Bernard Cornwell – 1812 10 Sharpe’s Enemy

‘You heard me, Major! Now move!’ Sir Augustus touched spurs to his horse and it took off towards the silent, stunned Battalion that was lined across the road leading from the village. Sharpe pointed towards the Castle. ‘Skirmish order! My Company left of the line, Captain Cross in the centre, Captain Frederickson to the right! Move!’

Now why in the name of all that was holy had Pot-au-Feu prompted this fight? Did he really think he could win? As Sharpe ran across the hard pasture land of the valley he saw the two officers who had ridden behind Kinney lift the Colonel from the ground. One of them despatched the Colonel’s horse with a pistol shot. The enemy ignored the two officers, content, perhaps, with a Colonel’s death, but why had they done this? They must think they could beat a Battalion in a straight fight, and then Sharpe forgot about Pot-au-Feu’s motives because the first musket balls were twitching at the grass and soil about his feet. Smoke was lingering in tiny clouds above the thorn bushes that grew between the Castle and watchtower, and Sharpe shouted for Lieutenant Price. ‘Keep those bastards busy, Harry. Use the muskets and four rifles.’

‘Aye aye, sir.’ Price spread his arms wide. ‘Spread out! Spread out!’ He took the small whistle from his cross-belt and blew the signal.

Frederickson and Cross both used buglers to relay orders on the battlefield. Their lads, neither more than fifteen, were blowing as they ran, the notes ragged and broken, but the calls unmistakable ordering the Companies to form the skirmish chain. Sharpe anchored them a hundred yards from the broken wall, out of effective musket range, and he ordered Cross’s bugler to play the single note, the sustained G, that told the Riflemen to lie down. ‘Now the `open fire’, lad.’Yes, sir.’ He took a breath, then the glorious run of three notes climbing a full octave, repeated till the Rifles were cracking down the line and the bullets were forcing Pot-au-Feu’s defenders into hasty cover.

Sharpe looked to his left. Price was keeping the scattered enemy in the thorn bushes busy, the Lieutenant walking up and down behind his men, looking for targets. To Sharpe’s front the Castle seemed suddenly bare of defenders, driven behind the castellations or the rubble by the Rifles’ accuracy. Behind him he could hear orders being bellowed at the Fusiliers. God damn it, but Farthingdale was proposing an immediate assault. The cannon, hidden in the short length of standing east wall, would only be vulnerable to fire from the right of Sharpe’s line and he called Cross’s bugler to him again. ‘My compliments to Mr Frederickson, and ask him to keep an eye on the cannon.’Keeping an eye’ was an unfortunate way to phrase it, but that did not matter, nor did it matter that Frederickson would doubtless not need to be reminded. The Rifle fire had slackened to an occasional burst whenever a defender showed his head, and Sharpe listened to the Lieutenants shouting at their men to call out their targets and not to waste shots. Behind them, way back at the village, Sir Augustus was forming the Fusiliers into two columns, four files wide, that were aimed like human battering rams at the broken wall. Sergeant Harper, exercising the privilege of his rank, stood up and joined Sharpe. Only sporadic musket shots came from the hillside, and the range was too great to concern either man. The big Irishman grinned sheepishly at Sharpe. ‘Sir?’

‘Sergeant?’

‘You wouldn’t mind me asking, sir, but would that have been Miss Josefina in the Convent?’

‘You recognized her?’

‘Hard to forget, sir. She’s growing into a rare looking woman.’ Harper liked his women plumper than Sharpe. ‘Is she the Lady Farthingdale?’

Sharpe was tempted to tell Harper the truth, but resisted the temptation. ‘She’s doing well for herself.’

‘She is that. I’ll say hello to her.’

‘I wouldn’t do it while Sir Augustus is about.’

`The big face smiled. ‘Like that, is it? Would she mind?’

‘Not at all.’ Sharpe looked towards the Convent. He could see a few Riflemen on the roof, left there as guards for the womeh and on the prisoners, and he could see the dark green of Josefina’s cloak a few yards from the gate. Was she the reason for this precipitate attack? Was Sir Augustus so eager to prove his virility to his young ‘bride’ that he would throw the Fusiliers into the Castle before the watchtower guns were silenced? Perhaps he was right. There had been no shots from any gun on the hill.

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