Sharpe's Fury Part 28

Sharpe had lost sight of Vandal. There was too much smoke. He saw a Frenchman stoop to the body of a fallen Portuguese skirmisher and rummage through the dead man's pockets. Sharpe knelt, aimed, and fired. When the rifle smoke cleared he saw the Frenchman on all fours, head down. He reloaded. He was tempted to ram the ball down naked rather than wrapping it in its greased leather patch. He thought the French might charge at any moment and the thing to do now was to kill them fast, to pour fire at them, and a naked ball in a rifle was quick to load. At this distance the inaccuracy did not matter. But if he saw Vandal again he wanted to be sure of his shot and so he took a leather patch, wrapped the ball, and rammed it down the rifled barrel. "Look for their officers," he told his men.

A pistol sounded beside Sharpe and he looked to see that Captain Galiana had dismounted and was now reloading the small weapon. "Fire!" the lieutenant commanding the closest company of the 87th shouted and the muskets blasted out smoke. A man fell back from the front rank, a hole black in his forehead.

"Leave him be!" a sergeant shouted. "He's a dead 'un! Reload!"

"Fix bayonets!" the shout came from just behind the 87th and was repeated down the line, getting fainter as the order traveled north. "Fix bayonets!"

"G.o.d save Ireland," Harper said. "This is desperate."

"Not much choice," Sharpe said. The French were winning by sheer numbers. They were pressing forward, and Colonel Wheatley could either retreat or attack. To retreat was to lose, but to attack was at least to test the French.

"Swords, sir?" Slattery asked.

"Fix swords," Sharpe said. It was no time to worry about whether this was his fight or not. The battle trembled. Another French volley slammed into the red ranks. Then two gouts of canister slashed away the blue-coated men who had fired the shots. An Irish boy was screaming horribly, rolling in front of the ranks with b.l.o.o.d.y hands clutching his groin. A sergeant silenced him with a merciful blow of a musket b.u.t.t to the skull.

"Forward now! Forward!" a brigade major bellowed.

"The 87th will advance!" Gough shouted. "Faugh a ballagh!"

"Faugh a ballagh!" the surviving men of the 87th responded, and went forward.

"Steady, boys!" Gough shouted. "Steady!"

But the 87th did not want to be steady. A quarter of their number was either dead or wounded, and they had a seething anger against the men who had punished them in the last hour, and so they went eagerly. The sooner they were at the enemy, the sooner that enemy would die, and Gough could not hold them. They began to run, and as they ran they sounded a high-pitched scream, terrifying in itself, and their seventeen-inch bayonets were bright in the sun, which was almost at its winter zenith.

"Forward!" The men to Sharpe's right were keeping pace with the 87th. Duncan's gunners handspiked their cannon around to rake the flank of the French line.

"And kill! And kill!" Ensign Keogh was shouting at the top of his voice. He carried his slim sword in one hand and gripped his c.o.c.ked hat in the other.

"Faugh a ballagh!" Gough bellowed.

French muskets roared horribly close and men were torn backward, blood spraying their neighbors, but the charge could not be stopped now. All along the line the redcoats were going forward with bayonets because to stay still was to die and to retreat was to lose. They numbered fewer than a thousand now, and they were attacking three times their number. "Get into them! Get into them!" an officer of the Cauliflowers shouted. "Kill them, kill them!"

The front rank of the French tried to step back, but the ranks behind thrust them on, and the redcoats struck. Bayonets rammed forward. Muskets fired at less than a yard's range. A sergeant of the 87th was chanting as though he were training men at the barracks. "Lunge! Recover! Stance! Lunge! Recover! Stance! Not in his ribs, you b.l.o.o.d.y fool! In his belly! Lunge! Recover! Stance! In the belly, boys, in the belly! Lunge!"

An Irishman's bayonet was trapped in the ribs of a Frenchman. It would not come out and in desperation he pulled his trigger and was surprised that the weapon was loaded. The blast of gas and ball jerked the bayonet free. "In the belly!" the sergeant shouted, for a bayonet was far less likely to be trapped in an enemy's stomach than in his ribs. Those officers still mounted were firing pistols over their men's shakos. Men lunged, recovered, lunged again, and some were so battle-maddened that they did not care how they fought and just clubbed with their musket b.u.t.ts. "Rip it out, boy!" the sergeant shouted. "Don't just p.r.i.c.k the b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Do some damage! Lunge! Recover!"

