“Can we do it, sir?”
“We promised, didn’t we?”
“Aye, but it’s never been done.”
“Then we’ll be the first!” Sharpe spoke fiercely. “Now come on, we’ve got work to do!” He stared at the gun. It crept closer and closer, and he knew now that his idea could work. It had loose ends, there always were unan-swered questions, and he put himself in the place of his enemies and tracked the answers down. Harper saw the excitement on his Lieutenant’s face, watched his hand grip and regrip the sword hilt, and waited patiently for the orders.
Sharpe measured distances, angles, lines of fire. He was excited, the elation returning; there was hope despite the field gun. He summoned the Lieutenants, the Sergeants, faced them and slammed a fist into his open palm.
“Listen. ”
CHAPTER 9
The time for regrets would come later, the time to be saddened by the carnage, to reflect on being alive and unwounded, most of all to regret that he could not have spent more time with the dying Lennox. Sharpe drew the great sword, hefted his rifle in his left hand, turned to the one hundred and seventy men who paraded in three ranks across the road.
“Forward!”
As they marched Sharpe let his thoughts dwell briefly on the conversation with Lennox. Had he convinced the dying man? He thought so. Lennox was a soldier, he understood that Sharpe had so little time, and the Rifleman was convinced he had seen relief in the Scotsman’s face. Keeping the promise was another matter: first there was this day’s business to complete. Forrest marched beside him, the two of them a few paces in front of the solitary colour that once again waved over the small formation; the Major was distinctly nervous.
“Will it work, Sharpe?”
The tall Rifleman grinned. “So far it has, Major. They think we’re mad.”
Forrest had insisted on coming along rather than stay with the wounded by the bridge. He was still a little dazed, shaken by the blow on his head, and he had refused Sharpe’s offer to command the survivors in the face of the new French onslaught. “I’ve never been in battle before today, Sharpe,” Forrest had said. “Except that I once suppressed a food riot in Chelmsford, and I don’t think that counts.”
Sharpe could understand the Major’s nervousness, was grateful that Forrest had given his blessing to what seemed to be an act of utter folly, yet Sharpe’s instincts told him the plan would work. To the watching and waiting Chas-seurs it looked as if the small British force was intent on committing suicide by a death-or-glory charge that stood no hope of success but would at least save them from the attrition of dying piecemeal from the blows of the French gunners. Forrest had asked, almost plaintively, why the enemy were continuing the fight, had they not already won a big enough victory? Sharpe was now offering them the chance to capture a second British colour that could be paraded in the French camp to persuade the soldiers of the fragility of the new enemy.
“Is it time, Sharpe?” Forrest was anxious.
“No, sir, no. A minute yet.”
They marched straight up the track towards the gun three hundred yards away. Sharpe’s plan had depended on two things, and the enemy had obliged by doing both. First they had brought the small four-pounder as close to the British as safety allowed. They would not want to use solid round shot against the infantry; instead Sharpe knew they would load the gun with canister, the deadly metal container of musket balls and scrap iron that shattered as soon as it left the barrel and sprayed its lethal mixture like bent nails fired from a coachman’s blunderbuss. No doubt the French expected the British to lie down in the broken ground by the waterside, sheltered by the falling river-bank, but the canisters would have sought them out even there and killed them two by two, three by three. Instead the British were marching straight for the gun, like sheep walking into a slaughterhouse, and the French gunners would probably need no more than three rounds to tear them apart and let the cavalry finish the dazed survivors off. Sharpe’s second guess was about the cavalry. He had felt an enormous relief when they paraded to the British right. He had expected that, but if they had gone to the left the plan could never have been started, and they would have had no option but to die by the bridge. The ground to the right was thinly strewn with bodies, unlike the left which was an obstacle course of dead men and horses, and Sharpe had guessed that the French Colonel, charging obliquely to the fire of his cannon, would want an unobstructed path for the horsemen who now waited for the gun to open fire.