Then a dog barked in a house to Sharpe’s right. He was so tense that he jumped sideways. The dog became frantic. Another dog took up the alarm, and a cockerel challenged the morning. The Riflemen instinctively quickened their pace.
The Frenchman by the fire straightened and turned. Sharpe could see the distinctive shape of the man’s shako; an infantryman. Not a dismounted cavalryman, but a Goddamned French infantryman who unslung his musket and pointed it towards the Riflemen. ‘Qui vive?
The challenge began the day’s fight. Sharpe took a breath, and ran.
CHAPTER 14
It was extraordinary how, once the waiting was over, the fears sloughed away.
Sharpe ran. It was uphill. His bootsole, so carefully sewn into place the day before, flapped free. Though he ran on the road’s flint-hardened surface, it seemed as if he pounded through a thick and cloying mud, yet the fears went because the die was cast and the game must be seen to its end.
„Qui vive?“
‘Ami! Ami! Ami!“ Vivar had given him a whole French phrase that might confuse an alert enemy sentry, but Sharpe had been unable to commit the strange words to memory, and so had settled on the simpler word for ’friend‘. He shouted it louder, at the same time pointing behind him as though he fled from some enemy hidden in the mist.
The sentry hesitated. Four other Frenchmen had come from the church porch. One had a Sergeant’s stripe on his blue sleeve, but he evidently did not want the responsibility of firing on his own side for he shouted into the church for an officer to come. ‘Capitaine! Capitaine!“ Then, shako-less and still buttoning his bluejacket, the Sergeant turned back towards the approaching Riflemen. ’Halte la!”
Sharpe held up his left hand as though he was ordering his men to slow down. He slowed himself, gasping again: “Ami! Ami!“ He appeared to stumble forward, exhausted, and the clumsy subterfuge took him to within two paces of the enemy Sergeant. Then he looked into the Frenchman’s eyes and saw the sudden terror of realization.
It was too late. All Sharpe’s fears, and all the relief from those fears, went into his first sword stroke. One pace forward, the snarling lunge, and the Sergeant was folding over the twisting blade and the first sentry was opening his mouth to shout as Harper’s bayonet came up into his belly. The Frenchman’s finger closed in spasm on his musket’s trigger. Sharpe was so close to the man that he did not see the muzzle flame, only the explosion in the pan. A spark of burning powder fizzed over his head, smoke billowed around him, then he was twisting and wrenching his sword free of the Frenchman’s flesh. The Sergeant fell backwards into the watch-fire and his hair, which had served as his towel for greasy hands, flared bright and high for an instant.
The remaining three Frenchmen were retreating towards the porch, but the Riflemen were faster. Another musket shot stunned the dawn, then the sword-bayonets did their work. A Frenchman screamed terribly.
“Silence the bastard!” Harper snapped. A blade ripped, there was a choking sound, then nothing.
A pistol banged from the church door. A greenjacket gasped, turned, and fell into the fire. Two rifles fired, throwing a dark shape back into the church’s shadowed interior. The burning Rifleman screamed foully as he was dragged from the flames. The dogs were barking like the hounds of hell.
Surprise was gone, and there were yet three hundred yards of road to cover. Sharpe was pulling the handcart aside, opening the road to the cavalry that must follow. “Leave the buggers!” There were still Frenchmen inside the church but they must be ignored if the assault was to have any chance of success. Even Sharpe’s own wounded must be abandoned if the city was to fall. “Leave them! Come on!”
The Riflemen obeyed. One or two hung back, seeking safety in the shadows, but Harper demanded to know whether they would prefer to fight him or the French and the laggards found their courage. They followed Sharpe into the dark mist that was not so dark any longer. There were bugles sounding in the city, not in alarm yet, merely ordering the stand-to, but the calls served to instil urgency into the greenjackets. The haste made them lose all semblance of military order; they advanced neither in file nor line, but as a pounding mass of men who ran up the slope towards the looming city.