They advanced over the flat, open ground, unencumbered by horsemen. The difficult stretch was the final hundred paces when the company would have to keep in ranks while they stepped over the dead and wounded and when the French would realise the danger and challenge them. He wondered how much time had elapsed since the fatal Spanish volley; it could only be minutes, yet suddenly he was feeling again the sensations of battle. There was a familiar detachment; he knew it would last until the first volley or blow, and he noticed irrelevant details; it seemed as if the ground were moving beneath him rather than he walking on the dusty, cracked soil of early summer. He saw each sparse blade of pale grass; there were ants scurrying round white specks in the dirt. The fight round the colours seemed far away, the sounds tiny, and he wanted to close the gap. There were the beginnings of excitement, elation even, at the nearness of battle. Some men were fulfilled by music, others by trade; there were men who took pleasure in working the soil, but Sharpe’s instincts were for this. For the danger of battle. He had been a soldier half his life, he knew the discomforts, the injustices, he knew the half-pitying glances of men whose business let them sleep safe at night, but they did not know this. He knew that not all soldiers felt it; he could feel ashamed of it if he gave himself time to think, but this was not the time.
The French were being held. Someone had organised the survivors of the British square, and there was a kneeling front rank, its muskets jammed into the turf, bayonets reaching up at the chests of the horses. The sabres cut ineffectively at the angled muskets; there were shouts, screams of men and horses, a veil of powder smoke in which flashes of flame and steel ringed the colours. As he walked, the great sword held low in his hand, he could see riderless horses trotting round the melee where Chasseurs had been shot or dragged from the saddles. Some of the French were on foot, scything their blades or even tearing with bare hands at the British ranks. An officer of the South Essex forced his horse out of the ring, the ranks closing instantly behind him. He was hatless, his face unrecognisable under a mask of blood. He wrenched his horse into a charge and lunged his slim, straight sword into the body of a Chasseur. The blade stuck. Sharpe watched him tug at the handle, his crazed fanaticism turning to fear, and in an instant a Frenchman showed how it should be done, his sabre neatly spearing into the Englishman’s chest; the blade turned, easily drawn out as the red-coated officer fell with his victim. Another Chasseur, on foot, hacked blindly at the unyielding ranks. A soldier parried the blow, jabbed forward with the bayonet, and the Frenchman was dead. Well done, thought Sharpe, the point always beats the edge.
A bugle call. He looked right and saw the French reserve walk forward. They advanced deliberately towards the carnage round the colours. They held no sabres, and Sharpe knew what was in the mind of the French Colonel. The British square, or what was left of it, had held and the light cavalry sabres could not break it. But Chasseurs, unlike most cavalry, carried carbines, and they planned to pour a volley from close range into the red-coated ranks that would tear them apart and let the swordsmen into the gap. He increased his pace but knew they could not reach the colours before the fresh cavalry, and he watched, sickened, as with meticulous discipline some of the hacking swordsmen wheeled their mounts away from the crude square to give the carbines a field of fire. The horsemen picked their way through the dead and wounded. Sharpe saw the British feverishly loading muskets, skinning their knuckles on the barrels, but they were too late. The French stopped, fired, wheeled to let a second rank stop and hurl their volley at the South Essex. A few muskets replied, one Chasseur toppled to the ground, a ramrod wheeled wickedly through the air as some terrified soldier shot it from his half loaded musket. The French volleys tore the front ranks apart; a great wound was opened in the red formation, and the enemy poured in their curved blades to hold it apart and claw deeper into the infantry, where they could snatch and win the greatest prize a man could win on the battlefield.
Sharpe’s men were among the bodies now. He stepped over a British private whose head had been virtually severed by a sabre cut. Behind him someone retched. He remembered that most of the men of the South Essex had never seen a battle, had no real idea what weapons did to man’s flesh. The survivors of the square were falling back towards him, retreating from the wounded edge, losing cohesion. He saw the colours dip and rise again, caught a glimpse of an officer screaming at the men, urging them to fight back at the horses that lashed with their hooves and carried the terrible sabres. There was so little time. More Frenchmen were fighting on foot, trying to beat aside the bayonets and force their way to the flag-staffs, to glory. Then he had his own problems. He saw a French officer tugging and hitting at his men; Sharpe’s company had been spotted, and the Frenchman knew what a hundred loaded muskets could do to the packed horsemen who were concentrated round the flags. He pulled some of the men out of the fight, aligned them hurriedly, and launched them against the new danger. He had only managed to scrape together a dozen men and horses. Sharpe turned.
“Halt!”
He kept his back to the horsemen. In his head he knew how many seconds he had, and the frightened men of the South Essex who stared at him desperately needed a demonstration of what well-fought infantry could do to cavalry.
“Rear rank! About turn!” He needed to guard the rear in case any horsemen circled round. Harper was there. “Front rank, kneel!”
He walked towards them, calmly, and climbed over the kneeling front rank so that he was in the safety of the formation. The horses were fifty yards away.
“Only the middle rank will fire! Only the middle rank! Riflemen, hold your fire! Only the middle rank! Wait for it! Aim low! Aim at the stomach! We’re going to let them come close! Wait! Wait! Wait!”
The swords of the French were bloodied to the hilt, their horses were lathered, the riders’ faces drawn back in the rictus of men who have fought and killed desperately. Yet their victory over four times their number had been so easily gained that these horsemen thought themselves capable of anything.
The dozen Frenchmen rode at Sharpe’s company, oblivious of their danger, confident in their ecstasy that these British would collapse as easily as the two squares. Sharpe watched them come at a reckless gallop, saw the clods of turf thrown up by the hooves, the bared teeth and flying manes of the horses. He waited, kept talking in a measured, loud voice.