They were the despised of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. They were the drunks and the thieves, the scourings of gutters and jails. They wore the red coat because no one else wanted them, or because they were so desperate that they had no choice. They were the sc.u.m of Britain, but they could fight. They had always fought, but in the army they were taught how to fight with discipline. They discovered sergeants and officers who valued them. They punished them too, of course, and swore at them, and cursed them, and whipped their backs b.l.o.o.d.y and cursed them again, but valued them. They even loved them, and officers worth five thousand pounds a year were fighting alongside them now. The redcoats were doing what they did best, what they were paid a s.h.i.+lling a day less stoppages to do: they were killing.

The French advance was stopped. There was no edging forward now. Their front ranks were dying and the ranks behind were trying to escape the wild men with b.l.o.o.d.y faces, men who were screaming like fiends. "Faugh a ballagh! Faugh a ballagh!" Gough kicked his horse through his men and hacked down with his sword at a French sergeant. The color party was behind him, the ensigns carrying the two flags and the sergeants armed with nine-foot-long spontoons, razor-pointed pikes that were meant to protect the colors, though now the sergeants were on the offensive, savaging the French with the long narrow blades. Sergeant Patrick Masterson was one of the pikemen and he was almost as big as Harper. He thrust the spontoon into French faces, one after the other, driving them down where bayonets could kill them. He lunged a path through the first French rank, had the blade parried by a bayonet, withdrew it, lunged again, but at the last second dropped the spontoon's head so that it punched through cloth and skin and muscle into an enemy belly. The thrust was so hard that the blade sank to the crosspiece, which stopped an enemy's corpse, trapping itself on the shaft. He kicked the dying Frenchman off the blade and thrust again and redcoats cut their way into the gap he made. Some Frenchmen lay unwounded, their hands over their heads, just praying that the screaming fiends would spare them. Ensign Keogh sliced his sword at a mustachioed Frenchman, opening a slas.h.i.+ng wound from one cheek to the other and almost hitting a redcoat beside him as the wild swing hissed backward. Keogh's hat was gone. He was shouting the 87th's war cry, "Faugh a ballagh!" Clear the way, and the blades were carving the way through the tight-packed French ranks.

All along the line it was the same. Bayonets against conscripts, savagery against sudden, bowel-loosening terror. The fight had been poised, it had even tilted toward the French as their greater numbers told, but Wheatley had made the move and the laws of mathematics had been taken over by the crueler laws of hard-training and harder men. The redcoats were going forward, slowly forward because they were fighting against a press of enemy and were stumbling on the bodies they had put on the blood-slicked gra.s.s, but they were still going forward.

Then a curricle appeared at the tree's edge, and Sharpe saw Vandal again.

ON THE Cerro del Puerco the French advanced to take their victory. The four battalions that had lined the hill's summit came first, with the two grenadier battalions hurrying to join their left flank. The only worry of the general of the grenadiers, Rousseau, was that his men would arrive too late to share in the victory. Cerro del Puerco the French advanced to take their victory. The four battalions that had lined the hill's summit came first, with the two grenadier battalions hurrying to join their left flank. The only worry of the general of the grenadiers, Rousseau, was that his men would arrive too late to share in the victory.

The British were still on the slope and their line was still ragged. They had been hit hard by the canister, though the French guns could no longer fire because the blue-coated infantry had advanced to mask the guns' red-coated targets. But Victor knew the guns would not be needed. The emperor's bayonets would seal this victory. The drummers beat the pas de charge pas de charge and the eagles were lifted high as three thousand Frenchmen spilled over the northern crest of the hill and gave a cheer as they charged to victory. and the eagles were lifted high as three thousand Frenchmen spilled over the northern crest of the hill and gave a cheer as they charged to victory.

They faced the British foot guards, half a battalion of men from Hamps.h.i.+re, two companies of riflemen, and the remnants of the flank companies who had marched to battle from Gibraltar. Those red- and green-coated men, outnumbered two to one, had marched all night and were downhill from the enemy.

