Sharpe's Enemy (31 page)

It had been a night of frantic business, a load falling from Sharpe’s shoulders when, at five o‘clock, Sir Augustus Farthingdale and Josefina had ridden westward down the pass with four lightly wounded Fusiliers mounted on Gilliland’s troop horses as escort. An hour later Sharpe had sent the women and children westward, herded on their way by Cross’s Riflemen who had pushed them a mile down the pass and then left them to their own devices. Nearly four hundred prisoners remained in the Castle dungeons, guarded by the other lightly wounded Fusiliers. The wounded had been brought by wagon from the Convent to the Castle, carried up to the big room that looked westward and would be furthest from the French cannon-fire. The surgeon, a tall, grim man, had laid his probes, saws and knives on a table carried up from the kitchens.

Three Companies of Fusiliers were now at the watchtower, reinforcing Frederickson’s seventy-nine Riflemen. Sharpe had ensured that the best Captains were at the tower, men who could fight on the isolated hill and not look for orders that might never arrive. The weakest Captains, two of them, he had put in the Convent, and with them was Harry Price with Sharpe’s old Company and eight of Cross’s Riflemen. A hundred and seven men held the Convent, not counting officers, exactly half the number of Riflemen and Fusiliers who now crouched on the reverse slope of the watchtower hill. Sharpe had given the Convent one advantage. Patrick Harper was there, and Sharpe had put weak Captains into the building to make it easier for the Irish Sergeant to run the defence. Frederickson held Sharpe’s right, Harper his left, and in the centre, the Castle. Sharpe had forty of Cross’s Riflemen with two hundred and thirty-five Fusiliers. The Rocket Troop had gone south, hidden over the crest, the men nervous on their saddles with the strange lances in their hands.

‘Sir?’ An Ensign in the stairway that went up towards the gate-tower top called down to Sharpe.

‘Yes?’

‘One man riding to the watchtower, sir.’

Sharpe swore quietly. He had tried so hard to convince the enemy that the positions were deserted. Harper had led a group of Riflemen away from the watchtower, waited by the gatehouse as one Company of Fusiliers had conspicuously lowered the Colours and formed up outside the Castle, and then all of them had dropped beneath the lip of the pass before turning right and entering the Convent through the hole hacked for Pot-au-Feu’s gun. The officer, one of the Fusilier’s brighter men, had ridden south and scrambled his horse up steep slopes to join Gilliland’s nervous men.

‘And sir?’

‘Yes?’

‘One Battalion coming towards us. On the road, sir.’ That was better. It was all Sharpe could hope for, one single Battalion to check that the buildings were clear, one single Battalion that he could chop into pieces before breakfast. He climbed the stairs and the Ensign made way for him. He kept well back from the arrow slit and watched the Frenchmen come west on the road. They marched casually, muskets slung, and some still held bread in their hands from their breakfasts.

A French Captain, released by his Colonel’s orders, rode ahead of the Battalion. He stared up at the Castle keep and saw a bird fly from one of the gaping holes in its stonework. A second bird appeared, big and black, and perched on the ramparts to preen itself. He grinned because the buildings were empty.

Sharpe was back in the chamber that had held the winding gear for the portcullis. He saw the Captain come easily up the road, saw the man’s face look up at the arrow slit and it seemed certain that the man must see him, but the Captain’s eyes went on up to the rampart. ‘Now.’

The Fusilier, crouched beneath the left hand arrow slit, opened the second basket and the jackdaw cawed in anger, flapped furiously towards the light and squeezed itself through the stones and up into the air. The horse, only feet beneath, shied, and Sharpe heard the Captain soothe it.

The Captain stroked the horse’s neck, patted it. ‘You’re frightened of a bird, eh?’ He chuckled, went on patting it, and then the horse-shoes echoed loud on the stones of the tunnel that sloped up into the courtyard. He chuckled again because someone had chalked big letters on the stone of the tunnel.
‘Bonjour’.

The men in the chamber held their breath.

The Captain rode into the courtyard and saw where the rain had smudged and faded the bloodstains. The remains of a fire smoked lazily to his right in front of what appeared to be a long, low stable block. His horse was uneasy, tossing its head and moving sideways in short, quick steps. He patted it again.

