‘Rifles! Bayonets!’
The French would understand that all right, and feel the fear. He had unconsciously counted the bullets that missed him when he went forward to Tongue’s body and he knew, though he had not thought about it, that the hillside in front was sparsely held. The French had put a skirmish line there, thin and spaced, thinking it was enough to drive the British back downhill where, still unseen, the cavalry must wait.
‘Lieutenant!’
‘Sir?’
‘You’ll follow us.’
We buy ten minutes, he thought, but we might get outside their cordon, and we might find a place to defend. He knew it was hopeless, but it was better than being driven like fat sheep, and he tugged out his sword, felt its edge, and was on his feet.
‘Forward!’
One man of each pair watched, the other ran, and Sharpe heard the Bakers cracking the morning apart as the Frenchmen put up their heads to fire at the small, spread band of men in green who screamed at them and had twenty-three inches of steel fixed to their rifles. The few skirmishers in their front ran, or else died from the spinning rifle bullets that could not miss at fifty paces, and the Company kept running. Sharpe was ahead, his sword across his body and his rifle bumping on his back. He saw skirmishers above them on the hillside, and below, but muskets were a terrible instrument for precision work, and he let the enemy fire and knew the odds were in the Company’s favour. One man went down, hit in the buttocks, but he was dragged up and they were through the gap and there were just a few panicked French fugitives ahead who had not had the sense to climb the hill. One turned, reached with his musket, and found himself faced with a giant Irishman who split him neatly between the ribs, kicked the blade free, and went on. Sharpe cut at a man with his sword, felt the bone-hammering jar as the Frenchman parried with his musket, and then he ran on and wondered what kind of a dent he had put in the heavy steel edge.
‘Come on! Uphill!’
That was not what the French expected, so it was the only way to go. The Company had smashed the cordon, lost only one man, and now they forced their tired legs to go up the slope, towards the western crest, and behind them the French orders rang out, the blue-coated officers realigning their men, and there was no time for anything but to force the legs up the impossible slope, feel the pain as the breath hurt the lungs, and then Sharpe made the crest and, without stopping, turned and kept running. The damned French were there, not expecting the British, but there all the same and lined up in files and ranks waiting for orders. Sharpe had a glimpse of a gently falling slope, well grassed, and the French battalion lined in companies, and the French watched, astonished, as the British ran past their front, only a hundred paces away, and not a musket was fired.
There was no escape to the west, none to the north where the skirmishers chased them, and Sharpe knew they must go south and east where the cavalry expected them. It was the only direction that gave time, and time was the only hope. He turned, waved the Riflemen down, and pushed Knowles and the red-jacketed men down the slope.
‘Form up a hundred paces down!’
‘Sir!’ Knowles acknowledged, leapt over a boulder, and the Company was gone.
‘Rifles! Hold them up!’
This was a better way of fighting, letting the enemy come to them, and killing them when they were too far away to reply to the rifle fire. Sharpe fought as a Private, ramming the balls down the rifling, picking his targets and waiting for the victim to rush forward. He aimed low, never waited to see if the man fell, but dragged out another cartridge, bit off the bullet, and started to reload. He could hear the rifles around him, firing as fast as they could, which was not fast enough, and he knew that the French would come to their senses soon and overwhelm them with targets and rush them with bayonets. He heard Harper giving instructions, and wondered which of the Riflemen needed to be told that you wrapped the bullet in the small greased patch so that it gripped the rifling, and he was so curious that he dodged through the lingering smoke and saw Teresa, with Tongue’s weapon, her face already blackened with powder smoke, kneeling up to fire at a Frenchman.