Sergeant Williams shot the man, then stabbed him with his bayonet. He was shouting like a fiend. Other Riflemen reached the summit. A knot of Frenchmen tried to form a rally square at the canyon’s edge and Sharpe shouted for his men to attack. The greenjackets scrambled over patchy snow that was flecked red. Their faces were stained with powder and their lips were drawn back in a snarl as they moved like a wolfpack towards the Dragoons, who did not wait for the charge but broke and fled.
Bullets hissed from the Dragoons positioned on the far side of the gorge. A Rifleman spun, fell, then spat blood as he struggled to his hands and knees.
“Sergeant Williams! Kill those bastards!” Sharpe pointed across the canyon. “Get their bloody heads down!”
“Sir!”
The trumpet sounded again and Sharpe veered back towards the slope he had climbed. At its foot Vivar had formed his men, but the French had expected it. Their main force had been barricaded on the road and now, from the Spaniard’s left flank, a company of Dragoons was lined for the charge. “You!” Sharpe grabbed a greenjacket. “You!” Another. “Kill those buggers.”
The rifles snapped at the horsemen. “Aim low!” His voice was snatched by the wind. “Low!” A horse went down. A man fell back from his saddle. Sharpe found a rifle among the rocks, loaded it, and fired downwards. Sergeant Williams had a dozen men sniping over the canyon, but the rest of the greenjackets were now pouring fire at the cavalry. They could not stop the charge, but they could unsettle it. A riderless horse stampeded in the snow, while another dragged a bleeding man across the charge’s face.
Vivar retreated. His thin line of men would have been turned into carrion by the Dragoon’s swords, and so the Major took shelter in the gorge. The French commander must have realized that his own charge was doomed, for the horsemen were pulled back. If the cavalry had funnelled themselves into the rocks, and done so without the help of cover from above, they would have been massacred by rifle fire.
Stalemate. Somewhere a wounded man sobbed in a terrible wailing voice. A limping horse tried to rejoin the cavalry’s ranks, but fell. Cartridge wadding smoked in the snow. Sharpe did not know whether two minutes or two hours had passed. He felt the cold seep back into his bones; a cold that had been vanquished by the sudden emergency.
He grinned to himself, proud of his greenjackets’ achievement. It had been done with a ruthless speed which had unbalanced the enemy and taken away their advantage, and now there was stalemate.
The French still barred the road, but Sharpe’s Riflemen could harass those sheltering behind the low barricade, and they did so with the grim enjoyment of men revenging themselves. Two French prisoners had been taken on the heights; two miserable Dragoons who were shoved into a hollow of the rocks and guarded by a savage-looking Rifleman. Sharpe guessed there had never been more than three dozen Dragoons on each side of the chasm, and he could see no more than sixty or seventy either behind the barricade or in the ranks of the aborted charge. This could only be a detachment of Dragoons, a handful sent into the mountains.
“Lieutenant!” Vivar shouted from beneath Sharpe. The Spaniard was hidden by the loom of the rocks.
“Major?”
“If I reach the barricade, can you give me fire?”
“You’ll never make it!” If Vivar attacked the barricade, then his flank would again be open to the horsemen. Sharpe had seen what Dragoons could do to scattered infantry, and he feared for Vivar’s dismounted Cazadores. The carbine was not the Dragoons’ real weapon; they relished the power of their long straight swords and they prayed for rash fools on whom to wield the killing blades.
“Englishman!” Vivar shouted again.
“Major?”
“I spit on your opinion! Give me fire!”
“Fool,” Sharpe muttered, then shouted at his men, “Keep their heads down!”
Vivar’s men broke cover in a column of threes. The first time he had attacked, Vivar had made a line, but now he aimed his men like a human battering ram at the road’s obstruction. The Galicians did not march forward, but ran. Smoke puffed from the barricade and Sharpe’s men opened fire.