One of the General’s aides-de camp, a man curious about the buildings of Spain, had ridden through the thorns to the watchtower. The thorns were thick here, the path tortuous and marked by small knots of old, faded wool left from the summer when sheep grazed these high pastures. He tied his horse to the bough of a thorn, cursing quietly as a spine scratched his hand, and then he took from his saddlebag a sketch pad and pencil. These towers, he knew, had been built against the Moors and this one was in fine condition. He strolled towards it, saw the gun in its earthen pit and saw, too, the nail that had been driven into the touch-hole. It was odd, he thought, that the British had not snipped the nail off flush with the breech, but they had left in a hurry. The gun was old, anyway, of a calibre not used by the French, so it was not much of a trophy.

He turned and watched the single Battalion march towards Castle and Convent, saw the Captain ride beneath the archway, and he looked right to where the other two Battalions were forming up in the village street. These were the new garrison of the Gateway of God, the men who would ensure that the troops who would march to Vila Nova would have a safe haven behind them for their withdrawal, and then he looked at the arched doorway to the tower. A small gasp of surprise came from his mouth. The door was round arched and decorated with a zig-zag pattern, distinctively French, and he took it as a good omen that some French knight or mason had supervised the building of this watchtower in a strange land. His pencil sketched the arch, skilful strokes shading the Norman decoration, and thirty yards away Sweet William watched him. The eye-patch and teeth were in his pocket.

The General was on horseback, now, pulling his sword into place, preparing for the day’s march. ‘What’s Pierre doing?’

‘Sketching, sir.’

‘My God!’ His voice was amused. ‘Is there a building he hasn’t sketched?’

‘He says he’s going to write a book, sir,’ said another aide-de-camp.

The General gave his strange laugh. The Battalion was turning to the left, approaching the Castle. The General pushed his canteen of wine into place, checked that the small leather case on his saddle pommel had the day’s supply of paper and pencil for scribbled messages, then grinned at the aide-de-camp. ‘I once knew a man who wrote a book.’ He scratched his chin. ‘His breath smelt.’

The aide-de-camp laughed dutifully.

And the bugle sounded from the gatehouse.

Frederickson did not move. He had hoped that at least a Company of French Infantry would be sent to the watchtower, but there was only this single man, sketch pad in hand, whose slim, good-looking face, was turned worriedly towards the Castle.

The bugle sounded again, the notes unmistakably ordering ‘Incline to the right’, but this morning it told the carefully positioned British troops which of the three prepared plans was to be followed. The call was a repeated sequence of two notes that reminded Frederickson of a hunting-field call. The fox hunts would be out in England at this hour.

The aide-de-camp with his sketching pad started towards his horse, then stopped. No one threatened him. He frowned and, with his usual meticulous care, took a watch from his pocket, snapped open the lid that was engraved with a message from his father, and noted the time on the corner of the pad. Four minutes to nine. He looked quickly round the hilltop, seeing the second gun in its fresh pit facing south, but still seeing no enemy. Then he saw the redcoats in the Castle and he stood, aghast, and watched the musket smoke smear the morning.

The Captain whose horse was nervous had ridden to the great gate into the keep. The archway was blocked with stones, waist high, and he could see the empty inner courtyard beyond. His horse was still frightened by something, and that was strange, but he rubbed the neck, spoke fondly to it, and turned towards the stable-block. He could hear the boots of the leading Companies coming towards the Castle.

The Colonel of the Battalion waved grumpily to another Captain who wheeled his troops right, onto the Convent road, and then the Colonel looked back to the gatehouse. A fine building once, he thought.

The Captain put spurs to his horse and trotted back towards the Castle gate. He could at least confirm the abandonment of the Castle, and he grinned as he stroked his horse’s neck, and then the horse shied again for the gate house was suddenly swarming with men. An officer, a Rifleman, had appeared from the gate leading to the northern ramparts, and a lad was beside him, bugle to his mouth, and the notes jerked into the valley. More men poured from a small door in the gatehouse, Riflemen, who ran into the tunnel and knelt with their weapons aimed. They seemed to ignore him, as did the other green-jacketed men who ran past the officer to the northern wall, and then there was a shout, a cheer, and a rush of feet behind him.

