Chapter 23
It was odd, Sharpe thought, but at that moment, as he led the Battalion forward, he wished La Marquesa could see him.
He was not in love with her. He might be jealous of her, he might seek her company, but he did not love her. He had said so, on that morning when he thought he went to death at El Matarife’s hand, but he knew it was not true. He wanted her. He flickered about her as a moth flew about a bright flame, but to love someone was to know them, and he did not know her. He wondered if anyone knew her.
She had said she loved him, but he knew she did not. She had wanted him to break his honour for her, and she had thought the word love would make him do it. He knew she would use him and discard him, but nevertheless he now walked, sword in hand, towards the waiting muskets and he did it for her.
The sword felt heavy in his hand. He wondered why every new battle was harder than the last. Luck had to stop somewhere, he supposed, and why not here where the French had already broken one attack and waited for the next? He thought, as he shouted the column forward, that he lived on borrowed time. He wondered, if he died, whether Helene would hear that he had lived a few more days for her, and that he had died in the stupid, vain, selfish hope of seeing her again.
His boots swished in the meadow grass. Bees were busy at the clover. He saw a snail with a black and white shell that had been crushed by an infantryman’s boot. The grass was littered with cartridges, spent musket balls, discarded ramrods, and fallen shakos.
He looked up at the village. The Light Company was provoking the musket fire, keeping the acrid smoke thick. Behind him the column marched in good, tight order. He took a deep breath. ‘Talion! Double!’
The bullets plucked the air about him. He heard a scream behind him, a curse, and he was running fast now, the village close, and, through the smoke, he could at last see the alley’s mouth. It was blocked with a cart, with furniture, and flames stabbed from the barricade and he shouted for the firing party to break to one side.
He heard their volley. He saw a Frenchman go backwards from the barricade’s top and then there were only a few yards to go, more bullets flamed from the village, but instead of a thin line attacking it was a column thick enough to soak up the French fire. Sharpe gathered himself for the jump. He would not wait to pull the barricade down. ‘Jump!’
The air was filled with the hammering of muskets. Sharpe jumped onto the cart, swept down with his sword at a stabbing bayonet, while about him the British were clawing up the barricade, dragging the furniture down, trying to scramble over the heaped timber and screaming at the enemy. A musket fired beside his ear, deafening him, a bayonet tore at his sleeve as more men pushed behind, forcing him over, and he fell, flailing with the sword, rolling down the French side of the barricade as the enemy bayonets reached for him.
He twisted sideways and suddenly men of the South Essex were jumping over him, driving the French back, and he scrambled up, went on, and shouted at the men to watch the rooftops. No one heard him. They were mad with the battle-lust of fear, wanting to kill before they were killed, and it was that spirit that had driven them over the barricade and which drove them now into the tight, small streets of Gamarra Mayor.
A door opened in a house, a man stabbed with a bayonet and Sharpe lunged, twisted, and he could feel the warm blood on his hand as his sword found the enemy’s neck. He dragged the blade clear of the falling body. ‘Kill the bastards!’ The alley was thick with men, pushing, shouting, swearing, stabbing, screaming. Men were trampled when they were wounded. The front rank clawed at the enemy. The close alley walls seemed to magnify every shout and shot.
There was a volley of muskets from the alley’s far end and a French counter-attack, readied against just such a breakthrough, came towards them.
‘Fire!’
The few men still loaded fired. Two Frenchmen fell, the rest came on, and Sharpe took his sword forward and swept it like a scythe at the leading bayonets. He was shouting the war shout, letting the anger frighten the enemy, and he felt a blade sear his thigh, but the sword flicked up into the man’s face; there was a scream, and it was British bayonets that went forward; twisted, stabbed, tore the enemy counter-attack into shreds.
Sharpe was treading on bodies now. He did not notice. He watched the rooftops, the windows, and always shouted at his men to follow him, to keep moving forward.
The bayonets went forward, the British were shouting like madmen, like men who know that the best way to get rid of terror is to get the damned job done. They were clawing at their enemy, trampling them, screaming and lunging, cutting, slashing, driving them back.