"Present!" Sir Thomas Graham roared. He had miraculously survived the blast of canister that had s.n.a.t.c.hed three Scotsmen from the ranks immediately in front of him. Lord William Russell had brought him back his battered hat and Sir Thomas now held it aloft, then brought it sharply down to point at the two unbroken columns that came charging from the hill with bayonets fixed. "Fire!"

Twelve hundred muskets and two hundred rifles fired. The range was mostly less than sixty paces, though it was a good deal more at the flanks, and the b.a.l.l.s drove into the three hundred men in the leading rank of the French columns and stopped them. It was as though an avenging angel had struck the head of the French columns with a giant sword. Their front ranks were b.l.o.o.d.y and broken, and even men in the second ranks were down. The carnage was enough to halt the charge as men in the third and fourth ranks stumbled and fell on the dead and dying men in front of them. The redcoats could not see what their volley had done because the smoke of their own muskets shrouded them. They expected the two columns to burst through that smoke with bayonets and so they did what they were trained to do: they reloaded. Ramrods sc.r.a.ped in barrels. The proper order of files and ranks had been broken by the climb and though some officers shouted at companies to fire as platoons, most men just fired for their lives. They did not wait for an officer or a sergeant to time the rolling volleys; they just reloaded, brought up the musket, pulled the trigger, and then reloaded again.

The drill books insisted on at least ten actions to charge a musket. It began with Handle Cartridge First Movement and ended with the command to fire. In some battalions the drill sergeants managed to find as many as seventeen different actions, all of which had to be learned and mastered and practiced. Some men, a few, came to the training with an understanding of firearms. They were mostly country boys who knew how to charge a fowling piece, but it all had to be unlearned. It might take a recruit a whole minute, even longer, to load a musket, but by the time they donned the red coat and were sent to fight for their king, they could do it in fifteen or twenty seconds. This was, above all other things, the necessary skill. The guards on the hill could look superb and there was no infantry unit that looked more splendid when taking post outside St. James's Palace or Carlton House, but if a man could not bite a cartridge, prime the lock, load the gun, ram it, and fire within twenty seconds, then he was not a soldier. There were nearly a thousand guardsmen still living on the hill, and they fired for their lives. They put shot after shot into the cloud of smoke and Sir Thomas Graham, mounted just behind them, could tell that they were hurting the French, not just hurting them but killing them.

The French had come in column again. They always came in column. This one was three hundred men wide and nine ranks deep, and that meant most of the French could not use their muskets while every redcoat and every greenjacket could fire his weapon. The b.a.l.l.s converged on the French, they drove inward, and in front of the guards and in front of the men from Hamps.h.i.+re there were small flames in the gra.s.s where the wadding had started fires.

Sir Thomas held his breath. This was a moment, he knew, when orders would do nothing, when even to encourage the men would be a waste of breath. They knew what they were doing and they were doing it so well that he was even tempted to think he might s.n.a.t.c.h a victory from what had seemed like certain defeat. But then the crash of a well-orchestrated volley made him ride toward the right of his line and he saw the unbroken ranks of the French grenadiers coming downhill through the smoke of their opening volley. He saw the Scottish guards turning to take on this new enemy, and the riflemen, who were in more extended order around the seaward flank of the hill, drew closer together to pour their fire at the French reinforcements.

Sir Thomas still said nothing. He held his hat in his hand and he watched the grenadiers come down the slope. He saw how each man in the French ranks had a short saber as well as a musket. These were the enemy's elite, the men chosen to do the hardest work, and they were coming fresh to the fight, but again they came in a column, and the right of his own line, without any orders from Sir Thomas or anyone else, had half turned toward them to give them the benefit of their training. The half battalion of the 67th was right in front of the grenadiers who, unlike the first four battalions, were not checked by the first shots to hit them, but kept coming.

And this, Sir Thomas knew, was how a column should fight. It was a battering ram, and though the head of the column must suffer horribly, the momentum of its ma.s.s should take it through an enemy to b.l.o.o.d.y victory. On battlefield after battlefield across a suffering Europe the emperor's columns had taken their punishment and marched on to win. And this column, all of them elite troops, was coming downhill and getting ever closer. If it broke through the thin line of red and green, it would turn to its right and murder Sir Thomas's men with sabers and musket b.u.t.ts. And still it came. Sir Thomas rode behind the 67th, ready to slash with his sword and die with his men if the grenadiers succeeded. Then an officer shouted the command to fire.

