Sharpe's Company

CHAPTER 21

News came that the French, at last, were moving; not against Wellington at Badajoz, but towards the new Spanish garrison in Ciudad Rodrigo. The reports came from the Partisans and from the dispatches they had captured, some still stained with the blood of enemy messengers, and told of disagreements among the French Generals, of delays in gathering their troops, and their difficulties in replacing the French siege artillery, all of which had been captured inside the northern fortress. The news spurred Wellington into greater speed; he wanted the siege of Badajoz done, and he could not be persuaded that the French chances of retaking Ciudad Rodrigo were remote. He did not trust the Spaniards in the town and wanted to march the army north to bolster his allies' resolve. Speed! Speed! Speed! For the six days after Easter he pounded the message at his Generals and staff officers. Give me Badajoz! For the six days the new batteries built in the ruins of the Picurina Fort had fired incessantly at the breaches, at first with small effect until, almost unexpectedly, the loosened stone had cascaded into the ditch and was followed by a dust-spewing avalanche of rubble from the wall's core. The sweating, powder-stained gun crews had cheered, while the infantry, guarding the batteries against another French sortie, stared at the incipient breaches and wondered what welcome the French were preparing for the assault.

By night the French tried to repair the damage. The Picurina guns sprayed the two breaches with grapeshot, but still, each morning, the broken edges of the stonework had been padded with thick bales of wool and so, each dawn, the gunners fired at the mattresses until, in an explosion of greasy fleeces, the padding fell away and the iron balls could start again on the wall proper; gouging at it, crumbling it, carving the double path into the city.

The dam still stood and the floodwaters still stretched south of the city, forcing any assault on the bastions to march obliquely against the walls instead of straight on. The northern batteries pounded at the dam's fort while the infantry dug their trenches forward, trying to take their spades and muskets to the very edge of the small fort, but the trenching was thrown back. Every gun on Badajoz's east wall, from the high kestrel-ridden castle, to the Trinidad bastion, opened up on the creeping trench till the workers were smashed and no one could live in the iron hail, and so the attempt was given up. The dam would stay, the approach would "be oblique, and the engineers did not like it. 'Time, I want time! Colonel Fletcher, wounded in the French foray, was out of bed. He pounded the map in front of him. 'He wants a bloody miracle!

'I do. The General had entered the room unheard and Fletcher twisted round, grimacing because the wound still hurt.

'My Lord! My apologies. The Scottish growl sounded far from apologetic.

Wellington gestured the apology away, nodded at the men waiting for him, and sat down. Major Hogan knew the General was just forty-three, yet he looked older. Perhaps they all looked older. The siege was wearing them down as it was wearing away the two bastions, and Hogan sighed because he knew that this meeting, on Saturday 4th April as he carefully noted at the top of his notebook page, would once more be a wrangle between the General and the Engineers. Wellington took out his own map, unrolled it, and weighted the corners with ink bottles. 'Good morning, gentlemen. Expenditure?"

The gunner Colonel pulled paper towards him. 'Yesterday, my Lord, one thousand one hundred and fourteen twenty-four-pounders, six hundred and three eighteen-pounders.

He gave the figures in a flat monotone. 'One gun burst, sir.

'Burst?

The Colonel turned the paper over. 'Twenty-four-pounder in Number Three, my Lord, high-shot half-way down the bore. We lost three men, six wounded.

Wellington grunted. It was astonishing, Hogan always thought, how the General dominated a room by his presence. Perhaps it was the blue eyes that seemed so knowing, or the stillness of the face round the strong, hooked nose. Most of the officers in this room were older than the Viscount Wellington, yet all of them, with the possible exception of Fletcher, seemed in awe of him. The General wrote the figures on his small piece of paper, the pencil squeaking. He looked back to the gunner. 'Powder?

'Plenty, sir. Eighty barrels arrived yesterday. We can keep firing for another month.

'We'll bloody need to. Sorry, my Lord. Fletcher was hatching marks on his map.

A trace of a smile flicked the corners of Wellington's mouth. 'Colonel?

'My Lord? Fletcher affected surprise. He looked up from the map, but kept his pen poised as though he was being interrupted.

'I can see you're not prepared for the meeting. Wellington gave a small nod to the Scotsman and turned to Hogan. 'Major? Any reports?

Hogan turned his notebook back two pages. 'Two deserters, my Lord, both Germans, both from the Hesse-Darmstadt Regiment. They confirm that the Germans are garrisoning the castle. Hogan raised his eyebrows. 'They say morale is high, my Lord.

'Then why desert?

'A brother of one, my Lord, is with the KGL.

'Ah. You're sending them there?

'Yes, sir. The King's German Legion would welcome the recruits.

'Anything else? Wellington liked to keep the morning conferences brisk.

Hogan nodded. 'They confirm, sir, that the French are devoid of round shot, but claim plenty of canister and grape. We already knew that. He hurried on, forestalling a complaint of repetition from the General. 'They also say the city is terrified of a massacre.’

'Then they should plead for a surrender. "The city, my Lord, is partly pro-French. It was true. Spanish civilians had been seen on the walls, firing muskets at the trenches sapping forward towards the fort at the dam. 'They are hoping for our defeat.

'But. Wellington's voice was scornful.’ They hope to avoid reprisals if we win. Is that right?"

Hogan shrugged. 'Yes, sir. It was, the Irishman thought, a vain hope. If Wellington had his way, and he would, the assault would be soon and the way into the city hard. If they did win through the breach, and Hogan acknowledged the possibility that they might not, then the troops would lose all vestiges of discipline. It had always been so. Soldiers who were forced to fight through the terror of a narrow breach claimed the right to possess the fortress and all within it. The Irish remembered Drogheda and Wexford, the towns sacked by Cromwell and his English troops, and the stories were still told of the victors' atrocities. Stories of women and children herded into a church that was fired, the English celebrating while the Irish burned, and Hogan thought of Teresa and her child, Sharpe's child. His thoughts snapped back to the meeting as Wellington dictated a fast order to an aide-decamp. The order forbade any looting inside the city, but it was given, Hogan thought, without much conviction. Fletcher listened to the order and then, once again, pounded the map with his fist.

'Bomb them.

'Ah! Colonel Fletcher is with us. Wellington turned to him.

Fletcher smiled. 'I say bomb them, my Lord. Smoke them out! They'll give up.

'And how long, pray, before they give up?

Fletcher shrugged. He knew it could take weeks for the squat howitzers to reduce enough of Badajoz to smoking rubble, to burn the food supplies and thus force a surrender. 'A month, my Lord?

'Two, more like, perhaps three. And let me advert you, Colonel, to the notion, imperfectly understood though it may be within the walls, that the Spanish are our allies. If we indiscriminately bomb them with shells it is possible, you will grant me, that our allies will be displeased.

Fletcher nodded. 'They'll not be too happy, my Lord, if your men rape everything that moves and steal everything that doesn't.

'We will trust to our soldiers' good sense. The words were cynically said. 'And now, Colonel, perhaps you can tell us about the breaches. Are they practical?

'No, sir, they are not. Fletcher's Scottish accent was stronger again. 'I can tell you a good deal, sir, most of it new. He turned the map round so that the General was looking at the two bastions from the point of view of an attacker. The Santa Maria was to the left, Trinidad to the right. Fletcher had marked the breaches. The Trinidad had lost half of its face, a gap nearly a hundred feet wide and the Engineer had penciled in his estimate of the height reduction. Twenty-five feet. The flank of the Santa Maria facing the Trinidad was equally badly hit. 'The breaches, as you can see, my Lord, are now about twenty-five feet high. That's a hell of a climb! That's higher, if you'll forgive me for pointing it out, than the unbreached wall at Ciudad Rodrigo! He leaned back as if he had made a scoring hit.

Wellington nodded. 'We are all aware, Colonel, that Badajoz is appreciably bigger than Ciudad Rodrigo. Pray continue.

'My Lord. Fletcher leaned forward again. 'Let me advert you to this. He grinned as he used one of Wellington's favorite expressions. His broad finger settled on the ditch to the front of the Santa Maria. 'They've blocked the ditch here, and here. The finger moved to the right of the Trinidad breach. 'They're boxing us in. His voice was serious now. He could twist the General's tail from time to time, but only dared do it because he was a good Engineer, trusted by Wellington, and he saw it as his job to give his true point of view and not be a lickspittle. The finger tapped the ditch. 'It seems they've put carts in the ditch, upturned carts, and lengths of umber. You don't have to be a genius to work out that they plan to fire those obstacles. You can see what will happen, gentlemen. Our troops will be in the ditch, trying to climb a bloody great ramp, and there'll be no escape from the grapeshot. They can't go left and right into the darkness to regroup. They'll be trapped, lit up, like rats in a bloody barrel.

Wellington listened to the impassioned outburst. 'You're sure?

'Aye, my Lord, and there's more.

'Go on.

The finger stayed to the right of the Trinidad breach. 'The French have dug another ditch here, in the bottom of the ditch, and flooded it. We'll be jumping into water, deep water, and it looks as if they're extending it. Round here.’ The finger traced a line back in front of both breaches.

Wellington's eyes were on the map. 'So the longer we wait, the more difficult it becomes?

Fletcher sighed, but conceded the point. 'Aye, there's that.

Wellington raised his eyes to the Engineer. 'What do we. gain by time?

'I can lower the breaches.’

'By how much?

'Ten feet.

'How long?

'A week.

Wellington paused, then. 'You mean two weeks.

'Aye, my Lord, perhaps.

'We do not have two weeks. We do not have one week. We must take the city. It must be soon. There was silence in the room. Outside the windows the guns hammered over the floodwaters. Wellington looked back to the map, reached over the table, and put a long finger on the huge space between the bastions. 'There's a ravelin there?

'Aye, my Lord, and still being built. The ravelin was sketched on the map; a masonry wedge, diamond shaped, that would break up an attack. If the French had been given time to finish it, before the siege guns had started firing, it would have been like a new bastion, built in the ditch, outflanking all attacks. As it was it formed a vast, flat-topped obstacle, surrounded by the ditch, smack between the two breaches.

Wellington looked up to Fletcher. 'You seem very sure of this new information?

'Aye, my Lord, I am. We had a laddie on the glacis last night. He did a good job. The praise was grudging.

'Who?

Fletcher jerked his head towards Hogan. 'One of Major Hogan's lads, sir.

'Who, Major?

Hogan stopped fidgeting with his snuffbox. 'Richard Sharpe, sir, you'll remember him?

Wellington leaned back in his chair. 'Good Lord. Sharpe? He smiled. 'What's he doing with you? I thought he had a company?

'He did, my Lord. His gazette was refused.

Wellington's face scowled. 'By God! They do not let me make a man Corporal in this damned army! So Sharpe was on the glacis last night?

Hogan nodded. 'Yes, sir.

'Where is he now?

'Outside, sir. I thought you might want to speak to him.

'Good Lord, yes. Wellington's tone was dry. 'He's the only man in the army who's been to the top of the glacis. Fetch him in!

There were Generals of Division, of Brigade, gunners, Engineers and staff officers and they all turned to stare at the tall, green-jacketed man. They had all heard of him, even the Generals newly arrived from England, because this was the man who had captured a French Eagle and who looked as if he could do it again. He looked battered and hard, like the weapons that festooned him, and his limp and scars spoke of a soldier who fought grimly. Wellington smiled at him and looked round the table. 'Captain Sharpe has shared all my battles, gentlemen. Isn't that right, Sharpe? From Seringapatam to today? 'Since Boxtel, sir.

'Good God. I was a Lieutenant-Colonel. 'And I a Private, sir. The aides-de-camp, the young aristocrats that Wellington liked as his messengers, stared curiously at the scarred face. Not many men fought out of the ranks. Hogan watched the General. He was being genial to Sharpe, not because the Rifleman had once saved his life, but because he suspected that in Sharpe he had found an ally against the Engineers caution. Hogan sighed inwardly. Wellington knew this man. The General looked round the room. 'A chair for Captain Sharpe?

'Lieutenant Sharpe, sir. Sharpe's words were almost a challenge, certainly bitter, but the General ignored them. 'Sit down, sit down. Now, tell us about the breaches. Sharpe told them, not awed by the company, but he added little to Fletcher's account. He had not been able to see clearly, the darkness was relieved only by a very occasional gun-flash from the city's walls, and much of his account was based on the sounds he had heard as he lay on the glacis lip and listened, not just to the French working parties, but to the British grapeshot smashing through the weeds and rattling on the walls. Wellington let him finish. It had been a concise statement. The General's eyes held Sharpe's. 'One question. 'Sir?

'Are the breaches practical? Wellington's eyes were unreadable, cold like steel.

Sharpe's gaze was as hard, as unyielding. 'Yes. A murmur round the table. Wellington leaned back. Colonel Fletcher's voice rose above the noise. 'With respect, my Lord, I do not think it within Captain, Lieutenant Sharpe's competency to pronounce on a breach. 'He's been there. Fletcher muttered something about sending a heathen to Kirk and not making him a Christian. The quill in his hand bent almost double under the pressure of his fingers, he let it go and the split nib spattered ink across the two bastions. He thumped the pen down. 'It's too soon.

Wellington pushed himself away from the table, stood up. 'One day, gentlemen, one day. He looked round the table. No one challenged him. It was too soon, he knew that, but perhaps any day would be too soon to take on this fortress. Perhaps, as the French claimed, it was impregnable. 'Tomorrow, gentlemen, Sunday the fifth. We assault Badajoz.

