“The waggon! The waggon!” Sharpe jerked his sword free of the man who had forgotten to prime his gun. Harper slammed down with his rifle butt to stun the last Frenchman, then bellowed at the Riflemen to drag the cart out of the way. “Pull, you bastards! Pull!” The greenjackets threw themselves at the wheels and slowly the waggon creaked into the space which the French had cleared for their killing ground.
Most of the French picquet had fled down the street ahead. It was a narrow, cobbled street with a central gutter. Other streets led left and right, following the line where the walls had once stood. In all the streets, Frenchmen were spilling from the houses and some paused to fire at the Riflemen. A pistol bullet ricocheted from the window grille beside Sharpe’s head.
“Load! Load!” Sharpe was kicking the watch-fire aside, trying to make a passage for Vivar’s horsemen. He booted flaming debris into an alley, scorching his boots and trousers. The Riflemen took shelter in doorways, spitting bullets into muzzles and thrusting down with their iron ramrods. There were shouts from the street and the first Riflemen to be reloaded sniped at the enemy. Sharpe turned and saw the cathedral’s three belltowers just two hundred yards away. The narrow street went uphill, turning slightly to the right after fifty paces. The misted light was growing, though the dawn proper had not yet come. A few Frenchmen in breeches, boots, and shirts still ran from houses with weapons and helmets clutched in their hands. One enemy cuirassier, panicking, ran towards the greenjackets and was thumped on the head by a rifle butt. Others took cover in doorways to fire at the invaders.
“Fire!” Sharpe called. More rifles snapped to drive the disorganized enemy further into the city. Sharpe’s rifle kicked his shoulder like a mule and the flaming powder from the pan stung his cheek. Harper was dragging French corpses aside, pulling the bodies through the frosted nightsoil in the central gutter.
There was a curious silence. The Rifles had achieved surprise, and the silence marked the precious, and precarious moments as the French tried to make sense of the sudden alarm. Sharpe knew a counterattack would come, but now there was just the eerie, unexpected, and menacing silence. He broke it by shouting his men into their places. He put one squad to cover the western street, a second to watch eastwards, while he held the largest number of Riflemen to guard the narrow way which led to the city’s centre. His voice echoed back from the stone walls. He suddenly felt the impertinence of what he had done, of what Bias Vivar had dared to order done, of this chilling moment in the dawn. A French bugle sounded the reveille, then, in betrayal of the spreading warnings, slurred into the alarm. A bell began an urgent clamour and a thousand pigeons clattered up from the cathedral’s pinnacled roof to fill the air with panicked wings. Sharpe turned to stare north and wondered when Vivar’s main force would arrive.
“Sir!” Harper had kicked in the door of the closest house where half a dozen Frenchmen, scared half-witless, cowered in the guardroom. A fire flickered in the hearth, and their bedding lay in confusion on the bare wood floor. They had been sleeping, and their muskets were still racked beside the door. “Get the guns out!” Sharpe ordered. “Sims! Tongue! Cameron!”
The three Riflemen ran to him.
“Cut their belts, braces, bootlaces, belts and buttons. Then leave the bastards where they are. Take their bayonets. Take anything you damn well want, but hurry!”
“Yes, sir.”
Harper crouched beside Sharpe in the street outside the guardroom. “That was all easier than I thought.”
Sharpe had imagined the big Irishman to have felt no fear, and the words hinted at a relief which he shared. They were also true words. As he had run uphill from the church, Sharpe had expected an overwhelming defence to blaze and crash from the line of buildings; instead a half-dazed picquet had fired two volleys, then crumpled. “They weren’t expecting us,” he offered in explanation.
Another enemy bugle snatched its urgent summons to rival the barking of dogs and the clangour of the bells. The closest streets were empty now but for the shredding mist and the humped shapes of two Frenchmen killed as they came from their billets. Sharpe knew that this was the moment for the enemy to counterattack. If one French officer had his wits and could find two companies of men, then the Riflemen were beaten. He looked to his right, but there was still no sign of the Cazadores. “Load! Then hold your fire!”