Sharpe's Enemy

CHAPTER 27

The French still had guns and now the gunners were fired by anger and the south of the village was wreathed in ragged smoke while the canister rattled like metal rain on the Castle walls. There were howitzers firing too, and even though they could no longer fire from the flank and thus keep firing until the infantry were at the very brink of the courtyard, they could lob their shells from the protection of the village and make the Castle a place of seething iron.

One hour, two, and the guns still fired, and the canister killed sentries and the cobbles were scorched by the exploding shells where the snow had turned to black slush.

There was no truce this time. The gunner Colonel was dead, crushed by a falling howitzer barrel, and it was still dangerous to go into the Convent's upper part because of the howitzer shells that still exploded and added fresh smoke to the funeral pyre of more than a hundred men. The French General swore his revenge, and ordered the guns to start it. The gunners fought for their dead Colonel.

Two guns doused the watchtower hill in canister, the musket balls flaying through the thorns, jerking snow from the branches, snapping twigs and spines down onto the Riflemen who crouched in their pits. Rabbits know where to dig, and a rabbit hole was a rifle pit that was well started, and Frederickson urged the gunners on. 'Fire, you bastards! We're ready for you! He was too. He expected them to come from the east or the north and his strength was ready for them, strength that would push the attack towards the cleared space on the northern slope of the hill down which he planned to roll his barrels of powder, fuses protected from the snow with sewn leather sheaths, and with the barrels would go the four inch round shells left for the Spanish gun. 'Come on, you bastards! His men grinned, listening to Sweet William's battle cry. He had kept most of the Fusiliers on the reverse slope of the hill, away from the artillery fire, and he would only use them if the French turned his line of hidden Riflemen.

Most of the guns worked on the Castle. They broke open the stable roof, started fire in its rafters and in Gilliland's empty carts that blazed high and melted the slush for yards around. The French dislodged the single gun on the Castle's eastern wall, lifting it in an explosion and sliding it in a tumble of stone, snow, brass and timber down to the rubble. One shell penetrated the inner courtyard, bouncing ofT the walls of the keep, and its blast killed six horses outright and the Fusiliers forced their way through the screaming, panicked beasts, sliding on a mixture of blood and slush and horse urine to finish off the wounded beasts. And still the guns fired.

The Castle filled with the smoke of the explosions, shook with the crash of shot, and the twelve-pounders mixed roundshot with the canister and some of the balls hit ancient, loosened stone and a Rifleman screamed because a slab fell on his legs.

On the snow in front of the eastern wall the howitzer shells that fell short made star-shaped patterns in the snow, stars black and violent, craters of heat in the whiteness, and one shell landed on the gatehouse turret where a Rifleman, old in war, tan to it with the butt of his rifle raised. The fuse smoked crazily as the shell span, the Rifleman paused a second, then struck one glancing blow on the iron ball. The fuse was jerked out clean as a blade, and the shell was harmless. The man grinned at his frightened companions. 'Always come out if you hit 'em right.

The Colours had gone, taken back to the Fusiliers who crouched behind a low barricade that guarded the entrance to the keep. They would fight with their own standards on this last fight and they wondered how long they must endure the blast of the explosions outside, the screaming of the horses behind, the noise of the guns that filled the valley more dreadfully than any file of French drummers.

Sharpe crouched beside Captain Gilliland high in the keep. He had to shout over the noise of the cannonade. 'You know what to do?

'Yes, sir. Gilliland was unhappy. The rest of his rockets would be used in a manner he did not like. 'How long, sir?

'I don't know! An hour? Maybe two?

Men wanted the French to come, wanted this storm of metal to end, wanted to have this fight done.

Frederickson yelled at the French to attack, called them yellow bastards, women to a man, afraid of a little hill with a few straggly thorns, and still the infantry did not come. One Rifleman screamed in pain because a canister ball was in his shoulder and Frederickson bawled at him to be silent.

The gunners slaved at their machines, served them, hauled at them, fed them with revenge for their dead Colonel.

High on the eastern side of the keep Sharpe watched the village. Once he flinched as a high canister shot struck shards of razor sharp stone from the hole he peered through. Somewhere a man screamed, the scream cut short, and the noise rolled about the valley and the smoke of the guns was drifted high over the pass and still the metal came at the walls and the shells cracked apart in the yard.

'Sir? Harper pointed.

The French were coming.

Not in a column, not in one of France's proud columns, but uncoiling like snakes from the village, four men in a file, and three Battalions were marching down the road, marching fast, and still the guns thundered, and still Sharpe's men died in ones and twos, and still the shells battered at the defenders.

Fifteen hundred men, bayonets fixed, staying in the centre of the valley well away from the flight of the guns.

Sharpe watched them. He had held this place for a day now and he had desperately hoped for two. It would not be. He had one card left to play, just one, and when that was played it would all be over. He would retreat south through the hills, hoping the French cavalry had better targets to chase than his depleted force, and he would leave his wounded to the mercy of the French. He had made the garrison pile their coats and packs at the southern exit from the keep, the exit Pot-au-Feu's men had used and which was now guarded by twenty Fusiliers to stop the faint-hearted leaving early. He grinned at Harper. 'It was a good fight, Patrick.

'It's not over yet, sir.

Sharpe knew different. The curse was on him like a lead weight, and he supposed the curse would bring defeat, would let the French through the pass, and he wondered if he would have time to go to the dungeon before the panic of the scramble southwards and kill the yellow-faced misshapen man. That would lift the curse.

In the dungeon Hakeswill listened. He could read a battle by its sound and he knew the moment was not yet. He had hoped it would be in the night, but a Fusilier Lieutenant had sat with the sentries through much of the darkness, and Hakeswill had done nothing. Soon, he promised himself, soon.

Sharpe turned to the man who had replaced the bugler. 'Ready?

'Yes, sir.

'In a minute. Wait.

The French were close, the Battalions turning towards the Castle, coming over the place where yesterday the rockets had shredded the ranks, but today there was no weapon that fired at them.

The guns stopped. It seemed like silence in the valley.

The left hand Battalion of the French broke into a run, curving further left, heading south-east, and they ran towards the watchtower hill because they would attack from the one direction where Dubreton had rightly guessed there were few defences.

The other two Battalions raised a cheer, lowered their bayonets, and ran at the rubble of the eastern wall. No muskets fired from the defenders, no rifles, and the gun that would have flanked them lay on its side, shattered, useless on the stones. The two men who would have fired it sprawled lifeless on the cobbles.

A Rifleman on the keep's ramparts shouted for Sharpe, shouted loud, but the message never reached him. The French were in the courtyard.