“Fire!” Sharpe repeated the word. ,Fire, you idiot.”
Simmerson had one hope for survival. He had to blast the Spanish out of his way; otherwise the fugitives would break into his own square and let the horsemen through after them. He did nothing. With a groan Sharpe watched the Spanish reach the red ranks and beat aside the bayonets as they scrambled to safety. The South Essex gave ground; they split to let the desperate men into the hollow centre; the first Frenchman reached the ranks, cut down with his sabre, and was blasted from the saddle by musket fire. Sharpe watched the horse stagger from bullet wounds; it crashed sideways into the face of the square, dragging down all four ranks. Another horseman came to the gap; he hacked left and right, then he too was plucked from his horse by a volley. Then it was over. The French came into the gap, the square broke, the men mixed with the Spanish and ran. This time there was only one place to go. The bridge. Sharpe turned to Sterritt.
“Get your company out of the way!”
“What?”
“Move! Come on, man, move!”
If the company stayed at the bridge it would be swamped by fugitives. Sterritt sat on his horse and gaped at Sharpe, stunned and overwhelmed by the tragedy before him. Sharpe turned to the men.
“This way! At the double!”
Harper was there. Dependable Harper. Sharpe led, the men followed, Harper drove them. Off the road and down the bank. Sharpe saw Hogan alongside.
“Get back, sir!”
“I’m coming with you!”
“You’re not. Who’ll blow the bridge?”
Hogan disappeared. Sharpe ignored the chaos to his right, he ran down the bank, counting his steps. At seventy paces he judged they had gone far enough. Sterritt had disappeared. He whirled on them.
“Halt! Three ranks!”
His Riflemen were there; they had needed no orders. Behind him he could hear screams, the occasional cough of a musket, but above all the sound of hooves and of blades falling. He did not look. The men of the South Essex stared past him.
“Look at me!”
They looked at him. Tall and calm.
“You’re in no danger. Just do as I say. Sergeant!”
“Sir!”
“Check the flints.”
Harper grinned at him. The men of Sterritt’s company had to be calmed down, their hysteria smoothed by the familiar, and the big Irishman went down the ranks, forcing the men to take their eyes off the slaughter ahead and look at their muskets instead. One of the men, white with fear, looked up at the huge Sergeant. “What’s going to happen, Sarge?”
“Happen? You’re going to earn your money, lad. You’re going to fight.” He tugged at the man’s flint. “Loose as a good woman, lad, screw it up!” The Sergeant looked down the ranks and laughed. Sharpe had saved eighty muskets and thirty rifles from the rout, and the French, God bless them, were about to have a fight.
CHAPTER 7
It was a shambles. Four minutes ago sixteen hundred infantry had been ranked on the field, officered and organised; now most of them were running for the bridge; they threw away muskets, packs, anything that might slow them down and bring the methodical sabres of the French closer to their heels. The French Colonel was good. He concentrated some of his men on the fugitives, driving them at a trot, cutting left and right as simply as on the practice field, driving the panicked mass to the killing ground at the bridge’s entrance. More horsemen had been ordered against the remnants of the British square, a huddle of men fighting desperately round the colours, but Sharpe could see more cavalry, standing motionless in two ranks, the French reserve which could be thrown in to sustain the attack or break any sudden resistance from the infantry.
There was no point in defending the bridge. It was well enough protected from the French by the turbulent mass of men struggling for its dubious safety. Sharpe guessed that perhaps a thousand men were trying to thread themselves on to a roadway just wide enough for an ox-cart. It was an unbelievable sight. Sharpe had seen panic on a battlefield before, but never quite like this. Less than a hundred horsemen were driving ten times their number in horrific flight. The crowd at the bridge could not move forward, the press of bodies was too great, but Spanish and British fought and seethed, clawed and shoved, desperate to escape the Chasseurs who cut at the fringes of the crowd. Even those who succeeded in pushing their way onto the bridge were not safe. Sharpe caught a glimpse of men falling into the water where the bridge was broken and where Hogan had destroyed the parapets. Other men, harried by sabres, joined the back of the crowd. The French had no chance of cutting their way through that immense barrier of bone and flesh; nor were they trying to get to the bridge. Instead the Chasseurs kept the panic boiling so that the men had no chance to reform and turn on their pursuers with loaded muskets and raised bayonets. The horsemen were almost lackadaisical in their sabre cuts. Sharpe saw one man cheerfully urging the fugitives on with the flat of his sword. It took effort to kill a man, especially if he was wearing his pack and had turned his back. Inexperienced horsemen swept their blades in impressive arcs that slammed into a soldier’s back; the victim would collapse, only to discover, astonished, that his injury was merely a sliced pack and greatcoat. The veteran Chasseurs waited until they were level with their targets and then cut backwards at the unprotected face, and Sharpe knew there would be far more wounded than dead, horribly wounded, faces mangled by the blades, heads opened to the bone. He turned to his front.