Smoke billowed in front of Sir Thomas. Then more smoke. The 67th was firing platoon volleys now, and the Sweeps were up on their right, not bothering to wrap their bullets with leather because at this range they could not miss, and so their fire was almost as quick as the redcoats beside them. On Sir Thomas's left were his Scotsmen, and he knew they would not break. The noise of the musketry was like a great fire of dry wood. The air stank of rotten eggs. Somewhere a seagull cried, and far behind Sir Thomas the cannons crashed on the heath, but he could not spare a glance for what happened behind him. It was here and now that the battle would be decided. He suddenly realized he was holding his breath and he let it out, glanced at Lord William, and saw His Lords.h.i.+p staring wide-eyed and motionless into the musket smoke. "You can breathe, Willie."

"Dear Lord," Lord William said, letting out his breath. "You know there's a Spanish brigade behind us?" he asked Sir Thomas.

Sir Thomas turned and saw the Spanish troops on the beach. They made no move to reinforce him and even if he ordered them up the hill he knew they would arrive too late to be of any help. This fight could not last that long and so he shook his head. "d.a.m.n them, Willie," he said. "Just d.a.m.n them."

Lord William Russell held a pistol, ready to shoot the first grenadier to come through the smoke, but the grenadiers had been stopped by the rifle and musket fire. Their front ranks were dead and the men behind were now trying to reload and fire back, but once a column stopped moving it became a giant target, and Sir Thomas's men were firing into its heart. Even though the grenadiers were elite troops, they could not fire as fast as the redcoats.

General Dilkes, his horse bleeding in the rump and shoulder, came to Sir Thomas's side. He said nothing, just stared, then glanced up the hill to where Marshal Victor sat on his horse with his white-plumed hat held low. Marshal Victor was watching three thousand men held by musket fire. He said nothing. It was up to his men now.

On the left of the British line, beyond the First Foot Guards, Major Browne fought his remnant of flankers. Fewer than half the men who had climbed the hill were still able to fire a musket, but they poured their volleys at the nearest French column and, in their eagerness, went higher up the hill to a.s.sail the column's flank.

"Don't you love the rogues?" Sir Thomas shouted at General Dilkes, and Dilkes was so surprised by the question that he gave a bark of laughter. "Time to give them the bayonet," Sir Thomas said.

Dilkes nodded. He was watching the redcoats fire their murderous volleys and he reckoned he had just watched his men perform a miracle.

"They'll run, I vouch," Sir Thomas said, and hoped he was right.

"Fix bayonets!" Dilkes found his voice.

"On to them, boys!" Sir Thomas waved his hat and galloped back behind the line. "On to them! Push them off my hill! Off my hill!"

And the redcoats, like hounds released, went uphill with bayonets. Marshal Victor, at the crest, heard the screams as the blades began their work. "For G.o.d's sake, fight!" he said to no one in particular, but his six battalions were recoiling. Panic had infected their ranks. The rearmost men, those least in danger, were edging back and the foremost ranks were being savaged by redcoats. The band, well behind the line and still playing the forbidden "Ma.r.s.eillaise," sensed the disaster coming and the music faltered. The bandmaster tried to rally his musicians, but the loudest noise now was the hoa.r.s.e war cries of the British. Instead of playing, the band broke and ran. The infantry followed. "The guns," Victor said to an aide, "get the guns off the hill." It was one thing to lose a fight, but another to have the emperor's beloved guns captured, so the gunners brought up their teams and dragged four of the cannons eastward, off the hill. Two could not be saved because the redcoats were too close, so those guns were lost. Marshal Victor and his aides followed the four guns, and the remnants of his six battalions ran for their lives, ran across the hilltop and down its eastern face, and behind them the redcoats and greenjackets came with bayonets and victory.

General Rousseau, who had led the grenadiers, and General Ruffin, who had commanded the beaten division, were both wounded and left behind. Sir Thomas was told of their capture, but he said nothing; he just rode to the hill's inland crest from where he could see his beaten enemy running. He remembered that long-ago moment in Toulouse when the soldiers of France had insulted his dead wife and had spat in his face when he protested. Back then Sir Thomas had sympathized with the French. He had thought that their ideals of liberty, fraternity, and equality were beacons for Britain. He had loved France.

