He screamed in defiance, gripped his sword rigid at the end of his right arm, and touched the reins to swerve his horse to the right. The sudden change of direction threw the Lancers off their own intercepting course. They had to wheel slightly, their lances wavered, and Lord John was suddenly crashing through them. His sword, held at arm’s length, parried a lance to splinter a great shard of bright wood from the shaft. He was past the lance points! The realization made him shout in triumph. His horse cannoned off a smaller French horse, but kept its footing. Two Hussars were in front of him. One of the two lunged at Lord John, but the Englishman was swifter and his sword rammed hard into the Frenchman’s belly. The blade was gripped by the contracting muscles of the dying man, but Lord John somehow ripped it free of the suction and swept it across his body to slice down at the second Hussar who parried desperately wrenched his horse away.
Lord John’s fear was turning to exultation. He had learned to fight. He had killed. He had survived. He had beaten his pursuers. He held his bloodied borrowed sword high like a trophy. Last night he had lied about his prowess, yet today the lies had come true; he had been tested in combat, and he had rung true. Happiness welled and seethed in Lord John as his horse crashed through the holly hedge and he saw only the long empty slope in front of him. That slope meant freedom, not just from his pursuers, but from the fear that had dogged him all his life. He suddenly knew just how frightened he had been, not just of Sharpe, but of Jane’s anger. Then damn her! She would learn that her anger could no longer frighten Lord John, for he had conquered fear by riding to the enemy’s gun line and coming home. He shouted his triumph just as a riderless grey horse galloped across his front.
Lord John’s shout turned to alarm as his horse baulked and swerved. The horse staggered into a patch of deep mud and, as it tried to find its balance, stopped dead.
Lord John screamed at the horse to move. He sliced the spurs savagely back.
The horse tried to pull its hooves out of the glutinous mud. It lurched forward, but with painful slowness, and the first of the two Lancers who still pursued Lord John caught up with his lordship.
The first lance point went into the small of Lord John’s back.
He arched his spine, screaming. He dropped his sword as his hands groped behind to find the blade that twisted like a flesh hook in his belly. The second Lancer grunted as he lunged. His spear struck Lord John in the ribs, but glanced off the bone to slice into his right arm.
Lord John was screaming and falling. The surviving Hussar, whose friend Lord John had killed, rode in on the Englishman’s left and gave his lordship a vicious backswing of his sabre which, like many of the French weapons, had only a sharpened point to encourage the trooper to lunge and not slash. The blunt steel edge thudded into Lord John’s face, breaking the bridge of his nose and bludgeoning his eyes to instant blindness. His left foot slid from the stirrup, his right, trapped by the iron, dragged him through the mud as his horse struggled free. The lance was ripped out of his back. He fell onto his belly, screaming and crying as his stirrup leather broke. He tried to turn over to face his tormentors and he scrabbled for the sword that was still hanging from its wrist strap, but another lance thrust ripped down into his right leg, this blade thrust with all the weight of man and horse, and Lord John’s thighbone snapped. The lance point broke off in the wound. Lord John wanted to plead with his attackers, but the only sound he could make was a babbling and chijdlike cry of terror. His fingers fluttered uselessly as though to ward off any more blades.
The three French horsemen stood round the twitching, bleeding Englishman.