Dawn showed a landscape whitened by frost and slashed by dark valleys. Smoke, like wisps of morning mist, drifted from the steep hillsides where troops brewed tea or cleared their muskets of an overnight charge. Men, stamping their boots and slapping their mittened hands against the cold, stared northwards at the heaped hills that were rocky, precipitous, and held by the enemy.
Sergeant Major Harper laughed. 'You look disappointed, Charlie. What is it? You thought they had horns and tails?
Private Charles Weller, now in d'Alembord's Light Company, was staring in awe at a small group of men who, a good half mile away from where Weller stood, struggled uphill with buckets of water to their rock-embrasured trenches at the hill's top. 'They're French?
'The real article, Charlie. Old Trousers, frogs, me-sewers, whatever you want to call the buggers. And just like us.
'Like us? Weller had been raised in a country that spoke of Frenchmen as monkeys, as devils, as anything but humans.
'Just like us. Harper sipped his tea and thought about it. 'Bit slower with their muskets and a bit nippier on their feet, but that's all. Christ, it's cold!
It was November in the mountains. The Prince of Wales' Own Volunteers had marched through high, rocky passes, shrouded in sudden fogs, the moss-grown precipices dripping with water that soaked the thin, spongy turf of the high valleys. Goats and eagles shared the rocks, wolves howled in the darkness. A storm had greeted the Battalion one night, the lightning slashing down to whiten the cliffs and crack at rocks like the whip of doom.
Somewhere in that land of fogs and rains and lightning and night-howling cold, they had crossed into France. No one was certain exactly where. One moment they were in Spain, and the next the word went through the ranks that they had entered the land of the enemy. No one cheered. They were in an army that had fought and struggled since 1793 to cross this frontier, but they were too tired to raise a cheer. The straps of their packs had chafed through the wet uniforms, their boots were filled with water, and the sergeants had threatened to crucify any man who let his powder get wet.
'Remember one thing, Charlie. Harper tossed the dregs of his tea away. 'Get yourself a French pack soon as you bloody can. More comfortable. It was possible to tell the veterans of the Regiment, not just by their faded uniforms that were patched with brown Spanish cloth, but by their good French packs. Weller grinned. His red coat, which had been so bright in Chelmsford, had turned a strange pink, the cheap dye washed by the rain to drip onto his grey trousers which were now reddened about the thighs. 'Will we fight today?
'That's what we're here for. Harper stared down at the French-held hills. The British held the higher ground, but between them and the southern plains of France was this last range of enemy-held hills, hills protected by fortifications, trenches, and marshy, treacherous ground in the valleys. Wellington, whose men had prised the French from the higher peaks in weeks of hard, confused fighting, wanted to be out of these hills before the snows came. No army could winter here. If the forts that had been hacked out of the rocks on the last foothills were not taken, then the British would have to slink back into Spain. Harper turned round. 'Private Clayton!
'Sarge?
'Look after this little bugger. Harper cuffed Weller. 'Don't want him dying in his first battle. And, Charlie?
'Sarge?
'Keep your bloody dog away from the Portuguese. They eat them when they get hungry.
Weller, landing at Pasajes in early October, had adopted the first stray dog that he found. It was a mongrel of startling ugliness, with one ear missing and a tail shortened by a fight. It proved to be a coward against all other dogs, but devoted to its new master, who had tried to christen it Buttons. The name did not stick. The rest of the Light Company, because of its ugliness and cowardice, called the dog Boney.
Major Richard Sharpe had let it be known throughout the Battalion that dogs would make suitable pets for soldiers. As a result of Sharpe's encouragement, the Prince of Wales' Own Volunteers looked, at times, as if they had collected every stray mongrel and flighty bitch in Europe.
Major General Nairn had greeted Sharpe like a long lost friend. During the three weeks that the Battalion was given to re-order its Companies and train the new men to fight in the way of the veterans, Nairn often rode over to share an evening meal with Sharpe and listen to the stories brought from England. He met Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood briefly. 'Is he mad, Sharpe? They were sitting in the wine-shop that was the officers' Mess.
'He just keeps himself to himself, sir.
'He's mad! Nairn stared reverently into his glass of whisky. Sharpe had brought two cases from London and presented them to the General. 'Mad! Nairn said. 'Reminds me of a Minister I knew in Kirkcaldy. The Reverend Robert MacTeague. Ate nothing but vegetables! Can you credit that? Thought his wife was pregnant of a moonbeam. She probably was, I doubt if he knew his business in that area, and all those cabbages? Must sap a man, Sharpe. He didn't drink, either, not a drop! Said it was the devil's brew. He turned and stared towards the door of Girdwood's room. Light showed beneath the door which had remained closed all evening. 'What does he do in there?
'Writes poetry, sir.
'Christ! Nairn stared at Sharpe, then drank a good swallow of whisky. 'You're not serious?
'I am, sir.
The old Scotsman shook his head sadly. 'Why doesn't the bugger resign?
'I really couldn't say, sir. Sharpe did not know whether his request to Lawford had borne fruit and that the threat of court-martial and disgrace had forced Girdwood to Spain, or whether the man, from his tortuous dreams of glory, simply wanted to fight his battle against the French. 'He's here, sir, that's all I know.
'While you, a finger stabbed at Sharpe, 'are commanding this Battalion, yes? You're a clever bastard, Mr Sharpe, and when you've driven that poor fool mad I'll make sure you get a real bastard of a colonel to run you ragged.
