Sharpe looked at him. “All?” He turned. “Mr Denny? Go back to the Battalion! That is an order!”
“But, sir. ,
“No, Mr Denny. Back!”
He watched as the boy turned and took a few steps. Gibbons was still sitting on his horse and watching them, and Sharpe wondered again what the Lieutenant was doing, but it was immaterial; the Eagle was all. He turned back and went on, praying that the enemy would not notice them, praying to whatever was beyond the blue sky skeined in smoke that they would be successful. He had set his heart on an Eagle.
The enemy still faced away from them, still fired into the smoke, and the noise of battle became louder. At last Sharpe could hear the regular platoon volleys and knew that the second French attack had met the new British line and the dreadful monotony of the British volleys once again wrestled with the hypnotic drumming. The six-pound roundshot of the British thundered overhead and cut vicious paths in the unseen French columns, but the drumming increased, the shouts of `Vive L’Empereur’ were unabated, and suddenly they were within a hundred yards of the Eagle and Sharpe twisted the sword in his hand and hurried the pace. Surely the enemy would see them!
A drummer boy, rattling his sticks at the rear of the enemy line, turned to be sick and saw the small group coming silently through the smoke. He shouted a warning, but no-one heard; he shouted again and Sharpe saw an officer turn. There was movement in the ranks, men were swivelling to face them, but they had ramrods half down their barrels and were still loading. Sharpe raised his sword. “On! On!”
He began to run, oblivious of everything except the Eagle and the frightened faces of the enemy who were desperately hurrying to load their muskets. Around the standard-bearer Sharpe could see Grenadiers wearing the tall bearskins, some of them armed with axes, the protec-tors of French honour. A musket banged and a ramrod cart-wheeled .over his head; Harper was beside him, the sword bayonet in his hand, and the two men screamed their challenge as the drummer boys fled to either side and the two huge Riflemen ploughed into the centre of the enemy line. Muskets exploded with a terrible crash, Sharpe had an impression of men in green uniforms being thrown backwards, and then he could see nothing except a tall Grenadier who was lunging in short and professional jabs with a bayonet. Sharpe twisted to one side, let the blade slide past him, grabbed the muzzle of the musket with his left hand and pulled the Grenadier onto his levelled sword blade. Someone cut at him from the left, a swinging down-stroke with a clubbed musket, and he turned so that it thudded viciously into his pack to throw him forward onto the body of the Grenadier whose hands were clutching the blade embedded in his stomach. A gun deafened him, one of his own rifles, and suddenly he was clear and dragging the blade from the heavy corpse and screaming murder at the men who guarded the Eagle. Harper had cut his way, like Sharpe, through the first rank, but his sword-bayonet was too short and the Irish-man was being driven back by two men with bayonets, and Sharpe crushed them to one side with his sword, slicing a vast splinter from the nearest musket, and Harper leapt into the gap, cutting left and right, as Sharpe struggled alongside.
More muskets, more screams; the white-jackets were clawing at them, surrounding them, reloading to blast the tiny band with musket fire that would crush them unmerci-fully. The Eagle was retreating, away from them, but there was nowhere for the standard-bearer to go except towards the musket fire of an unseen British Battalion that was somewhere in the smoke that poured from the crash of column onto line. An axeman came at Sharpe; he was a huge man, as big as Harper, and he smiled as he hefted the huge blade and then swung it powerfully down in a blow that would have severed the head of an ox. Sharpe wrenched himself out of the way, felt the wind of the blade, and saw the axe thud into the blood-wet ground. He stabbed the sword down into the man’s neck, knew he had killed him, and watched as Harper plucked the axe from the earth and threw away his bayonet. The Irishman was screaming in the language of his ancestors, his wild blood surging, the axe searing in a circle so wildly that even Sharpe had to duck out of the way as Patrick Harper went on; lips wrenched back in the blackened face, his shako gone, his long hair matted with powder, the great silver blade singing in his hands and the old language carving a path through the enemy.