Some of the French, instead of retreating to the cover of the houses on the valley’s far side, houses that were even now being struck by round shot so that their rafters and masonry were being splintered and the first fires were burning in the wreckage, ran to join the northern attack which was shielded by the seminary from the cannon fire. That northern column kept coming. It was taking dreadful punishment, but it was soaking up the bullets and musket balls, and the sergeants and officers continually pushed men into the front ranks to replace the dead and the wounded. And so the column came ponderously uphill, but no one in the French ranks had really thought what they would do when they reached the hilltop where there was no door facing them. They would have to skirt the building and try to break through the big gates leading to the garden and when the men in the front ranks saw no place to go they simply stopped advancing and began shooting instead. A ball plucked at Sharpe’s sleeve. A newly arrived lieutenant of the Northamptonshire regiment fell back with a sigh, a bullet in his forehead. He lay on his back, dead before he fell, looking strangely peaceful. The redcoats had placed their cartridges and propped their ramrods on the red-tiled parapet to make loading quicker, but there were now so many on the roof that they jostled each other as they fired down into the dim mass of Frenchmen who were wreathed in their own smoke. One Frenchman ran bravely forward to fire through a loophole, but he was hit before he could reach the wall. Sharpe had fired one shot, then he just watched his men. Pendleton and Perkins, the youngest, were grinning as they fired. Cooper and Tongue were reloading for Hagman, knowing he was a better shot, and the old poacher was calmly picking off one man after the other.
A cannonball screamed overhead and Sharpe twisted round to see that the French had placed a battery on the hill to the west, at the city’s edge. There was a small chapel there with a bell tower and Sharpe saw the bell tower vanish in smoke, then crumble into ruin as the British batteries at the convent hammered the newly arrived French guns. A Berkshire man turned to watch and a bullet whipped through his mouth, mangling his teeth and tongue and he swore incoherently, spitting a stream of blood.
„Don’t watch the city!” Sharpe bellowed. „Keep shooting! Keep shooting!”
Hundreds of Frenchmen were firing muskets uphill and the vast majority of the shots were simply wasted against stone walls, but some found targets. Dodd had a flesh wound in his left arm, but he kept firing. A redcoat was hit in the throat and choked to death. The solitary tree on the northern slope was twitching as it was struck by bullets and shreds of leaf were flying away with the French musket smoke. A sergeant of the Buffs fell back with a bullet in his ribs, and then Sir Edward Paget sent men from the western side of the roof, who had already seen their column defeated, to add their fire to the northern side. The muskets flared and coughed and spat down, the smoke thickened, and Sir Edward grinned at Daddy Hill. „Brave bastards!” Sir Edward had to shout over the noise of muskets and rifles.
„They won’t stand, Ned,” Hill called back. „They won’t stand.”
Hill was right. The first Frenchmen were already backing down the hill because of the futility of shooting at stone walls. Sir Edward, exultant at this easy victory, went to the parapet to look at the retreating enemy and he stood there, gold braid catching the smoke-dimmed sun, watching the enemy column disintegrate and run away, but a few stubborn Frenchmen still fired and suddenly Sir Edward gasped, clapped a hand to his elbow and Sharpe saw that the sleeve of the General’s elegant red coat was torn and that a jagged piece of white bone was showing through the ripped wool and bloody mangled flesh.
„Jesus!” Paget swore. He was in terrible pain. The ball had shattered his elbow and seared up through his biceps. He was half bent over with the agony and very pale.