Major General Nairn was right in his surmise that Sharpe had arranged for Girdwood to command the Battalion because it enabled Sharpe to be the real commander. Girdwood, shamed and humbled by Sharpe in England, could not compete with him in Spain. The Lieutenant Colonel had tried. On their first formal parade, when the Battalion, strengthened and filled by the men from Foulness, had formed up before the storehouses of Pasajes, Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood had publicly reprimanded Major Sharpe. It was his attempt to assert his authority, to make, as he had said in private to Sharpe, a new beginning with old things forgotten.
The parade had been a formal affair, the Companies lined in their proper order, with Captains in front and Sergeants behind. Before the hoisted Colours, facing the whole parade, Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood sat his horse. Four paces behind the Colours, in the allotted place of the senior major, Sharpe stood.
'Major Sharpe! Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood, surveying his command, shouted over the heads of the Colour party.
'Sir!
'Retire two paces, if you please! The manual of drill did, indeed, stipulate that the senior major should be six paces behind the rear ranks.
Every man in the Battalion, not just those from Foulness, but the veterans too, recognised this as a trial of strength. A small thing, no doubt; but if Major Sharpe, so publicly reprimanded for his lack of military precision, took the two backward paces then Girdwood would have succeeded in asserting his formal authority over all these men. The Colonel, recognising the moment, chose to speak in a clipped, loud voice. 'Now, if you please, Major!
'Sir! Major Sharpe said. He filled his lungs. "Talion! 'Talion will march two paces forward on my word of command! 'Talion, move!
Since that moment, which had brought smiles to every face in the Battalion, Sharpe had commanded. From that moment on he paraded beside Girdwood, in the front of the Battalion, and, though he was careful to be seen consulting with the Lieutenant Colonel, and though Girdwood still presided silently in the Mess, there was not a man in the Prince of Wales' Own Volunteers who did not know who truly gave the Battalion its orders.
Major General Nairn, on his last visit to Sharpe before the Battalion was ordered forward through the mountains, had stared astonished at the still closed door. 'You're not being a bit hard on him, Sharpe?
'Yes, sir. I am. Sharpe admitted. 'At Foulness, sir, that bugger gave orders that deserters were to be shot out of hand. I saw one killed. Guessing from the books I'd say he had about a dozen others shot. No trial, no nothing. Just bang. He also hunted men in the marshland as if they were rats. He stole a lot of money. Sharpe frowned. 'So have I, in my time, but only from the enemy. I don't steal from my men. Besides, he wants to see a battle, so I'm doing him a favour.
'A favour?
‘I’ll fight his bloody battle for him, which means we stand a chance of winning. Sharpe laughed at his own immodesty.
'Any other enemies here, Major Sharpe? Nairn asked with mock innocence.
Sharpe smiled, thought of Sergeant Lynch, and lied. 'No, sir.
'Doesn't look any different to Spain, does it? Harper, with a fresh mug of tea, stood beside Sharpe on the great hill and looked down on the enemy's last fortresses before the open country.
Sharpe propped a broken mirror above a bowl of water and stropped his razor on the side of his right boot. 'Buggers didn't have trenches in Spain. He had searched the French positions with his telescope. He did not much like what he saw. The French had made the great hump of hill beneath him into a remarkable fortress. They had built dry stone walls that connected their small forts, dug trenches, and at the very end of the hill, that lay like a ridge among lesser hills, there was a series of concentric walls that surrounded a pinnacle of rock. The rock was crowned with embrasures, packed, doubtless, with muskets that could not be reached by British cannon, for no cannon could be placed in a position to reach the pinnacle. This, Sharpe knew, would be an infantryman's job. An attack uphill, against stone and trenches, against an enemy fanatical to protect their homeland.
The Battalion's orders, given to Girdwood, but taken by Sharpe, instructed the Prince of Wales' Own Volunteers to attack behind two other Battalions. The first two Battalions would take the outworks, clear the first trenches, and let the Prince of Wales' Own Volunteers go through them for the task of finishing the job. Sharpe's men were to scour the last defences and take the pinnacle, the last fortress. To the right and left of the enemy hill were others, crowned by similar works, to be screened or attacked by other Battalions. By nightfall, if all went well, the road out of the mountains would be cleared and France, with its full barns and winter pastures, would be at Wellington's disposal.
Sharpe scraped the razor over his skin without benefit of hot water. He flinched, then stolidly scraped on. 'I'm giving you a special squad, Patrick.
'Special, sir?
Sharpe dipped the blade into the icy, dirty water that had already been used by nine other officers. 'We can't make a formal bloody assault on that place. Too many god-damn rocks. It would be like threading through a maze of ditches and walls that would tear a tight formation into ruin. 'We're going in two columns, Light and Grenadier Companies leading, but I'm giving you your own squad. Go in the centre, and if you see either column in trouble, go in on their flank. Don't wait for my orders, just keep going.
'Yes, sir, Harper grinned happily. He liked such independence. 'Can I pick my men, sir?
'I've already done it. Sharpe wiped his face on his officer's sash. 'O'Grady, Kelleher, Rourke, Callaghan, Joyce, Donnell, the Pearce brothers, O'Toole, Fitzpatrick, and Halloran. He looked at Harper's wide grin. 'And I thought perhaps you ought to take an extra sergeant. Just to help you.
'And who might that be, sir?
'I don't know. Sharpe pulled on his old jacket and began to button it. 'Lynch, perhaps?
'I think the boys would be happy with that, sir.
Sharpe gave an atrocious imitation of Harper's Donegal accent. 'Grand, Patrick, just grand. And would you be minding if I finished your tea?
'Whatever you want, sir. Harper laughed. 'Christ, but it's good to be back.
At eight o'clock the Battalion was ordered down to the valley. They left the thin sunshine, going into shadow. The tracks, made by goats, forced the Companies to go in single file. Servants led their officers' horses. Sharpe, like most of the veteran officers, had left his horse with the baggage.