“Wait for them! Wait! Wait!” Forty yards, thirty. At the last moment the French officer realised what he had done. Sharpe watched him saw at his horse’s bit, but it was too late.
“Fire!”
The Chasseurs disintegrated. It was a small volley, only a couple of dozen muskets, but he fired it murderously close. The horses fell; a couple skidded almost to the front rank; riders were hurled onto the ground in a maelstrom of hooves, sabres and arms. Not one Chasseur was left.
“On your feet! Forward!”
He stepped in front again and led them past the bloody remains of their attackers. One Frenchman was alive, his leg broken by his falling horse, and he slashed upwards at Sharpe with his sabre. Sharpe did not bother to cut back. He kicked the wounded man’s wrist so that the blade fell from his hand. The company stepped round the dead men and horses; they began to hurry; the fight round the colours was being lost, the British being forced back, the French inching forward behind the searing blades. Sharpe saw the long pikes of the Sergeants who guarded the colours being used; one of them swung over the chaos; it crashed on to a horse’s head so that it reared up, throwing its rider, blood streaming from its forelock. The discipline of the square had vanished with the French carbine fire. Sharpe could see no officers; they had to be there, but now the French were close to the colours and men from the shattered square were running towards Sharpe and the safety of his levelled bayonets. He beat them aside with his sword, screamed at them to go to the side. He had to halt, unable to make headway against the fugitives, and he swung the flat of his blade at them. Harper joined him and beat at the fugitives with his rifle butt; the Irishman’s huge bulk forced the running men to the flanks, where they could safely join Sharpe’s company. Then it was clear and he went on, the blade still swinging, his blood seething with the joy of it. He had not intended a bayonet charge but there was so little time. The colours were swaying, a Frenchman’s hand on a staff was cut down by an officer’s sword, and then the colours collapsed.
Sharpe screamed unintelligible words; he was running, the men behind him stumbling on bodies and slipping on the smears of new blood. A dismounted Chasseur came for him, the sabre cutting at him in a great sweep. He put up his blade, the Frenchman’s sword shattered, he cut at his neck, felt the man fall and stumbled on. Horses blocked his sight of the colours; there were the cracks of the rifles; a man fell. He caught a glimpse of Harper bodily pulling a Chasseur off his horse; the Sergeant’s face was a terrible mask of rage and strength. Another horseman came, heaving on his rein to clear his swing at Sharpe, and disappeared backwards as Sharpe cracked his great sword into the horse’s jaw. He saw the horse rear up, screaming, the Chasseur let go of his sabre and Sharpe caught a glimpse of the shining blade hanging from its wrist strap as man and horse fell backwards. There was still a group of redcoats by the fallen colours, surrounded by horsemen, and Sharpe saw two Frenchmen dismount to pull at the last defenders with their bare hands.
Then the red jackets seemed to disappear; there were only Chasseurs and French shouts of triumph as the dead were heaved from the staffs and the colours snatched up. Sharpe turned and held the blood-covered blade high over his head.
“Halt! Present!” He was directly in their line of fire and he threw himself flat, pulling Harper down, as he screamed the order to fire. The volley smashed overhead, and then they were up and running. The musket balls had plucked the Frenchmen from the colours, the flags had fallen again, but this time surrounded by enemy as well as British dead.
There were only a few yards to go but there were more horsemen spurring in towards the place where so many had died for the possession of the colours. Sharpe threw himself over the bodies, scrambled on blood and limbs, reached for a staff and pulled it towards him. It was the Regimental Colour, its bright yellow field torn with fresh holes, and he jammed his sword point downwards into a corpse and swung the staff like a primitive club at the horsemen. The King’s Colour was too far away. Harper was going for it, but a horse cannoned into the Sergeant and threw him back. Another horse reared and swerved from the great billow of yellow silk in Sharpe’s hand, a sword struck the staff and Sharpe saw splinters fly from the new wood; then he was hit by the net of forage strapped to the saddle and thrown over. He could smell the horses, see the hooves in the air over him, the face of the Frenchman framed by his silver shako chain bending towards him to pluck the colour from his hands. He held on. A hoof came down by his face, the horse twisted away from the corpses it had stepped on, the rider tugged and suddenly let go. Sharpe saw Harper swinging a great sergeant’s pike. He had hit the rider in the spine with its blade and the man slid gently on top of Sharpe, his last breath sighing softly in the Rifleman’s ear.
Sharpe pulled himself from beneath the body. He left the colour there; it was as safe as in his hands. Harper was swinging the pike, keeping the horsemen at bay. Where was the company? Sharpe looked round and saw them running towards the fight. They were so slow! He looked for his sword, found it, and plucked it from the body where he had thrust it. The horsemen still came, trying desperately to force their unwilling horses onto the mounds of dead. Sharpe screamed again; Harper was bellowing, but there was no enemy within sword’s length. He went forward towards the King’s Colour. He could see it lying beneath two bodies some five yards away. He slipped on blood, stood again, but there were three dismounted Frenchmen coming for him with drawn sabres. Harper was beside him; one Chasseur went down with the pike blade in his stomach, the other sank beneath Sharpe’s blade which had cut through the sabre parry as though the Frenchman’s sword was made of fragile ivory. But the third had got the Union Jack, had tugged it from the bodies and was holding it out to the mounted men behind. Sharpe and Harper lunged forward; the pike thunked into the Chasseur’s back but he had done his job. A horseman had snatched the fringe of the flag and was spurring away.