But that had been nineteen years ago. Nineteen years in which Sir Thomas had never forgotten the mockery given by the French to his dead wife, so now he stood in his stirrups and cupped his hands. "Remember me!" he shouted. He shouted in English, but that did not matter because the French were running too fast and were too far away to hear him. "Remember me!" he shouted again, then touched his wedding ring.

And south of him, beyond the pinewood, a cannon fired.

Sir Thomas turned and put spurs to his tired horse, because the battle was not yet won.

"OH, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l," Sharpe said. The curricle had bounced past him, wheels spinning as they left the ground, and it had dashed across the corner of the French column, then capsized twenty paces from the column's edge. The woman, black-veiled, was evidently uninjured for she was trying to help the brigadier to his feet, but a dozen Frenchmen from the column's rear ranks had seen the accident and also seen a profit there. A man festooned with lace could also be festooned with money, and so they darted from the column so that they could rifle the fallen man's pockets. Sharpe drew his sword and ran. h.e.l.l," Sharpe said. The curricle had bounced past him, wheels spinning as they left the ground, and it had dashed across the corner of the French column, then capsized twenty paces from the column's edge. The woman, black-veiled, was evidently uninjured for she was trying to help the brigadier to his feet, but a dozen Frenchmen from the column's rear ranks had seen the accident and also seen a profit there. A man festooned with lace could also be festooned with money, and so they darted from the column so that they could rifle the fallen man's pockets. Sharpe drew his sword and ran.

"We've got work, boys. Come on," Harper said.

The riflemen had been moving toward the column's flank. There was a foul battle going on between redcoats and Frenchmen, a battle of bayonet and musket b.u.t.ts, but Sharpe had seen Colonel Vandal on his horse. Vandal was in the press of Frenchmen, close to his regiment's eagle, and he was beating with his saber, not at redcoats, but at his own men. He was shouting at them to fight, to kill, and his pa.s.sion was holding the men so that the French left flank alone was not retreating, but fighting stubbornly against the Irishmen who attacked from their front. Sharpe thought that by going to the column's side he might have a clear shot for his rifle, but now he had to rescue Brigadier Moon who was trying to protect the veiled woman. Moon hauled her down beside him and tried to find his pistol, but in his tumble from the curricle the weapon had fallen from his tail pocket. He drew his new saber, a cheap thing purchased in Cadiz, and found the blade was broken, and just then the widowed Marquesa screamed because the French were coming with bayonets.

Then a green-jacketed man came from Moon's left. The man carried a heavy cavalry sword, a weapon as brutal as it was clumsy, and his first stroke took a Frenchman in the throat. The blood sprayed higher than the eagle on its pole. The man's head flopped back as his body kept running. Sharpe turned, impaled a second man in the belly with the sword, twisted it fast to stop the flesh gripping the blade, then put his right boot on the man's belly to give him the leverage to rip the sword free. A bayonet went through his coat, but Captain Galiana was there and his slim sword pierced the Frenchman's side.

Brigadier Moon, his hand clutching the Marquesa's hand, just watched. Sharpe had killed one man and put another on the ground in the time it would take to swat a fly. Now two other Frenchmen came at Sharpe, and Moon expected the rifleman to step away from their frenzied attack, but instead he went to meet them and beat a bayonet aside with his sword before driving the blade up into the man's face. A boot into the crotch crumpled the man. The second lunged with his bayonet, and Moon thought Sharpe must be killed, but the rifleman had sidestepped the lunge with sudden speed and now turned on his attacker. Moon saw the ferocity on the rifleman's face and felt an unexpected pang of pity for the Frenchman who faced him. "b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Sharpe snarled, and the sword lunged, hard and fast, and the Frenchman dropped his musket and clung to the blade impaling his belly. Sharpe ripped it out just as Perkins arrived to bayonet the man. Harper was beside Sharpe now and pulled the trigger of the volley gun, with the sound of a cannon firing. Two Frenchmen went backward, blood thick on their white crossbelts. The others had taken enough and were running back to the column.

"Sharpe!" Moon called.

