Sharpe 3-Book Collection 3: Sharpe's Trafalgar, Sharpe's Prey, Sharpe's Rifles (110 page)

The Riflemen ran to the next corner where Vivar waited for them. ‘That way!’ He pointed to the left, then spurred in the other direction with his handful of Cazadores.

The Riflemen ran past a church, rounded a corner, and found themselves at the top of a steep flight of steps leading to a street that ran behind a stretch of medieval city wall. Vivar must have known the steps would offer safety from the Dragoons’ pursuit, and had sent them to find refuge while he stayed behind to check the French fury.

Sharpe ran down the steps, then led his men along the street. He had no idea if Vivar was safe, nor if Louisa had escaped, nor even if the gonfalon had survived the turmoil in the narrow streets. All he could do was take the salvation Vivar had offered. ‘That bastard was a clever bugger!’ Sharpe said to Harper. ‘Inside the city all the time! Christ, he must have been laughing at us!’ Doubtless, after Louisa had seen the Frenchmen parade in the plaza, de l’Eclin and most of his men had simply returned to the rear of the palace while a few hundred of the Dragoons had ridden south. It was clever, and it had led to this shambles. There was no honour in it, none, for the French had broken the truce, but Sharpe had seen what little honour there was in this bitter war between Spain and France.

‘Fighting in a bloody cathedral!’ Harper was still indignant.

‘You did for him, anyway.’

‘For him! I did for three of the bastards. Three bastards who won’t fight in a cathedral again.’

Sharpe could not help but laugh. He had reached a break in the city wall which opened into empty countryside. The ground fell steeply there, leading to a stream that was a slash of silver in the gathering dusk. Refugees were fleeing across the stream, then climbing towards the hills and safety. There were no Frenchmen in sight. Sharpe presumed that the enemy were still embroiled in the streets where Vivar fought his hopeless delaying action. ‘Load,’ he ordered.

The men stopped and began to load their rifles. Harper, evidently recovered from his indignation at French impiety, checked with his ramrod halfway down the barrel. He began to laugh.

‘Share the joke, Sergeant?’ Sharpe said.

‘Have you seen yourself, sir?’

The men also began to laugh. Sharpe looked down and realized that his trousers, torn already, had ripped clean off his right thigh. He tore at the rotten scraps of cloth until his right leg was virtually naked. ‘So? You think we can’t beat the bastards half-dressed?’

‘They’ll run away in fright if they see you, sir,’ Gataker said.

‘All right, lads.’ Sharpe sensed from their laughter that the men knew they were safe. They had escaped the French, the battle was over, and all they needed to do was cross the small valley and climb into the hills. He looked back once, hoping to see Vivar, but the street was empty. Screams, shouts, shots, and the clangour of steel told of the battles which still filled the inner city, but the Riflemen had slipped through the chaos to this safety. Nor was there any merit in returning to the fight. The duty of every man now was to escape. ‘Straight across the valley, lads! We’ll stop on the far ridge!’

The greenjackets left the cover of the wall, walking down through the rough, steep pasture which led to the boggy stream where, only this morning, Sharpe had neglected to placate the water spirits. In front of them, and scattered thick throughout the valley, was a mass of refugees. Some were civilians, some wore the ragged brown tunic of Vivar’s volunteers, and a few were Cazadores who had become separated from their squadrons. There was still no sign of Vivar, nor of Louisa, nor of the gonfalon. Two monks, their robes clutched high, waded the stream.

‘Shall we wait, sir?’ Harper, anxious for Major Vivar’s safety, wanted to stay by the stream.

‘On the far bank,’ Sharpe said. ‘We can give covering fire from there.’

Then a trumpet called from the south, and Sharpe turned to find that it was all over. The adventure, the hopes, all the impossible dreams that had come so very close to triumph, were done.

Because, like gold heated to incandescence, the helmets of the enemy flared in the dying sun. Because three hundred Frenchmen had ridden around the city, Sharpe was trapped, and the day of miracles was done.

The Dragoons, who had menaced the west of the city, had ridden around its southern margins to block the eastern escape route. Now they filled the valley to the south where their helmets glowed bright in the day’s last light. They were led by the horseman who wore de l’Eclin’s red pelisse, but who carried a sabre in his right hand.

