“Shells?”
Sharpe nodded as the first one exploded on the Medel-lin. The sound rose in intensity, the crash of the shells echoing the thunder of the guns, and added to the din was the sharper sound of the long British six-pounders firing back. Harper jerked a thumb at the unseen Medellin. “That’s a rare hammering, sir.”
Sharpe listened. “The bands are still playing.”
,I’d rather be down here.”
Distantly, through the incessant crashes that merged into one long rumble, Sharpe could hear the sound of Regimental bands. As long as the bandsmen were playing then the British Battalions were not suffering overmuch from the French bombardment. If Wellesley had not pulled the British line behind the crest the French gunners would be slaughtering the Battalions file by file and the bandsmen would be doing their other job of picking up the wounded and taking them to the rear. Sharpe knew Harper, like himself, was thinking of the promise to Lennox, of the Eagle. He stared across the stream at the empty grass, listened to the cannonade as though it were someone else’s battle, and turned to the Sergeant.
“There will be other days, you know. Other battles.”
Harper smiled slowly, crouched, and flicked a pebble into the clear water. “We’ll see what happens, sir.” He stayed still, listening, then pointed ahead. “Hear that?”
It was the noise Sharpe had been waiting for, faint but unmistakable, the sound he had not heard since Vimeiro, the sound of the French attack. The enemy columns were not in sight, would not be visible for minutes, but through the mist he could hear the serried drummers beating the hypnotic rhythm of the charge. Boom-boom, boom-boom, boomaboom, boomaboom, boom-boom. On and on it would go until the attack was won or lost, the drummer boys thrashing the skins despite the volleys, the endless rhythm that had carried the French to victory after victory. There was a relentless menace about the drumbeats, each repeated phrase brought the French nearer by ten paces, on and on, on and on.
Sharpe smiled at Harper. “Look after the boy. Is he all right?”
“Denny, sir? Tripped over his sword three times but otherwise he’s fine.” Harper laughed. “Look after yourself, sir.”
Sharpe walked back up the stream, the drumbeats nearer, the skirmish line peering apprehensively into the empty mist. Their job was about to begin. The French guns had failed to break the British Battalions and in front of the drums, spread in a vast cloud, the Voltigeurs were coming. Their aim was to get as close to the British Battalions as they could and snipe at the line with their muskets, to thin the ranks, weaken the line, so that when the drummed column arrived the British would be rotten and give way. Sharpe’s skirmishers with the other Light Companies had to stop the Voltigeurs and their private battle, fought in the mist, was about to begin. He found Knowles standing by the stream.
“See anything?”
“No, sir.”
The drumming was louder, competing with the crash of the shells, and at the end of each drummed phrase Sharpe could hear a new sound as the drummers paused to let thousands of voices chant `Vive L’Empereur’. It was the victory noise that had terrified the armies of Europe, the sound of Marengo, of Austerlitz, of Jena, the voices and drums of French victory. Then, upstream and out of sight, the Light troops met and Sharpe heard the first crackle of musketry: not the rolling volleys of massed ranks but the spaced, deliberate cracks of aimed shots. Knowles looked at Sharpe with raised eyebrows, the Rifleman shook his head. “That’s only one column. There’ll be at least another one, probably two, and nearer. Wait.”
And there they were, dim figures running in the mist, dozens of men in blue jackets with red epaulettes who angled across their front. The men raised their muskets.
“Hold your fire!” Sharpe pushed a musket down. The Voltigeurs ran into the fire of the 66th and the Royal Americans, they were a hundred paces upstream and Sharpe waited to see if the French skirmish line would reach the South Essex. “Wait!”
He watched the first Frenchmen crumple on the turf, others knelt and took careful aim but it was not his fight. He guessed the French attack, aimed at the Medellin, was going to pass by the South Essex but he was glad enough to let his raw troops see real skirmishing before they had to do it themselves. The French, like the British, fought in pairs. Each man had to protect his partner, firing in turn and calling out warnings, constantly watching the enemy to see if the guns were aimed at him or his partner. Sharpe could hear the shouts, the whistles that passed on com-mands, and in the background, insistent as a tocsin, the drumming and shouting. Knowles was like a leashed hound wanting to go up the bank to the fight but Sharpe held him back. “They don’t need us. Our turn will come. Wait.”