The enemy rearguard that was on the road behind the guns was doubled forward. They were formed beneath the rocks and ordered upwards, but the rocks were steep and the Riflemen nimbler than their heavily laden opponents. The French attack did, at least, stop the Riflemen firing at the gunners, and those artillerymen who survived crawled out from the shelter of their limbers to continue the loading.
Sharpe smiled.
There was a man in those hills called William Frederickson, half German, half English, and as fearsome a soldier as any Sharpe knew. He was called Sweet William by his men, perhaps because his eye patch and scarred face were so horrid. Sweet William let the surviving gunners uncover themselves, then he ordered the Riflemen to the right of the road to open fire.
The last gunners dropped. The Riflemen, reacting to Frederickson’s shouts, switched their aim to the mounted officers of the infantry. The enemy, by a few, well-aimed rifle shots, had been denied artillery and thrown into sudden chaos. Now was the time for Sharpe to unleash his other weapon. `Lieutenant?’
Michael Trurnper-Jones, who was trying to hide the damp white flag that drooped from his sabre tip, looked at Sharpe. `Sir?’
`Go to the enemy, Lieutenant, give them my compliments, and suggest that they lay down their weapons.’
Trurnper-Jones stared at the tall, dark-faced Rifleman. `That they surrender, sir?’
Sharpe frowned at him. `You’re not suggesting that we surrender, are you?’
`No, sir.’ Trumper-Jones shook his head a little too emphatically. He was wondering how to persuade fifteen hundred Frenchmen to surrender to four hundred wet, disconsolate British infantrymen. `Of course not, sir.’
`Tell them we’ve got a Battalion in reserve here, that there’s six more behind them, that we’ve got cavalry in the hills, that we’ve got guns coming up. Tell them any goddamned lie you like! But give them my compliments and suggest that enough men have died. Tell them they have time to destroy their Colours.’ He looked over the bridge. The French were scrambling up the rocks, yet still enough rifle shots, muffled by the damp air, sounded to tell Sharpe that men died wastefully in the afternoon. `Go on, Lieutenant! Tell them they have fifteen minutes or I will attack! Bugler?’
`Sir?’
`Sound the Reveille. Keep it sounding till the Lieutenant reaches the enemy.’
`Yes, sir.’
The French, warned by the bugle, watched the lone horseman ride towards them with his white handkerchief held aloft. Politely, they ordered their own men to cease firing at the elusive Riflemen in the rocks.
The smoke of the fight drifted away in a shower of windblown rain as Trumper-Jones disappeared into a knot of French officers. Sharpe turned round. `Stand easy!’
The five companies relaxed. Sharpe looked to the river bank. `Sergeant Harper!’
`Sir!’ A huge man, four inches taller than Sharpe’s six feet, came from the bank. He was one of the Riflemen who, with Sharpe, had been stranded in this Battalion of redcoats as part of the flotsam of war. Although the South Essex wore red and carried the short-range musket, this man, like the other Riflemen of Sharpe’s old Company, still wore the green uniform and carried the rifle. Harper stopped by Sharpe. `You think the buggers will give in?’
`They haven’t got any choice. They know they’re trapped. If they can’t get rid of us within the hour, they’re done for.’
Harper laughed. If any man was a friend of Sharpe’s it was this Sergeant. They had shared every battlefield together in Spain and Portugal, and the only thing that Harper could not share was the guilt that haunted Sharpe since his wife’s death.
Sharpe rubbed his hands against the unseasonal cold. `I want some tea, Patrick. You have my permission to make some.’
Harper grinned. `Yes, sir.’ He spoke with the raw accent of Ulster.
The tea was still warm in Sharpe’s cupped hands when Lieutenant Michael Trumper-Jones returned with the French Colonel. Sharpe had already ordered the fake Colours to be lowered and now he went forward to meet his forlorn enemy. He refused to take the man’s sword. The Colonel, who knew he could not take this bridge without his guns, agreed to the terms. He took consolation, he said, in surrendering to a soldier of Major Sharpe’s repute.