'Sir! Sharpe spoke and the General, who had been expecting a protest from the Engineers, turned towards him. 'Sharpe?

'One question, sir? Sharpe could hardly believe that he was talking, let alone in such challenging tones and in such a company, but he might not get this chance again.

'Go on.

'The Hope, sir. I would like to lead the Hope.

Wellington's eyes were cold and glinting. 'Why?

What was he to say? That it was a test? The supreme test, perhaps, of a soldier? Or that he wanted his revenge on a system, a system represented by a pox-scarred clerk in Whitehall, that had made him superfluous, unwanted? He suddenly thought of Antonia, his daughter, of Teresa. He thought that he might never see Madrid, Paris, or know how the war would end, but the die was cast. He shrugged, looking for words, unsettled by the impenetrable eyes. 'I don't know, sir. I want it. He sounded to himself like a petulant child. He could sense the eyes of the senior officers on him, curious eyes, looking at his shabby uniform, his old, irregular sword, and he damned them to hell. Their pride was buttressed by money.

Wellington's voice was softer. 'You want your Company?

'Yes, sir. He felt a fool, a shabby fool in a glittering setting, and he knew that all of them could see his broken pride.

Wellington nodded towards Colonel Fletcher. 'The Colonel will tell you, Sharpe, and pray God he is wrong, that on Monday morning we'll be handing Captaincies out with the rations.

Fletcher said nothing. The room was silent, embarrassed by Sharpe's request. The Rifleman felt as if all his life, all that had been and all that might never be, was balanced on this silence.

Wellington smiled. 'God knows, Sharpe, that I think you are a rogue. A useful rogue and, thankfully, a rogue who is on my side. He smiled again and Sharpe knew that the General was remembering the gory Indian bayonets reaching for him at Assaye, but that debt had long been paid. Wellington picked up his papers. 'I don't think I want you dead, Sharpe. The army would be, somehow, less interesting. Your request is denied. He left the room.

Sharpe stood there, quite still as the other officers filed out, and he thought how, in these past few miserable weeks, he had fixed all his hopes and ambitions on that one thing. His Captaincy, his Company, their jackets, rifles and trust; even, because he did not seriously believe he would be killed, the chance to reach the house with the two orange trees before the maniacal horde, before Hakeswill, and all had been fixed on the Hope, the Forlorn Hope. And it had been denied.

He should have felt disappointment, anger even, at the refusal, but he could not. Instead, flooding through him like pure water scouring a foul ditch, was relief; utter, blissful relief. He was ashamed of the feeling.

Hogan came back into the room and smiled up at him. 'There. You've asked, you got the right answer.

'No. Sharpe's face was stubborn. 'There's still time, sir, still time. He did not know what he meant, or why he said it, except that on the morrow, in the first darkness of evening, he would somehow face that test. And win.

CHAPTER 22

Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill was feeling contented. He sat by himself, church parade done, and stared into the depths of his shako. He spoke to his hat. 'Tonight, it is, tonight. I'll be a good boy, I won't let you down. He cackled, showing his few rotting teeth, and looked round the Company. They were watching him, he knew, but would take care not to catch his eye. He looked back into the greasy depths of the hat. 'Scared, they are, of me. Oh yes. Scared of me. Be more scared tonight. A lot of them will die tonight. He cackled again and raised his eyes fast so that he might catch a man staring at him. They were all studiously avoiding his eyes. 'You'll die tonight! Like little bloody pigs under the pole-axe!

He would not die. He knew it, despite what Sharpe had said. He looked back into the shako. 'Bloody Sharpe! He's scared of me. He ran away! He can't kill me. No one can kill me! He almost shouted the last words. They were true. He had been touched by death and he had survived. He reached up and scratched the livid, red scar. He had hung for an hour on the gallows, a scrap of a boy, and no one had pulled his feet so that his neck would snap. He did not remember much of the experience; the crowds, the other prisoners who had joked with him, but he would always be grateful to the sadistic bastard who had hung them the slow way, without a drop, so that the crowd would have a spectacle to watch. They had cheered every spasmodic jerk and useless struggle until the executioner's assistants, grinning like actors who are pleasing their audience, came to hold the dangling ankles. They had looked at the crowd, asking their permission to pull, and teased the prisoners. They had not bothered with the twelve-year-old Obadiah Hakeswill. He was cunning then as now and had hung still, even as the pain drifted him in and out of consciousness, so the crowd thought he was already dead. He had not known why he clung so tenaciously to life; it would have been faster and far less painful to be ankle-tugged to death, but then the rain had come. The clouds had split apart in a downpour that cleared the streets in minutes and no one could be bothered with the last small body. His uncle, furtive and frightened, had cut him down and hurried the limp body into an alleyway. He had slapped Obadiah's face. 'Listen, you bastard! Can you hear me?

Obadiah must have said something, or moaned, because he remembered his uncle's face, peering close. 'You're alive. Understand? Little bastard! I don't know why I bothered, except your mother wanted me to. Can you hear me? 'Yes. His face was twitching and he could not stop it. 'You're to bugger off, understand? Bugger off. You can't go home, they'll get you again, you hear me?

He had heard, and understood, and buggered off, and never saw his family again. Not that he missed them much. He had found the army, like so many hopeless men, and it had served him well. And he could not die; he had known it since he was alone in the alleyway, had tested it in battle, and he knew that he had cheated death.

He unsheathed his bayonet and wondered, for a second, whether to give it to one of the Privates to sharpen. He would like to humiliate the big Irish bastard, but on the other hand he always liked to do the job himself when there was killing ahead. The assault would happen today; everyone knew it, though no announcement had been made, and there would be killing enough for everyone. He looked into the hat. 'You'll excuse me a moment? I'll talk again soon.

He put the shako down and picked up his stone. It blurred in his hand, honing the bayonet's leading edge, but he did not look at the work. He stared instead at the Company, recognizing their fear and feeding from it. Hakeswill was content. He had broken the bastards until they fetched his food, washed his clothes, and changed the straw in his shelter.

Two of them he had beaten into pulp, but now they were like puppy dogs, eager to please. He had won his major battles. Sharpe was out of the way, and Harper was broken down into a Private, a red-coated Private. The Captain was afraid of Hakeswill, so was Price and so were the Sergeants. Life could be, Hakeswill knew, a lot worse. He put a thumb on the blade, knew the edge could be sharper, and the stone started again on long, whispering strokes.

Private Clayton looked sideways at Hakeswill, laughed, and said something to his companion. Hakeswill saw the laugh, but pretended not to notice. He would take care of young Clayton, but after the siege, when he had time to think the problem through. Clayton had a pretty wife, the prettiest in the Battalion, and Hakeswill had his eye on Sally. She would have to wait until he had done with Teresa.

The thought of Sharpe's woman made him scowl. He was not certain why he wanted her so much, but he did. She had become an obsession that disturbed his sleep. He would take the bitch and kill her afterwards. It was not because she had fought him, and won; others had done that. He remembered the woman in Dublin who had stuck a gutting-knife in his belly. She had got away and he had felt no resentment, but Teresa was different. Perhaps it was because she had shown no fear, and Hakeswill liked to see fear. He could remember the ones he had killed, the ones he had not needed to kill, right back to that prig of a vicar's daughter who had stripped for him as he held the adder close by her neck. Dorcas, that was her name, and her father had trumped up a sheep stealing charge that had nearly killed him. Hakeswill smiled to himself. He had burned down the vicar's tithe barn on his first night after the hanging. He thought again of Teresa, and the edge of his bayonet became sharper, and he knew that he wanted her very much. Not just for revenge, not just because she was Sharpe's woman, though that was important, but because he wanted her. She was so beautiful, so utterly beautiful, and he would take her, kill her, and the bastard Sharpe would lose her. The anticipation brought on his involuntary twitch.

He changed hands so that the bayonet was in his right hand and, wedging the stone between his knees, he spat on it and began on the point. It would be needle sharp when he had finished, so sharp that it would slide sweetly into a man's guts as if there was no skin to puncture on the way. Or a woman's! He cackled aloud at the thought, alarming the Company, and he thought of Teresa. Sharpe would know who had done it, but there was nothing he could do about it! Hakeswill could not be killed! He looked up at the Company. They wanted to kill him, he knew, but so had the men of a dozen other companies and all had tried. He could remember the musket balls going past him in battle, fired from behind, and once he had seen a man taking deliberate aim. He stroked the bayonet, remembering his revenge, and then thought of the night ahead.

He had planned his assault carefully. The South Essex, with the rest of the Fourth Division, would be attacking the breached face of the Trinidad bastion, but Hakeswill would take care in the ditch. He would hang back, let others do the fighting, so that he was fresh when the cheers came from the top of the breach. Then, when the chaos started, he would cross the wall and go up into the dark streets that led to the Cathedral. He only needed two minutes' lead, which was all he was likely to get, but he knew, as he tested the perfectly prepared blade in his hands, that he would succeed. He always did succeed. He had been touched by death, released, and he felt in his soul that he had been inspired to succeed ever since. He looked up. 'Clayton!

The Company froze and stared at Clayton. The young Private grinned, as if he was not worried. 'Sergeant?

'Oil, get me oil.

'Yes, Sergeant.

Hakeswill cackled as the boy walked away. He would save him for after Badajoz, after the killing, for the time when he would have to pick up the other problems that he had deferred. There was the oilskin bundle that was buried beneath a boundary stone two miles down the Seville Road. Hakeswill had visited the spot last night, heaved the stone off the field embankment, and rummaged through the stolen goods. It was all safe and he had left most of it there because there would be no point in trying to sell anything in the next few days. Badajoz would be stuffed with loot, prices would drop to rock-bottom. It could all wait. He had taken only Sharpe's telescope, with its distinctive brass plate, which he planned to leave beside Teresa's body. He picked up his hat, stared down into the interior. 'Then he'll be blamed, won't he? Or else that bastard Irishman!

'Sergeant?

The eyes rolled up. 'Private Clayton?

'The oil, Sergeant.

'Don't bloody stand there! Hakeswill held up his bayonet. 'Oil it. And be careful! Don't spoil the edge. He let Clayton walk away and then looked down into the hat. 'Nasty little boy! Perhaps he'll die tonight, and that will make things easier for us.

Harper watched the twitching, malevolent face and wondered what was inside the shako. The whole Company wondered, but no one dared ask. It was Harper's opinion that there was nothing inside, that the whole performance was a contrived demonstration of madness to unsettle the Company. The Irishman sharpened his own bayonet, the unfamiliar musket bayonet that lacked the rifle blade's handle, and he made his own plans for the night. There were still no orders, but the army, with its strange, collective instinct, knew that the assault was planned and if, as seemed likely, the South Essex were ordered into the breach, Harper intended staying close to Hakeswill. If a chance came to kill the Sergeant, he would, or else he would try to make sure that Hakeswill did not slip alone into the city. Harper had decided not to volunteer for the Hope, not unless Hakeswill volunteered, and he thought that unlikely. Harper's job was to protect Teresa, as it was Sharpe's, the whole Company's, even Captain Robert Knowles's, who had visited his old Light Company and listened seriously as Harper told of Hakeswill's threat. Knowles had grinned, reassured Harper, but still the Irishman feared the consequences of the chaos in a breach.

He leaned back and listened to the guns.

The gunners, with the same instinctive knowledge that the assault was imminent, served their guns with extra effort as if each stone shard chipped from the breaches would save an infantryman's life. The smoke from the twelve batteries hung like a sea-fog above the still waters of the flooded stream, smoke so thick that the city could hardly be seen, and more smoke was pumped relentlessly from the huge guns. The cannon were like bucking monsters that hissed and steamed between each shot as the blackened gunners sponged and rammed, then heaved the beasts back on to target. The gunners could not see the breaches, but the wooden recoil platforms were marked with deep cuts and the officers and Sergeants lined the gun trails on the cuts, checked the elevation screw. With a flick of the glowing match the gun would bellow again, leap back, and a heavy iron ball would vanish in the fog with a sudden whorl of smoke that was followed by the grinding crash of impact.

Perhaps it was the tempo of the guns that made the men so certain that the assault was this Sunday night, or else the sight of newly made siege ladders in the Engineers' park. Two of the attacks, the one on the castle, and the one by the river, at the San Vincente bastion, would carry ladders to try a surprise escalade. It could not work, of course, the walls were too high. The battle would be lost or won in the breaches.

'Company! Hakeswill's voice grated at them. 'On your feet! Hup, hup, hup!

They scrambled to their feet, pulling jackets straight, and Major Collett was there with Captain Rymer. The Major waved the men down again. 'You can sit.

This had to be the announcement, Harper thought, and he watched as Collett drew out a sheet of paper and unfolded it. There was a buzz of excitement in the Company, a shout for silence from Hakeswill, and Collett waited for quiet. He looked at them belligerently. The assault, he said, would be soon, but they knew that, and they waited for orders. The Major paused and looked down at the piece of paper. 'This order has come, and I will read it to you. You will listen. "I advert the army's attention to the events pursuant of the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo. " Collett read in a flat, hard voice. He could not pronounce Ciudad with the soft 'C', so instead pronounced it 'Quidad'. "The inhabitants of that town, citizens of Britain's ally, Spain, were offered every kind of insult and injury. There will be no repetition of that behavior in Badajoz. Any attacks on civilian property will be swiftly and condignly punished by death, the apprehended perpetrators being hung at the place of their crime." He folded the paper. 'You understand? Keep your thieving hands to yourself and your breeches buttoned. That's all. He glared at them, turned on his heel, and marched away to the next company. The Light Company looked at each other, shrugged, and laughed at the message. Who would do the hanging? The provosts would not be far to the front in any fighting, it would be pitch dark in the streets, and a soldier deserved some loot for fighting through a breach. They were the ones who would do the fighting, and the dying, and who did not need a drop of drink after that? Not that they intended any harm to any civilians. The Spanish, most of whom in Badajoz were on the enemy's side, could choose for themselves how they welcomed the victors. They could leave their doors open and the drink on the table, or they could choose to be unfriendly, in which case? They grinned and went back to sharpening the seventeen-inch blades.

