Sharpe went back to his company. The enemy were fifty yards away, across the stream, and Sharpe’s Riflemen were asserting their superiority thanks to the seven spiralling grooves in the barrels of their weapons. The Voltigeurs were edging backwards, and Sharpe’s redcoats of the South Essex crept nearer to the stream to improve their aim; he watched them proudly, helping each other, pointing out targets, firing coolly and remembering the lessons he had pounded into them during the advance to Talavera. Ensign Denny was standing up, shouting shrill encouragement, and Sharpe pushed him to the ground. “Don’t make yourself a target, Mr Denny, they like to kill promising young officers!”
Denny beamed from ear to ear at the compliment. “What about you, sir? Why don’t you get down?”
“I will. Remember to keep moving!”
Harper was kneeling by Hagman, loading for him, and picking out ripe targets for the old poacher. Sharpe gave them his own rifle and left them to pick off the enemy officers. Knowles was sensibly watching the open end of the line, directing the fire of half a dozen men to stop the whitecoats outflanking the South Essex, and Sharpe was not needed there. He grinned. The company was doing well, it was fighting like a veteran unit, and already there were a dozen bodies on the far side of the stream. There were two, dressed in red, on their own side but the South Essex, perhaps due to the ferocity of their charge, held the initiative, and the Dutchmen did not want to risk coming too close to the British skirmish line.
But beyond the Voltigeurs, coming steadily, was the first column, the right-hand column of a series that filled the plain between the Cascajal and the town. The attack was only minutes away and when it came, Sharpe knew, the skirmish line would be thrown back. The whole horizon was hidden by the clouds of dust thrown up by the thousands of French infantry, their drumming and cheer-ing rivalled the sound of the guns and exploding shells, and in the background was the sinister noise of the jangling chains which were part of the artillery harness. Sharpe had never seen an attack on this scale; the columns covered half a mile in the width of their attack, and behind them, hardly seen in the dust and smoke, was a second line, equally strong, that the French would throw in if the British checked the first Battalions. Sharpe looked behind. Simmerson had swung the Battalion and it was marching away from the great gap he had created in the line; Sharpe could see a horseman riding recklessly towards the single colour and he guessed that Hill or even Wellesley was dealing furiously with Simmerson, but for the moment the gap existed and the white-coated Dutchmen were march-ing straight for it.
He joined Harper. There were only seconds before the column would force them back, and he stared at its slow advance and at the Eagle which flashed tantalisingly from its centre. Beside it rode a horseman with a fringed and cockaded hat, and Sharpe tapped Hagman on the shoul-der.
“Sir?” The Cheshire man gave a toothless grin. Sharpe shouted over the drumbeats and the crackle of musketry. “See the man with the fancy hat?”
Hagman looked. “Two hundred yards?” He took his own rifle and aimed carefully, ignoring the buzzing of the enemy bullets around them, let his breath out halfway and squeezed the trigger. The rifle slammed back into his shoulder, there was a billow of smoke, but Sharpe leapt to one side and saw the enemy Colonel fall into the mass of the column. He slapped Hagman on the back. “Well done!” He walked to the other Riflemen. “Aim at the artillery! The guns!” He was frightened of the horse artillery that the French were bringing with the columns; if the gunners were allowed to get close enough and load with canister or grape shot, they would blast great holes in the British line and give to the French columns the fire power that was normally denied to them by their packed formation. He watched his Riflemen as they aimed at the horses and at the gunners riding on the French four-pounders; if anything could stop the artillery it would be the long-range accuracy of the Baker rifle, but there was so little time before the column would force them back and the skir-mish would become an affair of running and firing, running and firing, and all the time getting closer and closer to the huge space that Simmerson had created in the British defence.