Bernard Cornwell – 1812 10 Sharpe’s Enemy

The Captain whose horse was nervous had ridden to the great gate into the keep. The archway was blocked with stones, waist high, and he could see the empty inner courtyard beyond. His horse was still frightened by something, and that was strange, but he rubbed the neck, spoke fondly to it, and turned towards the stable-block. He could hear the boots of the leading Companies coming towards the Castle.

The Colonel of the Battalion waved grumpily to another Captain who wheeled his troops right, onto the Convent road, and then the Colonel looked back to the gatehouse. A fine building once, he thought.

The Captain put spurs to his horse and trotted back towards the Castle gate. He could at least confirm the abandonment of the Castle, and he grinned as he stroked his horse’s neck, and then the horse shied again for the gatehouse was suddenly swarming with men. An officer, a Riflernan, had appeared from the gate leading to the northern ramparts, and a lad was beside him, bugle to his mouth, and the notes jerked into the valley. More men poured from a small door in the gatehouse, Riflemen, who ran into the tunnel and knelt with their weapons aimed. They seemed to ignore him, as did the other green-jacketed men who ran past the officer to the northern wall, and then there was a shout, a cheer, and a rush of feet behind him.

Redcoats were climbing from the keep, sprinting for the fallen eastern wall of the Castle, Sergeants bellowing at them, officers shouting, and the French Captain was alone’ in a courtyard of the enemy and he put hand to his sword and then saw the Rifle officer on the northern rampart waving to him. The wave was obvious. Dismount. Surrender. Next to the officer a Greenjacket knelt with levelled gun.

The Captain swore bitterly, dismounted, and the first guns split the morning.

Sharpe turned back. The leading French Company was thirty yards from the Castle as the rifle bullets dropped the front rank, then the second, and he glanced to his left to watch other Riflemen aiming for the officers. Rifles snapped from the turret at the gatehouse top and Sharpe saw the French Colonel thrown backwards from his horse, blood spattering his uniform, and then another volley of rifle bullets drove into the leading Company and the French officers were shouting at their men, forming them into line, and the deadly rifles on the ramparts picked the officers off and then went for the men in the single gold Sergeants’ stripes.

‘Keep playing, lad.’ The bugler had stopped for breath.

A half-company of redcoats thundered into the gateway, lined in front of the arch, and the muskets flamed, the smoke thick in their front, and Sharpe knew that the French could not succeed in a desperate frontal charge. That had been their one hope, if their officers had lived to realize it, and now Sharpe ran back into the gatehouse, down the stairs, and out into the courtyard towards the eastern wall.

Stop them at the gate, then take them in the flank. He could hear the French shouting, hear the rattle of ramrods desperate in muskets, and then he was across the wall and the officers were shouting behind him, forming the half Battalion of Fusiliers into two ranks, a line to sweep north across the valley, and he turned to face them.

He waited as redcoats stumbled into place, checked their dressing, and Sharpe did not hurry them. This had to be perfect, for this was the one chance they would have to fight in the open valley and he did not want the Fusiliers to go forward in a hurry, their concentration broken by excitement and fear, and he waved at one gap between Companies. ‘Close them up, Sergeant!’

‘Sir!’

‘Fix Bayonets!’

The rattle and scrape along the line. Rifles sounded by the gatehouse, the crash of muskets, then, at last, the first French replies as the dazed Battalion formed a ragged line at the crossroads.

Sharpe turned, drew the great sword. ‘Forward!’

He would have liked a band at this moment, he wanted to hear the music in his ears as he went forward, the crash of a good tune such as ‘The Downfall of Paris’ or, better still, the Rifle’s song ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’, but there was only the bugle still sounding. He looked left and still no more French troops were visible. He feared the cavalry and had an officer with Cross’s second bugler on the keep to sound a warning if it appeared.

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