Redcoats were climbing from the keep, sprinting for the fallen eastern wait of the Castle, Sergeants bellowing at them, officers shouting, and the French Captain was alone in a courtyard of the enemy and he put hand to his sword and then saw the Rifle officer on the northern rampart waving to him. The wave was obvious. Dismount. Surrender. Next to the officer a Greenjacket knelt with levelled gun.

The Captain swore bitterly, dismounted, and the first guns split the morning.

Sharpe turned back. The leading French Company was thirty yards from the Castle as the rifle bullets dropped the front rank, then the second, and he glanced to his left to watch other Riflemen aiming for the officers. Rifles snapped from the turret at the gatehouse top and Sharpe saw the French Colonel thrown backwards from his horse, blood spattering his uniform, and then another volley of rifle bullets drove into the leading Company and the French officers were shouting at their men, forming them into line, and the deadly rifles on the ramparts picked the officers off and then went for the men in the single gold Sergeants’ stripes.

‘Keep playing, lad.’ The bugler had stopped for breath.

A half-company of redcoats thundered into the gateway, lined in front of the arch, and the muskets flamed, the smoke thick in their front, and Sharpe knew that the French could not succeed in a desperate frontal charge. That had been their one hope, if their officers had lived to realize it, and now Sharpe ran back into the gatehouse, down the stairs, and out into the courtyard towards the eastern wall.

Stop them at the gate, then take them in the flank. He could hear the French shouting, hear the rattle of ramrods desperate in muskets, and then he was across the wall and the officers were shouting behind him, forming the half Battalion of Fusiliers into two ranks, a line to sweep north across the valley, and he turned to face them.

He waited as redcoats stumbled into place, checked their dressing, and Sharpe did not hurry them. This had to be perfect, for this was the one chance they would have to fight in the open valley and he did not want the Fusiliers to go forward in a hurry, their concentration broken by excitement and fear, and he waved at one gap between Companies. ‘Close them up, Sergeant!’

‘Sir!’

‘Fix Bayonets!’

The rattle and scrape along the line. Rifles sounded by the gatehouse, the crash of muskets, then, at last, the first French replies as the dazed Battalion formed a ragged line at the crossroads.

Sharpe turned, drew the great sword. ‘Forward!’

He would have liked a band at this moment, he wanted to hear the music in his ears as he went forward, the crash of a good tune such as ‘The Downfall of Paris’ or, better still, the Rifle’s song ’Over the Hills and Far Away‘, but there was only the bugle still sounding. He looked left and still no more French troops were visible. He feared the cavalry and had an officer with Cross’s second bugler on the keep to sound a warning if it appeared.

He looked to his front again. The Riflemen on the Convent roof were biting into the back of the French. They were panicking now, the enemy, crowding eastwards towards the village and Sharpe wanted that. He inclined the line to the left, forcing the French east, and the Riflemen from the gateway sprinted further left as the Fusiliers blocked the line of fire from the gate.

The nervousness was gone now, the hours of doubt as the night crawled by, the moments of waiting to unleash this small force against the enemy, and Sharpe felt the roadway beneath his boots and saw the French fifty yards ahead, and already he was picking his way through their dead. A musket ball went close to his head, a fluttering noise that left a tiny slap of wind, and he saw a Frenchman who had died with a look of utter astonishment on his young face. Behind Sharpe the Sergeants called. ‘Close up! Close up!’ They were taking casualties.

Sharpe stopped, listened to the boots behind him, heard the Rifles from the gatehouse, and the two rank line came up to him. ‘Fusiliers! Present!’

The twin line of muskets, steel tipped, went to the shoulders. To the French it seemed as if the red line had made a quarter turn to the right.

‘Fire!’

Flames gouted into smoke, a killing volley at short range, and the cloud spread in front of the Fusiliers obscuring their view.

‘Left wheel!’ This would be ragged, but this did not matter. His ears rang with the bellow of the muskets.

‘Charge!’

Bayonets from the smoke, swords in the hands of officers, and Sharpe bellowed with them as he ran out of the smoke cloud and saw the French running as he had known they would run. Timing was all. This had been rehearsed in his head again and again, thought through in the lonely hours, dreamed of as the rain fell on the weed strewn cobbles of the yard. ‘Halt! Dress!’