He had bought himself a fine seven year old mare in England, replacing the cheap saddle horse he had bought on his second journey to Foulness. Jane Gibbons had named the mare Sycorax.
'I can't even spell it!" Sharpe had growled,
'I suppose you'd call her Florence, or Peggotty. Jane stroked the mare's nose. 'Sycorax she is.
'Why Sycorax?
'She was a nasty witch with a pretty name. She was Caliban's mother, and this is your horse. She laughed at him. 'And it is a pretty name, Richard.
So Sycorax she stayed, a sturdy, dependable beast with a witch's name, bought with the proceeds of the diamonds.
Maggie Joyce was pouring the money from the diamonds into St Alban's Street where it was converted into four per cent stock. Sharpe had taken some of the jewels back. Jane had necklaces, ear-rings, and bracelets that had once been worn by a Spanish Queen. Sharpe had also taken a second necklace, the fragile, beautiful piece of filigreed gold hung with pearls and diamonds, which he had wrapped, cased, and sent by special messenger to a London address.
The reply reached him the day before the Battalion sailed from Portsmouth. "Dear Major Sharpe, How can I possibly accept such a splendid Gift? With Gratitude and astonishment, of course. You are too Generous a man. Be lucky. Anne, Countess Camoynes." There was a post-script. "You may see from the Public Papers that Lord Fenner has resigned. He no Longer has the Wealth to Sustain his position. For all Your Services, I will Remember you fondly, as I trust you will me for mine."
The Battalion formed up in the valley. From above them, dulled by distance and the convex hill slope that hid the events from the waiting men, came the sound of muskets. Sharpe ordered the Colours uncased, the Colours of the First Battalion that were stained and shredded by war. He had been commanded to add the insignia of the three white feathers onto the Battalion's badge, but there had not yet been time to put them on the flags. A wind, that carried the musket smoke into the upper air, rippled the heavy silks and stirred the yellow tassels. Cannon sounded, not British, but French mountain guns that guarded the rock fortresses. The new men looked nervously upwards, the veterans waited, and to Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood, who had dreamed so often of this moment when he would go into proper battle, the sounds seemed like a cacophony of hell and glory and trembling and death. He waited.
The horses were left with the servants in the valley. Sharpe, no longer pretending to consult Girdwood, gave the orders. The Battalion would advance in two columns. The Grenadier Company would lead the right hand column, the Light Company the left, while RSM Harper and his detail would go in the centre, ahead of Sharpe and the Colour party. 'I don't want any god-damned foolishness. We're not on a parade ground. You can't keep the ranks dressed up there, so just keep going! Listen for orders, but if you can't hear any then you won't do anything wrong if you just attack to the front. Attack! All the time! He looked round the faces, staring especially at the new men like Captain Smith and Captain Carline. 'And don't let your men settle into safe holes, understand? They like to do that, so keep them moving! Roust them out, take them forward. He described what he had seen through his telescope; the nightmare landscape of trenches and walls, of blank culverts where men could be trapped with French sharp-shooters above them, a jumbled, rocky landscape designed for defence. 'It has to be fast work! If they drive us into the ground, we're done for! So tell your men to fire on sight, not to wait for orders, and warn them there'll be sticking work. Captain Smith looked worried at the thought of bayonets. 'We go in fast. Tell them the French are more scared than we are.
'They must be bloody terrified then, Lieutenant Price said, and raised a smile from the officers.
'They are, Sharpe said, 'because they know they're fighting us. And oddly, even the new men who had never fought, and who had been given a new lease on their shabby careers, suddenly knew that they could win. They followed a soldier, and they went to a fight.
It took more than two hours to climb the hill and catch up with the first attacking Battalions. Charlie Weller, pushed into the back file of the Light Company, saw his first enemy dead; a man crumpled on the rocks, his blood congealed by the cold. Another dead Frenchman's beard was frosted white.
He saw British dead, one with an arm seemingly torn from the socket, another blown apart by a cannon ball with his guts blue on the rocks. More terrible than the dead were the wounded. Charlie passed groups of Frenchmen, one sobbing because his eyes were gone, another gasping out his life in terrible, huge, clouding breaths. His belly had been laid open by a sword. A British private gave him wine to sip, but the man could not take it.
A British sergeant whose left thigh was torn open to the bone and whose blood, despite the leather belt twisted into his groin, pulsed onto the ground, grinned at Weller. 'Go on, lad! Give 'em hell. Weller thought he was more likely to vomit. He stumbled on, following the pack of men in front, wondering if he would remember to clear the ramrod from his musket before he fired. Ahead, seemingly closer all the while, was the sound of the guns.
Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood walked beside Sharpe. Without the pitch in his moustache he seemed punier. His small, black eyes darted about the unfamiliar scenery. He too saw the dead, but he had seen men torn by bullets before. Yet never in Ireland had he seen men struck by artillery fire. Somehow the gobbets of flesh, like the work of a demented, drunken butcher, seemed unreal. He shied away once as a dog ran across his front.
The sun was fitful between clouds. The smoke of the French mountain guns was like a thin skein above the Battalion, bringing its filthy smell of powder smoke. Somewhere a man screamed, the scream rising and falling in a dreadful cadence. It was silenced suddenly and Girdwood shuddered.
The Lieutenant Colonel could not make sense of what he saw. He could not tell where the enemy positions were, or how far the leading Battalions had reached in their attack. He could see, at the ridge's northern end, the steep pinnacle of rock, wreathed in smoke, but dead ground lay before the pinnacle and Girdwood was confused. Once, through a shifting mist of smoke, he saw red uniforms running forward, a loose knot of men not in any proper order, and he wondered if he heard a cheer, but was not sure. He watched Sergeant John Lynch, plodding ahead of him, and thought that if Lynch showed no fear, then nor need he.
