“Forward!” Sharpe, the German officers, and from the ridge the company officers of the 66th shouted as they led the red-steel-tipped line down the slope. Sharpe looked for the Eagles but they were far ahead, being carried to safety, and he forgot them and led his men diagonally down the hill to cut off the fleeing groups of Frenchmen. It was a time for prisoners, and as the skirmishers cut into the blue mass the Frenchmen threw down their guns and held their hands high. One officer refused to surrender and flickered his blade towards Sharpe, but the huge cavalry sword beat it aside and the man dropped to his knees and held clasped hands towards the Rifleman. Sharpe ignored him. He wanted to get to the stream and stop his men pursuing the French onto the far bank, where reserve Battalions waited to punish the British victors. The mist had almost cleared.
Some Frenchmen stopped at the stream and turned their muskets on the British. A ball plucked at Sharpe’s sleeve, another scorched past his face, but the small group broke and fled as he swept the sword towards them. His boots splashed in the stream; he could hear shots behind him and saw bullets strike the water, but he turned and screamed at his men to stop. He drove them back from the stream, herded them with the prisoners, away from the French reserve troops who waited with loaded muskets on the far bank.
It was done. The first attack beaten and the slope of the Medellin was smothered in bodies that lay in a blue smear from the stream almost to the crest they had failed to reach. There would be another attack, but first each side must count the living and collect the dead. Sharpe looked for Harper and saw, thankfully, that the Sergeant was alive. Lieutenant Knowles was there, grinning broadly, and with his sword still unbloodied.
“What’s the time, Lieutenant?”
Knowles tucked the blade under his arm and opened his watch. “Five minutes after six, sir. Wasn’t that incredible?”
Sharpe laughed. “Just wait. That was nothing.”
Harper ran down the slope towards them and held out a bundle in his hands. “Breakfast, sir?”
“Not garlic sausage?”
Harper grinned. “Just for you.”
Sharpe broke off a length and bit into the pungent, tasty meat. He stretched his arms, felt the tenseness ease in his muscles, and began to feel better. The first round was over and he looked up the littered slope to the single colour of the Battalion. Beneath it was Gibbons, mounted beside his uncle, and Sharpe hoped the Lieutenant had watched the skirmishers and was feeling the fear. Harper saw where he was looking and he saw the expression on his Captain’s face. The Sergeant turned to the men of the company, guarding their prisoners and boasting of their exploits. “All right, this isn’t a harvest bloody festival! Reload your guns. They’ll be back.”
CHAPTER 21
The battle had flared briefly then died into silence and, as the sun climbed higher and the smoke drifted into nothingness, the Portina valley filled with men, British and French, who came to rescue the wounded and bury the dead. Men who an hour before had struggled desperately to kill each other now chatted and exchanged tobacco for food, and wine for brandy. Sharpe took a dozen men down to the stream to find four men of the Light Company who were missing. They had not died in the skirmish; all had been killed as they climbed back up the slope with their prisoners. The French guns had opened fire but this time with their barrels depressed, and the shells blew apart in the loose ranks of the British trudging up the hill. The men began to run, the French prisoners turned and sprinted for their own lines, but there was no cover from the shelling. Sharpe had watched one iron ball strike a rabbit hole and bounce into the air with smoke spiralling crazily from its fuse. The shell, small enough to pick up with one hand, landed by Gataker. The Rifleman had bent down to pinch out the fuse but he was too late; it exploded, spitting him with its fractured casing and belching smoke and flame as it hurled his corpse backwards. Sharpe had knelt beside him but Gataker was dead; the first of Sharpe’s Riflemen to die since the fighting in the northern mountains of the last winter.