‘Into the houses! Into the houses!’
There was no point in piercing the village’s centre, there to be surrounded by the enemy. This first alley had to be cleared, the houses emptied of the French and Sharpe kicked a door open and ducked under the lintel.
He was in an empty room. Men crammed in behind him, bayonets red. Opposite them was a closed door.
Sharpe looked round. ‘Who’s loaded?’
Three men nodded at him. Their eyes were bright in the darkness, their faces, stained by powder burns, were drawn back in permanent scowls. Sharpe dared not let these men catch their breath or feel safe here. He had to keep them moving.
‘Fire through that door. On my order!’
They lined up, they levelled their muskets.
‘Fire! Go! Go! Go!’
He was still shouting as he kicked the door and led the way through the musket smoke. He had to stop himself from flinching as he went through the door, so strong was his certainty that a volley waited for him on the far side.
He found a French soldier sprawled, twitching and bleeding, in a small yard that was strewn with straw. Other Frenchmen were backing into the yard, defending an alley at the far side that must have been penetrated by other men of the South Essex. Sharpe bellowed a triumphant shout, the sword struck again while, either side of him, his men went forward with bayonets and the Frenchmen were shouting for quarter, dropping their muskets and Sharpe was yelling at his men to hold their fire and to take prisoners.
A thatched roof had caught fire across the alley. Beneath it men were running, driving the French back, and Sharpe joined them, all control of the Battalion gone. They were hunting the defenders out of the houses, blasting closed doors with musket fire, kicking the shattered doors open and searching the small rooms. They did it savagely and quickly, avenging the dead American who had wanted this victory.
A trumpet sounded and Sharpe, turning, saw through the smoke in the village street the flag of another Battalion. The rest of the Division was coming through and he shouted at his own men to take cover, to clear the alleys. Let other men carry on.
He picked up some straw in a farmyard and scoured at the blood on his sword blade. Two prisoners watched him. All about him the village echoed to muskets and screams. The French garrison, prised from the houses, ran back over the bridge. A Sergeant watched Sharpe. ‘It is you, sir?’
Sharpe tried to remember the man’s name and Company. ‘Sergeant Barrett, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir.’ The man smiled, pleased at being remembered. Men of his Company gaped at Sharpe.
‘It is me.’ Sharpe grinned.
‘They bloody hung you, sir.’
‘This army can’t do anything right, Sergeant.’ The men laughed, as he had meant them to. Barrett offered him some water that Sharpe took gratefully. Burning wisps of straw, blown from the thatch, threatened to start more fires. Sharpe ordered them to find rakes and get the prisoners to pull the burning thatch down. Then he set off to look at the village he had captured.
Marshal Jourdan could only fear and wait. The news from Gamarra Mayor said that the British had taken the village, but had failed to cross the river. He sent a messenger to say that the bridge had to be held at whatever cost. He felt the frustration of being outmanoeuvred, of trying to double-guess the hook-nosed, blue eyed General who opposed him.
Jo
urdan had glimpsed Wellington once, glimpsed him through a ragged hole in the smoke curtain and he had watched his opponent calmly dressing the line of a British Battalion. A General had no business doing that, Jourdan thought, and what made it worse was that the Battalion had then thrown the French from the southern flank of the Arinez Hill.
Marshal Jourdan, his great guns outflanked and his infantry defeated, had been thrown back on his second line. If the new line, and if the troops across the river from Gamarra Mayor both held, then all was not lost. Indeed a victory could still be his, but he had the horrid sensation of control slipping from his hands. He shouted for information, demanding to know where General Gazan’s troops were, and no one could tell him. He sent aides galloping into the smoke and they did not come back, or if they did they had no news, and Jourdan felt a shrinking horror that the second line was not complete, and what there was of it was suffering terribly from the enemy guns.
Suffering because Wellington had done what Wellington was reputed never to do. He had taken a leaf from the Emperor’s book and concentrated his artillery and now the British, Portuguese and Spanish guns were pounding from Arinez Hill, pounding and pounding, stopping a man thinking, and carving great furrows of blood through the waiting French infantry.