Sergeant Lynch was terrified. He had sensed that there was some purpose to his attachment to this band of Irishmen, and it was a purpose he did not like. He had let his accent flower for them, sounding more Irish than they, but he felt their scorn and he was scared.
He had never been in a group like this. He knew how many Irish fought in this army, but he had thought of them merely as rank-fillers, peasants who could be pushed around and forced into obedience. He had never seen their pride. These men were sure that Major Sharpe had grouped them together because he wanted the best in front, and who were better than they? They spoke filthily of England's King, despised the officers whom Lynch admired, but went to this fight, beneath a flag not their own, with a relish that was almost contagious. 'You know why God made Ireland so small? one of them, sharpening his bayonet with long strokes of a stone, asked Lynch.
'No. Lynch was nervous of their confidence, their grim assurance.
'Otherwise we'd have conquered the whole bloody world and there'd be no fights left, eh? The man laughed, and held the blade up to inspect its edge. 'And what would a man do then?
Some of them spoke in Gaelic, laughing with Harper, and Lynch felt sure the laughter was aimed at him. He remembered the death of Marriott in the river among the Essex marshes, knew it was still unpunished, and was fearful.
d'Alembord, at the head of the left column, was going into his second battle. He was aware of Harper's Irish group on his right and was determined that his Light Company would prove better. He considered that he had the best men, the fastest, most spirited men, but he wished Harper was back as his Sergeant. He drew his sword and, in the wan, winter light, the slim steel seemed a fragile weapon to take into this land of rock and musket fire and sudden death. Huckfield, a studious and careful man from the north of England who had been promoted to the new rank of Company Sergeant Major, shouted forward to d'Alembord. 'Major's calling a halt, sir!
The Battalion stopped. Sharpe, standing in front of the Colours that told the French who their new enemies were, drew his sword. The steel, carefully sharpened before dawn, rang scrapingly on the scabbard throat. 'Fix bayonets!
The seventeen inch blades were drawn, slotted onto muzzles, while the few Riflemen still in d'Alembord's ranks pushed their longer sword-bayonets onto their weapons. Among the Riflemen was a young Spaniard, Angel, who had never been formally sworn into the Battalion but was one of its best marksmen. The other men of the Light Company, knowing how fanatically he fought, swore that he could not live long.
They were at the edge of the fight, facing the chaos and confusion of the attack, and a Brigade Major, sweating despite the cold after his long scramble towards the new Battalion, gave Sharpe what little news of the battle that he could, then ordered them forward. Sharpe raised his sword and his voice. 'The Battalion will rendezvous at the pinnacle! Each man knew his task and the sword pointed the way. 'Forward!
At Pasajes Sharpe had broken up the four Companies he had formed in Essex. He split the men among the existing Companies, mixing experience with inexperience. Yet, even so, he knew that half of this Battalion had never fought. If he could have chosen an ideal battle for their baptism, he would have liked to fight a defensive action, his men secure in the knowledge that so long as they reloaded their muskets quickly no harm could come to them. Instead he was committing them to a frontal attack on positions that were firmly held and savagely fortified. There could be no flank attack here, the valley bottoms were sodden with bogs, and the road northwards ran along the side of the hill and was barred by the French forts.
The right hand column, led by the Grenadier Company, disappeared in a maze of trenches and walls that had been taken by the first attackers. The left hand column, with less cover, became a target for the French gunners. Cannon-balls, smaller than a man's fist, whipped horror through the files.
'Close up! Close up! The Sergeants shouted. Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood stared in shock at four men lying on the ground, all struck by the same plunging cannon-ball. One, coughing and bleeding, tried to rejoin his file.
Muskets blazed from ahead, the flames stabbing through the smoke that blossomed from a stone wall. Balls plucked at the Colours, thrummed the air over Sharpe's head, and he watched approvingly as d'Alembord inclined right to flank the threat. The Irish squad fired a volley at the wall, charged it with blood-chilling screams, but the French were gone, back to the next barrier, and Sharpe knew that the Battalion was committed now, that it must press on into the heart of this defensive tangle. 'Cheer, you buggers! Let them hear you!
He jumped the wall behind the Irish. A shallow trench angled forward, its sides heightened by stone walls. A Frenchman was dying in the puddles of the trench bed, his clothes torn where Harper's squad had searched him for money. A musket sounded ahead of Sharpe, a man screamed, and Sharpe climbed out of the trench to search to his right for a sign of his easternmost column.
The Colours halted behind him. He could hear d'Alembord's Company firing, the sharper crack of the rifles distinctive in the constant noise of musketry that filled the air. Bullets were striking the rock beside him, whistling up in ricochets, humming and throbbing about him, and still he could not see the right-hand column. He heard the crash of musketry from their direction, a cheer, and then the cough of explosions that sounded like small artillery shells breaking apart. 'Sergeant Major! Right! Right!
Someone shouted the order on to Harper. Sharpe was already crossing the open rock, looking for the Grenadiers. He went through a bank of musket smoke and saw them, crouching in a rock gully, their advance held up by two Companies of French troops who lined a stone wall above them and poured musketry into the packed ranks and rolled the shells, fuses lit and smoking, down to the stalled attack where, in gouts of dark red and dirty smoke, the shells exploded to drive the Grenadier Company back. 'Forward, you bastards! Forward! He went forward himself, coming towards the flank of the French line, and he saw the muskets moving towards him, knew that a volley would tear him ragged in just seconds, but then he heard the shouts to his left and, from the smoke, with bayonets reaching and shining, Harper's men came like furies onto the right of the French line.