The refugees began to run, but the boggy ground made their panicked flight clumsy and slow. Most tried to cross the stream, some went north, while a few ran towards the dubious safety of Sharpe’s Riflemen.

‘Sir?’ Harper asked.

But there was nothing helpful that Sharpe could say in answer. It was over. No safety lay in the tumult which still echoed within the city, nor was there time to cross the stream or retreat northwards. The Rifles were in open ground, trapped by cavalry, and Sharpe must form a rally square and fight the bastards to the end. A soldier might be beaten, but he never grovelled. He would take as many of the triumphant bastards as he could and, in years to come, when French soldiers crouched by camp fires in some remote land, a few would shudder to remember a fight in a northern Spanish valley. ‘Form up! Three ranks!’ Sharpe would fire one volley, then contract into the square. The hooves would thunder past, the blades slash and glitter, and slowly his men would be cut down.

Sharpe cut at a weed patch with his sword. ‘I’m not going to surrender, Sergeant.’

‘Never thought you would, sir.’

‘But once we’re broken, the men can give up.’

‘Not if I’m watching them, sir.’

Sharpe grinned at the big Irishman. ‘Thank you for everything.’

‘I still say you punch harder than any man I’ve ever known.’

‘I’d forgotten that.’ Sharpe laughed. He saw that some of the dismounted Cazadores and volunteers had run to form crude extensions of his three ranks. He wished they had not come, for their clumsiness would only make his final stand more vulnerable, but he would not turn them away. He slashed his sword left and right as though practising for the last moments. The French Dragoons had checked their slow, menacing advance. Their front rank stood motionless a quarter-mile away. It looked a long distance, but Sharpe knew with what cruel speed cavalry could cover the ground when their trumpeter hurled them forward.

He turned his back on the enemy and looked at his men. ‘What we should have done, lads, is gone north.’

There was a moment’s silence, then the greenjackets remembered the argument that had driven Harper to try and kill Sharpe. They laughed.

‘But tonight,’ Sharpe said, ‘you have my permission to get drunk. And in case I don’t have another chance to tell you, you’re the best damned troops I’ve ever fought with.’

The men recognized the apology for what it was, and cheered. Sharpe thought what a long time it had taken him to earn that cheer, then turned away from the Riflemen so they would not see his pleasure and embarrassment.

He turned in time to see a knot of horsemen ride from the city. One of them was the Count of Mouromorto, distinctive in his long black coat and tall white boots. Another, in a red dolman jacket and with hair as gold as the Dragoons’ helmets, rode a big black horse. The waiting French Dragoons cheered as Colonel de l’Eclin took his pelisse and colback from the man who had worn them. The Count rode to the rear squadron, the French reserve, while the chasseur took his proper place at the very front of the charge. Sharpe watched as he adjusted the scarlet pelisse on his shoulder, as he crammed the big fur colback on his head, and as he drew the sabre with his left hand. Sharpe prayed that he would see de l’Eclin dead before he himself went down under the hooves and blades of the enemy.

‘Lieutenant!’

Sharpe turned to see Louisa ride up to the rear of his men. ‘Go!’ He pointed eastwards to where there might be safety. Her horse would give her a speed that was denied to the refugees on foot. ‘Ride!’

‘Where’s Don Blas?’

‘I don’t know! Now go!’

‘I’m staying!’

‘Sir!’ Harper shouted the warning.

Sharpe turned back. Colonel de l’Eclin’s sabre was raised to start the French advance. There was sodden ground to the right of the Dragoons, and a steep slope to their left, so the charge would be constricted into a channel of firm ground that was about a hundred paces across. A few muskets flickered flame beyond the stream, but the range was too long and the flank Dragoons ignored it.

Colonel de l’Eclin’s sabre dropped, and the trumpeter sounded the advance. The leading squadron walked forward. When they had gone fifty yards, Sharpe knew, the second French line would start their slow advance. The third line would stay another fifty yards behind. This was the classic cavalry attack, leaving enough space between the lines so that a fallen horse in the front rank did not trip and bring down the horses behind. It was slow at first, but very menacing.

‘Front rank, kneel!’ Sharpe said calmly.

The Dragoons walked their horses, for they wanted to keep their dressing tight. They would accelerate soon, but Sharpe knew they would not spur into a gallop until just seconds before the charge crashed home. Musket shots and screams sounded from the city, evidence that Spaniard still fought Frenchmen in the darkening streets, but that battle was no longer Sharpe’s concern.