King Joseph, his horse nervous, came close to Jourdan. ‘Jean-Baptiste?’
Jourdan frowned. He hated his Christian names, he hated the familiarity that he knew was being used to disguise fear. ‘Sir?’
‘Should we advance?’
Christ on his bloody cross! Jourdan almost snarled at his monarch, but bit the blasphemy back. He forced himself to look calm, knowing that the eyes of the staff were on him. ‘We shall let our guns gnaw at him a bit, sir.’ Jesus wept! Advance? Jourdan spurred his horse away from the King, noting wryly that the royal coach was ready for flight, coachman aloft and postilions mounted on horses. The truth was that Wellington conducted the music of battle now, god-damned Wellington, and Jourdan was praying that his men would hold on long enough to let him dream up a response. Troops! He needed fresh troops. ‘Moreau! Moreau!’ He called for an aide. There must be reserves somewhere! There must be!
The afternoon had come, and it had brought an artillery duel on the plain. Jourdan shouted for more troops, but he knew his enemy, behind the curtain of smoke, was regrouping for a new attack. He demanded news, always news, and he asked for reassurance from staff officers who could not give it. Panic was beginning to infect the French command, while behind their guns the British prepared a new attack. The infantry were in their ranks, fresh cartridges issued, an army readying itself for victory.
On the walls of the city the ladies watched. They frowned when the carts brought the bloodied wounded back from the battle, but they believed the handsome cavalry officers who came to give them news. Jourdan, the cavalry officers said, had merely pulled his line back to give the guns more room. There was nothing to be worried about, nothing. One woman asked what happened to the north, and an officer reassured her that it was merely a few enemy who had come to the river and were learning the power of French guns. The officers caught the flowers tossed to them by the women, gallantly fixed the blooms to shining, plumed helmets, and trotted away through Vitoria’s suburbs leaving the womens’ hearts fluttering.
Captain Saumier knew that Marshals of France did not yield ground to give the guns space. ‘Are you packed, my Lady?’ His voice was low.
‘Packed?’
‘In case we have to retreat.’
La Marquesa stared at the ugly man. ‘You’re serious?’
‘I am, my Lady.’
She knew defeat. If Sharpe had still lived, she thought, she would have been tempted to stay in Vitoria in the sure knowledge that Sharpe would dare to do what General Verigny dared not; snatch her wagons back from the Inquisitor. But Sharpe was dead, and she dared not stay. She consoled herself that in her coach, prudently concealed beneath the driver’s bench, there were jewels enough to save her from utter poverty in France. She shrugged. ‘There’s still time, surely?’
‘I hope so, my Lady.’
She smiled sadly. ‘You still think Wellington can’t attack, Captain?’
He frowned, not at her question, but at her face. She had turned from him and now stared in horror and puzzlement at the crowd who stood at the foot of the tiered seats. Saumier touched her arm. ‘My Lady?’
She took her arm away. ‘It’s nothing, Captain.’ Yet she could have sworn, for one instant, that she had seen a bearded face, a face so covered in beard as to resemble a beast, a face that had stared at her, turned away, and which she had seen on a cold morning in the mountains. The Slaughterman. She told herself she imagined it, for no Partisan would dare show himself in the heart of the French army, and she looked back to the plain where the battle still thundered and where that army fought for its existence.
Regimental Sergeant Major MacLaird reported that the burning thatch was now extinguished. ‘And we’ve got forty-one prisoners, sir. Half the buggers are wounded badly.’
‘Where’s the surgeon?’
‘Outside the village, sir.’
‘Lieutenant Andrews!’
‘Sir?’ The Lieutenant still did not seem to believe that Sharpe was alive.
‘My respects to Mr Ellis. Tell him there’s work in the village and I want him here now!’
‘Yes, sir.’
The South Essex had been ordered to rest while other Battalions streamed through the village to attack the bridge. Sharpe thought of the guns just up the slope. His hopes of reaching Vitoria seemed slim so long as the French battery was unmolested.