The enemy line broke. Harper's men were using bayonets, grunting and shouting, the blood splashing their grey trousers.
'Forward! Move! Move! Sharpe watched the Grenadiers climb the wall. Sergeant Lynch, his bayonet unbloodied, was walking behind Harper's men and Sharpe shouted at him to catch up.
The ensign holding the King's Colour was shot, the banner fell and was caught by a sergeant, and Sharpe saw that the next barrier was thick with musket smoke. Harper's men were reloading, crouching behind a wall, and Sharpe bellowed at the Grenadiers to attack fast. The Frenchmen who had fled to the new position were still settling in. They were nervous, and this was the time to strike.
'Forward! Forward! He had lost sight of the left hand column now, but he had known the fight would be like this. 'Come on, you buggers! Cheer!
They cheered. They ran with him, their bayonets bright, and Harper's men put a volley in front of them, driving stone splinters into the faces of the defenders, then Sharpe heard the coughing bellow of the French muskets, saw the billow of dirty smoke, greyer than the British, and felt the balls whip past him to strike into men behind, but he was safe, the sword was in his hand, and he shouted for the sheer splendour of it as he jumped the wall and hacked down with the sword.
A Frenchman tried to parry the blow with his musket, succeeding only in deflecting it so that the huge sword cut into his forearm, smashing the bone and shearing to the elbow joint. The man screamed, Sharpe was past him, and a French officer, slim sword bright, challenged him. The man was shouting at his own men, whether to go back or counter-attack Sharpe could not tell. He screamed his war-scream, saw the fear in the Frenchman, and lunged forward with his sword, his hand already twisting so that the blade, as it stabbed the enemy's stomach, would not be trapped by the suction of flesh. He ripped the blade free, backhanded the Frenchman's feeble, dying riposte, and stepped over the fallen man and bellowed at his men to keep going. Speed was everything here, speed that would drive the attack through the successive walls before the defenders could settle and aim.
Beside him now, screaming and shouting like men possessed of devils, the Grenadier Company was sweeping forward. Their blood was up now. They had endured the first blow, found they had survived, and now they were racing ahead of him, oblivious of the death which, just minutes before, had terrified them. The air was humming with musket balls, screams, the smoke thick as fog. The new men, Sharpe saw, their first terror conquered, were in the front ranks of the attack. The veterans, more cautious because more knowledgeable, let them lead.
Sharpe went left. The Colour party, trying to stay with him, followed. He heard the rifles again, then saw men busy with bayonets, driving the blades down into a trench while, beyond them, number three Company had outflanked d'Alembord to the left and supported his attack from that flank. That was what the supporting Companies were supposed to do, but three Company was led by Carline and Sharpe chalked up a good mark to the new officer.
Another stone wall, then another. The French lined them, but the attacks came first from the left, then the right, and the French reeled backwards. A splinter of stone hit Sharpe's cheekbone, a bayonet grazed his thigh, and a musket ball snatched and shattered his canteen. They were the moments that he would remember with terror later, but for now he kept the Battalion moving even closer towards the last defences, the walls that ringed the pinnacle. His men were fighting in deep trenches now, cornering the enemy in rock traps, driving on in the strange exultation of battle that will not let a man feel fear or mercy or anything but the anger to kill and survive.
He saw redcoats with white facings on his right, and knew that men from the other Battalions were following through the gap that had been punched in the hill's defences. No one had told them to come, no officers organised them, but this was Wellington's army and this was how they fought. The South Essex, Sharpe thought, could have held this hill against the legions of hell themselves, and then a crash spun him round and his hand flew to his face which had been punched by the air of a passing cannon-ball. The mountain guns, at the foot of the pinnacle, hammered a volley at the attackers and drove Sharpe, with his Colour party, into a trench. There was no sign of Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood.
He stepped over the dead and dying. He saw a British musket abandoned, its bayonet bent almost double by the force of a lunge that had struck rock. There were puddles of slippery blood. A dog licked at one, then ran on to catch up with its master. The French musket balls were thick overhead, the sound of the volleys like a raging fire among thorns, the crashes of the mountain guns deafening.
The attack was stalled. The trenches led to the pinnacle, zigzagging through the walls and were blocked, where they crossed the outer defences, by transverse stone barriers. As the French had been driven back their defences were thickened and strengthened by the fugitives from the captured positions. 'Move! Move! Sharpe forced his way to the front where men, kneeling in the trench, fired uselessly at the obstacles. Three bodies lay further up the trench, showing that the French, hidden by the upper walls, had the approach blanketed by guns.
The men seemed to be shivering, not with fear but impatience. They stared at him from eyes rimmed with powder stains, blood-smeared, and Sharpe knew they were still keen to attack, but that no man could go through the trench and live while the mountain guns, firing from the heart of the enemy position, made the upper ground a death trap. Sharpe heaved himself to the trench parapet to look right. The ground dropped precipitately away towards the road. There could be no outflanking that way. He wondered where d'Alembord's men were and was ashamed because he detected in himself a hope that the other column might lever the enemy out of this position and save him the necessity of attacking.
'Load! He waited as those men who had empty muskets loaded. 'We're going up there! He pointed to the left of the trench. 'Then straight at the buggers! One effort, lads, just one bloody effort. They grinned. Their knuckles were white where they gripped their weapons.
There was no point in waiting. Hesitation just gave the mind time to imagine what waited in that place where the musket balls juddered the air and the smoke rolled thick from the battery of guns. So thick, Sharpe suddenly noticed, that the enemy would be looking into a fog of their own making. 'Come on! Let them hear you! Let them hear you! Let them hear you! He was shouting it as a war cry as he scrambled up the trench's side.
