‘Watch right!’ Harper called. A dozen lancers, in line, with the wicked points held low so that they glittered by the ground were coming at a trot, to take the Company in the flank. But there was still time. ‘Right wheel!’
The Company turned, three ranks swivelling. ‘Halt!’ A ragged line, but it would do. ‘Rear rank about turn. Hold your fire!’ That looked after the rear. ‘Present! Aim at their stomachs; give them a bellyache! Fire!’
It was inevitable. The enemy became a turmoil of falling horses and tumbling lancers. ‘Right turn! Forward! Double!’ He had the small company in a column now. Running for the barley, for the unharvested crop that would give them a little cover. There were more hoof-beats behind, but not enough loaded muskets to fight off another charge. Time only to run. ‘Run!’
The Company ran, sprinting despite their burdens, and Sharpe heard a wounded man groan. Time later to count the wounded. Now he turned, saw lancers coming in desperate chase, one aiming at Harper, but the Irishman dashed the lance aside with the squat gun and reached up a huge hand that plucked the Pole clean out of the saddle. The Sergeant was screaming insults in his native Gaelic. He held the lancer effortlessly, his huge strength making the man seem to be weightless, and then threw him at the feet of an other horse. A rifle cracked behind Sharpe, another horse down, and Hagman’s voice came through the din. ‘Got him.’
‘Back!’ Harper was shouting, the other horses still yards away, and suddenly the barley was under Sharpe’s feet, and he ran into the field, and for a moment the trumpets meant nothing to him. He was just running, remembering the Indian with the razor point, the desperate and futile attempt to run from the lance, and then he heard Harper’s triumphant voice.
‘The recall! Bastards have had enough!’ Harper was grinning, laughing. ‘You did it, sir!’
Sharpe slowed down, let the breath heave in his chest. It was strangely quiet in the field, the hooves muted, the gunfire stopped, and he guessed that the French refused to believe that just fifty men had attacked the village. The sight of red jackets and crossbelts would have convinced them that more British troops would be out in the darkness and it would be madness to throw the lancers into the massed volley of a hidden regiment. He listened to the men panting, some moaning as they were carried, the excited mutterings of victorious troops. He wondered what the price would be and turned to Harper. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, sir. Yourself?’
‘Bruised. What’s the bill?’
‘Don’t know for certain, sir. Jim Kelly’s bad.’ Harper’s voice was sad and Sharpe remembered the wedding, only weeks ago, when the massive Pru Baxter had woven daisies into her hair to marry the small Irish Corporal. Harper went on. ‘Cresacre was bleeding, says he’s all right. We lost a couple, though. Saw them in the courtyard.’
‘Who?’ He should have known.
‘Don’t know, sir.’
They climbed, up into the hills, up where horses could not go, back to the gully, which they reached as the far hills were lined with the faintest grey of dawn. It was a time for sleep and the men crumpled like the bodies in the cellar. Some were posted as picquets at the gully’s rim, their eyes red with exhaustion, smeared with powder, grinning at Sharpe, who had brought them through. The girl sat with Kearsey, binding up his leg, while Knowles looked after the other wounded. Sharpe stood over him.
‘How bad?’
‘Kelly’s going, sir.’
The Corporal had a chest wound and Knowles had picked away the shreds of jacket to show a mangled horror of glistening ribs and bubbling blood. It was a wonder he had lived this long. Cresacre had been shot in the thigh, a clean wound, and he dressed it himself, swore he would be all right, and apologized to Sharpe as if he were making a nuisance of himself. Two others were badly wounded, both cut with sabres, but they would live, and there was hardly a man who did not have a scratch, a bruise, some memento of the night. Sharpe counted heads. Forty-eight men, three Sergeants, and two officers had left the gully. Four men had not come back. Sharpe felt the tiredness wash through him, tinged with relief. It was a smaller bill than he dared hope for. Once Kelly died, his body kept from the vultures by a shallow grave, he would have lost five men. The lancers must have lost three times that number. He went round the Company, to those who were awake, and praised them. The men seemed embarrassed by the thanks, shaking as the sweat dried on their bodies in the cold air, their heads jerking as some tried to stay awake and look, red-eyed, into the dawn.