The Regimental Colour fell; this time a Sergeant picked it up, but the movement in the mist attracted a dozen French marksmen and the Sergeant was hurled back and the flag was down again.
`Forward!’ Leroy ran, sword in hand, and he heard the shot plucking at the grass and thrumming in the air, and he heard the cheer behind and knew the companies were coming with him, and the wall ahead of him flickered with flame, someone screamed behind him, and suddenly Leroy was at the village, safe between two loopholes in a barn wall, and more men joined him, crouching beneath loopholes, feverishly reloading their muskets.
Leroy grinned at them. `We’ve got to go for a barricade.’
`Yes, sir.’
He wondered again, for the hundredth hundredth time, why these men, reckoned by their country to be the dregs of society, fought so well, so willingly, so bravely.
Leroy recongised a Lieutenant from Three Company. `Where’s Captain Butler?’
`Dead, sir.’
A French musket sounded deafening beside Leroy. He ignored it. They were safe here, hard against the wall, though he glanced up to make sure that no Frenchmen were on the barn roof. To his right he could see a farm wagon on its side. If enough men could drag it out of the way then he could lead a party into the alley. He organized a firing party, their job to fire over the barricade while other men pulled at it. Then, with fixed bayonets, the rest of the Company would follow Leroy into the alley. He grinned at them. `Are you ready, lads?’
`Yes, sir.’
They looked nervously at him. The battle, for them, had become ten yards of murderous wall, nothing more.
Lieutenant Colonel Leroy, who had no intention of being defeated in his first battle as Battalion Commander, wiped his hand on his breeches and regripped his sword. `First man in gets a guinea!’ He listened to their cheer, knew they were ready, and straightened up. `Come on!’
He ran to the barricade. Behind him the men came, cheering, but a single bullet, planted in Leroy’s brain, finished the attack before it began. The Company, demoralised by his death, huddled back against the wall and wondered if they dared run back through the smoke before the victorious French, sallying from the village, slaughtered them with bayonets. Gamarra Mayor was being held. Ten yards from the alley, his scarred face spattered with blood, Thomas Leroy lay dead. His watch, ticking in his pocket, gave the time as ten past one.
`You’re staying here!’ Sharpe said to Angel.
`No!’
`If I die no one else knows about the god-damned treaty! You stay here and make sure the letter reaches Hogan!’ Sharpe saw Angel nod reluctantly
The Band Sergeant was staring at Sharpe with a white face. `Mr Sharpe?’
`You make sure this boy doesn’t move, Sergeant!’
`Yes, sir.’ The Sergeant was shaking. `It is you, Mr Sharpe?’
`Of course it’s me!’ Sharpe was watching the village, seeing a Battalion broken. `You two!’ he pointed at two unwounded men who helped a comrade back.
`Sir?’
`You’re not bloody wounded! Get back! Sergeant?’
`Sir?’ The Band Sergeant was staring at Sharpe in utter disbelief.
`Shoot the next unwounded bastard who comes back here.’
`Yes, Mr Sharpe.’
Sharpe drew the sword. He went forward into the wheat that was trampled and blood-stained, littered with broken bodies, the scene of disaster. He had come back.
Captain d’Alembord never knew who first shouted for the line to retreat. The panic seemed to spread from the centre of the line, he heard an officer shout for the men to stand, to fire, to attack again, but the shouting was no good. The smoke isolated the men, they could not see the Colours, then came the news that the Colonel was dead, and suddenly the South Essex was running back through the smoke and the French cheered and sent them on their way with another volley of bullets.
D’Alembord ran with them, out of the smoke, running across the village meadow and into the wheatfield. He knew this was wrong, he knew that he should form the men into a skirmish line, or into close order, and he saw Harper bellowing at the Light Company and.he knew he should do the same, then, suddenly, another voice was shouting on the battlefield, a voice forged long ago on forgotten parade grounds, and d’Alembord, looking left in the tangling smoke, saw a ghost.