‘Captain Sterritt?’ Windham bellowed.
‘Sir?’
‘Present yourself to Major Collett! Your company will reinforce him!’
‘Yes, sir!” Another company went forward and Sharp, guiltily, thought that another Captain had been sent into the range of the grapeshot. He wondered what had happened to Rymer. There was no firing from the rear of the fort, but no explosion either. He looked constantly, waiting for the eruption of flame and smoke, but there was. only silence from the dam.
‘Where are they?’ Windham pounded a fist against his thigh, cut at the air with his sword. ‘Damn them! Where are they?’
Men were stumbling back from the fight, wounded by the grapeshot, and Collett was pulling the companies further back. There was no point, he reasoned, in losing men in an attack that was only a fake assault. The fire from the fort slackened. Still no explosion.
‘Damn! We need to know what’s happening!’
‘I’ll go, sir. ‘ Sharpe could see Windham’s careful scheme collapsing. The French must know by now that the attack was not real, and it would not take any great intelligence to reason that the dam was the real target. He tried to imagine the sappers again, laden with their barrels. “They could have been captured, sir. Maybe they’ve not even reached the dam.’
Windham hesitated and, as he paused, Major Collett shouted nearby. ‘Colonel? Sir?’
‘Jack! Here!’
Collett came up, saluted. ‘Can’t go on much longer, sir. We’re losing too many men to that damned grapeshot.’
Windham turned back to Sharpe. ‘How long will it take you to get there?’
Sharpe thought fast. He did not need to go softly, or take the long way round. There was enough noise and chaos in the field to cover his movements and he would go as close as he dared to the fort. ‘Five minutes, sir.’
‘Then go. Listen!’ Windham checked Sharpe’s movement. ‘I want a report, that’s all, d’you understand? See where they are. Have they been discovered? How long till they succeed? Understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I want you back here in ten minutes. Ten minutes, Sharpe. ‘ He turned to Major Collett. ‘Can you give me ten minutes?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. Off you go, Sharpe! Hurry!’
He began running, his dark uniform invisible against the night, towards the fort and the hidden dam. He went right, skirting the light of the carcasses, heading towards the ravine of the Rivillas downstream of the dam. He stumbled on tussocks, slipped on damp earth, but he was free, alone and free. Grapeshot whistled overhead, fired from the castle, but he was well beneath it, hidden in the darkness, and the stabbing musket flames from the fort were to his left. He slowed down, knowing that the stream could not be far, wary in case French patrols were lurking in the ravine. He unslung the rifle from his shoulder and pulled the flint back to full cock. The spring was heavy, satisfying, and he felt the sear fall into place. He was armed, what was it Hogan said? Cap a pie, whatever that meant, but it felt good and he grinned at the night as he went forward, slowly now, his eyes searching for the ravine’s edge. He had pulled his shako low over his eyes so that the peak hid the white-centered cannon flames from his sight, preserving his night vision, and then he saw a streak of deeper shadow, fringed with bushes, and he knew he had reached the stream bank. He lay flat, pulled himself forward, and peered over the edge.
The ravine was deeper than he had imagined. The bank fell steeply away from him down to a dull sheen of water some eighteen or twenty feet below. There was no sound from the ravine, except the stream’s murmur, and no sign of the Light Company or sappers. He looked left. The dam was a black shape next to the fort, just forty yards from him, and it seemed empty, silent, holding back the huge weight of water.
He slithered over the edge, still on his stomach, and let his weight slide him down between long-spined thorn bushes, the rifle held ahead of him, and suddenly there was a challenge. ‘Who goes there?’ It was a hoarse, frightened whisper.