And men fell. Some climbed to their feet, teeth gritted against the pain, and went on firing, while others crawled to the back, bleeding and hurt, their life going as their eyes faded, and Sharpe shouted at the Sergeants that the wounded were not to be helped. Men used the excuse of helping the wounded to escape battle, and Sharpe’s voice rose clear over the platoon volleys, over the sound of the drums. ‘Any man who leaves the line is to be shot. You hear me, Sergeants!’
They heard, and the wounded must bleed unaided, and the muskets flamed and slammed back, and the platoon volleys ran like stabs of red light down the face of the half Battalion.
It was working, too. Seven hundred musket balls in a minute were making the front of the trench a savage place, and the Voltigeurs split left and right. Sharpe had gone forward, to the side of the musket volleys, and he saw through the smoke the French coming from the left and he turned. ‘Captain Brooker! Left files back ten paces! Incline!’
And the right! What the hell could he do at the right? There were not enough men to fill the gap in the broken wall, and he screamed at the Riflemen. ‘Watch right!’
Brooker’s Company was angling their fire now, slamming shots towards the advancing column, but they could not put up enough bullets to drive the Voltigeurs back. Sharpe saw the French darting forward, kneeling, another stab of flame, and a ball clanged off the steel tip of his scabbard, making the sword wrench in its slings, and he heard the Rifles from the gatehouse and saw the man who had fired at him sink down, making small movements with one hand as if paddling the air for support, and then the Frenchman was crumpled on the turf.
And the column came. It had not far to come from the village, a three minute march at most, and the drums were louder now, the drums that were the French music of conquest, and Sharpe ran right as Brooker’s men reloaded because he was worried about his right.
Smoke from the thorns, stabbing flames, French going back, shouting in alarm, and Sharpe grinned. Frederickson had sent help, and Sharpe knew he should have thought to ask for it, but it did not matter now because the Riflemen were driving the French back. A mounted Voltigeur officer spurred towards the place, shouting at his men to take bayonets into the thorns, and Sharpe guessed the man was hit by four or five bullets for he seemed to be dragged backwards off his horse, his jacket suddenly splashed with red, and the horse screamed, turned, and galloped across the Castle’s front and was struck by a volley of musket fire.
Back to the left, the air filled with battle noise, with muskets, shouts, cries of pain, the scrape of ramrods, the clicking of the heavy flints backwards, the drums, always the drums. The Voltigeurs took their toll of the Fusiliers, eating at the files, throwing a man down, and the platoon volleys were replaced by men firing as fast as they could, loading, firing, their faces blackened by the powder, their mouths gritty with the stuff, their fear only governed by the drill that they had practised again and again.
An Ensign crawled from Brooker’s Company, vomiting blood, his eyes giving Sharpe one last accusing look, and then he slumped, only to twitch as a French bullet thumped into his dead body.
Sharpe went back to the rubble, climbed, and he saw where Voltigeurs were close, so close to the trench, in places just twenty yards, and he glimpsed, too, in the skirling smoke, the unmoving bodies of two Riflemen, and he looked left. The column, bayonets bright, was close and still marching. He could see the mouths of the French open, knew they were shouting ‘Vive L’Empereur!’ and Gilliland plucked at Sharpe’s sleeve. ‘Now?’
‘No! Wait!’
Wait while the Voltigeurs grew bolder, ran a pace or two, knelt, and another Fusilier screamed and was thrown backwards, while blood spattered the ranks and still they loaded and fired, and men cursed as flints broke and the Sergeants brought them the muskets of the dead, and still they fired.