A few moments later a second rumor arrived, as strong as the first which had announced the assault, and this rumor, flashing through the camp, brought relief and frustration. Everything was postponed. They had all been given another twenty-four hours to live.

'Where are we going? someone shouted.

They laughed, forgetting Hakeswill's baleful presence. 'Badajoz!

Tomorrow.

CHAPTER 23

Suddenly there was optimism. Hogan's face, so long lined with concern, crinkled at the eyes; there was an urgency in his speech, a new hope. Two loyal Spaniards had escaped from the city, climbing the wall by the river, and had safely reached the British lines. Hogan's finger stabbed down on to the familiar map. 'There, Richard, there. Tomorrow we'll destroy it!

The finger was pointing towards the wall between the two breached bastions. The Spaniards said it was weak, that it had not been repaired properly after the previous sieges, and they swore that a few shots would bring the wall tumbling down. It would mean a third breach, a sudden breach, a gap that the French would have no time to fill with careful defences. Hogan's fist slammed on to the map. 'We've got them!

'Tomorrow then.

'Tomorrow!

April 6th dawned with a clear sky, and a light so pure that, before the siege batteries opened fire, the city could be seen with every roof, church, tower, and bastion delicately etched. It was a spring morning, full of hope as green as the new plants, a hope put there by a third, surprise breach. The gunners made their minimal adjustment, the trails inching around on the platforms, and then the order was given. Smoke jetted, thunder echoed over the lake, the balls smashed at the repaired masonry as the gunners slaved, dragged at their weapons, rammed, sponged, and rammed again, working with a knowledge of victory. To the south, dear of the smoke-fog on the lake, the Engineers peered at the unbroken stretch of wall. It jetted dust in a hazy cloud, started from the dry mortar by the cannon-strike, but it held all morning. The cannons hammered on, smiting the wall with shattering force until, early in the afternoon, the labor was rewarded.

The wall began to slide, not piece by piece as the bastions had given, but in one solid, spectacular chunk. Hogan jumped for the joy of it. 'It's going!

Then the view was lost. Dust boiled up like smoke from an explosion, the sound rolled across the water, and the gun crews cheered themselves hoarse. The dust drifted slowly away and there, where once there had been a seemingly solid wall, was now a third, huge breach; as wide as the others, but fresh, undefended, and the orders were given. Tonight, gentlemen, tonight at dusk. Into the breaches and the gates of Spain would belong to Britain.

All afternoon, as clouds came from the east, the guns fired so that the French could not work in the breaches. The gunners worked willingly. Their job was done and this was the last day of effort, the twenty-second day of the siege, and tomorrow there would be no more heaving and sweating and no more enemy counter-battery fire. Badajoz would be theirs. The Engineers counted ladders and hay-bags, stacked the huge axes that the leading troops would take into the attack, and thought of the comfortable beds that waited in the city. Badajoz was theirs.

The orders, just twenty-seven paragraphs, were issued at last and the men listened in silence as their officers told them the news. Bayonets were polished again, muskets checked, and they listened to the flat notes of the cathedral clock. First darkness and Badajoz was theirs.

Captain Robert Knowles, now part of the Third Division, stared up at the huge castle with its colony of kestrels. The Third Division, carrying the longest ladders, was to cross the stream and climb the castle rock. No one expected the attack to work, it was merely a diversion to keep troops pinned in the castle, but Knowles's men grinned at him and swore they would climb the wall. 'We'll show them, sir! And they would try, he knew, and so would he, and he thought how splendid it would be if he could reach Teresa first, in the house with two orange trees, and hand her and the child safely to Sharpe. He looked again at the vast castle, on its high, steep rock, and he vowed he would fight as Sharpe fought. The devil with a fake attack! They would attack for real.

The Fifth Division, brought back across the river, would mount another escalade with ladders; this time against the north-east bastion, the San Vincente, which towered above the slow river. Like the castle attack, it was intended to pin down enemy troops, to stop reinforcements going to the south-east corner, for it was there, at the three breaches, that Wellington knew he must win his victory.

The breaches. The Fourth and Light Divisions would make the real attack; the assault on the three breaches and the men, waiting as the clouds spread over the sky, imagined the boiling of troops in the ditch, the fighting that was to come, but they would win. Badajoz would be taken. The guns fired on.

Sharpe found a cavalry armourer who put the huge sword against a treadled wheel and the sparks flowed from the edge. He had checked his rifle and loaded the seven-barreled gun. Even though his own orders forbade him to go into the ditch he wanted to be ready. He was a guide, the only man who had already walked to the lip of the glacis, and his task was to lead the Forlorn Hope of the Light Division to the brink of the ditch opposite the Santa Maria bastion. There they would leave him and go on to attack the bastion and the new breach while, off to the right, the South Essex and the Fourth Division marched on the Trinidad. Once Sharpe had taken the Forlorn Hope to the ditch, he was to return and guide other battalions up the slope, but he hoped, against hope, that he could find a way into the fight and over the wall to his child.

The bell tolled six, then the quarter, and on the half, the men lined up out of sight of the city. They carried no packs, just weapons and ammunition, and their Colonels inspected them, not to check on uniforms, but to grin at them and encourage them, because tonight the common man, the despised soldier, would write a page in history and that page had better be a British victory. Tension stretched as the sun sank, imagination making fears real, and the officers passed the rum rations down the ranks and listened to the old jokes. There was a sudden warmth in the army, a feeling of difficulties that would be shared, and the officers who came from the big houses felt close to their men. Imagination did not spare the rich, nor would the defenders, and tonight the rich and poor in the ditch would need each other. The wives made their farewells and hoped for a live husband on the morrow, and the children were silent, awed by the expectancy, while in the doctors' tents the instrument cases were opened and the scalpels honed. The guns fired on.

Seven o'clock. A half-hour only left and Sharpe and the other guides — all except the Rifleman were Engineers — joined their battalions. The Forlorn Hope of the Light Division was half composed of Riflemen, hoping for the laurel-wreath badge. They grinned at Sharpe and joked with him. They wanted the thing done and over in the way that a man facing the surgeon's knife hastened the fatal clock. They would move at half-past seven and by half-past nine the issue would be decided. Those that lived would be drunk by ten and the wine would be free. They waited, sitting on the ground with their rifles between their knees, and prayed the clock on. Let it be over, let it be over, and darkness came and the guns boomed on, and the orders had to come.

Half-past seven, and the orders still not given. There was a delay and no one knew why. The troops fidgeted, grew angry against unseen staff officers, cursed the bloody army and the bloody Generals because in the darkness the French would be swarming on the breaches, preparing traps for the British! The guns stopped firing, as they should have done, but there were still no orders and the men waited and imagined the French working on the new breach. Eight o'clock sounded, and then the half, and horses galloped in the darkness. Men shouted for information. There were still no orders, but rumored explanations. The ladders had been lost. The hay bags were missing and they cursed the Engineers, the lousy army, and the French worked on.

Nine o'clock, and murder was being prepared in the breaches. Delay it, Sharpe thought, let it be tomorrow! The attack should go in on the heels of the guns, in the minutes of darkness when there was a trace of light so that the battalions would not get lost on the glacis. Still the time ticked away and still they waited and still the enemy were given precious minutes to work on the defences. Then there was a stir in the darkness. Orders, at last, and there would be no delay.

Go, go, go, go, go. The ranks moved with the clinking of metal and thumping of rifle and musket stocks. There was a sense of relief to be moving in the darkness, in the bleak, total darkness, and the six thousand five hundred men, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Portuguese moved against the city. The guides ordered quiet and the orders went back, but they were moving at last and no one could silence the thousands of boots that scraped and scuffed by the road that led between the flood and the Pardaleras Fort. Far to the north, the Third Division filed over the bridge by the broken mill that spanned the Rivillas and the air was filled with the croaking of frogs and the fears of men. The city waited in darkness. Silence in Badajoz.

The Lieutenant who was leading the Forlorn Hope touched Sharpe's elbow. 'Are we too far to the left?

They had lost all touch with the Fourth Division. It was dark, utterly dark, and there was no sound from the fort or from the city. Sharpe whispered back. 'We're all right.

Still there was no firing, no sound from the city or from the Pardaleras that was now behind them. Silence. Sharpe wondered if the attack would be a surprise to the French. He wondered if perhaps the enemy had been fooled by the delay, perhaps the troops had relaxed, were waiting for another day and if the greatest gift the gods can give a soldier, surprise, had been given to the British. They were close now. The dim, dark shadow of the fortress blotted out half the sky. It was huge in the night, vast, unimaginably strong, and the slope of the glacis was beneath Sharpe's feet and he paused as the sixty men of the Forlorn Hope aligned themselves and thrust their ladders and hay-bags to the front. The Lieutenant scraped his sword from the scabbard. 'Ready.

There was firing from the right, far off, where the Third Division had been spotted. It sounded miles away, like someone else's battle, and it was difficult to believe that the sound had anything to do with the dark glacis leading to the fortress in front. Yet the sound would alert all the French sentries and Sharpe hurried up the slope, angling to his left, and still there was no sound from walls or bastions. He tried to make sense of the shadows, to recognize the shapes he had seen just three nights before, and his footsteps sounded loud on the grass and he could hear the panting of men behind him. Surely the French would hear! At any moment, he almost cringed at the reality of the imagination, the grapeshot would stab down from the walls. He saw the corner of a bastion, recognized the Santa Maria, and a relief went through him as he knew he had brought the Hope to the right place.

Sharpe turned to the Lieutenant. "This is it. He wished he was going with him, that he was leading the Hope, but it was not to be. The glory belonged to the Lieutenant who made no reply. Tonight he was a god, tonight he could do no wrong, because tonight he was leading a Forlorn Hope against the biggest citadel the British army had ever attacked. He turned to his men.

They went. Silent. The ladders scraped over the stone lip of the glacis, down into the ditch, and the men scrambled down, slithering on the rungs, falling on to the thrown hay-bags. It had begun.

Sharpe watched the walls. They were dark and silent. Behind him, at the foot of the glacis, he could hear the tramp of feet as the battalions approached and then, ahead, he heard the Lieutenant shout at his men and the first scrambling of boots on the breach. It had started. Hell had come to Badajoz.

CHAPTER 24

In the cathedral that day the prayers had been unceasing, muttered, sometimes hysterical; the words had accompanied the beads as the women of Badajoz feared for the dead who would come to their streets that night. Just as the British army knew the assault was coming, so, too, did the defenders and inhabitants of Badajoz. A host of candles flickered before the saints as if the tiny flames could keep at bay the evil that surrounded the city and came pressing closer as the night gloom filled the cathedral.

Rafael Moreno, merchant, trickled powder into his pistols and hid them, loaded and primed, beneath the lid of his writing desk. He wished his wife were with him, but she had insisted enjoining the nuns in the cathedral, foolish woman, and praying. Prayers would not deflect the soldiers, bullets might, but it was more likely they could be bribed by the cheap red wine he had put in his courtyard. Moreno shrugged. The most valuable possessions were hidden, well hidden, and his niece insisted she had friends among the British. He could hear Teresa upstairs, talking to her child, and doubtless she had the heathen rifle loaded and ready. He liked his niece, of course, but there were times when he thought that his brother Cesar's family were more than a little too wild. Downright irresponsible even. He poured himself wine. That child upstairs, improving in health, God be praised, but a bastard! And in his house! Moreno sipped the wine. The neighbors did not know, he had seen to that. They thought she was a widow whose husband had died in last year's battles between the French and the disintegrating Spanish armies. He heard the clock in the cathedral tower begin wheezing as it wound itself up to strike the bell. Ten o'clock in Badajoz. He emptied his glass and called for a servant to refill it.

The bell sounded, and below, in the cathedral, beneath the vaulted ceiling and the gold ledges, below the huge, dark chandelier, and beneath the sad eyes of the Virgin, the women heard the crackle of muskets begin far away. They looked up, over the glow of the candles, at the Mother of God. Be with us now and in the hour of our need.

Sharpe heard the first toll of the hour, and then no more. As it sounded, so the first fireball rose from the battlements, arced its spark-path in the blackness, and then plummeted to the ditch. It was the first of a storm, the tight packed balls flaming and falling as the carcasses were rolled on to the breach, and suddenly the breaches, the ditch, the ravelin, the obstacles, and the tiny figures of the Forlorn Hope were swamped in light, light poured from above, by flames that caught on the obstacles in the ditch, and the Hope began to climb as the fire was bright on their bayonets.

The battalions behind cheered. Silence was done. The front ranks reached the ditch and the ladders scraped over. Men hurled themselves after the hay-bags and scrambled down ladders, a flow of men in desperate haste to cross the ditch and climb the huge ramps of the breaches. They were cheering, urging themselves on, even as the first tongues of quicksilver flame raced down the breaches of the Santa Maria and Trinidad.

