He blew his whistle, shouted at them, brought them over to the building where he stood. Stray horses skittered in the yard, galloped at the entrance, reared as the Company, white belts gleaming, filled the entrance, and Lieutenant Robert Knowles began the terrible commands that would chill any Frenchman who knew the firepower of British infantry. ‘Present! Front rank only! Fire!’
It was the last thing the Hussars and lancers could have expected. Instead of brigands and silent knives they were fighting a clockwork machine that could spit out four volleys a minute. The muskets flamed, smoke gouted into the courtyard, the three-quarter-inch musket balls hammered between the walls. ‘Rear rank! Look to the roof!’ The front rank were already taking the next cartridge from their ammunition pouch, biting the bullet from the paper-wrapped cylinder, pouring the powder into the gun, but saving a pinch for the pan. The left hand held the top of the barrel; the right poured the powder; the left gripped the paper and tore off most of it while the right kept the priming between finger and thumb. The paper was pushed loosely into the muzzle, the other three fingers of the right hand had the ramrod up in the air, a bullet spat into the gun, and down with the steel rod. Once was enough, and the ramrod was taken out, the gun swung up, and all the time they had to ignore the shouts of the enemy, the carbine bullets, the screaming horses, the fires, and put the pinch of powder into the pan after the flint was dragged back, and the rear rank had fired, flash and explosion in their ears, and Lieutenant Knowles, his voice calm, was ordering the slaughter. ‘Present! Fire!’ It was a mechanical job and no infantry in the world did it better, because no infantry in the world, except the British, ever practised with real ammunition. The clockwork killing. Fire, reload, present, fire, until their faces were blackened, their eyes smarting with the grains of powder thrown up by the priming just inches from their cheeks, their shoulders bruised by the kick of the gun, and the courtyard littered with a bodies of their enemies, sifted with smoke, and all the time Knowles had taken them forward, two steps at a time, and the maddened horses had escaped behind them and Sharpe had watched as Hagman’s group of four Riflemen had shut the gates. Hardly a minute had passed.
‘Inside!’ Sharpe kicked at a door, Harper hit it, and the Rifles were inside the house. Someone fired at them, a pistol, but the bullet went wide and Sharpe was hacking with the sword. ‘Bayonets!’ The Riflemen formed line, snarled forward, and Sharpe saw they were in a hall which was officer country, the table littered with used bottles, stairs leading to bedrooms where men were waking to the sounds of battle.
Outside, in the courtyard, Lieutenant Knowles counted to himself, keeping the rhythm of the volleys, and at the same time looking desperately round to see where danger might threaten. He could see Hagman, kneeling to one side, the other Riflemen in his party loading for the small Cheshireman, and knew that any officer who showed his face on balcony or rooftop would be cut down by a rifle bullet. His own men, sweating in the firelight, advanced step by step, scouring the walls and windows, and it occurred to the Lieutenant that this was only his third real fight. He was pushing down the panic, the impulse to run for shelter, but his voice was calm and in the noise he hardly heard the carbine bullets that struck near him. He saw Redcoats falling, struck by enemy fire, saw Sergeant Read tending to them and then, with a ghastly realization, suddenly identified the bubbling and screaming noise that had been nagging at his eardrums for the last minute. He had stepped to one side, to avoid a fire, and saw, kicking in the flames, a French officer. The man seemed to be reaching for the Lieutenant, blackened hands curled like claws, and from his throat came the terrible noise. Knowles suddenly remembered the sword in his hand, the blade bought by his father, and with a grimace he stepped close to the man and shut his eyes as he pushed the tip at the dying man’s throat. He had stopped his orders, but the men neither noticed nor missed them. They fired their volleys into the shadows, and Knowles opened his eyes to see he had killed his first man with a sword, and then the voice of Sergeant Harper was dominating the courtyard. ‘In here, sir!’