Bernard Cornwell – 1809 01 Sharpe’S Rifles

Dunnett stamped his cold feet on the road. “I’ll send the flank companies back first, Johnny. You can cover.”

“Yes, sir. Do we wait for our horse?”

“Bugger the cavalry.” Dunnett offered the infantryman’s automatic scorn of the mounted arm. “I’m waiting five more minutes. It can’t take this long to clear some bloody guns off the road. Do you see anything, Quartermaster?” The question was asked mockingly.

“No, sir.” The Lieutenant took off his shako and pushed a hand through hair that was long, black, and made greasy by days of campaigning. His greatcoat hung open and he wore neither scarf nor gloves. Either he could not afford them, or else he was boasting that he was too tough to need such comforts. That arrogance made Dunnett wish that the new Lieutenant, so eager for a fight, would be cut down by the enemy horsemen.

Except there were no enemy horsemen in sight. Perhaps the rain and the wind and the God-damned bloody cold had driven the French to shelter in the last village. Or perhaps the drunken women had proved too irresistible a lure. Whichever it was, there were no Frenchmen in sight, just sleet and low clouds driven to turmoil by a freshening wind.

Maj’r Dunnett swore nervously. The four companies seemed alone in a wilderness of rain and frost, four companies of forgotten soldiers in a lost war, and Dunnett made up his mind that he could wait no longer. “We’re going.”

Whistles blew. The two flank companies turned and, like the walking dead, shambled up the road. The two centre companies stayed at the bridge under Captain Murray’s. command. In five minutes or so, when the flank companies had stopped to provide cover, it would be Murray’s turn to withdraw.

The Riflemen liked Captain John Murray. He was a proper gentleman, they said, and it was a fly bastard who could fool him; but if you were straight with him, then the Captain would treat you fair. Murray had a thin and humorous face, quick to smile and swift with a jest. It was because of officers like him that these Riflemen could still shoulder arms and march with an echo of the elan they had learned on the parade ground at Shorncliffe.

“Sir!” It was the Quartermaster who still stood on the bridge and drew Murray’s attention to the east where a figure moved in the sleet. “One of ours,” he called after a moment.

The single figure, staggering and weaving, was a redcoat. He had no musket, no shako, nor boots. His naked feet left bloodstains on the road’s flint bed.

“That’ll learn him,” Captain Murray said. “You see, lads, the perils of drink?”

It was not much of a joke, merely the imitation of a preacher who had once lectured the Battalion against the evils of liquor, but it made the Riflemen smile. Their lips might be cracked and bloody with the cold, but a smile was still better than despair.

The redcoat, one of the drunks abandoned in the last village, seemed to flap a feeble hand towards the rearguard. Some instinct had awoken and driven him onto the road and kept him travelling westwards towards safety. He stumbled past the flensed and frozen carcass of a horse, then tried to run.

“Ware cavalry!” the new Lieutenant shouted.

“Rifles!” Captain Murray called, “present!”

Rags were snatched from rifle locks. Men’s hands, though numb with the cold, moved quickly.

Because, in the white mist of sleet and ice, there were other shapes. Horsemen.

The shapes were grotesque apparitions in the grey rain. Dark shapes. Scabbards, cloaks, plumes and carbine holsters made the ragged outlines of French cavalry. Dragoons.

“Steady, lads, steady!” Captain Murray’s voice was calm. The new Lieutenant had gone to the company’s left flank where his mule was hobbled.

The redcoat twisted off the road, jumped a frozen ditch, then screamed like a pig in a slaughteryard. A Dragoon had caught the man, and the long straight sword sliced down to open his face from brow to chin. Blood speckled the frosted earth. Another horseman, riding from the other flank, hissed his steel blade to cut into the fugitive’s scalp. The drunken redcoat fell to his knees, crying, and the Dragoons rode over him and spurred towards the two companies which barred the road. The small stream would be no obstacle to their charge.

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