Sharpe dropped as the mines exploded. Not one or two, but tons of powder packed in the ditch, on the lower slopes of the ramps, was ignited and exploded outwards, and the Forlorn Hope was gone. Taken in an instant, ground into fragments of wet horror, all dead, as the first files of the first battalions were hurled backwards by the flame and flying stone.

The French cheered. They lined the parapets, the bastions; and the guns that had been handled round to fire down into the ditch, guns which had been double shotted with canister, were unmasked. Muskets spat, were drowned by the cannon flames. The enemy cheered and shouted obscenities, and all the time the carcasses were thrown, lighting the targets, and the ditch was slopping with fire, a container of flames that would only be drowned in blood, and still the men went down the ladders and into the ditch.

The third breach was silent, the new breach. It lay between the bastions, a huge fresh scar that could lead into the city, but Sharpe saw the French had worked well. The ditch in front of the wall was huge, as wide as a parade ground, but filled with the squat, half-finished ravelin. The ravelin was twenty feet high, shaped like a diamond, and the only way to the new breach was to go round it. The way was blocked. Carts had been tipped over in the approach ditches, then covered with timbers, and the fireballs had lit the obstacles so that they flamed huge and fierce, and no attacker could get close. Only the breaches in the bastions, the Santa Maria and the Trinidad, could be approached, and those were dominated by the enemy guns. They fired again and again, the ammunition hoarded against this night, and still the British tried, and still they died yards from the breaches' base.

Sharpe went back down the glacis, into the shadows, and turned once to see the high, great walls of the battle lit by fire. Flames jetted from the embrasures, writhing smoke into the maelstrom below, and in the light of the fires he saw strange patterns at the top of the breaches. He stopped and stared, trying to make sense of the shapes glimpsed through the harrowing fire and smoke, and saw that the French had crowned each breach with Ckevaux de Prise. Each one was a timber, thick as a battleship's main mast, and from each chained timber there sprang a thousand sabre blades; the blade barrier, thick as a porcupine's coat, to hook and tear any man who reached the summit. If any did.

He found the Colonel of his next battalion, standing with drawn sword, staring at the fire-edged glacis. The Colonel glared at Sharpe. 'What's happening?

'Guns, sir. Come on. Not that the Colonel needed to be told, or to be guided. The face of the Santa Maria bastion was a sheet of reflected flame and they marched towards it as, suddenly, the canister whistled down the slope and cut huge swathes through the Battalion. The men closed ranks, marched on, nearer the lip, and the gunners doused the glacis with bursting canister and the Colonel waved his sword. 'Come on!

They ran, order disappearing, and hurled themselves at the ditch. Bodies littered the glacis, twitched by new blasts of shot, and still more men climbed the slope and poured into the vast fire bowl. Men jumped towards hay-bags and landed, instead, on the dead or wounded. The living pushed forward towards the breach, trying to claw their way to the shattered stone, and each time the French gunners, high on the terrifying walls, swatted them back so that the ditch floor was thick with blood. Sharpe watched, appalled. His orders were to go back to where the reserve waited, to guide more men forward, but no man needed to be guided this night. He stayed.

Not one man had reached a breach. The ditch between the glacis and the ravelin was black with men, disorganized men, the mingling of the Fourth and Light Divisions. Some cowered there for safety, thinking the shadow of the ravelin would give them protection from the guns that scorched down at them. But there was no safety. The guns could reach every inch of the ditch, firing in scientific patterns, killing, killing, killing, but for the moment they fired only where the British moved, towards the breaches, and the spaces before the great, stone ramps were thickening with dead. The guns fired canister, tin cans that burst apart in the muzzle flame and scattered musket balls like giant duck-shot, while other guns were loaded with grapeshot, naval ammunition, that rattled against the ditch wall.

It was not just the guns. The defenders hurled anything that would kill from the ramparts. Stone lumps, the size of a man's head, crashed down into the ditch; gun-shells, their fuses cut to a quarter inch and lit by hand, fizzed down and sent red hot fragments scything on the ditch's floor, and even kegs of powder, fused and lit, were rolled down the breach slope. Sharpe watched one barrel, bouncing and tumbling, its fuse spinning madly red, finally leap into the ditch and explode in the face of a dozen Riflemen who were running for the Santa Maria breach. Only three lived, blinded and screaming, and one of them wandered, insensate with pain, into the burning timbers that blocked the path to the new breach. Sharpe fancied he could hear the man's dying screams bubble with the flames, but there were so many dying, and so much noise, that he could not be certain.

The noise of the living in the ditch was a growl and, suddenly, it rose to a sound of fury and Sharpe looked right to see a wave of men, Riflemen and red-jackets, charging forward. He groaned. They had stormed their way up the ravelin's sloping face, desperate for victory, and the burgeoning attack spread out on the diamond's top flat surface and ran with leveled bayonets towards the new breach. The French were waiting. Guns that had not fired were touched with flame, the grapeshot ripped in from three sides and the attack died in a dancing horror as men were struck as by contrary iron winds. A few lived, ran on, and found that the ravelin led to another sheer drop, into another ditch before the breach and, as they hesitated, the French infantry dropped them with musket fire and there was nothing but bodies left on the ravelin's top, bodies that had fallen and left unrecognizable dark smears on the stone.

The guns were winning the night. The ditch was blocked by fire. Men could not go right or left because of the flaming timbers that jammed the main ditch on either side of the two bastions, just as the approaches to the third breach were blocked. The four fires, fed with fresh timber from the walls, defined where the British could go, a space that was terrible with gunfire. Yet still more men went over the edge, hurrying down the ladders as if there was some safety in the milling, scrambling horde that bulged at the edges as fresh groups charged towards a breach. The ditch was filling with men, hundreds and hundreds of men, shouting men, holding their bayonets above the crush, and the grapeshot would lick down and clear a space of the living and the space would be filled again as men trampled the dying. The guns would belch again, and again, and the metal scraps turned the ditch into a charnel house. Still they went forward, incoherently brave, trying to reach an enemy they could not see or touch, and they died as they cursed and struggled forward.

They went in small groups and Sharpe, crouched on the glacis, watched as an officer or Sergeant led them forward. Mostly they died in the ditch, but some, at last, reached the breach and clambered upwards. A dozen men would go and, in seconds, there would be six, and three would reach the stone and begin to climb while the men on the glacis lip, next to Sharpe, knelt up and fired their muskets at the walls as if they could clear the path for the scrambling men. Sharpe wondered if the French were playing with them. Sometimes no gun would fire on the small, desperate groups, even though guns swept the approach to the breach, and he would watch them struggle, higher and higher until, casually almost, the enemy would pluck them off the stone, tumble them dead, and a new high-tide mark of blood was marked on the breach. Once a man even reached the Chesaux de Frise, he swept at the sabre blades with a musket, bellowing defiance, and then he was hit by an unseen French infantryman and he fell, twisting like a rag doll, down the slope and the French jeered him and poured fire down.

Sharpe went right, looking for the Fourth Division and the South Essex, but the ditch was a massive sink of death, of weird shadows cast by the fires, and he could make out no faces in the packed crowd that was filling the space between the ravelin and glacis. Men sheltered behind parapets made from the dead, others clumsily reloaded muskets and fired them uselessly at the towering stone that crushed them with fire. He ran for a minute, right on the edge of the glacis, stumbling on the uneven paving and hearing the canister above him, in front of him, yet he was untouched. Small groups of men were on the glacis lip, Light Companies mostly, who rammed and fired, rammed and fired, hoping that their bullets might ricochet from an embrasure and kill a Frenchman. The canister flung them backwards, ragged down the slope, and beyond the bodies, in the darkness, more men waited for the orders that would send them running to the light, to the ditch, to the hundreds of dead. Sharpe had never seen so many dead.

He was still fifty yards from the Trinidad, but he could see that its breach was no better than the Santa Maria. The foot of the breach was smeared with bodies, its approaches bare of the living, though small groups of men dashed from the shadows of the ravelin and screamed defiance as they clawed at the stones and were blasted away. Bugles sounded to the right, the shouts of officers and Sergeants, and there was the South Essex! He saw them flowing up the glacis in close column and his Company, Rymer's Company, lined the ditch and fired their ineffectual muskets at the wall's height while the other men scrambled at the ladders, flung themselves on hay-bags, frantic in their haste. Men bunched at the ditch's edge, the guns hammered from the wall, their hot breath hard on the glacis, and Sharpe saw the Battalion shudder like a wounded thing, reform, smash itself under new impacts. But they were over, scrambling in the ditch and he saw Windham, his cocked hat gone, scything his sword towards the breach, and new guns fired until the sound of the city was like a weight of solid thunder.

They died in dozens, but still they went towards the breach, and more men came from the ditch, from other Regiments, and they tried, and pushed, and fought, and scrambled up the stone till it seemed they had to win for there was not enough shot in the world to kill so many men. The gunners rammed and fired, loaded and fired, and the powder kegs banged down the slope, and the shells were thrown, fuses lit, so the dark explosions splintered the men, and they died and it was done. The dead choked the living, the breach had won. A few men, very few, still lived and struggled upwards, shredding their hands on the nailed boards laid down the upper slope, and Sharpe saw Leroy, sword in hand, cigar inevitably between his teeth, look up into the night, so slow, and then he fell, tumbling, fell, screaming into the ditch. A last man reached the sword blades, the very top, he clawed at them, blood on his hands, and then he shook, quivered, filled with a dozen bullets and the highest man, dead on the Trinidad, slid down, blood on stone, till he was caught.

The survivors were behind the ravelin, digging into the dead, and the French mocked them. 'Come to Badajoz, English.

Sharpe had not been with them. He knelt, fired once at the wall, and watched the death of the Battalion; Collett, Jack Collett, neck severed by a round shot, even Sterritt, poor, worried Sterritt, a hero now, killed in the ditch at Badajoz.

'Sir? A voice curiously calm in the torment of sound. 'Sir?

He looked up. Daniel Hagman, strange in red coat, stood over him. He stood up. 'Daniel?

'You'd better come, sir.’

He went towards the Light Company, close to him now and still on the glacis, and he saw in the ditch where men had drowned in the deep water. The black humps of their bodies broke up the ripples in red and dark patterns. The guns were quieter now, saving their anger for the fools who would come from behind the ravelin. The breaches were empty of all but the dead. The huge fires roared, greedy for the lumber that was tossed from the walls, and an army was dying between their flames.

'Sir? Lieutenant Price, his eyes stark with the horror, ran to Sharpe. 'Sir?

'What?

'Your Company, sir.

'Mine?

Price pointed. Rymer was dead, a tiny wound, an insignificant wound, red on his pale forehead. He lay backwards on the slope, arms wide, staring at nothing, and Sharpe shuddered when he remembered how he had wanted this Company, and thus this man's death, and now it was given to him.

So easy. It was all done? Out of the horror, the pulverizing fire and iron that smothered the south-east corner of Badajoz, death had given Sharpe back what had once been his. He could stay on the glacis, firing at the night, safe from the carnage, a Captain again, the Company his, and men would account him a hero because he had lived throughBadajoz.

A musket ball whirred past his head, making him jerkback, and there was Harper, the red jacket discarded, huge in a blood-stained shirt, and the Irish face was stone hard 'What do we do, sir?

Do? There was only one thing to do. A man did not go into a breach to fight for a company, not even a Captaincy. Sharpe looked over the ditch, over the scoured ravelin and there, untouched by blood, was the third breach, the new breach, the unattacked breach. A man went first into a breach for pride, nothing else, just pride. A poor reason, paltry even, but enough, perhaps, to win a city. He looked up at Harper. 'Sergeant. We're going to Badajoz.

CHAPTER 25

Captain Robert Knowles crossed the bridge by the ruined mill and wondered at the calmness of the night. Beneath him the Rivillas stream whispered from the dam, ahead the huge castle blotted out the sky and, in the darkness, it seemed impossible that men could dare hope escalade the giant bastion. Wind rustled the new foliage in the trees that grew precariously on the steep hill that led up to the castle. Behind Knowles came his Company, carrying two ladders, and they paused with him at the foot of the slope, their excitement suppressed, and peered up at the looming walls. 'Bloody high! A voice came from the rear rank.

'Quiet!

The Engineer officer who was guiding the Battalion was nervous and Knowles became annoyed at the man's fidgeting. 'What's the matter?

'We're too far over. We must go right.

They could not go right. There were too many troops crowding at the hill's base, and it would cause chaos if the battalions tried to re-align themselves in the darkness. Knowles shook his head irritably. 'We can't. What's the problem?

'That. The Engineer pointed to his left. A huge shadow sprang from the dark rock, high over them, a shadow with a crenellated outline. The bastion of San Pedro. Knowles's Colonel appeared beside him. 'What's the problem?

Knowles pointed to the bastion, but the Colonel dismissed it. 'We must do what we can. Are you all right, Robert?

'Yes, sir.

The Colonel turned to the Light Company and raised his voice a little above a whisper. 'Enjoy yourselves, lads!

There was a growling from the ranks. They had been told that this attack was merely a diversion, not intended to succeed, but then General Picton had damned Wellington's eyes and said that the Third Division did not make fake attacks. The Third Division would go all the way, or not at all, and the men were determined to prove Picton right. Knowles, for the first time, felt the seeds of doubt. They must climb a hundred feet of almost sheer rock, and then put ladders against a wall that looked forty feet high, and all the time under the guns of the defenders. He thrust the doubts away, trying, as he always did, to emulate Sharpe, but it was difficult, faced with the enormity of the castle, to feel confident. His worries were interrupted by hurrying footsteps and one of Picton's aides was calling for the Colonel.

