‘Forward!’ Leroy shouted. He wondered when new Battalions would be sent up to help his men, and he felt a rage that a Battalion under his command might need help. ‘Forward!’
The Colours were lifted up by new men. They went into the fire, and the King’s Colour fell again, was lifted again, and it twitched like a live thing as the bullets plucked at it.
The smoke was spoiling the French aim. From the village they could see a mist that surrounded their positions and, at the far side of the mist, the dim shapes of men who came forward, were — thrown back, and still the French fired, thickening flie mist, sending their bullets to pluck at the British line that had wrapped itself about the village but could not break in.
The Regimental Colour fell; this time a Sergeant picked it up, but the movement in the mist attracted a dozen French marksmen and the Sergeant was hurled back and the flag was down again.
‘Forward!’ Leroy ran, sword in hand, and he heard the shot plucking at the grass and thrumming in the air, and he heard the cheer behind and knew the companies were coming with him, and the wall ahead of him flickered with flame, someone screamed behind him, and suddenly Leroy was at the village, safe between two loopholes in a barn wall, and more men joined him, crouching beneath loopholes, feverishly reloading their muskets.
Leroy grinned at them. ‘We’ve got to go for a barricade.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He wondered again, for the hundredth hundredth time, why these men, reckoned by their country to be the dregs of society, fought so well, so willingly, so bravely.
Leroy recongised a Lieutenant from Three Company. ‘Where’s Captain Butler?’
‘Dead, sir.’
A French musket sounded deafening beside Leroy. He ignored it. They were safe here, hard against the wall, though he glanced up to make sure that no Frenchmen were on the barn roof. To his right he could see a farm wagon on its side. If enough men could drag it out of the way then he could lead a party into the alley. He organized a firing party, their job to fire over the barricade while other men pulled at it. Then, with fixed bayonets, the rest of the Company would follow Leroy into the alley. He grinned at them. ‘Are you ready, lads?’
‘Yes, sir.’
They looked nervously at him. The battle, for them, had become ten yards of murderous wall, nothing more.
Lieutenant Colonel Leroy, who had no intention of being defeated in his first battle as Battalion Commander, wiped his hand on his breeches and regripped his sword. ‘First man in gets a guinea!’ He listened to their cheer, knew they were ready, and straightened up. ‘Come on!’
He ran to the barricade. Behind him the men came, cheering, but a single bullet, planted in Leroy’s brain, finished the attack before it began. The Company, demoralised by his death, huddled back against the wall and wondered if they dared run back through the smoke before the victorious French, sallying from the village, slaughtered them with bayonets. Gamarra Mayor was being held. Ten yards from the alley, his scarred face spattered with blood, Thomas Leroy lay dead. His watch, ticking in his pocket, gave the time as ten past one.
‘You’re staying here!’ Sharpe said to Angel.
‘No!’
‘If I die no one else knows about the god-damned treaty! You stay here and make sure the letter reaches Hogan!’ Sharpe saw Angel nod reluctantly
The Band Sergeant was staring at Sharpe with a white face. ‘Mr Sharpe?’
‘You make sure this boy doesn’t move, Sergeant!’
‘Yes, sir.’ The Sergeant was shaking. ‘It is you, Mr Sharpe?’
‘Of course it’s me!’ Sharpe was watching the village, seeing a Battalion broken. ‘You two!’ he pointed at two unwounded men who helped a comrade back.
‘Sir?’
‘You’re not bloody wounded! Get back! Sergeant?’
‘Sir?’ The Band Sergeant was staring at Sharpe in utter disbelief.
‘Shoot the next unwounded bastard who comes back here.’
‘Yes, Mr Sharpe.’
Sharpe drew the sword. He went forward into the wheat that was trampled and blood-stained, littered with broken bodies, the scene of disaster. He had come back.
Captain d’Alembord never knew who first shouted for the line to retreat. The panic seemed to spread from the centre of the line, he heard an officer shout for the men to stand, to fire, to attack again, but the shouting was no good. The smoke isolated the men, they could not see the Colours, then came the news that the Colonel was dead, and suddenly the South Essex was running back through the smoke and the French cheered and sent them on their way with another volley of bullets.
D’Alembord ran with them, out of the smoke, running across the village meadow and into the wheatfield. He knew this was wrong, he knew that he should form the men into a skirmish line, or into close order, and he saw Harper bellowing at the Light Company and.he knew he should do the same, then, suddenly, another voice was shouting on the battlefield, a voice forged long ago on forgotten parade grounds, and d’Alembord, looking left in the tangling smoke, saw a ghost.
A ghost who swore at them, who threatened them with his sword, who bellowed at officers, and promised to cut down the next man who went backwards.
They stared at him in shock. The big black horse carried a dead man among them, an unshaven ghost they thought dead and buried. A ghost whose anger was livid, whose voice flayed them into ranks and made them lie down so that the French bullets went high. ‘Captain d’Alembord!’
‘Sir?
‘Skirmish line forward. Edge of the smoke! Lie down. Keep the bastards busy! Move!’ Sharpe saw the shock on d’Alembord’s face. ‘I said move!’ He turned back to the other companies.
He would form them into a column. He would attack in the French manner. God alone knew why they had not attacked in column in the first place. He shouted the orders, ignoring the bullets that flickered out of the smoke.
Patrick Harper had tears in his eyes. If anyone had dared ask him why he would have said that the musket smoke was irritating him. He had known, he had always known, but he had not truly believed that Sharpe was alive.
‘Sergeant Major!’
MacLaird gaped at Sharpe, then managed to speak. ‘Sir?’
‘Where’s the Colonel?’
‘Dead, sir.’
Christ! Sharpe stared at the staring RSM, then the flutter of a bullet snapped him to his duty. ‘Take six men from Two Company. Stay at the back. You shoot any man who falls out. Talion! Move! Colours to me!’
To his right Sharpe could see that the other two Battalions were checked at the village’s edge. They formed a ragged line about the houses, a line held by the French volleys. But a line would not pierce defences like this. It would take a column, and the column must go like a battering ram at the village, must take its losses at its head and then carry the bayonets into the streets.
He formed them into a column of four ranks. Some men were laughing like madmen. Others simply stared at a man come back from the grave. Collip, the Quartermaster, was shaking with fear.
The bullets still plucked about them, but Sharpe had formed the column a hundred yards from the village, far enough to take the sting from the French marksmen.
He rode down the column, telling them what to do, and he suddenly had to shout because the fools were cheering him, and he had to turn his face away and pretend to stare at the other two Battalions. He knew he should stop them cheering, but he could not. He thought how stupid it was to cheer a man who would lead them back to death, and how splendid it was, and he laughed because the Battalion was suddenly cheering in unison and he knew the cheer would carry them to victory.
The Grenadier Company was at the front. Sharpe picked ten men whose job was to fire a volley at point blank range when they reached the barricade. He would lead them, following a track of beaten earth that disappeared in the smoke but which, he knew, must lead to one of the barricaded alleys.