He thought he was alone for a few seconds. He feared to stand up on the trench's parapet, fearing to lose the happiness that he had found, but he made himself do it, and he ran forward, shouting, hearing his voice alone in the din of guns, and then he heard the cheers behind him and saw, to his left, more men rising from the shelter of walls and trenches and heard their wild cheers.
Patrick Harper, in the centre of the line, saw Sharpe taking the right column forward and he screamed his own group at the wall. There was a boulder outside the enemy line, its flanks chipped white where bullets had struck it, and he ran for it, unslinging the vicious seven-barrelled gun as he drove himself forward, his voice keening in a strange, curdling chant of his own devising as he jumped, steadied himself on the boulder's summit, a huge target for every French musket in their rock citadel, and fired.
The seven bullets smashed outwards, clearing a stretch of the wall by flinging three enemy backwards and Harper jumped, gun flailing like a club, and his men were beside him, screaming like banshees from hell, their blades ripping and gouging and the wall was taken. Sharpe was across it to the right and the trench was outflanked: he shouted the Companies forward to the next wall that was shrouded in the fog of the battery. 'Come on! Come on! Come on! Speed was all. There was no time to form line, or dress ranks, only time to carry the bloodstained bayonets up to the next defence and kill again. A British corporal, his jaw blown away by a mountain gun, wept into his bloodsoaked hands. A dog, shot in the rump, yelped helplessly for its dead master.
Charlie Weller, in his first fight, listened to the screams and the noise and he thought that he would never be able to go forward. He did, somehow. It helped to be at the back of the Company, following the man in front, not certain what terrible things caused the screams that came from the leading ranks. Once, through a shifting curtain of smoke, he saw a French flag flying on the pinnacle, and somehow this battle did not seem anything like he had imagined. He could hear the enemy's shouts, louder than he had ever thought they would be, and he had already seen what they had done to men bigger than he, yet he went forward, listening to the sergeants but not truly hearing them. Boney, whimpering because of the noise, stayed loyally close. A musket ball struck Weller's shako, knocking it over his left eye, and he nervously straightened it. He crouched when his squad stopped, stared at his unbloodied bayonet inches before his eyes and thought that he would never make a soldier.
'Mr Price! A voice shouted from the front of the column. 'Take your squad right!
'That's us, Charlie. Private Clayton, a fly rogue whose wife was the envy of the rest of the Battalion, grinned at Weller. 'Say your prayers and don't piss yourself. Ready?
A crash of musketry sounded at the column's front, then Lieutenant Price, his sword clumsy in his hand, was shrieking at his men to follow him. 'Come on, lads! This is what they pay us for! Weller, thinking that he would be dead within seconds, and thinking of his mother who had told him he would come to a miserable end if he went for a soldier, found his legs moving in obedience to the officer's shout. He held the musket ahead of him, copying the other men, and then he heard them shout, tried to shout himself, though it came out more like a child's whimper of terror, and suddenly, in a trench behind a low parapet of piled rocks, he saw moustached men who aimed their huge muskets right at him.
The muskets fired. He screamed in sheer terror, and somehow the scream turned into anger, and he saw Clayton jumping into the trench, bayonet searing down on one of the enemy. They seemed huge to Charlie, who suddenly felt very young, and then he was at the trench's edge himself and a Frenchman, a great brute of a man who reminded Charlie of the blacksmith at home, lunged up with his bayonet.
Desperately, as though it was a pitchfork, Weller parried the blow. The crack of the two muskets meeting was satisfyingly loud and, even more satisfying, Weller's farm bred strength drove the enemy's weapon to one side and he suddenly heard Clayton shrieking at him. 'Kill the bugger, Charlie! Kill him!
He drove the bayonet down, screaming in fear as much as anger, and the blade went into the enemy's neck. The man turned, wrenching Weller off balance, and he fell onto the wounded man. The Frenchman hit him, and Weller pounded his fist into the moustached face, and then a blade came over his shoulder and into the Frenchman's chest. The man heaved once beneath Weller, choked, and was suddenly still. 'Not bad, Charlie, but hang onto your gun. Clayton pulled him up. 'Get the bugger's pack. Quick!
'His pack? Charlie had entirely forgotten Harper's advice.
'That's what you killed him for, isn't it?
Weller unstrapped the pack, lugged it off the corpse's back, and did not mind that it was slick with blood. He shook the contents out, abandoning the spare clothes, but splitting a length of sausage with Boney, then he buckled his trophy to his belt. When this was over he would transfer his own belongings to his new pack. He looked at it proudly.
'On! On! On! Captain d'Alembord was shouting at them. 'Move! Angel, screaming with rage, was trying to count the Frenchmen he had killed while he killed yet more. Beside him, silent as ever, Daniel Hagman, his wounded shoulder healed, fired his rifle with murderous precision.
'Come on, Charlie. Clayton pushed him on. The Light Company was coming to the pinnacle's defences and Weller, with his bayonet blooded, and his hands sticky with enemy blood, was beginning to think that he might yet make a soldier.
Lieutenant Colonel Bartholomew Girdwood was singing. He was sitting in an abandoned trench, the dead lying like broken things about him, and he sang.
He sang it again. The tears running down his face gathered at the corners of his untarred moustache. He heard one of the mountain guns fire, and he shuddered. The shudder drew new tears. He looked at one of the dead man, a Welsh corporal who lay with a bullet hole in his throat, and Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood explained to the man that, in truth, this was not a battle. Not a battle at all. Battles, he said, were fought on plains. Always on plains. Not on hills. The corporal did not reply and Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood screamed at the man that he would be on a charge if he did not respond. 'Speak, you bastard! Speak! Another gun made him whimper. He looked up at the sky. 'Twenty-four inches is the proper interval between men for attack. Form up. He laughed. He thought he might get out of the trench and bring some order to this place. He looked at the corporal. 'Her skin is white, you know. Did you know that? He cut it with the cane. White, white. He looked at his feet. 'Two feet. He sang his verse of poetry again.
