Then the red jackets seemed to disappear; there were only Chasseurs and French shouts of triumph as the dead were heaved from the staffs and the colours snatched up. Sharpe turned and held the blood-covered blade high over his head.
“Halt! Present!” He was directly in their line of fire and he threw himself flat, pulling Harper down, as he screamed the order to fire. The volley smashed overhead, and then they were up and running. The musket balls had plucked the Frenchmen from the colours, the flags had fallen again, but this time surrounded by enemy as well as British dead.
There were only a few yards to go but there were more horsemen spurring in towards the place where so many had died for the possession of the colours. Sharpe threw himself over the bodies, scrambled on blood and limbs, reached for a staff and pulled it towards him. It was the Regimental Colour, its bright yellow field torn with fresh holes, and he jammed his sword point downwards into a corpse and swung the staff like a primitive club at the horsemen. The King’s Colour was too far away. Harper was going for it, but a horse cannoned into the Sergeant and threw him back. Another horse reared and swerved from the great billow of yellow silk in Sharpe’s hand, a sword struck the staff and Sharpe saw splinters fly from the new wood; then he was hit by the net of forage strapped to the saddle and thrown over. He could smell the horses, see the hooves in the air over him, the face of the Frenchman framed by his silver shako chain bending towards him to pluck the colour from his hands. He held on. A hoof came down by his face, the horse twisted away from the corpses it had stepped on, the rider tugged and suddenly let go. Sharpe saw Harper swinging a great sergeant’s pike. He had hit the rider in the spine with its blade and the man slid gently on top of Sharpe, his last breath sighing softly in the Rifleman’s ear.
Sharpe pulled himself from beneath the body. He left the colour there; it was as safe as in his hands. Harper was swinging the pike, keeping the horsemen at bay. Where was the company? Sharpe looked round and saw them running towards the fight. They were so slow! He looked for his sword, found it, and plucked it from the body where he had thrust it. The horsemen still came, trying desperately to force their unwilling horses onto the mounds of dead. Sharpe screamed again; Harper was bellowing, but there was no enemy within sword’s length. He went forward towards the King’s Colour. He could see it lying beneath two bodies some five yards away. He slipped on blood, stood again, but there were three dismounted Frenchmen coming for him with drawn sabres. Harper was beside him; one Chasseur went down with the pike blade in his stomach, the other sank beneath Sharpe’s blade which had cut through the sabre parry as though the Frenchman’s sword was made of fragile ivory. But the third had got the Union Jack, had tugged it from the bodies and was holding it out to the mounted men behind. Sharpe and Harper lunged forward; the pike thunked into the Chasseur’s back but he had done his job. A horseman had snatched the fringe of the flag and was spurring away. There were more Frenchmen coming, clawing at the two Riflemen for the second colour, too many!
“Hold them, Patrick! Hold them!”
Harper whirled the pike, screamed at them, was Cuchulain of the Red Hand, the inviolable. He stood with his legs apart, his huge height dominating the fight, begging the green-uniformed Frenchmen to come and be killed. Sharpe scrambled back to the Regimental Colour, pulled it from the body, and threw it like a javelin at the advancing company. He watched it fall into their ranks. It was safe. Harper was still there, growling at the enemy, defying them, but there was no more fight. Sharpe stood beside him, sword in hand, and the Frenchmen turned, found horses, and mounted to ride away. One of them turned and faced the two Riflemen, lifted a bloodied sabre in grave salute, and Sharpe raised his own red sword in reply.