SHARPE’S REGIMENT

Sergeant Lynch was terrified. He had sensed that there was some purpose to his attachment to this band of Irishmen, and it was a purpose he did not like. He had let his accent flower for them, sounding more Irish than they, but he felt their scorn and he was scared.

He had never been in a group like this. He knew how many Irish fought in this army, but he had thought of them merely as rank-fillers, peasants who could be pushed around and forced into obedience. He had never seen their pride. These men were sure that Major Sharpe had grouped them together because he wanted the best in front, and who were better than they? They spoke filthily of England’s King, despised the officers whom Lynch admired, but went to this fight, beneath a flag not their own, with a relish that was almost contagious. ‘You know why God made Ireland so small?’ one of them, sharpening his bayonet with long strokes of a stone, asked Lynch.

‘No.’ Lynch was nervous of their confidence, their grim assurance.

‘Otherwise we’d have conquered the whole bloody world and there’d be no fights left, eh?’ The man laughed, and held the blade up to inspect its edge. ‘And what would a man do then?’

Some of them spoke in Gaelic, laughing with Harper, and Lynch felt sure the laughter was aimed at him. He remembered the death of Marriott in the river among the Essex marshes, knew it was still unpunished, and was fearful.

d’Alembord, at the head of the left column, was going into his second battle. He was aware of Harper’s Irish group on his right and was determined that his Light Company would prove better. He considered that he had the best men, the fastest, most spirited men, but he wished Harper was back as his Sergeant. He drew his sword and, in the wan, winter light, the slim steel seemed a fragile weapon to take into this land of rock and musket fire and sudden death. Huckfield, a studious and careful man from the north of England who had been promoted to the new rank of Company Sergeant Major, shouted forward to d’Alembord. ‘Major’s calling a halt, sir!’

The Battalion stopped. Sharpe, standing in front of the Colours that told the French who their new enemies were, drew his sword. The steel, carefully sharpened before dawn, rang scrapingly on the scabbard throat. ‘Fix bayonets!’

The seventeen inch blades were drawn, slotted onto muzzles, while the few Riflemen still in d’Alembord’s ranks pushed their longer sword-bayonets onto their weapons. Among the Riflemen was a young Spaniard, Angel, who had never been formally sworn into the Battalion but was one of its best marksmen. The other men of the Light Company, knowing how fanatically he fought, swore that he could not live long.

They were at the edge of the fight, facing the chaos and confusion of the attack, and a Brigade Major, sweating despite the cold after his long scramble towards the new Battalion, gave Sharpe what little news of the battle that he could, then ordered them forward. Sharpe raised his sword and his voice. ‘The Battalion will rendezvous at the pinnacle!’ Each man knew his task and the sword pointed the way. ‘Forward!’

At Pasajes Sharpe had broken up the four Companies he had formed in Essex. He split the men among the existing Companies, mixing experience with inexperience. Yet, even so, he knew that half of this Battalion had never fought. If he could have chosen an ideal battle for their baptism, he would have liked to fight a defensive action, his men secure in the knowledge that so long as they reloaded their muskets quickly no harm could come to them. Instead he was committing them to a frontal attack on positions that were firmly held and savagely fortified. There could be no flank attack here, the valley bottoms were sodden with bogs, and the road northwards ran along the side of the hill and was barred by the French forts.

The right hand column, led by the Grenadier Company, disappeared in a maze of trenches and walls that had been taken by the first attackers. The left hand column, with less cover, became a target for the French gunners. Cannon-balls, smaller than a man’s fist, whipped horror through the files.

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