'Here!

'Go, sir! And the General wishes you God speed.

'I'd rather he wished me a case of his claret. The Colonel slapped Knowles's shoulder. 'Off you go.

Knowles could not draw his sabre. He needed both hands to cling to the rock hill, to pull himself up while his feet found desperate footholds. His Captaincy was heavy on his shoulders. He hurried, wanting to stay ahead of his men because he knew Sharpe would lead, and he imagined, as he climbed, the first heavy musket balls plummeting down to crush in the top of his skull. His men seemed to be so noisy! The ladders scraped on rock, on tree-trunks; the musket stocks banged on stone, the feet clattered pebbles loose, but still the castle was silent, the great shadow unrelieved by the gun flames. Knowles found himself thinking of Teresa, inside the city, and hoping, against all the evidence of the massive walls, that he could reach her first. He wanted to do something for Sharpe.

'Faster! The shout was from one of his Sergeants, and Knowles, his thoughts elsewhere, snapped his head back and stared up. High above him, falling, falling, was the first carcass. The fire roared in the sky; it tumbled end over end, shedding sparks, and he watched, fascinated, as it plunged into a thorn tree that grew close by. The tree flared into flame and the first muskets banged from the castle wall. They seemed far away.

'Come on!

More fireballs and carcasses fell from the ramparts; some lodged in the narrow space by the wall's foot, others fell in streaming shreds of fire down the rock slope and took men with them, screaming as the flames captured them, but Knowles climbed on and his men pressed behind. 'Faster! Faster!

A cannon crashed out its load from the San Pedro bastion and canister whipped through the trees and crackled on stone. There was a cry behind him, a shout of despair, and he knew a man had gone, but there was no time to worry about casualties, just to scramble upwards, the going easier as they neared the top, and Knowles felt the excitement of battle that would carry him past fear and into action.

'Keep going! The Colonel, surprisingly agile for his years, overtook him and reached the space at the wall's base first. He leaned down and helped Knowles up. 'Get the ladders!

The musket balls smacked down, but the shot was an awkward one for the defenders; they had to lean right over the battlements and shoot straight down, almost at random, into the flaring light at the bottom of the wall. The cannons were far more dangerous, shooting from the San Pedro and from a smaller bastion to Knowles's right, a bastion jutting from the castle wall. Canister scraped the wall, promising death to men on ladders, but that was a fear that had to be ignored.

'Here! The first ladder loomed over the rock slope and Knowles ran to it, pulled it towards the wall, and more men were manhandling it, swinging it upwards, until it thumped against the battlements. The Colonel waved them on. 'Good lads! The first one over gets the best whore in Badajoz!

They cheered and the Colonel dropped, felled by a bullet from above, but they hardly noticed. 'Me first! Me first! Knowles pushed through, boyish in his excitement. He knew that Sharpe would lead, and so must he, and he scrambled up the rungs, wondering what a fool he was, but his legs pumped automatically and it occurred to him, with sudden horror, that he had not even drawn his sabre. He looked up, saw the arms of defenders pushing at the ladder and he began to fall sideways. He shouted a warning, let go, and thumped down into a press of men. Miraculously not a single bayonet touched him. He picked himself up.

'Are you hurt, sir? A Sergeant looked worriedly at him.

'No! Get it up! The ladder was not broken. Another canister splintered on the wall, the men swung the ladder again and this time Knowles was not near enough to be first and he watched as his men began climbing. The first was shot from above, thrown clear by the second man, more pushed behind, and then the whole ladder with its human cargo disintegrated in splinters and flesh as a barrel-full of grapeshot, fired from the San Pedro bastion, found a full target. Stones were being hurled from the castle parapets that crashed into knots of men and bounced down the rock face. Suddenly Knowles's Company seemed to be halved in strength, he felt the frustrations of defeat and looked frantically for the second ladder. It had gone, back down the slope, and then there were voices shouting at him. 'Back! Back! He recognized his Major's voice, saw the face, and he jumped into the shadows and left behind the broken ladders and bodies of the first attack beneath the triumphant shouts of the enemy.

'Any news from the casde?

'No, my Lord. The Generals fidgeted. In front of them the south-east corner of Badajoz flickered with bright fire. The two soaring bastions, scarred by the unconquered breaches, framed the flames, fed them, and the smoke boiled scarlet into the night. To the right, and seemingly far away, more fire glowed above the silhouetted castle and Wellington, cloaked and gloved, tugged nervously at his reins. 'Picton won't do it, y'know. He won't.

An aide-de-camp leaned closer. 'My Lord? 'Nothing. Nothing. He was irritable, helpless. He knew what was happening in the great pit of fire ahead. His men were marching into it and could not get out the other side. He was appalled. The walls were three times bigger than Ciudad Rodrigo, the fight unimaginably worse, but he had to have the city. Kemmis, from the Fourth Division, pushed in by his side.

'My Lord?

'General?

'Do we reinforce, sir? Kemmis was hatless, his face smeared with dirt as if he had been firing a musket himself. 'Do we send in more men?"

Wellington hated sieges. He could be patient when he had to be, when he was enticing the enemy into a trap, but a siege was not like that. Inevitably this moment had to come, when the troops had to be ordered into the one, small, deadly point, and there was no escaping it unless the enemy was simply starved into submission and there had been no time for that. He had to have this city.

Sharpe! For a second the General was tempted to damn Sharpe, who had assured him the breaches were practical. But Wellington suppressed the thought. The Rifleman had said what Wellington had wanted him to say and even if he had not, then Wellington would still have sent in the troops. Sharpe! If Wellington had one thousand Sharpes then the city might be his. He listened gloomily to the sounds of battle. The French cheers were loud and he knew they were beating him. He could withdraw now and leave the dead and wounded to be recovered under a flag of truce, or he could send in more men and hope to turn the battle. He had to have the city! Otherwise there could be no march on Spain this summer, no advance to the Pyrenees, and Napoleon would be given another year of power. 'Send them in!"

Feed the monster, he thought, that was grinding his army, his fine army, but the monster must be fed until it gave up. He could make up the shattered battalions, the reinforcements would come, but without Badajoz there was no victory. Damn the Engineers. There were miners in Britain, hundreds in Cornwall alone, but none with the army, no Corps of Sappers who could have tunneled under the bastions, packed the cavern with powder, and blown the French to kingdom come. He found himself wondering whether he should have slaughtered the garrison at Ciudad Rodrigo, whether he could have lined them up in tens and shot them, then left the bodies to rot in the town ditch so that any Frenchmen who chose to contest another breach could only expect the terrible vengeance of the English. He could not have ordered it, any more than he would order it here if they won this night. If.

He turned irritably towards his aides. His face was long and harsh-shadowed in the torchlight cast from Lord March's hand. 'Any news of the Fifth?

The answering voice was low, anxious not to add to the bad news. 'They should be attacking now, my Lord, General Leith sends his apologies.

'God damn his apologies. Why can't he be on time? His horse shied, struck by a spent musket bullet, and the General soothed it. He could expect nothing of the escalades. Leith was late and the garrison at San Vincente would be warned, while Picton was hoping for the moon if he thought he could lay his long ladders against the castle wall. Victory, he knew, would have to be carved here, at the south-east corner, where flame and smoke churned over the ghastly ditch. Distantly, like a reminder of another world echoing in the depths of hell, the Cathedral bell tolled eleven, and Wellington looked up into the blackness and then back at the flames. 'One more hour, gentlemen, one more hour. And then what, he wondered? Failure? Hell was no place for miracles.

On the walls the French gunners slackened their fire. They had drowned the ditch in death and now they listened to the screams and moans that came from below. The attacks seemed to have stopped, so the gunners stretched, soaked their faces with water splashed from the buckets used to wet the sponges, and watched as fresh ammunition was brought up the ramp. They did not expect much more effort from the British. A few men had climbed the breaches, one was even impaled on the sabre blades, but it was a hopeless effort. Poor bastards! There was no joy any longer in shouting insults. A sergeant, leather-skinned and hard, leaned on a gun wheel and flinched. 'Christ! I wish they'd stop screaming.

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?

They grinned and nodded, and he grinned back and drew the curved sabre from its scabbard.

The Sergeant laughed. 'I thought you were going to forget it again, sir. The men laughed at him and he was glad of the darkness to cover his blush, but they were good men, his men, and he suddenly understood, as never before, the sense of loss that Sharpe had suffered. Knowles wondered how he was to climb the ladder and hold the sword, and knew he would. have to put the blade between his teeth. He would drop it! He was nervous, but then, instead of bugles, there were shouts and the trampling of feet and the moment had come.

The survivors of the Third Division erupted from the darkness. The carcasses flowed down, and the cannon in the small casde bastion shredded the attack, but they were screaming defiance and the ladders swayed in the ungainly curves until they slammed against the castle wall.

'Up! He jammed the blade between his teeth and gripped the rungs. Musket balls came down and then he heard his own guns firing, the Lieutenant calling the orders, and he was climbing. The great, irregular granite blocks were going past his face, and he scrambled up, the fear a living thing beside him, and he concentrated on keeping the sabre between his teeth. His jaw ached. It was such a stupid tiling to worry about because he was nearing the top and he wanted to laugh and he was afraid, so afraid, because the enemy would be waiting, and he felt his knuckles graze against the granite as the slope of the ladder took him close to the wall. He took the sabre from his mouth.

'Stop firing! The Lieutenant stared up and held his breath.

Knowles had to use his fist, wrapped round the sabre handle, as a prop to help him up the last rungs. It was easier than climbing with the blade in his teeth. He suddenly felt foolish, as if someone might have laughed at him for climbingg a ladder with a sabre in his mouth, and he wondered why the mind chose such irrelevant and stupid thoughts at such: moment. He could hear the guns, the screams, the crash of another ladder, and the man behind pushed at him, and the top was there! This was the moment of death and his fearharrowed him, but he pushed over the top and saw the bayonet come sawing towards him. He leaned to one side, tottering on the ladder, and swung his right arm for balance and, to his surprise, saw the sabre at the end of the arm cleave down into the enemy's head. A hand pushed him from behind, his feet were still pedaling at the rungs, but he had run out of ladder! He was falling forward on to the body of the dead man, and another enemy was coming, so he rolled and twisted and knew he was there. He was on the ramparts! There was a keening in his throat, that he did not hear, a sound of insensate fear, and he thrust up with the sabre, into the man's groin, and the scream winged into the night and the blood pulsed on to Knowles's wrist, and the second man was with him.

They had done it! They had done it! The men were coming up the ladder, and he was filled with a joy that he did not know existed. He was on his feet, his blade bloodied to the hilt, and the enemy were running towards them, muskets outstretched, but the fear was conquered. There was something odd about the Frenchmen's uniforms. They were not blue and white. Knowles had a glimpse of red turnbacks and yellow facings, but then he was jumping forward, remembering that Sharpe always attacked, and the sabre twisted a bayonet aside, flicked up, and he had the man in the throat. 'Light Company! To me! Light Company!

A musket volley shattered along the parapet, but he was still alive and more of his men were joining him. He heard the enemy shouting orders. German! These were Germans! If they were half as good as the more numerous Germans who fought for Wellington, but he would not feel fear, only victory. He led his men down the wall, bayonets out. The enemy were few and outnumbered, and every yard of wall that Knowles's men cleared was another yard where ladders could safely be climbed and the casde parapet filled with the red uniforms.

The Germans died hard. They defended each casement, each stairway, but they stood no chance. The castle had been denuded of troops, only a thin battalion left, but that battalion fought grimly. Each minute that they saved on the battlements was another minute for the central reserves to reach the casde, so they fought on, despising the odds, and screamed as they fell from the parapets, chopped down by the redcoats, and fought till the wall was lost.

Knowles felt the joy of it. They had won the unbelievable victory. They had climbed a rock hill and a casde and they had won! He pounded his men on their backs, hugged them, laughed with them, forgave them all their crimes, because they had done it. It did not matter that the vast casde buildings would still have to be cleared, the dark, treacherous courtyards, because no one now could take this battlement from them. The British had won the city's highest point and from here they could fight downhill, into the streets, down to the main breach, and Knowles knew he would reach Teresa first and he would see, some time in the night, the gratitude on Sharpe's face. He had done it. They had done it. And for the first time that night, it was British cheers dial startled the air in Badajoz.

The cheers could not be heard at the breaches. The casde was a long journey away, at least a mile's ride by the time a horseman had circled the floodwaters, and it would be minutes yet before the messenger would be dispatched. Picton waited. He had heard the bell strike eleven as he saw his first, magnificent men cross the parapet, and he waited, listening to the sounds of battle, to know if they had won or were being chopped to pieces in the castle yards. He heard the cheers, stood up in his stirrups and roared his own, then turned to an aide-de-camp. 'Ride, man, ride! He turned to another staff officer and clapped the man mightily on the back. 'We've proved him wrong! Damn his eyes! We did it!

He chuckled, anticipating Wellington's reaction whenthe news arrived at midnight.

