon mumbled past the wet cigar stub. ‘Can you hear the little devil, Major?'

D‘Alembord could hear nothing but the thud of gun-fire and the crash of shells exploding and the splintering roar of burning ammunition, but the surgeon was evidently scraping the edge of the musket-ball with his probe. ‘I won't be long now,' the surgeon said cheerfully, then fortified himself with a long swig of rum. ‘This next moment might be slightly uncomfortable, Major, but be glad you're not whelping a child, eh?'

‘Jesus!' D'Alembord could not resist whimpering the imprecation, but he still managed to lie motionless as the pain gouged and routed about inside his leg. A shell exploded nearby and a fragment of its casing whistled and smoked overhead.

‘Here it comes!' The surgeon had succeeded in gripping the bullet with his narrow-bladed tongs. ‘Your hand! Hold out your hand, man! Quick!' D‘Alembord dutifully held out his hand and the surgeon dropped the bloody little bullet into his palm. ‘I'll just extract what's left of your dancing togs, Major, then you'll be as quick as a trivet again.'

There was another minute's excruciating pain as the shreds of cloth were picked from the wound, then something cool and soothing was poured onto d'Alembord's thigh. Sweat was beaded on his forehead, but he knew the worst was over. He wiped the bloody bullet on hisjacket and held the small missile before his eyes. Such a small thing, no bigger than his thumbnail.

The orderlies bandaged his thigh, then helped him down from the cart. ‘You should rest for a time.' The surgeon wiped his hands on his apron which was already drenched in blood. ‘Go back into the trees, Major. There's some tarpaulins there to keep the damp out.'

‘No.' D‘Alembord tried to walk and found he could hobble without too much pain. ‘Thank you, but no.'

The surgeon had already forgotten him. A man with an arm blown away and three ribs exposed was being lifted onto the cart. Harper brought the horses forward. ‘Shouldn't you rest, Mr d'Alembord?'

‘I'm going back to the battalion, Harper.'

‘Are you sure, now?'

‘It was a flesh wound, nothing else.'

‘But painful, eh?'

D‘Alembord almost screamed with agony as Harper heaved him up into Sharpe's saddle. ‘You should know,' he managed to reply with admirable self-restraint.

‘Funnily enough,' the Irishman said, ‘I've never had a bad wound. Mr Sharpe, now, he's different, he's always getting bits chopped out of him, but I must be lucky.'

‘Don't tempt fate,' d'Alembord said fervently.

‘Considering what fate's done to Ireland, Major, what the hell more can it do to me?' Harper laughed. ‘Back to duty, eh?'

‘Back to duty.' D‘Alembord knew he could have ridden away from the battlefield, and no one would have blamed him, but in his time he had seen more than one officer lose an arm and still go back to the battle line after the surgeon had chopped and sawed the stump into shape. So d'Alembord would go back, because he was an officer and that was his duty. He hid his terror, tried to smile, and rode to the ridge.

 

Major Vine was shot through his left eye by a skirmisher. He gave a last bad-tempered grunt, fell from his saddle, and lay stone-dead beside Lieutenant-Colonel Ford's horse. The Colonel whimpered, then stared down at the fallen Major whose face now appeared to have one vast red Cyclopean eye. ‘Major Vine?' Ford asked nervously.

The dead man did not move.

Ford tried to remember Vine's Christian name. ‘Edwin?' He tried, or perhaps it was Edward? ‘Edward?' But Edwin Vine lay quite still. A fly settled next to the fresh pool of blood that had been his left eye.

‘Major Vine!' Ford snapped as though a direct order would resurrect the dead.

‘He's a gonner, sir,' a sergeant from the colour party offered helpfully, then, seeing his Colonel's incomprehension, made a more formal report. ‘The Major's dead, sir.'

Ford smiled a polite response and stifled an urge to scream. He did not know it, but a quarter of the men who had marched with him to battle were now either dead or injured. RSM McInerney had been disembowelled by a roundshot that had killed two other men and torn the arm off another. Daniel Hagman was bleeding to death with a bullet in his lungs. His breath bubbled with blood as he tried to speak. Sharpe knelt beside him and held his hand. ‘I'm sorry, Dan.' Sharpe had known Hagman the longest of all the men in the light company. The old poacher was a good soldier, shrewd, humorous and loyal. ‘I'll get you to the surgeons, Dan.'

‘Bugger them surgeons, Mr Sharpe,' Hagman said, then said nothing more. Sharpe shouted at two of the bandsmen to carry him back to the surgeons, but Hagman was dead. Sergeant Huckfield lost the small finger of his left hand to a musket ball. He stared in outrage at the wound, then, refusing to leave the battalion, sliced once with his knife then asked Captain Jefferson to wrap a strip of cloth round the bleeding stump. Private Clayton was shaking with fear, but somehow managed to stand steady and look straight into the eyes of the French skirmishers who still roamed the ridge crest with apparent impunity. Next to him Charlie Weller was trying to remember childhood's prayers, but, though childhood was not very far in his past, the prayers would not come. ‘Oh, God,' he said instead.

‘God's no bloody help,' Clayton said, then ducked as a skirmisher's bullet almost knocked the crown off his shako.

‘Stand still there!' Sergeant Huckfield shouted.

Clayton pulled his shako straight and muttered a few curses at the Sergeant. ‘We should be bloody attacking,' he said after he had exhausted his opinion of Huckfield's mother.

‘In time we will.' Charlie Weller still had a robust faith in victory.

Another musket bullet went within inches of Clayton's head. He shivered helplessly. ‘If I'm a dead 'un, Charlie, you'll look after Sally, won't you?' Clayton's wife, Sally, was by far the prettiest wife in the battalion. ‘She likes you, she does,' Clayton explained his apparent generosity.