Colonel de l’Eclin raised the sabre in his left hand and the first squadron went into the trot. The trumpet confirmed the order. Sharpe could hear the cavalry now. He could hear the jingle of curb chains, the slap of saddle flaps, and the thump of hooves. A guidon reared above the front rank.

‘Steady, lads, steady.’ There was nothing else Sharpe could say. He commanded a ragged line of men who would resist for an instant, then be ridden over by the big horses. ‘Are you still there, Miss Louisa?’

‘Yes!’ Louisa’s nervous voice came from behind the ranks of Riflemen.

‘Then, if you’ll forgive me, bugger off!’

His men laughed. Sharpe could see the Dragoon’s pigtails bouncing beneath the darkening helmets. ‘Are you still there, Miss Louisa?’

‘Yes!’ This time there was defiance in her voice.

‘It isn’t gentle, Miss Louisa! They’ll hack about like bloody butchers! They may not even notice you’re a girl till they’ve sliced half your face away. Now bugger off! You’re too pretty to be killed by these bastards!’

‘I’m staying!’

Colonel de l’Eclin raised his sabre again. Sharpe could hear the creak of saddles now. ‘Hagman? That cheating bastard is yours.’

‘Sir!’

Sharpe forgot Louisa. He crammed himself between two of his front-rank men and held his sword high. ‘Wait for my word! I’m not going to fire till the bastards are breathing down our necks! But when they come we’re going to make these sons of whores wish they hadn’t been bloody born!’ The approaching horses tossed their heads nervously. They knew what was coming, and Sharpe allowed himself a moment’s pity for the butchery that he must inflict. ‘Aim at the horses!’ he reminded his men. ‘Forget the riders, kill the horses!’

‘For what we are about to receive,’ Harper said.

Riflemen licked powder-gritted lips. They nervously checked that the rifle pans were primed and the flints well seated in the leather-lined dogheads. Their mouths were dry and their stomachs tender. The vibration of the trotting horses was palpable in the soil, like the passing of great guns on a nearby road. Or, Sharpe thought, like the tremor of thunder on a sultry day that presaged the stab of lightning.

Colondel de l’Eclin lowered his curved blade in the signal for his men to go into the canter. In a few seconds, Sharpe knew, the trumpet would call for the gallop and the big horses would surge forward. He took a breath, knowing he must judge the moment for this one volley to exquisite perfection.

Then the lightning struck.

There were only just over fifty men, but they were Vivar’s elite company, the crimson-coated Cazadores, who burst from the city to charge downhill. It was a tired squadron, wearied by a night and day of fighting, but above them, like a ripple of glory in the dark sky, flew the gonfalon of Santiago Matamoros. The scarlet cross was bright as blood.

‘Santiago!’ Vivar led them. Vivar spurred them on. Vivar screamed the war cry that could snatch a miracle from defeat. ‘Santiago!’

The slope gave the Cazadores’s charge speed, while the banner gave them the courage of martyrs. They struck the edge of the first French line like a thunderbolt and the swords carved bloody ruin into the Dragoons. De l’Eclin was shouting, turning, trying to realign his men, but the banner of the saint was driving deep into the French squadron. The gonfalon’s long tail was already flecked with an enemy’s blood.

‘Charge!’ Sharpe was running. ‘Charge!’

The second French squadron spurred forward, but Vivar had foreseen it and swerved right to take his men into their centre. Behind him was a chaos of milling horses. Cavalry hacked at cavalry.

‘Halt!’ Sharpe held both arms out to bar his men’s mad rush. ‘Steady, lads! One volley. Aim left! Aim at the horses! Fire!’

The Riflemen fired at the untouched horsemen on the right of the French charge. Horses fell screaming to the mud. Dragoons kicked boots from stirrups and rolled away from their dying beasts. ‘Now kill the bastards!’ Sharpe screamed the incantation as he ran. ‘Kill! Kill!’

A rabble of men ran to the broken French line. There were Riflemen, Cazadores, and country men who had left their homes to carry war against an invader. Dragoons hacked down with long swords, but the rabble surrounded them and slashed at horses and clawed men from their saddles. This was not how an army fought, but how an untutored people took terror to an enemy.