Anger would take a man through a breach, sheer passion, but a small idea helped. It was not much of an idea, hopeless even, deserving the name Forlorn, but it was all Sharpe had, and so he stared at the ravelin that stretched so invitingly towards the third, unsullied breach. There was no point in trying to outrace the grapeshot across its flat, diamond surface. Any man who tried was flicked hopelessly away, contemptuous meat to the gunners' fire. Yet the third breach was the newest, and the French had been given small time to entrap it, and Sharpe could see, through the sifting smoke, that the Chevaux de Prise on the new breach's summit was too short. There was a gap at the right hand side, a gap three men could pass abreast, and the only problem was reaching the gap. There was no approach in the ditch. The fires still seethed, white hot and violent, and the only path was across the ravelin. They must climb the ravelin, brave the top, and jump into the ditch, and it must be done at the ravelin's edge, close to the flames, where the diamond shape narrowed and the fatal journey was short.

He had no right to take the Company on the journey. This was a Forlorn Hope, born of despair and nurtured by pride, and it belonged to the volunteer, to the foolish. He knew he did not have to go himself, but he wanted no dead man's shoes. He had waited, letting the violence of the last attack spend itself in the ditch, and there was now a kind of truce before the breaches. As long as the British stayed quiet, harmless behind the ravelin, the gunners let them be. Only when men came into the firelight, towards the breaches, did the muzzles spout flame and the grapeshot crease the ditch floor. Back in the darkness, down the glacis, Sharpe could hear orders being called. Another attack was coming, the last reserves of the Division being fed into the ditch, and that was the moment, the hopeless moment, when the feeble idea, based only on the narrowing width of the ravelin, must be tried. He turned to his men and drew the sword, the blade a great streak in the night, and the steel hissed as he swung it to the point at the firelight.

'I'm going there. There is one more attack, just one, and then it's all over. No one's touched that central breach, and that's where I'm going. Over the ravelin, down into the ditch, and I'll probably break my bloody legs because there are no ladders or hay-bags, but that's where I'm going. The faces were pale, staring at him as they squatted on the slope. 'I'm going because the French are laughing at us, because they think they've beaten us, and I'm going to hammer those bastards into pulp for thinking that. He had not known how much anger there was inside him. He was not a speechmaker, never had been, but the anger gave him words. 'I'm going to make those bastards wish they had never been born. They are going to die, and I can't ask you to come with me, because you don't have to come, but I'm going, and you can stay here and I won't blame you. He stopped, out of words, unsure even of what he had said. The fires crackled behind him.

Patrick Harper stood up, stretched his huge arms and in one of them, catching the fires of death, was a vast axe, one of the many that had been issued to cut at the obstacles in the ditch. He stepped forward, over the dead, and turned to look at the Company. In the flame light, hard by the terrible ditch, Patrick Harper was like a warrior sprung from a forgotten age. He grinned at the Company. 'Are you coming?

There was nothing to make them go. Too often Sharpe had asked the impossible of them, and they had always given, but never in this horror, never like this, but they stood up, the pimps and the thieves, murderers and drunks, and they grinned at Sharpe and looked to their weapons. Harper looked down on his Captain. 'It was a fine speech, sir, but mine was better. Would you be giving me that? He pointed to the seven-barreled gun.

Sharpe nodded, handed it over. 'It's loaded.

Daniel Hagman, the poacher, took Sharpe's rifle. No man was a better shot.

Lieutenant Price, nervously flexing his sabre, grinned at Sharpe. 'I think I'm mad, sir.

'You can stay.

'And let you get to the women first? I'll come.

Roach and Peters, Jenkins and Clayton, Cresacre the wife-beater, all were there, and all felt the nervous exhilaration. This was a place fit to go mad in. Sharpe looked at them, counted them, loved them. 'Where's Hakeswill?

'Buggered off, sir. Haven't seen him. Peters, a huge man, spat on the glacis.

Below them the last battalion was climbing the slope, almost within the firelight, and Sharpe knew that the Company must attack at the same time. 'Ready? 'Sir.

A mile's ride away, unknown to the rest of the army, the Third Division was clearing the last of the castle yards. It had taken nearly an hour's hard fighting against the Germans and against the French who had pounded up from the central reserve in the Cathedral square. A mile in the other direction, equally unknown, Leith's Fifth Division had stormed the San Vincente. The ladders had split apart, the wood green, and the men had fallen into a spiked ditch, but other ladders were brought up, the muskets smashed at the battlements, and they had won a second impossible victory. Badajoz had fallen. The Fifth Division were in the city's streets, the Third possessed the castle, but the men in the ditch and on the dark glacis had no way of knowing. The news traveled faster inside the city. Rumors of defeat raced like a plague through the narrow streets, up on to the Santa Maria and Trinidad bastions and the defenders looked fearfully behind them. The city was dark, the castle silhouette unchanged, and they shrugged and told each other it could not be true. But what if it was? Fear batted at them with grim wings.

'Make ready!

By God! Another attack. The defenders turned from the city and looked over the walls. There, from the darkness, from the corpse-littered slope, another attack surged towards the ditch. More meat for the guns, and the fire flashed down the priming tubes, the smoke crashed out, and the mincer turned on.

Sharpe waited for the first gun, heard it, and started running. To Badajoz.

CHAPTER 27

The heights of the wall disappeared in smoke, the flames lancing through, and he jumped, the sword high, and the men in the ditch screamed at them. 'Down! Down!

He had not counted on this. The ditch was crammed with the living, the dying, and the dead, and the living clawed at him. 'Get down! They'll kill us.

He had sprawled down on bodies, but he scrambled up and heard his men thumping around him. There were small fortresses in the ditch, piled corpses, that soaked the grapeshot and sheltered men who themselves crouched on other corpses.

The bullets flickered into the ravelin's shadow, and the wounded pulled at him, and Sharpe swung the sword ahead of him, clearing a path. He screamed at them, 'Out the way! The dead could not move, and he was wading in bodies, slipping on blood, and to his right, by the Trinidad, the gunners were shredding the last attack.

Hands clutched at Sharpe, tried to pull him down, and out of the darkness a bayonet was thrown at him. Behind him Harper was shouting, in his own tongue, rousing the Irish. A man reared up in front of Sharpe, clawed at him, and Sharpe hammered down with the sword hilt. Ahead was the ravelin's sloping face with the light bright above it and the guns were waiting. Sharpe felt the temptation to sink into the rank stench in the ditch and let the night hide him. He swung the sword again, using the flat, and a man fell, and Sharpe's feet were on the slope and he climbed, not wanting to, fearing the oblivion, his body cringing from the death that ravaged the ravelin's top. He stopped.

There was a new sound in the ditch, a sound so mad that he had turned, the sword bright in his hand, and he looked unbelievingly behind him. The survivors of the South Essex, their yellow facings smeared with blood, were struggling towards him. They had seen their Light Company carve a path to the ravelin, and now they wanted tojoin the madness, but it was their voices that had stopped Sharpe.

'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe! They chanted it senselessly, a war cry, and men who did not know what it meant picked up the sound, and the ditch stirred, and the shout bellied into the night. 'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe!

'What are they saying, March?

'It sounds like «sharp», my Lord.’

The General laughed because moments before he had wished for one thousand Sharpes, and now, perhaps, that rogue was giving him the city. His aides-de-camp, hearing the grim tone of the laughter, did not understand and did not like to ask.

The gunners, high on the wall, heard the chant and did not understand. They were massacring the newest attack on the Trinidad, hurling it back as they had hurled the others back, but then they saw the ravelin's top dark with men, and the men were shouting, and the whole ditch was moving that they had thought filled with corpses, and the corpses had come to life and were coming to them, for their revenge, and the dead were shouting. 'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe!

The madness was on Sharpe, the glory of it, the song of battle shrieking in his ears, so he did not hear the gunfire, or feel the blast of the shot, or know that, behind him, crossing the diamond, the men were falling, and the guns were tangling the air with death. He jumped. He had crossed the ravelin, running, the heat of the fire close on his right side, and the drop was huge. The new ditch was strangely empty, and he jumped, seeing a stone leap from a musket strike. The jump winded him, pitched him forward, but he was up and running.

'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe!

I will die here, he thought, in this empty ditch with the strange white bundles that stirred in the small breeze. He remembered the wool-padding that had protected the two breaches and wondered at a mind that could notice such irrelevant things at the point of a death.

'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe!

I will die here, he thought, just at the foot of the slope, and then he hated the bastards who would kill him and the anger drove him up, slipping on the rubble, unable to fight, only to climb, to carry the sword to the French flesh. There were men around him, screaming unintelligibly, and the air was thick with smoke, grapeshot, and flame. Harper was passing him, the huge axe held easily, and Sharpe, refusing to be second, drove his legs towards the dark sky beyond the row of shining blades.

'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe!

Private Cresacre was dying, his guts strung blue on his lap, his tears for himself and for his wife, who he would suddenly miss though he had beat her cruelly. And Sergeant Read, the Methodist, the quiet man who never swore, or drank, was blind, and could not cry because the guns had taken his eyes. And past them, mad with lust, a battle madness, went the dark horde who followed Sharpe and tore their hands on the rough stone, going up the slope, up, where they had never dreamed to go, and some went back, torn by the guns, piling the new ditch as the other was piled, but the fine madness was on them.

'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe!

You save your breath for climbing, but shouting dulls the fear, and who needs breath when death waits at the summit? A bullet clanged on Sharpe's sword, jerking it in his hand, but it was whole, and the blades were near. He went to the right, his whole brain singing with the scream of death, and a stone moved beneath his left hand, throwing him, and a huge hand pushed at him, heaved him, and Sharpe grabbed at the thick chain that anchored the Chevatix de Frise. The top, death's peak.

'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe!

The French fired once more, the guns slamming backwards, and the new breach was'taken, two vast men standing at its crest, untouched by fire, and the French ran with nowhere to run, and Harper screamed at the sky because he had done a great thing.

Sharpe leaped, downhill, into the city, and the sword was a live thing in his hand. A breach was taken, death cheated, and death wanted a payment. The sword chopped down on the blue uniforms, and he did not see men, just enemy, and he ran, slipping, falling, down the breach until the ground was firm beneath him and he was inside. Inside! Badajoz. And he snarled at the bastards, killed them, found a gun crew cowering by a wall and remembered the song of death, the leaping flames. The sword hacked at them, cut them, chopped them, and an axe was whirled at them, and the French abandoned the new, low wall behind the breaches, because the night was lost.

A dark tide flowed over the breach, over the other breaches, a tide that made now no coherent sound. It was terrifying in its incoherence, the sound of the banshee, the keening of too much sorrow, too much death, and the madness turned to insensate rage, and they killed. They killed till their arms were tired, till they were soaked with blood, and there were not enough men to kill and they turned into the streets, a scrabbling, dark flood, up into Badajoz.

Harper leaped the wall built behind the breaches. A man cowered there, pleading, but the axe dropped and Harper's lips were drawn back around his teeth and he was sobbing an anger at the city. There were more men ahead, blue-uniformed, and he ran at them, the axe circling, and Sharpe was there, and they killed because so many were dead, so much blood, an army had nearly died, and these were the bastards who had jeered at it. Blood and more blood. An account to be balanced with a ditch full of blood. Badajoz.

Sharpe was crying. Venting an anger that had waited for this moment. He stood, the sword dark red, and he wanted more Frenchmen to come to his. sword, and he stalked them, teeth bared, screaming at the night, and a body moved, a blue arm lifted, and the blade whirled, bit, was lifted again, and bit down once more, clean to the pavement.

A Frenchman, a mathematician conscripted as an artillery officer, who had counted forty separate attacks on the Trinidad and had repulsed them all, stood quiet in the shadows. He was still, quite still, waiting for this madness to pass, this blood lust, and he thought of his fiancée, far away, and prayed she would never see anything as horrid. He watched the Rifle officer and prayed for himself that he would not be seen, but the face turned, the eyes hard-bright with tears, and the mathematician called out. 'No! Monsieur, no! The sword took him, disemboweled him as Cresacre had been disemboweled, and Sharpe sobbed in rage as he ripped again and again, thrusting down at the gunner, ripping him, mutilating the bastard, and then the giant hands gripped Mm. 'Sir! Harper shook him. 'Sir!

'Christ!

'Sir! The hands pulled on Sharpe's shoulders, turning him.

'Christ.

'Sir! Harper slapped him. 'Sir.

Sharpe leaned back against the wall, his head back, touching the stone. 'Oh Jesus. Oh God. He was panting, the sword arm limp, and the pavement ahead was shredded with blood. He looked down at the artillery officer, torn into a grotesque death. 'Oh God. He was surrendering.

'It doesn't matter. Harper had recovered first, the axe shattered in a killing strike, and he had watched in awe as Sharpe had killed. Now he quieted Sharpe, soothed him, and watched the sense come back even as the madness climbed up the city streets.

Sharpe looked up, calm now, his voice bereft of all feeling. 'We did it.

'Yes.

Sharpe leaned his head back again, on to the wall, and his eyes closed. It was done, the breach. And to do it he had discovered that a man must banish fear as never before, and with that fear must go all other emotion except rage and anger; humanity must go, feeling, all must go except rage. Only that would conquer the unconquerable.

'Sir? Harper plucked at Sharpe's elbow. No one else could have done this, Harper thought, no one but Sharpe could have led men past death's peak.

'Sir?

The eyes opened, the face came down, and Sharpe stared at the bodies. He had slaked his pride, carried it through a breach, and it was done. He looked at Patrick Harper. 'I wishI could play the flute.

'Sir?

'Patrick?

'Teresa, sir. Teresa.

God in heaven. Teresa.

