Then Lavisser called from the courtyard. “Sharpe! Sharpe!”
Sharpe turned and went back to the landing. He went cautiously, half expecting a volley, but instead saw that a half-dozen of the soldiers were on the ground, bloodied, twitching and scorched. A bomb had exploded in the group beside the bolted door. But then Sharpe saw that Lavisser was not alone. Astrid was beside him and she was in the grip of a tall, pale-faced man. It was Aksel Bang. God damn it, Sharpe thought, but he had bloody forgotten Bang! “Sharpe?” Lavisser called again.
“What do you want?”
“Just come down, Sharpe, and that’s an end to it.” The city was shuddering, flaming, incandescent. Above the burning chapel Sharpe had an impression of scores of falling bombs and a sky laced with fiery rocket trails. The smoke boiled. He stepped back into the shadow and took the rifle from his shoulder. He could see Lavisser, but not Barker. Was Barker inside? Stalking him?
“End of what?” he called to Lavisser.
“I’m told Miss Skovgaard knows the names I want.”
“Let her go.”
Lavisser smiled. Another bomb crashed into the orphanage and the blast of its smoke and flame whipped the skirts of Lavisser’s coat, but he showed no fear. He just smiled. “I can’t let her go, Richard, you know that. I want the names.”
“I’ve got the names. I’ve got your list.”
“Then bring it down, Richard, and I’ll let Miss Skovgaard go.”
Sharpe knelt and thumbed back the rifle’s cock. Jesus wept, he thought, but this gun had better be accurate. Aksel Bang was no more than twenty paces away, but he was standing behind Astrid with his right arm about her waist. Sharpe could only see Bang’s lugubrious face, the rest of him was hidden by Astrid, but on the range at Shorncliffe Sharpe had been able to put ten bullets out of ten through a target the size of a man’s face at sixty yards.
“What are you waiting for, Richard?” Lavisser called.
“I’m thinking.”
Clouter crouched beside Sharpe. “There’s a big fellow prowling,” Sharpe told him. “Watch out for him.”
Clouter nodded. Sharpe aimed through the bars of the balcony’s balustrade, lining the notch in the rifle’s backsight and the leaf of the foresight on Aksel Bang’s face. Then Sharpe suddenly worried about whether he had wrapped the ball in its scrap of greased leather when he had reloaded the gun. He remembered firing the rifle in the Bredgade house, but when had he reloaded it? He thought when he had arrived at the orphanage last night, but he had given it no thought. Why should he? Loading a gun was like breathing, not something a man thought about. But if he had not used the leather patch then the bullet would not be gripped by the seven spiraling grooves and lands that gave it spin and so made it accurate. And if the ball was unwrapped then it would be fractionally smaller than the barrel’s width and when he fired it would fly out at a slight angle. Very slight, but enough to make it go wide and perhaps strike Astrid.
“Sharpe! I’m waiting!” Lavisser peered up at the dark doorway. “Bring me the list!”
“Let her go!” Sharpe shouted.
“Please don’t be tedious, Richard. Just come down. Or do you want me to describe what I plan to do to the lovely Astrid if you don’t come down?”
Sharpe fired. He could not see where the bullet went, for the doorway was immediately filled with a fog of powder smoke, but he heard Astrid scream and Sharpe immediately knew he had made a mistake. He should have fired at Lavisser, not Bang. Bang did not have the guts to do anything on his own initiative, but Sharpe had picked him because he was holding Astrid and now Sharpe dashed through the smoke to lean on the balustrade and he saw that Bang was on his back, spreadeagled, and where his face had been there was only a great patch of broken bone, cartilage and bloody flesh. Astrid had vanished. Lavisser was staring at Bang in disbelief, then Sharpe saw the movement to his right and he dropped to one knee as Barker fired the musket. The ball plucked at Sharpe’s hair and scored a slash across the side of his skull and he was dazed, but not disabled, and he was screaming a war shout as he charged down the balcony and rammed the muzzle of the unloaded rifle into Barker’s groin. Another musket flashed and Sharpe felt the wind of the ball passing and he saw there was a second man behind Barker, but Clouter shouted at Sharpe to drop, and he did, and the volley gun flamed and roared as loud as an exploding bomb. The second man was snatched backward as two shells cracked through the rafters of the dormitory where Sharpe and Clouter had sheltered.