The howitzer fired twice more during the night. The first shot rattled the lower slope with canister and the second, a shell, cracked the night with flame and smoke just to the east of the watchtower. No one got much sleep, but Sharpe would have been surprised if anyone had slept well after the day’s ordeal. And just before dawn, when the eastern edge of the world was a gray glow, he went round to make sure everyone was awake. Harper was laying a fire beside the watchtower wall. Sharpe had forbidden any fires during the night, for the flames would have given the French gunners an excellent aiming mark, but now that the daylight was coming it would be safe to brew up some tea. „We can stay here forever,” Harper had said, „so long as we can stew some tea, sir. But run out of tea and we’ll have to surrender.”
The gray streak in the east spread, lightening at its base. Vicente shivered beside Sharpe for the night had turned surprisingly cold. „You think they’re coming?” Vicente asked.
„They’re coming,” Sharpe said. He knew that the howitzer’s ammunition supply was not endless, and there could only have been one reason to keep the gun working through the night and that was to fray his men’s nerves so that they would be easy meat for a morning attack.
And that meant the French would come at dawn.
And the light grew, wan and gray and pale as death, and the tops of the highest clouds were already golden red as the light changed from gray to white and white to gold and gold to red.
And then the killing began.
„Sir! mister Sharpe!”
„I see them!” Dark shapes melding into the dark shadows of the northern slope. It was French infantry or, perhaps, dismounted dragoons, coming to attack. „Rifles! Make ready!” There were clicks as Baker rifles were cocked. „Your men don’t fire, understand?” Sharpe said to Vicente. „Of course,” Vicente said. The muskets would be hopelessly inaccurate at anything more than sixty paces so Sharpe would keep the Portuguese volley as a final defense and let his riflemen teach the French the advantages of the seven lands and seven grooves twisting the quarter turn in the rifle barrels. Vicente was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, betraying the nervousness he felt. He fingered one end of his small mustache and licked his lips. „We wait till they reach that white rock, yes?” „Yes,” Sharpe said, „and why don’t you shave that mustache off?” Vicente stared at him. „Why don’t I shave my mustache?” He could scarcely believe his ears.
„Shave it off,” Sharpe said. „You’d look older. Less like a lawyer. Luis would do it for you.” He had successfully taken Vicente’s mind off his worries, and now he looked east where a mist hung over the low ground. No threat from there, he reckoned, and he had four of his riflemen watching the southern path, but only four because he was fairly certain that the French would concentrate their troops on one side of the hill and, once he was absolutely certain of that, he would bring those four back across to the northern side and let a couple of Vicente’s men guard the southern path. „When you’re ready, lads!” Sharpe called. „But don’t fire high!”
Sharpe did not know it, but the French were late. Dulong had wanted his men closed up on the summit approach before the horizon turned gray, but it had taken longer than he anticipated to climb the dark slope and, besides, his men were befuddled and tired after a night of chasing phantoms. Except the phantoms were real and had killed one gunner, wounded three more and put the fear of God into the rest of the artillery crew. Dulong, ordered to take no prisoners, felt some respect for the men he faced.
And then the massacre began.
It was a massacre. The French had muskets, the British had rifles, and the French had to converge on the narrow ridge that climbed to the small summit plateau and once on the ridge they were easy meat for the rifles. Six men went down in the first few seconds and Dulong’s response was to lead the others on, to overwhelm the fort with manpower, but more rifles cracked, more smoke drifted from the hilltop, more bullets thumped home and Dulong understood what he had only appreciated before through lectures: the menace of a rifled barrel. At a range where a full battalion musket volley was unlikely to kill a single man, the British rifles were deadly. The bullets, he noticed, made a different sound. There was a barely detectable shriek in their whiplike menace. The guns themselves did not cough like a musket, but had a snap to their report, and a man struck by a rifle bullet was thrown back further than he would have been by a musket ball. Dulong could see the riflemen now, for they stood up in their rock pits to reload their damned guns, ignoring the threat of the howitzer’s shells that sporadically arced over the French infantry’s heads to explode on the crest. Dulong shouted at his men to fire at the green-jacketed enemy, but the musket shots sounded feeble and the balls went wide and still the rifle shots slashed home and his men were reluctant to climb onto the narrow part of the ridge so Dulong, knowing that example was all, and reckoning that a lucky man might possibly survive the rifle fire and reach the redoubts, decided to set an example. He shouted at his men to follow, drew his saber and charged. „For France,” he cried, „for the Emperor!”