CHAPTER 28

Hakeswill had not meant to go into the ditch, but, as soon as the South Essex made their attack and had left the Light Company to give covering fire from the glacis lip, he had seen that there was greater safety for him in the shadow of the ravelin. No chance, there, of an axe-blow in the dark from Harper, and so he had swung himself down a ladder, snarling at the frightened men, and then, in the chaos, had burrowed deep into the bodies in the shadowed ditch. He saw the attack go in, saw it fail, and he watched as Windham and Forrest tried to rouse other attacks, but Sergeant Hakeswill was snug and safe. Three bodies covered him, still warm in death, and he felt them shudder from time to time as the grape fragments struck home, but he was safe. At some time in the night a Lieutenant, a stranger to Hakeswill, tried to provoke him from his lair, screaming at the Sergeant to move and attack, but it was simple to grip the Lieutenant's ankle, trip him, and the bayonet slid so easily between the ribs and Hakeswill had a fourth body, surprise on its face, and he cackled as he slid expert hands over the pockets and pouches and counted his loot. Four gold coins, a silver locket and, best of all, an inlaid pistol that Hakeswill tugged from the Lieutenant's belt. The weapon was loaded, balanced to perfection, and he grinned as he thrust it into his jacket. Every little helped.

He had tied his shako with strings beneath his chin. He fumbled at the knot, tore it apart, and held the hat close before his face. 'We're safe now, safe. His voice was ingratiating, plaintive. 'I promise you. Obadiah won't let you down. Near to him, just beyond his parapet of corpses, a man sobbed and screamed and called for his mother. He was a long time dying. Hakeswill listened, his head cocked like an animal, and then he looked again into the hat. 'He wants his mother, he does. Tears came to his eyes. 'His mother. He looked up into the darkness, over the flames, and he howled at the sky.

There were periods of quietness in the ditch, periods when the death did not plunge downwards and when the mass of men, living and dead, crouched motionless beneath the high muzzles, and then, just when it seemed that the fight might be over, there would be a stir in the ditch. Men would try to rush the breaches, be restrained by other men, and the guns would fire again and the screaming would start again. Some men went mad, the agony too much, and one man thought the guns were the sound of God hawking and spitting and he knelt in the ditch and prayed until a lump of God's spittletook off his head, but Hakeswill was safe. He sat with his back to the ditch scarp, his front protected by the dead, and he talked into his hat. 'Not tonight. I can't do it tonight. The pretty lady will have to wait, yes she will. He wheedled into the, hat, and then listened to the fight with a professional's ear. He shook his head. 'Not tonight. Tonight we lose.

He did not know how long he was in the ditch, or how long it took the dying to die, or how many times the lifeless flesh quivered around him as the canister pulverized the pile. Time was measured by sobs, by guns, by the passing of hopes, and it ended, unexpectedly, with the great shout. 'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe! Hakeswill's face twitched over his parapet and watched as the living climbed from the spaces between the bodies and they were going away from him, over the ravelin, and to his right another attack clawed up the Trinidad.

'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe! The two men, he thought, must die, and he cackled at them, willing the canister to shred them, but they kept climbing and the shout went on. 'Sharpe! Sharpe! Sharpe!

Hakeswill saw Sharpe slip almost at the top of the ramp and the Sergeant's heart leaped for joy; he was shot! But no, the bastard was pushed on by Harper, reached up for a chain, and there he stood, high on the central breach, lit by flames, and the Irishman was beside him, blades in their hands, and Hakeswill watched as they turned once to gesture a great triumph towards the British. Then they had gone, down to the city, and Hakeswill pushed the bodies aside, rammed his shako on his head, and kicked his way through the crowd that was flooding towards the Trinidad.

At the breach's head men swung the great axes, the chains split, and the Ckevaux de Prise was heaved ahead of them and into a trench the defenders had dug on the rubble crest, and then the British were jumping the blades, shrieking murder, and sliding down the broken stones to the city's interior. They were berserk with rage. Hakeswill could feel it, the madness, and nothing would stop them this night. Even the wounded were pulling themselves up the breach ramps, some on their bellies, trying to reach the city and asking only for a chance to hurt as they had been hurt. They wanted drink, and women, and deaths, and more drink, and they remembered that Spaniards had fired at them from the city's walls and that made every living person in Badajoz an enemy. So they went, a dark, scrabbling stream, over the breaches and up into the alleyways and streets, trampling the wounded in their rush, more coming, more, the breaches living with the mass of men scuttling into the city, spreading up into Badajoz, revenge.

Hakeswill went with them up a long street that led to a small plaza. He knew he was going in roughly the right direction, uphill and angling left, but he was trusting to instinct and luck. The plaza was already crowded with soldiers. Muskets sounded as door locks were blasted open, the first screams were coming from the city's women and some, not wanting to be trapped in their houses, tried to run higher up the hill. Hakeswill watched one caught. Her earrings were ripped from her and blood sprayed on her dress as that, too, was torn from her and she was naked, spinning between the soldiers who pushed her, laughed at her, and then leaped on her. Hakeswill skirted the group. It was not his business, and he guessed that the woman who had escaped would lead him to the cathedral. He followed.

Captain Robert Knowles, elated and tired, leaned briefly on the castle gateway. Hooves echoed in the streets. Philippon, the French General, with a handful of mounted men had ridden away, escaping, down to the bridge that would take them to refuge in the San Cristobal Fort. They had lost the huge fortress and, as they rode, they heard the dark business begin behind them. They whipped the-horses, raked back with spurs, clattered on to the bridge and behind them, running, came the fleeing French infantry. Philippon's face was grief-stricken, not for the city, but for his failure. He had done all that could be done, far more than he had hoped, yet still he had lost. Wellington, damned Wellington, had won.

Knowles's men crowded into the gateway, jeering the departing enemy, and one of them seized a torch from its bracket. 'Permission to go, sir? The flames lit the eager, hungry faces that watched Knowles. 'Go!

They cheered, ran whooping into the streets and Knowles laughed for them, hefted his sabre, and followed Teresa. He ran into the dark streets, the doors bolted, the ground-floor windows covered in intricate iron bars and he was soon lost, alone, in the tangle of streets. He stopped at a crossroads, listening to the screams up and down the hill, and then guessed that he should follow the street with the richest houses. A man pounded past him, uphill, and he saw the distinctive crossbelt of a French soldier. The man was armed, his long bayonet gleaming, but he did not stop, just kept running, his breath coming in rasping heaves. Knowles ran downhill, his boots echoing from the dark houses, and then the street stopped, opened into a big plaza and there, above him, was the cathedral.

There was panic in the plaza. The last French had gone, escaping north, but the people of Badajoz had not gone with them. Those that were not in their houses were here, struggling up the cathedral steps, crowding its doors, hoping for sanctuary. They ran past Knowles, barging into him, ignoring him, and he looked wildly around him. There were so many streets! And then he saw, dark behind the cathedral, a small alley with balconied houses and he ran, staring up at the buildings and then he stopped, turned, and he saw two trees, a recessed frontage, and he pounded on the closed door. Teresa! Teresa!

Hakeswill had taken the right-hand street that led up from the small plaza and, sure enough, the women had run ahead of him to the Cathedral. He slowed to a walk, chuckling to himself, and then he heard the shouts, very close, and his first instinct was that Sharpe had reached the house first.

'Teresa! Teresa! That was not Sharpe's voice! An officer, by the sound of it, but not Sharpe, and Hakeswill flattened himself against the opposite wall and watched the dark shape pounding at the door. 'Teresa! It's me! Robert Knowles!

A shutter opened on the first floor, seeping dim candlelight, and Hakeswill saw a woman's shape, slim and longhaired. It must be her! He felt the excitement inside him, shifting restlessly, uncoiling, and then she called down. 'Who's that?

'Robert! Robert Knowles!

'Robert?

'Yes! Open up!

'Where's Richard?

'I don't know. I wasn't with him. Knowles was standing back, staring up at the narrow balcony. The screams were coming nearer, the musket shots, and Teresa looked down the hill at the first flickerings of burning houses. 'Wait! I'll open up! She banged the shutters close, latched them, and opposite, in deep shadow, Hakeswill grinned to himself. He could rush the door as she opened it, but the officer, he could see, was carrying a drawn sabre and he remembered that the bitch herself carried weapons. He looked up to the balcony. It was not high and, beneath it, the groundfloor window was barred with a lattice of black iron. He waited.

The front door opened, creaking on hinges, and he saw the girl silhouetted in the gap for the brief instant it took for Knowles to enter. The door shut and Hakeswill moved, surprisingly fast and soft for such a man, straight to the barred window that gave such easy footholds, up till he could reach back to the balcony's base and then the strength was all in his arms. He paused briefly, his face suddenly twitching, but then the spasm passed and he pulled, the powerful arms making it easy, hand over hand till his feet caught on the balcony and he climbed over the rail. The shutter was wooden, gapped for the night air and he could see the empty room. He pushed at the shutter. It was locked, but he pushed again, increasing the pressure, and the wood creaked, bent, and then splintered inwards. He froze, but the noise of the city's sack was covering his own noise, and he moved again, into the room, and the bayonet whispered from the scabbard.

A cry: he turned, and there, in a wooden cot, was a baby. Sharpe's bastard. He cackled to himself, crossed the room and stared down. The child had cried in its sleep. He took off his hat and held the hat over the baby and talked to the hat. 'Do you see? There it is. Like I was once? Is that right, Mother? Like me. The child moved and Hakeswill crooned. 'Sleepibubber, sleepibubber. You remember saying that, Mother, to your Obadiah?

A footstep on the stairs, another, the creak of wood, and voices outside. He could hear the girl and the officer and he dropped the hat, on to the baby, and pulled the pistol from within his jacket. He was still, listening to her voice, the bayonet in his left hand, pistol in his right, and the baby cried again, in her sleep, and Teresa opened the door and spoke to it in gentle Spanish.

And stopped.

'Hello, missy! The face twitched, yellow in the candlelight, the mouth grinning, black teeth showing on rotten gums, and the raw scar on the ungainly neck, twitching with the head. Hakeswill laughed. 'Hello! Remember me?

Teresa looked at her child and the bayonet was just above Antonia's cot and she gasped. Knowles pushed her aside, brought up the sabre, and the pistol flared, waking the child, and the bullet threw Knowles backward, backward through the door to fall with Hakeswill's cackle the last sound in his life.

Hakeswill kept the bayonet above the baby and pushed the pistol, still smoking, back into his jacket. The blue eyes turned to Teresa, her own gaze fixed on the bayonet, and he grinned at her. 'Didn't need him, missy, did we? Only takes two to do what we're going to do. He cackled, a mad sound, but his eyes were level and his bayonet steady. 'Shut the door, missy.

She swore at him, and he laughed. She was more beautiful than he remembered, the dark hair framing the fine face, and he bent down and put his right hand beneath the baby. It was crying. She moved towards it, but the bayonet flickered, and she stopped. Hakeswill picked the child up, bedclothes bundled, and he held it awkwardly in his right arm and his left was held out and bent back so that the needle-pointed bayonet was at the tiny, soft throat. 'I said shut the door. His voice was low, very low, and he saw the fear on her face and his desire was heavy, so heavy.

She shut the door, slamming it on Knowles's dead feet, and Hakeswill nodded at it. 'Bolt it. The bolt slammed home.

The hat was still in the cot and Hakeswill regretted it because he would like his mother, whose likeness was in the crown, to see this, but it could not be helped. He walked slowly towards Teresa, who backed away, back towards the bed where her rifle was laid, and he grinned at her, twitched, and the triumph was in his voice. 'Just you and me, missy. Just you and Obadiah.

CHAPTER 29

'Which way?

'God knows! Sharpe searched frantically for a main street. The central breach faced a tangle of alleys. He chose an opening at random and started running. 'This way!

There were screams ahead, shots, and bodies lying in the alleyway. It was too dark to tell if the corpses were French or Spanish. The alley stank of blood, death, and the night soil thrown earlier from the upper windows, and the two men slipped in their haste. Light came from a cross-alley and Sharpe turned instinctively, still running, with a huge bloodied sword held like a lance.

A door opened ahead and spilt men into the alley, blocking it, and after them came wine barrels, huge tins, that they hammered with their musket-butts until the staves burst and the wine cascaded on to the cobbles. The men dropped, put mouths to the gushing liquid, scooped at it, and Sharpe and Harper kicked them aside, pushed past, and came out into the small plaza. One house burned, throwing the light that had attracted them, and in the blaze they could see a mediaeval depiction of hell. The people of Badajoz suffered the torments of red-jacketed devils. A naked woman wandered, sobbing and bloodied, in the plaza's centre. She was too hurt to feel any more, too abused to care, and when new men, fresh from the breach, grabbed her and threw her down she made no protest, but sobbed on, and all around it was the same. Some women struggled, some had died, others had watched their children die, and around them the victors capered, half dressed, half drunk, lit by the fire and festooned with their loot.

Some of the devils fought, squabbling over women or wine, and Sharpe saw two Portuguese soldiers bayonet a British Sergeant, seize the woman beneath him, and drag her into a house. Her child, screaming hysterically, toddled after, but the door was slammed and the child left. Harper's face showed a terrible fury. He kicked the door, bursting it open, and plunged into the house. A shot was fired, splintering the lintel, and then the Portuguese came out, one after the other, thrown with a bone-crunching force and the Irishman picked up the child, handed it in, and shut the door as best he could. He shrugged at Sharpe. 'Others will get her.’

Which way? Two roads led uphill, the larger to the left, and Sharpe took it, pushing through the riot, the scenes from hell. Once, inexplicably, the pavement seemed to be running with silver coins that no one touched. One by one the doors were shot open, the houses ripped apart, a whole city at an army's mercy, and the army had little. A few men showed decency, protecting a woman or a family, but the decent men were too often shot down. Officers who tried to stop the carnage were shot, discipline was dead, the mob ruled Badajoz.