Sharpe ignored the brigadier. He sheathed his sword and took the rifle from his shoulder. He knelt and aimed at Vandal. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he said and pulled the trigger. The rifle's muzzle was lost in smoke, and when the smoke cleared Vandal was still alive, still on his horse, and still using the flat of his saber to drive his men onto Gough's Irish. Sharpe swore. "Dan," he called to Hagman, "shoot that b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

"Sharpe," the brigadier called again, "the gun!"

Sharpe turned. He saw, without much surprise, that the veiled woman was Caterina and he wondered what kind of b.l.o.o.d.y fool the brigadier was to bring a woman into this carnage. Then he looked at the abandoned French howitzer and saw that a priming tube was still sticking out of the vent. That meant the short-barreled cannon was loaded. He looked on the scorched gra.s.s for the linstock, but could not see it. The half battalion of the 67th, the two companies of the Cauliflowers, and the survivors of the Portuguese cacadores were advancing beyond the gun, going to fight Leval's last reserve battalion that was hurrying toward the left flank of the beleaguered 8th. The cannon, Sharpe thought, might be more useful if it was aimed at that reserve battalion, but then he remembered poor Jack Bullen. "Sergeant! I want this b.l.o.o.d.y gun round!"

Harper, Galiana, Sharpe, and Harris lifted the trail and turned the howitzer so it pointed at the 8th of the line. "Here, Sharpe!" The brigadier tossed him a tinderbox.

"Out of the way!" Sharpe shouted to his other riflemen. Then he struck a light and blew the charred linen in the box so that it burst into flame. He took all the linen out of the box, scorching his fingers, and leaned over the gun's wheel to drop the burning ma.s.s onto the priming tube. He heard the powder fizz and ducked away.

The howitzer crashed back, its wheels leaping off the ground as it recoiled. It was a six-inch howitzer and it had been loaded with canister. The b.a.l.l.s tore into the French flank with the force of a battalion volley. The cannon had been too close to spread the missiles wide, but where they struck they gouged a bleeding hole in the packed ranks and Sharpe, running aside, saw that Vandal had disappeared. Sharpe drew his sword again, then waited, wanting another sight of the colonel. Behind him the men of the 67th and the 47th and the 20th Portuguese started their volleys against the reserve battalion. Duncan's guns flayed it with sh.e.l.l and shrapnel. Somewhere a man howled like a dog.

Colonel Vandal was on the ground. His horse was dying, screaming as its head thrashed the sandy soil. Vandal himself was dazed, but he did not think he was wounded. He managed to stand, only to see that the redcoats were closing on his eagle. "Kill them!" he shouted, and the shout was a parched croak. A huge sergeant with a pike was slas.h.i.+ng at the French sergeants protecting the standard. "Kill them!" Vandal shouted again, and just then a young and skinny redcoat officer leaped at the color and cut with his sword at Sous-Lieutenant Guillemain who had the honor of holding the emperor's eagle. Vandal thrust his saber at the thin officer and felt the blade's tip jar on the man's ribs. The redcoat ignored the thrust and, with his free hand, grabbed the eagle's pole and tried to pull it from Guillemain's grasp. Two French sergeants killed the man, piercing him with their long-bladed halberds, cursing him, and Vandal saw the life fade from the redcoat's eyes before he had even hit the ground. Then one of the French sergeants recoiled, his left eye nothing but a pit of jellied blood, and a huge voice shouted at the Frenchmen. "Faugh a ballagh!" "Faugh a ballagh!"

Sergeant Masterson had seen Ensign Keogh killed and now Masterson was angry. He had put down one of the killers with the spontoon's blade, and he slashed at the second, striking the man with the edge of the spear point. He brought it back and rammed the pike at Guillemain's throat. The lieutenant began gurgling, blood bubbling at his gullet, and Vandal reached for the eagle, but Masterson ripped the spontoon sideways so that Guillemain's dying body fell across the colonel. Then Masterson tore the eagle out of the Frenchman's grasp. Captain Lecroix shouted in incoherent rage and slashed his sword at Masterson, but a redcoat thrust his bayonet into Lecroix's ribs and another hit him on the skull with a musket. The last thing Lecroix saw in this world was the huge Irish sergeant flailing the precious standard. He was using the eagle to beat at the men trying to take it from him, and then a new rush of redcoats came on either side of Masterson and their bayonets went to work. "Lunge!" a sergeant was shouting in a high, cracked voice. "Recover! Stance! Lunge!"

