For once in the morning he wanted company, but there was no soldier he would want to talk to. Teresa, maybe, but even she would have given short shrift to his fears of defeat. Common wisdom said that an attacker needed a three to one advantage over a well-sited defence, and Sharpe’s defence was as good as he could make it. Yet he lacked artillery to batter the French guns, and the French could bring far more than three attackers to each defender. There were the rockets, of course, but they would be useless against the artillery. For them Sharpe had other plans.
Futile plans, he thought, as useless as the pride and duty that had made him stay in this high place where he could not win. He could delay the French, and every hour was a victory of a sort, but the hours would be bought at the price of men. He knelt behind the rampart again, levelled the telescope, and saw eight Riflemens’ shakoes lined on the topmost stones of the watchtower. Eight Battalions of French infantry in sight. Eight! Call that four thousand men and it sounded no better. He laughed silently to himself, a grim laugh, and he laughed because they had made him into a Major and his first achievement would be to lose a Battalion. What had Harry Price told him on the march from Frenada? That men did not live long when they fought for Sharpe. That was a grim epitaph, the summation of his life, and he shook his head as if to clear the pessimism from his mind.
‘Sir?’ A squeaking voice. ‘Sir?’
The bugler walked slowly towards him, Sharpe’s rifle on his small shoulder, a plate balanced precariously on one hand. ‘The kitchen sent it, sir. For you.’
Bread, cold meat, and ships’ biscuits. ‘Have you eaten, lad?’
The boy hesitated. Sharpe grinned.
‘Help yourself. How old are you?’
‘Fourteen, sir.’
‘Where did you get the rifle?’
‘Soldier put it in your room last night, sir. I’ve been looking after it. You don’t mind, sir?’
‘No. Do you want to be a Rifleman?’
‘Yes, sir!’ The boy was suddenly eager. ‘Another two years, sir, and Captain Cross says I can join the ranks.’
‘Maybe the war will be over.’
‘No.’ The head shook. ‘Can’t be, sir.’
He was probably right. There had been war between Britain and France for as long as this boy had lived. He would be the son of a Rifleman, he would have grown up in the Regiment, he knew no other life. He would be a Sergeant by twenty, if he lived, and if the war did end he would Be spat out onto the rubbish heap of the old soldiers whom nobody wanted. Sharpe looked away from him, knelt again at the parapet, and stared at the horsemen who once again had appeared at the end of the village street. A full General, no less, coming to fight Sharpe.
The General drummed his fingers on the leather writing box of his saddle. Damn this Sharpe, damn this pass, and damn this morning! He looked to the aide-de-camp who scribbled figures. ‘Well?’
The Captain was nervous. ‘We think half the Battalion is in the Castle, sir, maybe more. We’ve seen one Company on the hill, and some redcoats in the Convent.’
‘Damned Riflemen?’
‘Certainly a Company on the hill, sir. But they’ve a few in the Castle and we saw a half dozen in the Convent.’
‘You mean there’s more than one Company?’
The Captain nodded unhappily. ‘It would seem so, sir.’
The General looked at Ducos whose eyes watered without the protection of his spectacles. ‘Well?’
‘So they have two Companies. One on the hill, the other split in two.’
The General did not like Ducos’ nonchalance. ‘Riflemen are bastards, Major. I don’t like the way they’re breeding over there. And tell me who those Lancers are, yes?’
Ducos shrugged. ‘I did not see them.’ His tone suggested that if he had not seen them, then they could not exist.
‘Well I saw them! God damn it, I saw them! Alexandre?’
Dubreton shook his head. ‘The English don’t have lancers, and if they did they would dress them in cavalry cloaks, not infantry greatcoats. And this morning, remember, they did not charge home.’