Sharpe’s Havoc by Bernard Cornwell

„Doesn’t have to be long-barrelled,” Sharpe explained, „because it isn’t a precision gun. It just lobs shells on us. It’ll be noisy, but we’ll survive.” He said that to cheer Vicente up, but he was not as confident as he sounded. Two or three lucky shells could decimate his command, but at least the howitzer’s arrival had taken his men’s minds off their larger predicament and they watched as the gunners made ready. A small flag had been placed fifty paces in front of the howitzer, presumably so the gun captain could judge the wind which would tend to drift the shells westward. Sure enough Sharpe saw them edge the howitzer’s trail to compensate, and then watched through the telescope as the quoins were hammered under the stubby barrel. Field guns were usually elevated with a screw, but howitzers used the old-fashioned wooden wedges. Sharpe reckoned the skinny officer who supervised the gun must be using his largest wedges, straining to get maximum elevation so that his shells would drop into the rocks on the hill’s summit. The first powder bags were being brought to the weapon and Sharpe saw the flash of reflected sunlight glance off steel and he knew the officer must be trimming the shell’s fuse. „Under cover, Sergeant!” Sharpe shouted.

Every man had a place to go to, a place that was well protected by the great boulders. Most of the riflemen were in the redoubts, walled with stone, but half a dozen, including Sharpe and Harper, were inside the old watchtower where a stairway had once led to the ramparts. Only four of the steps were left and they merely climbed to a gaping cavity in the stonework of the northern wall and Sharpe positioned himself there so he could see what the French were doing.

The gun vanished in a cloud of smoke, followed a heartbeat later by the massive boom of the exploding powder. Sharpe tried to find the missile in the sky, then saw the tiny, wavering trail of smoke left by the burning fuse. Then came the sound of the shell, a thunder rolling overhead, and the smoke trail whipped only a couple of feet above the ruined watchtower. Everyone had been holding their breath, but now let it out as the shell exploded somewhere above the southern slope.

„Cut his fuse too long,” Harper said.

„He won’t next time,” Tongue said.

Daniel Hagman, white-faced, sat against the wall with his eyes closed. Vicente and most of his men were a little way down the slope where they were protected by a boulder the size of a house. Nothing could reach them directly, but if a shell bounced off the face of the watchtower it would probably fall among them. Sharpe tried not to think of that. He had done his best and he knew he could not provide absolute safety for every man.

They waited.

„Get on with it,” Harris said. Harper crossed himself. Sharpe looked through the hole in the wall and saw the gunner carrying the portfire to the barrel. He said nothing to the men, for the noise of the gun would be warning enough and he was not looking down the hill to see when the howitzer was fired, but the moment when the French put in an infantry attack. That seemed the obvious thing for them to do. Fire the howitzer to keep the British and Portuguese heads down and then send their infantry to make an assault, but Sharpe saw no sign of any such attack. The dragoons were keeping their distance, the infantry was out of sight and the gunners just kept working.

Shell after shell arced to the hilltop. After the first shot the fuses were cut to the precise length and the shells cracked on rocks, fell and exploded. Monotonously, steadily, shot after shot, and each explosion sent shards of hot iron crackling and whistling through the jumble of boulders on the hilltop, yet the French seemed unaware of how much shelter the boulders provided. The summit stank of powder, the smoke drifted like mist through the rocks and clung to the lichen-covered stones of the watchtower, but miraculously no one was badly hurt. One of Vicente’s men was struck by a sliver of iron that cut his upper arm, but that was the only casualty. Yet even so the men hated the ordeal. They sat hunched, counting down the shots that came at a regular pace, one a minute, and the seconds stretched between each one and no one spoke and each shot was a boom from the base of the hill, a crash or thump as the shell struck, the ragged explosion of the powder charge and the shriek of its fragmented casing. One shell failed to explode and they all waited breathless as the seconds passed and then realized that its fuse must have been faulty.