Colonel de l’Eclin swivelled his horse to keep the rabble at bay. His sabre hissed to kill a Cazador, lunged to drive a Spaniard back, and sliced to parry a Rifleman’s sword-bayonet. The Dragoons were being driven to the boggy ground where the horses slithered and slipped. A trumpeter was dragged from his grey horse and savaged with knives. Knots of Frenchmen tried to hack through the mob. Sharpe used both hands to hack down at a horse’s neck, then swung back to send its rider clean from the saddle. A woman from the city sawed with a knife at the fallen Frenchman’s neck. Fugitives were running back from the stream’s eastern bank, coming to join a slaughter.

A trumpet drove the third French squadron into the chaos. The field was bloody, but still the white gonfalon floated high where Blas Vivar drove his crimson elite like a blade into the enemy. A Spanish Sergeant held the great banner that had been hung from a cross-staff on a pole. He waved it so that the silk made a serpentine challenge in the dusk.

The Count of Mouromorto saw the challenge and despised it. That streamer of silk was everything he hated in Spain; it stood for the old ways, for the domination of church over ideas, for the tyranny of a God he had rejected, and so the Count raked back his spurs and drove his horse into the men who guarded the gonfalon.

‘He’s mine!’ Vivar yelled again and again. ‘Mine! Mine!’

The brothers’ swords met, scraped, disengaged. Vivar’s horse turned into the enemy as it was trained to, and Vivar lunged. The Count parried. A Cazador rode to take him in the rear, but Vivar shouted at the man to stay clear. ‘He’s mine!’

The Count gave two quick hard blows that would have driven a weaker man from the saddle. Vivar parried both, back-cut, and turned the cut into a lunge that drew blood from his brother’s thigh. The blood dripped onto the white boots.

The Count touched his horse with a spur; it went sideways, then, to another touch, lunged back. Mouromorto snarled, knowing that this battle was won as his long sword lunged at his brother.

But Vivar leaned back in the saddle, right back, so that his brother’s blade hissed past him and could not be brought back fast enough as he straightened and speared his own sword forward. The steel juddered into Mouromorto’s belly. Their eyes met, and Vivar twisted the blade. He felt pity, and knew he could not afford pity. ‘Traitor!’ He twisted the blade again, then raised his boot to push the horse away and disengage his long sword. The steel shuddered free, blood gushed onto the Count’s pommel, and his scream was an agony that died as he fell onto the blood-soaked mud.

‘Santiago!’ Vivar shouted in triumph, and the shout was carried across the small valley as the Cazadores rallied to the banner of the dead saint and raised their swords against the third French squadron.

The Riflemen were hunting among the remnants of the first two squadrons. Dragoons were turning their horses to flee, knowing they had been beaten by the savagery of the attack. A Cazador’s sword opened the throat of the French standard bearer, and the Spaniard seized the enemy guidon and raised it high in celebration of victory. Colonel de l’Eclin saw the capture of the small flag and knew that he was beaten; beaten by the great white gonfalon of Matamoros.

‘Back!’ The chasseur knew when a fight was hopeless, and knew when it was better to save a handful of men who could fight again.

‘No!’ Sharpe saw the Colonel order the retreat, and he ran towards the Frenchman. ‘No!’ His ankle still hurt from his jump from the cathedral platform, the pain made his run ungainly and the soggy ground half tripped him, but he forced himself on. He outstripped his Riflemen and still shouted in frustrated anger. ‘You bastard! No!’

De l’Eclin heard the insult. He turned, saw Sharpe was isolated from the greenjacketed men and, as any cavalry officer would, he accepted the challenge. He rode at Sharpe, remembering when he had fought the Rifleman before that he had used the simple ruse of switching his sabre from right to left hand. That stratagem could not be repeated, instead the Colonel would rowel his horse at the last moment so that the black stallion surged into a killing speed that would put all its momentum behind his sabre stroke. Sharpe waited with his sword ready to swing at the horse’s mouth. Someone shouted at him to jump aside, but the Rifleman held his ground as the big black horse bore down on him. De l’Eclin was holding his sabre so that its point would spear into Sharpe’s ribs, but in the very last second, just as the spurred horse surged for the kill, the Frenchman changed his stroke. He did it with the quickness of a snake striking, raising and turning the blade so that it would slash down onto Sharpe’s bare head. De l’Eclin shouted in triumph as his sabre came down and as the Rifleman, whose sword had missed his horse, crumpled beneath that stroke.