Sharpe turned. The French still held a portion of the trench in the centre of the parallel, but the British were attacking from the hill. Only to the north, where Sharpe and Harper caught their breath in the bloodied trench, were the French undisturbed. They were not planning to stay long. Already their officers were sending back half companies, loaded with captured tools, and the sight made Sharpe climb up on the parapet of the French side of the trench. About half of his old Company were with Harper, some with captured muskets, most with spades. He grinned at them, glad to be back. ‘Come on, lads. Up here.’
One Company of Frenchmen formed a guard facing north and the officer watched nervously as Sharpe’s ragged band, their uniforms plastered with wet mud, came towards them. They would not attack. The British were not properly armed, under-strength, but suddenly a sword was raised and the small group burst on him, and it was bayonets against spades, and two tall devils were hacking at his men. No one likes hand-to-hand combat, but Sharpe and Harper hurled themselves at the Company and the South Essex came with them. They snarled at the French, clubbed them with spades, and Harper used his captured musket like a mace. The French went backwards, stumbling on the slick mud, blinded by rain, and still the madmen came at them. Sharpe pushed with the sword, going for faces and throats, once having to parry a Sergeant’s efficient bayonet. He knocked the blade aside, the Frenchman slipped, the sword was up and falling like an axe into the man’s head. Sharpe tried to stop the blow, the Sergeant was defenseless, and the sword swerved and thudded into the wet earth of the parapet. The French were running, back to their main body, and the half-company of the South Essex were left with a dozen prisoners who had fallen on the slippery ground. The French Sergeant, his single arm-stripe bloodied in the fight, looked round his own dead and then at the sword which had so nearly killed him. He had seen the tall officer change the death-stroke, swerve the blow, and he nodded to him. ‘Merci, Monsieur’.
Harper looked at the dozen men. ‘What do we do with them, sir?’
‘Let them go.’ It was no place to take prisoners. They took their weapons and hurled them across the parallel, out of reach, and searched each Frenchman for wine or brandy. Ahead of Sharpe the battle still raged. The main body of the French had fought their way to within fifty yards of the first battery, but had been held. Scattered parties of men, some armed, some with nothing more than lengths of timber, were charging the French and starting vicious fights in the mud. Officers on horseback galloped at the fringe of the fight, trying to restore order to chaos, but the British soldiers did not want order. They wanted a break from the tedium of digging and the drowning rain, and they wanted a fight. It was like a street brawl. There was no smoke because the muskets would not fire; the noise of the fight was metal clashing on metal, wood on metal, the screams of the wounded and sobs of the dying. From the side, where Sharpe and his half-company shared brandy with their prisoners, it looked like hundreds of swamp monsters grappling in grotesque slow motions. Sharpe pointed the French Sergeant towards the city. ‘Go!’ The Frenchman grinned, gave Sharpe a friendly salute, and led his small band away. Twenty yards from the trench they stopped, picked up six spades. Harper shouted. ‘Bring Them back!’ The French Sergeant made a rude gesture and began running towards Badajoz.
‘Let them go.’ Sharpe turned back to the fight. ‘Come on.’ They trudged up beside the parapet, the rain sweeping across them and down on to the dead in the trench. Broken spades and shattered muskets littered the slope. The sound of the fight, the sound of men clawing each other to death in the mud, was muffled by the rain. A French officer had organized a small group with spades and was trying to fill in the parallel. Sharpe began to hurry, the ground treacherous, and he turned to see his men strung out as they followed him, but Harper was beside him and the French turned and saw them coming. It was the turn of the French to use spades. A huge man swung at them, forced them back, parried Harper’s thrust and Sharpe flailed his sword at the brute, cutting through the spade-handle, and still the Frenchman came at them. Harper bayoneted him, and still he came on, and Sharpe cut at the back of the man’s neck until he finally collapsed. ‘Come on!’