Screams deafened the two men, and they were thrown back on to a wall by a horde of women, stark naked, who, slobbering and spitting, had erupted from an unbarred door. A nun screamed at them from the doorway, but more women came from inside and Sharpe knew a madhouse was emptying itself into the streets. There was no point in locking up the mad in Badajoz this night and there were whoops from behind and cheers as the soldiers charged up and into the lunatics. One pulled at the nun, while another leaped on to a huge, naked woman's back, gripped her wild, grey hair as reins, and all the soldiers tried to ride a lunatic.

'There, sir! Harper pointed. Above them and ahead was the cathedral tower, its square, crenellated outline obvious in the sky, and from its arched openings the bells jangled a cacophony because drunken men were dangling on the ropes, signaling a victory.

They stopped at the street's end, in front of the cathedral, and to their left was a great plaza, the rape beneath its trees lit by a huge fire, and to their right a dark alley. Sharpe started towards it, but his arm was pulled, and he turned to see a girl, short and weeping, clinging to his sleeve. She had been roused from a house, chased, and her pursuers came after as she held on to the tall man whose face had looked untouched by the madness. 'Senor! Senor!

Her tormentors, in the white facings of the 43rd, reached for the girl and Sharpe swept the sword at them, cutting one man's arm, and he watched their bayonets drop for the attack and the girl was hampering him. He swung again, being forced back by British bayonets, but then Harper came between him and his attackers, the seven-barreled gun whirled as a club, and they went back.

'This way! Sharpe shouted and, with the girl still clinging to him, he pushed into the alley. Harper came behind, threatening the men of the 43rd with the giant gun until they gave up and went for easier spoils, and then the Sergeant turned after Sharpe to find the alley was a dead end. Sharpe swore.

Harper seized the girl, who shrank away, but his touch was gentle and his voice urgent. 'Donde esta la Casa Moreno? It was the limit of his Spanish, and the girl shook her head. He tried again, letting his voice reassure her. 'Listen, Miss. Casa Moreno. Comprendo? Donde esta la Casa Moreno?

She spoke in fast, excited Spanish, and pointed to the cathedral. Sharpe swore again in exasperation. 'She doesn't know. We'll go back. He started forward, but Harper put out a hand.

'No, look! There were steps leading to a side-door and the Irishman pushed Sharpe towards it. 'She means through the cathedral. It's a short cut!

The girl stumbled on her dress, but Harper caught her and she clung to his hand as he pushed open the huge, studded door. Sharpe heard the Irishman draw in a breath.

The cathedral had been a refuge, a sanctuary, but no longer. Troops had invaded it, had chased the women, caught them, and now, under the myriad votive candles, the women were being raped. A nun, her habit ripped apart, was spread-eagled on the high altar while an Irishman of the 88th, down from the casde assault, tried vainly to climb up to her. He was too drunk. The girl gasped, began to scream, but Harper held her firm. 'Casa Moreno? Si?

She nodded, too appalled to speak, and led them across the great floor of the transept, between the altar and the transcoro, and round the huge chandelier that had been cut from its moorings and had crashed down on to the flagstones, crushing a Corporal from the 7th who still twitched under its weight. Dead lay on the floor while the wounded, sobbing in their misery, crawled towards the obscuring shadows of the nave. Be with us now and in the hour of our need.

A priest, who had tried to stop the soldiers, lay by the north door and Sharpe and Harper stepped over the body, into the great plaza, and the girl pointed again, to her right, and they ran until she pulled Harper right again, into a dark alleyway seething with troops who beat at shut doors and, in their frustration, fired shots at upper, barred windows. Harper protected the girl, held her close, as they pushed through the men, Sharpe's sword their passport, and then the girl shouted at them, pointed, and Sharpe saw the dark shapes of two trees and knew he had arrived.

There were cheers from the doorway, a creaking, a great crash, and a mass of men in front of them melted away as they streamed into Moreno's courtyard. Barrels waited for them, thick barrels, full barrels, and the men fell on the wine, forgetting everything else, and in his counting house, praying next to his wife who had returned home at midnight, Rafael Moreno prayed and hoped he had provided enough wine for the soldiers and thick enough bolts for his counting house door.

Hakeswill cursed. He heard the commotion below, the crashing of the great doors, and he spat at Teresa. 'Hurry!

A bullet splintered the shutter and buried itself in the ceiling and he turned, fearing Sharpe, but it was only a stray shot from the street. The baby was awkward in his arm, but it was his best threat and he did not want to kill it yet. The bayonet was still at Antonia's throat, her crying reduced to heaving, breathless sobs, and Hakeswill twitched the blade, ground his teeth as the twitching caught him, and bellowed again. 'Hurry!

She was still dressed, damn her, and he wanted this business done! Two shoes off, that was all, and he twitched the bayonet again, drawing a trickle of blood, and he saw her arms go up to the fastening of her dress. 'That's right, missy, don't want baby to die, do we? He cackled, and the cackling became a racking cough, and Teresa watched the blade at her child's throat. She dared not attack him, dared not, and then the coughing stopped and the eyes opened again. 'Get on with it, missy. We've got time to make up, remember?

Teresa slowly undid the knot at her throat, pretending to fumble with the material, and she saw the excitement in his face and then he began to swallow rapidly so that his Adam's apple pulled at the scar. 'Hurry, missy, hurry! Hakeswill could feel the excitement. She had humiliated him, this bitch, and now it was her turn. She would die, and so would her bastard, but he would have his enjoyment first and he began to work out in his head the problem of holding the baby while he took her, and then he knew she was taking her time. 'I'll slit its throat, missy, then yours. But if you want this little bastard to live, you'd better take them clothes off, and fast!

The door bulged under Harper's boot, the crash spinning Hakeswill round, and then the bolt sheared, the door shook on its hinges, and Hakeswill held the bayonet vertically above Antonia's throat. 'Stop!

Teresa had reached for the rifle. She froze. Harper was through the door and his momentum drove him on to the cot and then he, too, was utterly motionless as he sprawled, on all fours, and stared at the seventeen inch bayonet. Sharpe, the girl behind him, stopped in the doorway and his sword, which had been reaching towards Hakeswill, was suspended in mid lunge so that its blood-thickened tip quivered in the room’s centre.

Hakeswill laughed. 'Bit late, aren't you, Sharpy. They called you that, didn't they, Sharpy? Or Dick. Lucky Sharpe. I remember. Clever little Sharpy, but it didn't stop you being flogged, did it?

Sharpe looked to Harper, Teresa, then back to Hakeswill. He gestured slowly at Knowles's body. 'Did you do this?

Hakeswill cackled and his shoulders heaved. 'Clever little bastard, aren't you, Sharpy? Of course I bloody did it. The little bastard came to protect your lady. He sneered at Teresa. 'My lady, now. Her dress was open at the neck and Hakeswill could see a slim gold cross against her brown skin. He wanted her, he wanted that skin beneath his hands, and he would have her! And kill her! And Sharpe could watch, because none of them would dare touch him while he still threatened the baby.

The girl behind Sharpe moaned and Hakeswill's head twitched towards the door. 'You got a whore there, Sharpy? You have! Bring her in! The girl stepped over Knowles's body and into the room. She moved slowly, terrified of the yellow-skinned, belly-paunched man who held the heaving, sob-racked baby. She went to stand by Harper, her foot kicking Hakeswill's shako mat had fallen from the upset cot. The hat rolled to a stop, upended, by Harper's hand. Hakeswill watched her. 'Very nice. Pretty little missy. He cackled. 'You like the Irishman, do you, dearie? She was shaking at the sight of him, and Hakeswill laughed. 'He's a pig. They all are, the bloody Irish, dirty great pigs. You're better off with me, missy. The blue eyes went back to Sharpe. 'Shut the door, Sharpy. Gently now.

Sharpe shut the door, careful not to alarm the twitching man who held his baby. He could not see Antonia's face, just the great saw-backed bayonet that was above the bundle of bed-clothes. Hakeswill laughed at him. 'Very good. You can watch now, Sharpy. He looked at Harper, frozen grotesquely where he had tripped. 'And you, pig. You can watch. Stand up.

Hakeswill was not sure how he would do this, but he would work something out because he knew that, as long as the child was in his power, then all these people were in it, too. He liked the new girl, Harper's girl by the look of it, and he could take her with him, out into the city, but he would have to kill Sharpe and Harper first because they knew he had killed

Knowles. He shook his head. He would kill them because he hated them! He laughed, then saw that Harper had not moved. 'I told you to stand up, you Irish bastard! Stand!

Harper stood up, his heart beating at the risk, and in his hands he held the shako. He had seen the picture in the crown and he had no real idea who it was, but he stood up, one hand holding the hat, the other reaching inside it. He saw Hakeswill's face show alarm. The bayonet quivered. 'Give it to me. The voice had become whining. 'Give it to me!

'Put the baby down.

No one else moved. Teresa did not understand, nor did Sharpe, and Harper had only the vaguest idea; a hunch, a straw that was the only thing to clutch in this whirling madness. Hakeswill shook, his face jerking spasmodically. 'Give it to me! He was sobbing. 'My Mammy! My Mammy! Give her to me!

The Ulster voice was soft, growling deep from the massive chest. 'I have my nails on her eyes, Hakeswill, soft eyes, soft eyes, and I will claw them out, Hakeswill, claw them out, and your Mammy will scream.

'No! No! No! Hakeswill was swaying, crying, cringing. The baby was crying with him. The yellow face looked at Harper, the voice was pleading. 'Don't do it. Don't do it. Not to my Mammy.

'I will, so I will, and I will, unless you put the baby down, you put the baby down. He spoke in a rhythm, as to a child, and Hakeswill swayed with the rhythm. The head went into violent twitches and, suddenly, the fear was gone and he looked at Harper.

'You think I'm a fool?

'Mother's hurting.

'No! The madness was back, instantly, and Sharpe watched, appalled, as the great shambling man retreated into the insanity that had always seemed close. He was crouching now, knees below the baby, and rocking himself as he wept, though the bayonet was still above the child and Sharpe still dared not move.

'Your Mother's talking to me, Obadiah. The Ulster voice turned Hakeswill's head back to Harper. He was holding the hat by his ear. 'She wants you to put the baby down, put the baby down, she wants you to help her, help her, because she likes her eyes. They're nice eyes, Obadiah, Mother's eyes.

The Sergeant was breathing in short, fast gasps, and he nodded his head. 'I will, I will. Give me my Mother!

'She's coming to you, so she is, but put the baby down, down, down. Harper took one gentle step towards the Sergeant and held the hat out, not far enough, and Hakeswill's face was the face of a child who will do anything not to be whipped. He nodded eagerly, the tears coursing down his cheeks.

'I'm putting baby down, Mother, putting baby down. Obadiah never wanted to hurt baby. And the great blade came up from the throat, the hat was inched nearer, and then Hakeswill, still crying and twitching, put the baby on the bed's coverlet and turned, bullet fast, to snatch at the hat.

'You bastard! Harper pulled the hat back and threw a huge punch. Teresa snatched the child to safety, at the head of the bed, and then turned, the rifle in her hands and she was clawing at the flint. Sharpe lunged with the sword, but Hakeswill was going back from the punch and the blade missed. Hakeswill had fallen, still without the hat, and he reached for it again. The rifle fired, the range less than a yard, but he was still going for the hat and Harper kicked him, sending him backwards, and Sharpe's second blow missed again.

'Stop him! Harper threw the hat behind him and grabbed at Hakeswill. Teresa, not believing that she could have missed with the rifle bullet, swung the empty gun at the Sergeant and the barrel, scything through the air, knocked Harper's arm so that his snatch missed and all he could touch was Hakeswill's haversack. He gripped it, pulled at it, and Hakeswill bellowed at them, swung his own fist, pulled away so that the haversack straps broke and it was left in Harper's hand. Hakeswill looked for the hat. It was gone, beyond Sharpe and his sword, and Hakeswill gave a long, low moan because he had only found his Mother a few days before, and now she was gone. His Mother, the only person who had loved him, who had sent her brother to rescue him from the scaffold, and now he had lost her. He moaned again, slashing with the bayonet, and then jumped for the shattered window, splintered the remains of the shutter, and threw a leg over the balcony. Three people reached for him, but he swung the bayonet, raised his other leg, and jumped.

'Stop! Harper's bellow was not at Hakeswill, but at Sharpe and Teresa who were blocking him. He pushed them aside, unslung the seven-barreled gun that he had not fired in the breach, and put it to his shoulder. Hakeswill was sprawling in the roadway, scrambling to his feet, and it was a shot Harper could not miss. He felt his lips curl into a smile, he pulled the trigger, the gun smacked into his shoulder like a mule's kick, and the window was blotted by smoke. 'Got the bastard!

The cackle came from the road, the jeering cackle, and Harper fanned at the smoke, leaned from the balcony, and there, in the shadows, the lumpen figure was moving away, hatless and gross, the footsteps lost in the city's screaming. He was alive. Harper shook his head. 'You can't kill that bastard!

"That's what he always says. Sharpe dropped the sword, turned away, and Teresa was smiling at him, offering him the bundle, and he began crying, he did not know why, and he took his daughter into his arms and held her, kissed her, tasting the blood on her throat. She was his. A baby, a daughter, Antonia; crying, alive, and his.