Then, from around the corner of the trench, one of the many dogs that plagued his Battalion trotted towards the Lieutenant Colonel. It looked at Girdwood, smelled the blood of the dead men, then began worrying at the throat of the Welsh corporal.
'No! No! Girdwood screamed at the dog. He pulled out his pistol, aimed it, but the flint fell on an empty pan. His hands were shaking too much for him to reload the gun. The dog looked at him, its jowls redly wet, wagged its tail, and Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood, who had wanted nothing more than to fight in a real battle, screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed.
'Christ! d'Alembord, who thought it a miracle that he still lived, flinched from a ricochet that slapped the rock next to him. He heard the shouts from the right, knew that the Grenadier Company must be attacking the wall, and though part of him felt an unworthy temptation to let them finish this job, he knew, too, that he could not live with himself if he did. 'Are you loaded?"
'Yes, sir! the voices chorused at him.
'One more time, lads! Once more unto the breach and we must be bloody mad. Go!
He was laughing in hysteria as he led them. He saw the French stand behind the wall, he screamed the order to fire, and his own men's volley hammered past his ears as he jumped to the wall's top, swung his sword at empty air, then his men were scrambling over the stones and he led them forward towards the embrasures of the mountain guns that were thick with smoke. A French officer was hurling stones from the top of the makeshift rampart, great hunks of rock that bounced and crashed down towards the British attack.
Charlie Weller had not fired when d'Alembord had given the order. He had fumbled with his musket, then been startled by the crash of the guns about his ears. His musket was still loaded. Back in Lincolnshire, on the farm where his father was a labourer, he was sometimes allowed out with the farmer to shoot rabbits. The farmer liked to boast about young Weller. 'Can knock their bloody eyes out!
He aimed at the French officer who threw the great stones. Weller suddenly did not have to think about it, the gun seemed a part of him, he fired, felt the burning powder sting his cheek, and the officer went backwards. He had killed at last. He screamed with delight and achievement and charged with the other men of his Company. He was a soldier. Angel slapped his back. 'Well done!
Captain Smith, whose Company had come onto the right flank of d'Alembord's, was shaking with terror. A dead French officer lay at his feet, killed by Smith's sword. He had just done what Charlie Weller had done; become a soldier. 'After me! The shout sounded feeble to him, but the men followed him. He watched them clear the last trenches, heard their shouts, and did not notice that the French fire was slackening.
Charlie Weller, his dog shaking at his side, could find no more enemy on this side of the pinnacle. He was watching the other attack, seeing Sharpe and Harper together, amazed suddenly that for eight days he had shared a tent with the two men who, instinctively seeking each other in battle, now carved a path through the last defences. The Irish group were with them, shouting their own challenges, but the French were running. Everywhere there seemed to be shouting, a sound of victory, but there were still some men crouching in rock holes, muskets loaded, and, like clearing vermin from a field, Harper attacked them. His men's blades were reddened to the hilts. He had his own rifle and bayonet in his hands, but now, as he saw the French running down the reverse slope of the hill he shouted for his men to cease fighting. 'Take prisoners! Prisoners!
Sharpe heard the shout. He had killed again, sweeping the sword about one of the gunpits, but now he saw what Harper had seen, the enemy retreating in panicked confusion. He looked upwards. The pinnacle, that could be climbed by rough, natural steps weathered in the rock, was flying, instead of its tricolour, a white shirt. A man, waving a dirty handkerchief, peered cautiously over the edge. Sharpe beckoned him down. It was over; the last barrier of the border mountains was broken apart.
He climbed onto the hot barrel of a mountain gun, bracing one foot on its sturdy wheel, and he stared northwards. He saw a wide, rolling countryside, oddly green after these winter mountains, dotted with small villages, and thick with trees that still had their last leaves of autumn. Like spilt and molten silver, reflecting the sunlight, he saw the rivers and lakes of a fertile land. France. Tonight, when the dead were buried, they would march down into that heartland of the enemy. Behind him, heavy in the breeze, were the silken flags that he had fought to bring to this place. They were in France, and they had a victory.
'He's babbling of green fields, d'Alembord said. 'Or rather of white skins, which is not nearly so poetic. He's gone mad.
'He can't have!
'Lost his topsails completely. d'Alembord was wiping his sword blade. 'He's weeping, reciting poetry that I daren't repeat to you, and gibbering like an idiot. If he was in Bedlam you'd pay tuppence to see him. Sergeant Major Harper is keeping the curious at bay, but I think he needs your attention, sir.
'What the hell am I supposed to do with him?
'If I were you, sir, I'd tie him up, turn him round, and send him to brigade. They're used to mad colonels.
Sharpe smiled. 'Find out the bill for me, Dally, I'll look at Girdwood.
Bartholomew Girdwood was just as d'Alembord had described. He was piling shards of rock onto his thigh, sitting with tears running down his face, sometimes laughing, sometimes singing sad snatches of heroic poetry into the cold air.
'Lieutenant Mattingley!
'Sir?
'You'll need two men. Take him to brigade.
'Me, sir?
'You. Sharpe looked again at the Lieutenant Colonel who had persecuted the recruits at Foulness, who had believed himself a soldier among soldiers, a warrior who had craved the chance of one fight against the French. 'You don't need to tie him up. Treat him gently.
'Yes, sir.