A surge of Frenchmen tried to recover their eagle, but the Irish bayonets were in front of it now. "Lunge! Recover!" the sergeant was shouting, while behind him Masterson was bellowing incoherently and waving the eagle above his head. "Lunge! Recover! Do your work properly!"

Two men seized Vandal by his shoulders and pulled him away from the blood-spattered Irishmen. The colonel was not badly wounded. A bayonet had cut into his thigh, but he felt unable to walk, to speak, even to think. The eagle! It had a laurel wreath about its neck, a wreath of gilded bronze presented by the city of Paris to those regiments that had distinguished themselves at Austerlitz, and now some prancing fool was waving the eagle in the air! Vandal felt a surge of fury. He would not lose it! If he had to die in the attempt, he would take back the emperor's eagle. He screamed at the two men to drop him. He scrambled to his feet. "Pour l'empereur!" "Pour l'empereur!" he shouted, and he ran toward Masterson, thinking to cut through the men barring his way. But suddenly there were more enemy to his left and he turned, parried a sword cut, lunged to kill the man, and saw, to his surprise, that it was a Spanish officer who, in turn, parried Vandal's lunge and riposted fast. More Frenchmen came to help their colonel. "Get the eagle!" he screamed at them, and he slashed at the Spaniard, hoping to drive the man away so he could join the attack on the redcoat who had his eagle. The slash ripped through coat and yellow sash to score a b.l.o.o.d.y wound on the Spaniard's belly, but just then the Spanish officer was thrust aside and a tall green-jacketed man beat down Vandal's saber with a huge blade, then simply reached out and gripped the collar of the colonel's coat. The green-jacketed man hauled Vandal out of the melee, tripped him, then kicked the colonel in the side of the head. Rifles fired, then a rush of Irishmen drove the last few Frenchmen back. Vandal tried to roll away from his attacker, but he was kicked again. When he looked up the big sword was at his throat. he shouted, and he ran toward Masterson, thinking to cut through the men barring his way. But suddenly there were more enemy to his left and he turned, parried a sword cut, lunged to kill the man, and saw, to his surprise, that it was a Spanish officer who, in turn, parried Vandal's lunge and riposted fast. More Frenchmen came to help their colonel. "Get the eagle!" he screamed at them, and he slashed at the Spaniard, hoping to drive the man away so he could join the attack on the redcoat who had his eagle. The slash ripped through coat and yellow sash to score a b.l.o.o.d.y wound on the Spaniard's belly, but just then the Spanish officer was thrust aside and a tall green-jacketed man beat down Vandal's saber with a huge blade, then simply reached out and gripped the collar of the colonel's coat. The green-jacketed man hauled Vandal out of the melee, tripped him, then kicked the colonel in the side of the head. Rifles fired, then a rush of Irishmen drove the last few Frenchmen back. Vandal tried to roll away from his attacker, but he was kicked again. When he looked up the big sword was at his throat.

"Remember me?" Captain Sharpe asked.

Vandal swung the saber, but Sharpe parried it with derisory ease. "Where's my lieutenant?" he asked.

Vandal still held the saber. He readied himself to sweep it up at the rifleman, but then Sharpe pressed the point of the heavy cavalry sword into the colonel's throat. "I yield," Vandal said.

The pressure relaxed. "Give me your saber," Sharpe said.

"I give my parole," Vandal said, "and under the rules of war I may keep my saber." The colonel knew his battle was finished. His men had gone and the Irish were harrying them farther east with bayonets. All along the line the French were running, and all along the line bloodied men were pursuing the enemy, though they did not pursue far. They had marched all night and fought all morning and they were bone tired. They followed the beaten enemy until it was certain that the broken army would not stop to re-form and then they sank down and marveled that they were still alive. "I give my parole," Vandal said again.

"I said give me the saber," Sharpe snarled.

"He can keep his weapon," Galiana said. "He's given his parole."

Brigadier Moon watched and flinched as Sharpe kicked the Frenchman again, then stabbed down with the heavy cavalry sword to cut the man's wrist. Vandal let go of the saber's snakeskin grip and Sharpe bent and picked up the fallen blade. He looked at the steel, expecting to see a French name engraved there, but instead it said Bennett.