‘Mr Collip!’
‘Sir?’
‘I want an ammunition check on all companies.’
‘We’ve lost the limber, sir.’
‘Then god-damned find it! And if you see my horse, send it here!’
‘Horse, sir?’
‘Black, undocked tail.’ Sharpe had taken over a house in the village plaza. Its furniture had all gone to the barricades. He listened to the French guns open fire again, and knew that the attackers would be dying as they struggled to cross the bridge. ‘Paddock!’
The Battalion clerk grinned from the kitchen door. He had been speechless when he saw Sharpe and he still grinned like a madman. ‘Sir?’
‘Someone must have some bloody tea.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Sharpe ducked out into the street. A dog ran past with a cut of meat in its mouth. He preferred not to wonder what kind of meat it was. The smoke of the French cannons drifted over the village roofs, low enough to touch the belfry. Once or twice the bell would clang as a fragment of canister bounced from the bridge to strike the instrument.
‘Sir! Sir!’ Sharpe looked left. Harry Price was running towards him. ‘Mr Sharpe!’ ‘Harry.’ Sharpe grinned.
Lieutenant Price, formality forgotten, thumped Sharpe on the back. He had been Sharpe’s Lieutenant in the Light Company. ‘Christ! I thought the buggers had hanged you!’
‘This army can’t do anything right, Harry.’ It was the twentieth time he had said it.
Price was beaming. ‘What in hell’s name happened?’
‘Long story.’
‘Here.’ Price thrust a bottle of brandy at Sharpe. ‘Found it in their headquarters.’
Sharpe smiled. ‘Later, Harry. There might be more to do.’
‘God, I hope not! I want to live to be thirty.’ Price tipped the bottle to his mouth. ‘I suppose you’re the commanding officer now?’
‘You suppose right.’ Leroy’s body had been brought into the village. His death had at least been quick. Leroy would have known nothing. The other consolation was that he had left no family, no letters that needed to be written or widow to console.
The guns still fired at the bridge. Sharpe frowned. ‘Why in hell haven’t we got guns?’
‘I heard they got lost,’ Price grinned. ‘This bloody army never does anything right. Jesus! It’s good to see you, sir!’
&nbs
p; And, oddly to Sharpe, it seemed the whole Battalion thought the same. The officers wanted to shake his hand, the men wanted to look at him as if to prove to themselves that he still lived, and he grinned shyly at their pleasure. Angel, who had come into the village with Sharpe’s horse, basked in the reflected glory. Dozens of bottles were thrust at Sharpe, dozens of times he claimed that the army couldn’t hang a curtain if they tried. He knew he was smiling idiotically, but he could not help it. He shook Harry Price off by ordering him to set up picquets at the village’s northern edge and took refuge from embarrassment in his temporary headquarters.
Where someone else found him.
‘Sir?’
The doorway was shadowed by a huge man who was festooned with weapons. Sharpe felt the smile coming again. ‘Patrick?’
‘Christ!’ The Sergeant ducked under the lintel. There were tears in his eyes. ‘I knew you’d be back.’
‘Couldn’t let you bastards fight a war without me.’
‘No!’ Harper grinned.
There was an odd silence, which both men broke together. Sharpe waved at the Irishman. ‘Go on?’
‘No, sir. You?’
‘Just that it’s good to be back.’
‘Aye.’ Harper stared at him. ‘What happened?’
‘Long story, Patrick.’
‘It would be.’
There was silence again. Sharpe felt an immense relief that the Sergeant was alive and well. He knew he should say something to that effect, but it would be too embarrassing. Instead he waved at the window-ledge. ‘Paddock made some tea.’
‘Grand!’
‘Is Isabella well?’
‘She’s just grand, sir.’ Harper tipped the cup up and drained it. ‘Mr Leroy gave us permission to get married.’
‘That’s wonderful!’
‘Aye, well.’ Harper shrugged. ‘There’s a wee one on the way, sir. I think Mr Leroy thought it would be best.’