Sharpe walked back towards the pinnacle, crowned now by his own Colours in the afternoon sun. The air still smelt of powder smoke and blood, the sobs of the wounded still sounded. He thanked Smith, Carline, and other officers. He stopped by wounded men and told them they would recover. He shouted for the bandsmen to hurry with their stretchers. d'Alembord, by the time Sharpe reached the pinnacle again, had come back with the butcher's bill. Sharpe saw that the tall Captain looked unhappy. Tell me, Dally.
'Eleven dead, sir, forty-three wounded.
'Badly wounded?
'Twenty or so, sir.
'Officers?
'Captain Thomas is dead, sir, d'Alembord shrugged, 'which means Harry gets his Company, yes?
'Yes. Price would be pleased, even though the promotion was because of a death. Sharpe was thinking that the bill was light. 'Did we lose any sergeants?
'Just Lynch, sir. d'Alembord's voice was disapproving.
'Lynch?
'Torn apart, sir. d'Alembord's eyes seemed to accuse Sharpe.
'He must have been trapped by a dozen of the bastards, sir. He's not a very fetching sight.
'He did deserve it, Dally.
'I was under the misapprehension that there were military courts, sir.
Sharpe looked at the tall Captain, knowing he had deserved d'Alembord's reproof. 'Yes, you're right."
d'Alembord was embarrassed by Sharpe's contrition. 'But the Battalion fought well, sir, they fought damned well.
'Didn't they? Sharpe was pleased at the compliment. 'How did Weller do?
d'Alembord smiled, relieved that the moment had passed. 'Damned well, sir. He'll make a fine soldier. And well done, sir.
‘Thank you, Dally.
Sharpe stood under the pinnacle, staring at the groups of men who moved about the scarred rock landscape and who cleared the dead and wounded before the carrion eaters flew from the winter skies. 'Regimental Sergeant Major!
'Sir? Harper scrambled towards him.
'Thank you for your efforts.
'It was nothing, sir.
Sharpe had found an abandoned French canteen, filled with wine, and he took a mouthful. 'The Colonel's gone mad. He handed the canteen to Harper. 'And I hear you lost Lynch?
'Yes, sir. Harper did not smile. 'So it's all over?
'And forgotten, Patrick. Tell your men they fought well.
'I will, sir.
The army was already moving along the road that flanked the side of the hill. Sharpe could hear the thunder of the gun wheels going into France. He stared the other way, towards the distant peaks of Spain which, now that the sun had been shrouded by clouds, were darkly shadowed. He had a daughter there. He had fought more than five years in that country, in mountains and river valleys, in fortresses and city streets. Now he was leaving.
'Sir!
He looked left. Captain Smith was smiling idiotically, looking pleased with himself. Sharpe ran his cleaned sword into its scabbard.
He could see, where the road skirted the hillside, a group of four women whose horses' bridles were held by Spanish servants.
The women were wives of Sharpe's officers. Closer, smiling at him, and walking up the hill with the unnecessary attention and help of two dozen men, came his own wife.
They had been married two months. She had insisted, against his direct orders, that she would come with him. 'I've always wanted to travel. Besides, it will be good for my sketching.
'Sketching?
'I sketch and paint; didn't you know that?
'No.
Isabella, who had decided that London was a strange and fearful place, had insisted on returning as Jane's servant. Harper, who had ordered his pregnant wife to remain in London, had, like Sharpe, been flagrantly disobeyed.
'Richard! Jane wore a dark red cloak over her dress.
'My love. He felt awkward saying it in front of so many men.
She smiled, striking her beauty into his soul like a sword. 'I met Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood. Poor man.
'Poor man.
She turned and looked at the battlefield. The British dead were gone, but the French dead, stripped naked, still lay among the rocks. 'Have I got time for one drawing?
'It's hardly suitable, is it?
'Don't be pompous. She smiled at him, put Rascal on the ground, and took from her bag a large pad and a box of pencils.
They had been married two months, and Sharpe had not regretted a moment of them. He had not guessed at this kind of happiness, he was even frightened that one day it would be taken from him, and he did not even mind that men laughed at him because of his sudden uxoriousness. The laughter was not cruel, and he was happy. He thought she was happy too. He was astonished how important to him her happiness was. He watched her pencil, amazed at her skill. 'I have to go and form the Battalion.
'That's because you're important and pompous. Don't forget I'm here.
'I'll try not to, but you're easily overlooked. He smiled at her, thinking he was the luckiest man in the world.
They were ordered away from the hill an hour later. The Battalion was formed in parade order on the roadside, ready to march, its baggage somewhere behind it. Captain Harry Price stood at the head of a Company. The flags were cased again. They were marching into France.
Sharpe sat on Sycorax. Jane was beside him on her own mare. It was beginning to rain, the drops huge as pennies where they splashed on the rocks. 'Sergeant Major!
'Sir!
'The Battalion will march in line of Companies.
'Where to, sir?
Sharpe grinned. 'Into France!
But suddenly, before the order to march was given, and to Sharpe's embarrassment and his wife's delight, someone cheered. They cheered themselves and their victory. The noise spread, until the Prince of Wales' Own Volunteers were filling the valley with their sound of delight. Sharpe had taken broken, persecuted men and made them into soldiers.
'That's enough, Sergeant Major!
'Sir! 'Talion!
Girdwood was mad, so these men, until another colonel was appointed, belonged to Sharpe now. He watched them march, listened to the singing that had already begun, and he thought how they had fought among the rocks to victory. They were, he considered, as good as any troops he had known and, for the moment at least, they were his men, his responsibility, and his pride. Jane watched him. She saw on his hard, striking face the glint of water that was not rain. He was staring at the men for whom he had fought against all the bastards who despised them because they were mere common soldiers. They were his men, his soldiers, Sharpe's regiment.