Bernard Cornwell – 1807 09 Sharpe’s Prey

Sergeant Kilmer nodded a greeting to Sharpe. “Glad you’re back, sir.”

“Captain Dunnett sent me to look after you.”

Filmer grinned. “Going to make us tea, sir, are you? Tuck us up in bed?”

“Just going for a walk with you, Lofty. Straight up the hill.”

Filmer glanced at the distant enemy. “Any good, are they?”

“God knows. The militia aren’t, but those look like regulars to me.”

“Find out soon enough,” Filmer said. He was a very short man and was thus known throughout the regiment as Lofty. He was also very competent. He scraped out the bowl of a clay pipe, then opened his pouch and offered Sharpe a scrap of honeycomb. “Fresh, sir. Found some hives in that last village.”

Sharpe sucked the honey. “They’ll hang you if they catch you, Lofty.”

“Hung a couple of fellows yesterday, didn’t they? Silly bastards got caught.” He spat wax onto the grass. “Is it right there’s a town over the skyline, sir?”

“Called Koge,” Sharpe said, thinking that he must have been very near this place when he had escaped from Lavisser.

“Bloody daft names they’ve got here, sir.” Filmer held his rifle’s trigger and worked the cock back and forth. “I put some oil on her,” he explained, “`cos I reckon she got a bit damp at sea.” He glanced at his men. “Don’t be bloody sleeping, you dozy bastards, there’ll be work for you in a minute.”

The artillerymen had loaded their guns and now stood ready to fire while the 92nd, over by the beach, was forming in line. The 43rd, immediately behind Sharpe, was doing the same. Two regiments of redcoats and one of greenjackets. It was a small force, much smaller than the enemy, but Sharpe knew what these regular soldiers could do and felt pity for the Danes. He gazed at their white cross on its red field. We should not be doing this, he thought. We should be fighting the French, not the Danes. He thought of Astrid and then felt guilty because of Grace. “We’ll see if it all works now, sir,” Filmer said cheerfully.

“We will,” Sharpe agreed. They would see if the months of hard training at Shorncliffe had been worthwhile. The army had always employed skirmishers, men who ran ahead of the rigid formations to harry and weaken the waiting enemy, but now the army was employing riflemen to make those skirmishers more deadly. There were plenty who said the experiment was a waste of time and money, for rifles were much harder to reload than the smoothbore muskets and so a green jacket could only fire one shot to a musket’s three or even four. The sceptics claimed that the riflemen would be slaughtered while they recharged their expensive weapons, but those weapons could kill at four times the distance of a musket. It was accuracy against quantity.

Both armies waited. Two redcoat regiments were in line, the guns were laid, and the Danes were showing no sign of retreat. Captain Dunnett walked to the right of his line. “You know what to do, Lofty.”

“Skin `em alive, sir,” Filmer said.

“Keep your head!” Dunnett called to the men. “Aim properly!” He was about to add some more encouragements, but just then a shrill whistle sounded in short urgent blasts. “Forward!” Dunnett shouted.

The greenjackets were spread right across the British front so that both battalions would have the benefit of their rifles. They walked forward and Filrner’s men kicked down a low fence that divided a meadow from a field dotted with shocked wheat. The light companies of the 43rd and 92nd advanced with the riflemen, a scatter of red coats among the green. The skirmishers stayed well clear of the road for that was where the British guns would fire.

Sharpe climbed the shallow slope and saw the Danish skirmishers double forward from their positions. These were regular soldiers, not militia, and their white crossbelts showed against pale-blue coats. The Danes spread along the hillside, waiting for the British skirmishers to come within range.

“Bloody boots,” Sergeant Filmer said to Sharpe. The sole of the Sergeant’s right boot had just come loose and was flapping. “They were a bloody new pair too, sir! Bloody boots.”

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