‘You're going to be all right.' Charlie Weller, despite the hiss and crash of bullet and shell, felt a frisson of excitement at the thought of Sally. ,

‘Sweet God, I've had enough of this!' Clayton looked round to see what officers still lived. ‘Bloody hell! Major Vine's a dead 'un! Good riddance to the bastard.'

‘Look to your front, Private Clayton!' Sergeant Huckfield touched the New Testament in his top pocket, and prayed that the damned French skirmishers would soon run out of ammunition.

Colonel Joseph Ford almost vomited as he tried to wipe away the globules of Major Vine's brains that smeared his breeches. Ford was feeling horribly alone; one major was dead, the other was wounded and gone to the surgeons, and all around him his precious battalion was being chewed to pieces by the guns and the skirmishers. He took off his spectacles and rubbed frantically at the lens, only to discover that his sash was thickly smeared with scraps of Major Vine's brains. Ford gasped for horrified breath and knew he was going to vomit helplessly.

‘It's nothing to do with me!' a harsh voice suddenly spoke from beside Ford's horse, ‘but I'd suggest a fifty-pace advance, give the bastards one good volley, then retire.'

Ford, his impulse to vomit checked by the voice, frantically pulled on the smudged eyeglasses and found himself staring into the sardonic face of Lieutenant-Colonel Sharpe. Ford tried to say something in reply, but no sound came.

‘With your permission, sir?' Sharpe asked punctiliously.

Ford, too frightened to open his mouth, just nodded.

‘South Essex!' Sharpe's thunderous voice startled the nearest men. It did not matter that he had inadvertently used the battalion's old name, they knew who they were and who, at last, was giving them direction in the middle of horror. ‘Front rank! Fix bayonets!'

‘Thank Christ for bloody Sharpie,' Clayton said fervently, then half crouched to hold his musket between his knees as he pulled out his bayonet and slotted it onto his musket.

Sharpe thrust between the files of Number Five Company, placing himself in the very centre of the battalion's front rank. “Talion will advance fifty paces! At the double! By the right! March!' As the men started forward, Sharpe drew his long sword. ‘Come on, you buggers! Cheer! Let the bastards know you're coming to kill them! Cheer!'

The battalion ran forward, bayonets outstretched. And they cheered. They knew Sharpe, they had followed him into battle before, and they liked to hear that voice shouting commands. They trusted him. He gave them confidence and victory. They cheered even louder as the mass of startled skirmishers on the ridge's crest upped and fled from their sudden advance. Sharpe had run ahead of them to stand with his drawn sword on the very lip of the crest.

‘Halt!' Sharpe's voice, trained as a sergeant, instantly silenced and stopped the shrunken battalion. Ahead of them the French Voltiguers were dropping into new firing positions.

Sharpe turned to face the battalion. ‘Front rank kneel! Aim at the buggers! Don't throw away this volley! Find your man and kill the bastard! Aim for their bellies!' He pushed his way between two men of the kneeling front rank then turned to look at the French. He saw a Voltigeur's musket pointing directly at him and he knew that the Frenchman was taking careful aim. He also knew he could not duck or dodge, but just had to trust in the French musket's inaccuracy. ‘Aim!' he shouted. The Frenchman fired and Sharpe felt the wind of the ball on his check like a sudden hot blow. ‘Fire!'

The massive volley crashed down the slope. Perhaps twenty Frenchmen died, and twice as many were wounded. ‘Light company! Stay where you are and reload! Front rank, stand! No one told you to run!' Sharpe remained on the crest. Behind him a man was lying dead, struck in the head by the bullet intended for Sharpe. ‘Light company! Chain formation, quick now!'

The battalion's skirmishers spread along the crest. Their new Captain, Jefferson, jiggled impatiently, wanting to be away from this exposed ridge where the roundshot slashed and thudded, but Sharpe was determined that the Company's volley would have an effect. The men finished reloading their muskets, then knelt. The surviving French skirmishers were creeping forward again, filling the gaps torn by the battalion volley. ‘Wait for the order!' Sharpe called to his old Company. ‘Find your targets! Clayton!'

‘Sir?'

‘There's an officer on your right. A tall bugger with a red moustache. I want him dead or I'll blame you for it! Company!' He paused a second. ‘Fire!'

The smaller volley did more damage, though whether the moustached officer was shot, Sharpe could not tell. He shouted at the men to retire to battalion. The manoeuvre had gained a few moments' respite, nothing more, but it was better to hit back than simply endure the galling punishment of the enemy skirmishers.

Sharpe lingered at the crest a few more seconds. It was not bravado, but rather curiosity because, five hundred paces to his left, he could just see two red-coated infantry battalions of the King's German Legion advancing in column. They marched towards La Haye Sainte with their colours flying, presumably to drive away the French infantry who clustered about the farm.

He would have liked to have watched longer, but the enemy was creeping back towards the crest, and so Sharpe turned and walked back to the battalion. ‘Thank you for the privilege, Colonel!' he shouted to Ford.

Ford said nothing. He was in no mood to appreciate Sharpe's tact, instead he felt slighted and diminished by the Rifleman's competence. Ford knew that he should have given the orders, and that he should have taken the battalion forward, but his bowels had turned to water and his mind was a haze of fear and confusion. He had fought briefly in southern France, but he had never seen a horror like this; a battlefield where men were dying by the minute, where his battalion shrank as the files closed over the gaps left by the dead, and where it seemed that every man must die before the field's appetite for blood was slaked. Ford snatched off his fouled spectacles and scrubbed their lenses on a corner of his saddle-cloth. The white smoke and cannon's glare melded into a smear of horror before his eyes. He wished it would end, he just wished it would end. He no longer cared if it ended in victory or defeat, he just wanted it to end.