“He’s sent us to the wrong God-damned place.”
The Riflemen should have been a quarter-mile to the south, in the marshy ravine, and they should have been there an hour before. The ravine snaked behind the church and led up to the houses just outside the main defences. They had lost the chance to make that secretive approach. Nor, so close to the enemy and so near to the treacherous wolf-light of dawn, could they spare the time to creep back through the mist.
“Leave the guardhouse to me,” Vivar said.
“You want me to charge straight past it?”
“Yes.”
Which was easy for Vivar to ask, but it meant a change of plan which put the whole assault in jeopardy. Because they had come late and to the wrong place, the Riflemen would lose surprise. Vivar proposed that Sharpe’s assault ignore the guardhouse. That was possible, but the French sentries would not ignore them. Their reaction would take time. Astonished men lose precious seconds, and further seconds could be lost if the enemy muskets, dampened by the mist, misfired. The darkness might even have swallowed the Riflemen before the French fired, but fire they would, startling the dawn long before the greenjackets had covered the three hundred yards from the church to the city’s defences. The guards at the barricades would be warned. They would be waiting and, at best, Vivar’s force could find itself clinging to a few houses on the northern side of the city and, as the day lightened and the mist shredded, the cavalry would cut off their retreat. By midday, Sharpe knew, they could all be prisoners of the French.
“Well?” Vivar sensed from Sharpe’s silence and immobility that the Rifleman already believed the battle lost.
“Where’s your cavalry?” Sharpe asked, not out of interest, but to delay the horrid decision.
“Davila’s leading them. They’ll be in place. The volunteers are in the pasture behind.” Receiving no response, Vivar touched Sharpe’s arm. “With or without you, I’ll do it. I have to do it, Lieutenant. I would not care if the Emperor himself and all the forces of hell guarded the city, I would have to do it. There is no other way of expunging my family’s shame. I have a brother who is a traitor, so the treason must be washed away with enemy blood. And God will look mercifully upon such a wish, Lieutenant. You say you do not believe, but I think on the verge of battle every man feels the breath of God.”
It was a fine speech, but Sharpe did not relent. “Will God keep the guardhouse quiet?”
“If he wills it, yes.” The mist was lightening. Sharpe could see the bare pale branches of the elm above him. Every second’s delay was puting the assault in more jeopardy, and Vivar knew it. “Well?” he asked again. Still Sharpe said nothing and the Spaniard, with a gesture of disgust, stood. “We Spanish will do it alone, Lieutenant.”
“Bugger you, no! Rifles!” Sharpe stood. He thought of Louisa; she had said something about seizing the moment and, despite his demons, Sharpe thought he might lose her if he did not act now. “Coats and packs off!” The Riflemen, so they could fight unencumbered, obeyed. “And load!”
Vivar hissed a caution against loading the rifles, but Sharpe would not go into the attack with neither surprise nor loaded weapons. The risk of a misfire must be endured. He waited till the last ramrod had been thrust home and the last lock primed. “Fix swords!”
Blades scraped, then clicked as the bayonets’ spring-loaded catches slotted onto the rifle muzzles. Sharpe slung his own rifle and drew his big clumsy sword. Tn file, Sergeant. Tell the men not to make a bloody sound!“ He looked at Vivar. Til not have you thinking we didn’t have the courage.”
Vivar smiled. “I would never have thought that. Here.” He reached up and took the tiny sprig of dead rosemary from his hat and tucked it into a loose loop on Sharpe’s jacket.
“Does that make me one of your elite?” Sharpe asked.
Vivar shook his head. “It’s a herb that averts evil, Lieutenant.”
For a second Sharpe was tempted to reject the super-stition, then, remembering his defiance of the xanes, he let the shred of rosemary stay where it was. The morning’s task had become so desperate that he was even prepared to believe that a dead herb could give him protection. “Forward!”