A few men had lit surreptitious cigars that they hid from their officers by leaning deep into the gun embrasures. One man wriggled forward, past the acrid muzzle, until he could peer down into the ditch. The Sergeant called wearily to him. ‘Come back! Those Rifle bastards will get you.’
The man stayed. He peered down, far down, at the writhing horror in the ditch. He pulled himself back. ‘If they get in they’ll bloody slaughter us!’
The Sergeant laughed. ‘They won’t get in, lad, not a chance. In two hours you’ll be tucked in bed with that horrid thing you call a woman.’
‘You’re jealous, Sergeant.’
‘Me? I’d rather go to bed with this.’ The Sergeant slapped the barrel of his gun. The wreathed ‘N’, Napoleon’s symbol, was searing hot. ‘Now get back here, lad, put that bloody cigar out, and look smart. I might need you, God help me. ‘
A call from the observation point. ‘Make ready!’
The Sergeant sighed and stood up. Another tiny group of idiot British were running towards the Santa Maria breach and his gun covered the approach. He watched them down the length of his glistening gun, saw them slip on blood, stumble on stone, and then they were in his target zone. He stood to one side, touched the match to the powder-filled reed, and the green-jacketed men were beaten into fragments. It was so easy. The Sergeant bellowed orders for the reloading, listened to the hiss as the sponge seared down the bore, and was glad that he was at Badajoz this night. The French had begun to fear this Lord Wellington, to turn him into a bogey man to frighten their sleep, and it was pleasing to show that the English Lord could be beaten. The Sergeant grinned as the bulbous lumps of canvas-wrapped grapeshot were rammed into the cannon. This night Wellington would taste defeat, utter defeat, and the whole Empire would rejoice. This night belonged to France, only to France, and Britain’s hopes were being buried where they belonged; in a ditch for the dead.
CHAPTER 26
‘This way! This way!” They were going right, away from the San Pedro bastion, clawing a path on the hill’s steep side until they had turned a corner and would receive some shelter from the grapeshot. The first attack had been horribly repulsed, but the Third Division would try again. They could hear the fury at the main breach, far away, and see on the sheeted floodwaters the dim reflections of the fires that were consuming the Light and Fourth Divisions. Knowles could feel a madness in the air, beating its dark wings against a city, bringing a night of insane death and crazy effort. ‘Light Company! Light Company!’
‘Here, sir.’ An old Sergeant, steadying his Captain with a hand, and then a Lieutenant leading a dozen men. My God, Knowles thought, is this all that is left? But then he saw more men, tugging the cumbersome ladder. Another Sergeant grinned at him. ‘Do we go again, sir?’
‘Wait for the bugle.’ He knew there was no point in making a scattered attack that could be picked off piecemeal by the defenders. The whole Division must go together.
Knowles suddenly felt good. There was an impression in his head, one that had been nagging him, and now he pinned it down. The musket fire had been light from the parapet. The grapeshot had confused him, but now, thinking back to the chaos of the first attack, the shattering ladder, he remembered how few had been the musket flashes from the walls. The French must have left a skeleton garrison in the castle, and a confidence surged through him! They would do it. He grinned at his men, slapped their backs, and they were glad that he was confident. He was trying to think how Sharpe would do this. The danger was not the muskets, the danger was from the defenders toppling the long, rickety ladders. He oordered off a dozen men, under the Lieutenant, and told hem they were not to try and climb the ladder. Instead they were to fire at the ladder’s head, scour the parapet of its defenders, and only when the parapet was clear and he had led the men over the battlements were they to follow. ‘Understand?’