Sharpe ducked his head, struck back with his heels, and his horse crashed through a patch of ferns and into the trees. He dropped the one colour and shook the other off his sword, then wrenched the horse savagely about in expectation of French horsemen close behind.
But the French had swerved away. They had caught a handful of the slower men and cut them down, and they had killed many of the mounted officers who had stayed behind to shelter the running redcoats, but now the French horsemen feared becoming entangled in the thick wood where the trees would blunt the force of their charge, and so they spurred on for easier prey. Behind them they left Major Micklewhite sprawled dead in a pool of his own blood. Captain Carline was dead, as were Captain Smith and three lieutenants, but the rest of the battalion was safe in the shelter of the wood.
The 33rd, next in line to the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers, had also run to the wood while beyond them the 30th had formed a rough square that proved solid enough to stand like an island amidst the torrent of French cavalry that split either side of the redcoats. The cavalry ignored the men of the 30th because beyond their crude square the 69th had neither run nor formed squre, but was just standing in line with muskets levelled as the full might of Kellerman’s cavalry, cheated of its first three targets, thundered straight for them.
“Fire!” a major shouted.
The muskets crashed smoke. Ten Cuirassiers went down in a maelstrom of blood, steel and dying horses, but there were more Cuirassiers on either flank and a rage of Lancers and Hussars were storming in behind the armoured vanguard.
The Cuirassiers hit the open flank of the 69th. A man lunged up with a bayonet, then died as the sword split his skull. The heavy horses slammed into the red ranks that broke apart like rotten wood. The infantry were scattering, thus making themselves even more vulnerable to the enemy blades.- The French were in front, behind and chewing up the battalion’s flanks with slashing swords that dripped red with every grunting heave.
Then the Lancers struck into the shattered battalion and the redcoats screamed as the horsemen rode clean over the breaking line. The Frenchmen were shouting incoherently. A Lancer threw a corpse offhis spear point, then stabbed again. Some infantrymen had broken free and were running to the woods, but they were easily ridden down by Lancers and Hussars who galloped up behind, chose their spot, then stabbed or sliced or hacked or lunged. For the French it was no more difficult that hacking or lunging at the practice sacks of chaff with which they had been trained at their depots at home.
A knot of redcoats gathered round their battalion’s colours. There were sergeants with their long-shafted axes, officers with swords and men with bayonets. The French clawed and hacked at the defenders. Lancers rode full tilt at them, grunting as they drove their spears home. One lance struck home with such force that.the red and white flag beneath its long blade was buried in the victim’s body. A dismounted Cuirassier hacked at the colours’ defenders till he was shot in the face by an officer’s pistol. An Hussar’s horse reared up, hooves flailing, then lunged forward into the knot of men. Two officers went down under the slashing hooves. The Hussar cut down with his sabre. A bayonet raked his left thigh, but the Frenchman did not feel the wound. His horse bit a man, the sabre hissed again, then the Hussar dropped the blade so that it hung from his wrist by its leather strap and he grabbed the staff of one of the colours. The other colour had disappeared, but the Hussar had his gloved hand round the remaining staff. Two men drove bayonets at him. A spontoon wounded his horse, but the Hussar held on. A burly British sergeant tugged at the staff. A Lancer crashed his horse into the melee, trampling wounded and living alike, and lunged his weapon at the stubborn Sergeant. The lance point drove into the Sergeant’s back, but still the Englishman hung on, but then a Cuirassier, riding in from the far side, hacked his sword down through the man’s shako and into his skull. The Sergeant fell.