"You stole this, you b.u.g.g.e.r," Sharpe said.

"I gave you my parole!" Vandal protested.

"Then stand up," Sharpe said.

Vandal, his sight blurred because of his tears that were caused not by physical pain but by the loss of the eagle, stood. "My saber," he demanded, blinking.

Sharpe threw the saber to Brigadier Moon, then hit Vandal. He knew he should not, but he was consumed by fury and so he hit him clean between the eyes. Vandal fell again, his hands clutching his face, and Sharpe bent over him. "Don't you remember, Colonel?" he asked. "War is war and there are no rules. That's what you told me. So where's my lieutenant?"

Vandal recognized Sharpe then. He saw the bandage showing under the ragged shako and remembered the man who had blown the bridge, the man he thought he had killed. "Your lieutenant," he said shakily, "is in Seville, where he is being treated with honor. You hear that? With honor, as you must treat me."

"Get up," Sharpe said. The colonel stood, then flinched as Sharpe dragged him around by tugging on one of his gilded epaulettes. Then Sharpe pointed. "Look, Colonel," he said, "there's your b.l.o.o.d.y honor."

Sergeant Patrick Masterson, with a smile as broad as all Dublin, was parading the captured eagle. "By Jesus, boys," he was shouting, "I've got their cuckoo!"

And Sharpe laughed.

HMS T THORNSIDE cleared the Diamante rock off Cadiz and headed west into the Atlantic. Soon she would alter course for the mouth of the Tagus and for Lisbon. On sh.o.r.e a one-legged admiral watched her recede and tasted the bile in his throat. All Cadiz was praising the British now, the British who had taken an eagle and humiliated the French. No hope now of a new Regency in Spain, or of a sensible peace with the emperor, because the war fever had come to Cadiz and its hero was Sir Thomas Graham. The admiral turned away and stumped toward his home. cleared the Diamante rock off Cadiz and headed west into the Atlantic. Soon she would alter course for the mouth of the Tagus and for Lisbon. On sh.o.r.e a one-legged admiral watched her recede and tasted the bile in his throat. All Cadiz was praising the British now, the British who had taken an eagle and humiliated the French. No hope now of a new Regency in Spain, or of a sensible peace with the emperor, because the war fever had come to Cadiz and its hero was Sir Thomas Graham. The admiral turned away and stumped toward his home.

Sharpe watched the sh.o.r.e fade. He stood beside Harper. "I'm sorry, Pat."

"I know you are, sir."

"He was a friend."

"And that he was," Harper said. Rifleman Slattery had died. Sharpe had not seen it happen, but while he and Galiana had run into the disintegrating column to find Vandal, a last errant musket shot had pierced Slattery's throat and he had bled to death on Caterina's skirts.

"It wasn't our fight," Sharpe said. "You were right."

"It was a rare fight, though," Harper said, "and you got your man."

Colonel Vandal had complained to Sir Thomas Graham. He protested that Captain Sharpe had wounded him after his surrender, that Captain Sharpe had insulted him and a.s.saulted him, and that Captain Sharpe had stolen his saber. Lord William Russell had told Sharpe of the complaint and shaken his head. "I have to tell you it's serious, Sharpe. You can't upset a colonel, even a French one! Think what they'll do to our officers if they learn what we do to theirs?"

"I didn't do it," Sharpe had lied stubbornly.

"Of course you didn't, my dear fellow, but Vandal's made his complaint and I fear Sir Thomas insists there must be a court of inquiry."

But the inquiry had never taken place. Brigadier Sir Barnaby Moon had written his own report of the incident, saying that he had been within twenty paces of the colonel's capture, that he had seen every action taken by Captain Richard Sharpe, and that Sharpe had behaved as a gentleman and an officer. Sir Thomas, on receiving Moon's report, had apologized to Sharpe in person. "We had to take the complaint seriously, Sharpe," Sir Thomas said, "but if that wretched Frenchman had known there was a brigadier watching, he'd never have made up such a pack of lies. And, of course, Moon dislikes you-he's made that very clear-so he's hardly likely to exonerate you if there was even the smallest chance of making trouble for you. So you can forget it, Sharpe, and I have to say I'm glad. I didn't want to think you were capable of doing what Vandal claimed."

"Of course I'm not, sir."