And only fifty paces away.
“Now, Sergeant Major,” Sharpe said, and he stepped back through the advancing ranks and tried not to feel sorry for the Frenchmen he was about to kill.
“Fire!” Harper shouted, and this time the whole line fired in unison so that their bullets smacked home in one lethal blow. “Platoon, fire!” Harper shouted before the echo of the volley had died away. “From the centre!”
Sharpe could see nothing of the enemy now, for they were hidden behind a thick cloud of grey-white powder smoke, but he could imagine the horror. Probably the whole French front rank was dead or dying, and most of the second rank, too, and the men behind would be pushing and the men in front stumbling on the dead and wounded, and then, just as they were recovering from the first volley, the rolling platoon fire began. “Aim low!” Harper shouted. “Aim low!”
The air filled with the rotten-egg stench of powder smoke. The men’s faces were flecked with burning powder scraps, while the paper cartridge wadding, spat out behind each bullet, started small, flickering fires in the grass.
On and on the volleys went as men fired blindly down into the smoke, pouring death into a small place, and still they loaded and rammed and fired, and Sharpe did not see a single man in his own regiment fall. He did not even hear a French bullet. It was the old story, a French column was being pounded by a British line, and British musketry was crushing the column’s head and flanks and flecking its centre with blood.
Sharpe had posted a man wide of the line so that he could see past the smoke.
“They’re running, sir! They’re running!” the man shouted excitedly. “Running like hell!”
“Cease fire!” Sharpe bellowed. “Cease fire!”
And slowly the smoke cleared to show the horror on the winter grass. Blood and horror and broken men. A column had met a line. Sharpe turned away. “Mister d’Alembord.”
“Sir?”
“Take a white flag and ride to the southern road. Find the garrison commander.
Tell him we broke a French brigade and that we’ll break him in exactly the same manner if he doesn’t surrender.”
“Sir! Sir! Please sir!” That was Ensign Nicholls, jumping up and down beside d’Alembord. “Can I go with him, sir? Please, sir. I’ve never seen a Frog. Not close up, sir.”
“They’ve got tails and horns,” d’Alembord said, and smiled when Nicholls looked alarmed.
“If you can borrow a horse,” Sharpe told the ensign, “you can go. But keep your mouth shut! Let Mister d’Alembord do the talking.”
“Yes, sir,” Nicholls said, and ran happily away while Sharpe turned back to the north. The French had broken and run, and he doubted they would be back, but he was not willing to care for their wounded. He had neither the men nor the supplies to do that, so someone would have to go down to the enemy under a flag of truce and offer them a chance to clear up the mess they had made.
Just in time for Christmas.
Colonel Caillou watched the two red-coated horsemen approach under their flag of truce and felt an immense rage surge inside him. Gudin would surrender, he knew it, and when that happened Caillou would lose the Eagle that the Emperor himself had presented to the 75th.
He would not let it happen, and so, in a blind fury, he drove back his spurs and galloped after Gudin.
Gudin heard him coming, turned and waved him back, but Caillou ignored him.
Instead he drew his pistol. “Go back!” he shouted in English to the approaching officers. “Go back!”
D’Alembord reined in his horse. “Do you command her, monsieur?” he asked Caillou in French.
“Go back!” Caillou shouted angrily. “We do not accept your flag. You hear me?
We do not accept it. Go!” He leveled the pistol at the younger officer who held the offending flag of truce, a white handkerchief tied to a musket’s ramrod. “Go!” Caillou shouted, then spurred his horse away from Gudin who had moved to intervene.
“It’s all right, Charlie,” d’Alembord said. “He won’t shoot. It’s a flag of truce.” He looked back to Caillou. “Monsieur? I insist upon knowing if you command here.”