A cannon fired from the watchtower, high this time, so the ball struck between the columns and bounced up and over. The Sergeants called the marching time, their mouths huge, and the officers rode or walked beside their companies with swords drawn. The second gun fired, smashing the nearer column again, plucking men out of the ranks so that the men behind stepped over the carnage and closed files, and still the columns came on. The gun echo died in the valley. The Rifles cracked ahead, muskets spattered from the ramparts, and the leading men of the columns were in the lingering smoke of the skirmish lines first position.
Sharpe pushed unceremoniously through the ranks of the nearer column. He waved at Sir Augustus, proud on his nervous horse. 'Sir! Sir!
Farthingdale's sabre was drawn. His cloak was peeled back to show the red, black and gold of his uniform. He had purchased his way to a Colonelcy, never having fought, always being the political soldier in the palaces and parliaments of power. 'Sir!
'Major Sharpe! He sounded cheerful. He was leading an attack before the eyes of his lover. 'The wall's mined, sir!
The peevishness was back in his face. He looked at Sharpe in annoyance, thinking, reining in his restless horse. 'How do you know?
'No one's defending it, sir.’
’They're deserters, Sharpe, not a damned army! Sharpe was walking alongside the prancing horse. 'For God's sake, sir! It's mined!
'God damn you, Sharpe! Out of my way! Farthingdale let his horse have its head and it leaped ahead, and Sharpe stood there, impotent, while the two columns marched stolidly past. Two hundred and seventy men in each column, bayonets glittering by their faces, marching for the easy-looking wall that Sharpe knew had been left as a temptation for just such an attack as this. God damn it! He looked behind him. The grass had been trampled flat and pale by the two columns, littered by the small knots of bleeding and dead men where the cannon fire had struck. The guns fired again and Sharpe pushed through the column and headed back for his men. Pray God he was wrong.
Cross had pulled his Company aside to let the columns through and Sharpe could see the Colours held high and he knew that the Ensigns, not yet out of boyhood, would be proud of this moment. Kinney had not brought the band's instruments with him, or else the musicians would be playing the attack forward until the fighting made them take up their secondary job, that of caring for the wounded. Farthingdale waved them on, cheered them on, and at last the Fusiliers were allowed to cheer themselves as they broke into a run for the last few yards. The cannon on the eastern wall was unmasked, fired, and the head of the further column was torn ragged by the flailing canister. One man crawled on the grass, his white trousers soaking red, his head shaking because he did not know what had happened.
'On! On! On! Sir Augustus Farthingdale had stopped his horse, let the Colours go past him, and now he urged the columns onto the eastern wall. Smoke from the cannon drifted over the rubble.
Let me be wrong, Sharpe prayed. Let me be wrong.
The first men onto the rubble broke ranks. They spread out as each chose a path on the uneven stones. Their muskets were held ready for the killing thrust of the bayonet.
'On! On! Farthingdale was up in his stirrups, sabre flailing the air, and Sharpe cursed the man for he knew that this display had been put on for Josefina. Musket bullets struck in the columns, making a flurry like a stone dropped into a water-current, the men reclosing about the disturbed patch. 'On! On!
They ran at the rubble, packing it, spreading up it, cheering as they breasted it and saw the courtyard in front of them, and again Sharpe prayed he was wrong, and then he saw that the first men were over the stones and he felt a flood of relief because they would not die in the flaming horror of an exploding mine on Christmas Day in the morning.
The jet of smoke seemed to leap from the base of the stones towards Farthingdale and his horse, leaping like a striking snake, and the horse reared, throwing Farthingdale backwards, and then the smoke was coming from every crevice of the stones and Sharpe shouted in helpless warning.
The broken wall heaved upwards, turned into flame and boiling dark smoke so that it was like premature night where the Fusiliers were hurled up and back by the packed powder beneath the stones. The explosion rumbled, then cracked into defiant thunder that rolled between the thorn-clad hills, and the wall heaved up, out, and the men who had not reached the broken barrier stopped in fear.
The gun on the wall fired again and then there was cheering from the Castle, from the hill by the watchtower, and Pot-au-Feu unleashed every musket onto the motionless columns. Flames licked among the smashed barrier beneath the smoke. Musket flashes showed where the enemy was hunting the survivors who had been first into the courtyard.
'Back! Back! Someone shouted it, all accepted it, and the two columns went back from the smoke, the musket noise, and then Price screamed at Sharpe. 'Sir!
Men were filing down between the thorn bushes to attack the stricken Battalion on its flank.
'Form on the column! Sharpe bellowed. Cross's bugler blew the three notes that meant 'form' and Sharpe pushed men towards the red-coated ranks.
A Fusilier Captain, wild-eyed and confused, was shouting at his men to go back. Sharpe yelled at him to stand fast. Six companies at least were unaffected by the mine, and there was still a chance of hurling them into the courtyard, but the Fusiliers obeyed the voices of their own officers. 'Back!
The men from the thorn, bushes were making a rough skirmish line to attack the retreating Battalion and there was some satisfaction, not much, in seeing the Riflemen hurl them back with well-aimed shots, and then Sharpe heard the clash of steel from beyond the smoke, the sound of more shots, and he knew that there were Fusiliers trapped in the courtyard of the Castle. Those men must not die, or worse, become new hostages to Hakeswill's cruel vices. Sharpe threw his unfired Rifle at Hagman, drew his sword, and turned to where the dark smoke still clung to the blood-streaked stones. He would get those men out, and then they would take this Castle in the proper way, the professional way, and he turned as he heard footsteps beside him on the grass. 'What are you doing?
'Coming with you. Harper's voice brooked no argument. It was Christmas Day, and they were going to war.
CHAPTER 12
Going through the acrid curtain of smoke, between the licking flames that consumed the scraps of powder barrel, was like passing into a different world. Gone was the clean air and cold grass of the valley, instead it was a world of broken stone, slick with blood, littered by scraps of unrecognizable burned flesh; a courtyard where the survivors of the mine were being hunted across a cobbled yard.
Sharpe saw Harper go down and he checked in fear for the Sergeant, then saw the huge Irishman tugging the shaft of a halberd clear from a body. The blade swung up into the smoke, a great axe of silver light, and Harper screamed his war shout in his native Gaelic. Sharpe had seen this moment before, the instant when the normally placid Sergeant seethed with the anger of Irish heroes, careless of his safety, caring only to fight in a manner that might be enshrined in the plaintive Irish songs that kept alive the heroism of a nation.
Within the courtyard was a new, low wall, easily jumped, that was Pot-au-Feu's defence line inside the Castle. Men were running to the wall, laughter on their faces, muskets ready to fire at the Fusiliers who were dazed in the smoke. Some of Pot-au-Feu's men had leaped the wall and hunted survivors with bayonets. A few of the Fusiliers had bunched together, a Sergeant commanding them, and they held their bayonets out and died as the musket balls flamed across the puny wall.