A hundred and fifty yards beneath the crest, where the road twisted for the last time towards the valley floor, there was a flat platform of rock that would make an ideal artillery platform. From there the French could plunge their canisters into Sharpe’s two ranks, could twitch them bloody, and when the British were scattered and torn and wounded and dying, the infantry would charge the bridge with their bayonets. From the convenient rock platform the French guns could fire over the heads of their own infantry. The platform was made for the task, so much so that Sharpe had put a working party there this morning and made them clear the space of the boulders that might inconvenience the gunners.
He wanted the French guns there. He had invited the French to put their guns there.
He watched the three gun teams inch their way down the steep road. Infantrymen helped brake the wheels. Lower and lower they came. It was possible, he knew, that the guns might be brought to the flat land across from the bridge, but to stop that he had posted his handful of Riflemen from the South Essex Light Company on the river bank. The French would have seen them there, would fear the spinning accuracy of the bullets, and would, he hoped, choose to place the guns out of the rifles’ range.
They so chose. Sharpe watched with relief as the teams swung onto the platform, as the weapons were unlimbered, and as the ready ammunition was brought forward.
Sharpe turned. `Unstop your muzzles!’ The two red-coated ranks pulled the corks from their musket barrels and unwrapped the damp rags from the locks. `Present!’
The muskets went into the mens’ shoulders. The French would see the movement. The French feared the speed of British musket fire, the well drilled rhythm of death that had scoured so many battlefields of Spain.
Sharpe turned away from his men. `Lieutenant?’
`Sir?’ Michael Trumper-Jones answered in a squeak. He tried again in a deeper voice. `Sir?’
`Tie your handkerchief to your sabre.’
`But, sir.’
`You will obey orders, Lieutenant.’ It was not said so loudly as to reach any ears other than Trumper-Jones`, but the words were harshly chilling.
`Yes, sir.’
The six attack companies of the French were two hundred and fifty yards away. They were in column, their bayonets fixed, ready to come forward when the guns had done their work.
Sharpe took the telescope from his haversack, extended the tubes, and looked at the guns. He could see the canisters, the tin cans that spread their balls in a fan of death, being carried to the muzzles of the three guns.
This was the moment when he hated being a Major. He must learn to delegate, to let other men do the dangerous, hard work, yet at this moment, as the French gunners made the last adjustments to the gun trails, he wished he was with the Company of Riflemen that he had been given for this day’s work.
The first canister was pushed into a barrel.
`Now, Bill!’ Sharpe said it aloud. Michael Trumper-jones wondered if he was supposed to reply and decided it was best to say nothing.
To the left of the road, from the high rocks that dominated the track, white puffs of smoke appeared. Seconds later Came the crack of the rifles. Already three of the gunners were down.
It was a simple ambush. A company of Riflemen hidden close to where the guns would be forced to unlimber. It was a ploy Sharpe had used before; he supposed he would use it again, but it always seemed to work.
The French were never ready for Riflemen. Because they did not use rifles themselves, preferring the smoothbore musket that fired so much quicker, they took no precautions against the green-jacketed men who used cover so skilfully, and who could kill at three or four hundred paces. Half the gunners were down now, the rocks were thick with rifle smoke, and still the cracks sounded and the bullets span into the gun teams. The Riflemen, changing their positions to aim past the smoke of their previous shots, were shooting the draught horses so the guns could not be moved and killing the gunners so the immobilised guns could not be fired.