“Always a pleasure to murder a gunner, sir,” Harper said. “Isn’t that right, Harris?”
Harris, who had been most vocal about not joining any fight, cocked his rifle. “Always a pleasure, Sergeant.”
“Then make yourself happy. Kill a bloody gunner.”
Sharpe stared toward the French infantry, but could see little because the smoke of the muskets drifted across their front. He could see two eagles through the smoke, and beside them the small flags mounted on the halberds carried by the men charged with protecting the eagles. He could hear the drummer boys still beating the pas de charge even though the French advance had stopped. The real noise was of musketry, the pounding cough of volley fire, the relentless noise, and if he listened hard he could hear the balls striking on muskets and thumping into flesh. He could also hear the cries of the wounded and the screams of officers’ horses put down by the balls. And he was amazed, as he always was, by the courage of the French. They were being struck hard, yet they stayed. They stayed behind a straggling heap of dead men, they edged aside to let the wounded crawl behind, they reloaded and fired, and all the time the volleys kept coming. Sharpe could see no order among the enemy. The columns had long broken into a thick line that spread wider as men found space to use their muskets, but even so the makeshift line was still thicker and shorter than the British line. Only the British and Portuguese fought in two ranks. The French were supposed to fight in three ranks when deployed in line, but this line was clumped together, six or seven men deep in some places.
A third French gun was struck. A round shot shattered a wheel and the gun tipped down as the gunners jumped out of the way. “Good shooting!” Duncan shouted. “An extra ration of rum for that crew!” He had no idea which of his guns had done the damage so he would give them all rum when the fighting was done. A gust of wind blew the smoke away from the French battery and Duncan saw a gunner rolling up a new wheel. Hagman, kneeling among the Portuguese, saw another gunner bring his linstock toward the closest French cannon, a howitzer. Hagman fired and the gunner vanished behind the short barrel.
The British had no music to inspire them. There had been no space on the ships to bring instruments, but the bandsmen had come, armed with muskets, and now those men did their usual battle job of rescuing the wounded, taking them back to the trees, where the surgeons worked. The rest of the redcoats fought on. They did what they were trained to do, and what they did was fire a musket. Load and fire, load and fire. Take out a cartridge, bite off the top, prime the lock with a pinch of powder from the bitten end of the cartridge, close the frizzen to keep the pinch in place, drop the musket butt to the ground, pour the rest of the powder down the hot barrel, thrust the paper on top as wadding, ram it down, and inside the paper was the ball. Bring the musket up, pull back the cock, remember to aim low because the brute of a gun kicked like a mule, wait for the order, pull the trigger. “Misfire!” a man shouted, meaning his lock had sparked, but the charge in the barrel had not caught the fire. A corporal snatched the musket away from him, gave him a dead man’s gun, then laid the misfired musket on the grass behind. Other men had to pause to change flints, but the volleys never stopped.
The French were becoming more organized, but they would never fire as fast as the redcoats. The redcoats were professionals, while most of the French were conscripts. They had been summoned to their depots and given training, but were not permitted to practice with real gunpowder. For every three bullets the British fired in battle, the French fired two, so the rules of mathematics favored the redcoats again, but the French still outnumbered the British, and as their line spread, the gods of mathematics tipped the balance back toward the men in the blue coats. More and more of the emperor’s soldiers brought muskets to bear, and more and more redcoats were carried back to the pinewood. On the left of the British line, where no artillery helped, the Silver Tails were being hit hard. Sergeants commanded companies now. They were opposed two to one, for Leval had sent one of his supporting battalions to add their fire and that new unit came into line and struck hard with fresh muskets. The fight now was like two boxers toeing the line and striking again and again, and every bare-knuckle blow started blood, and neither man moved, and it was a contest to see which could sustain the greatest pain.
“You, sir, you!” A voice snapped behind Sharpe and he turned, alarmed, to see a colonel on horseback, but the colonel was not looking at Sharpe. He was glaring at Captain Galiana. “Where the devil are your men? Do you speak English? For Christ’s sake, someone ask where his men are.”
“I have no men,” Galiana admitted hastily in English.
“For God’s sake, why doesn’t General Lapeña send us men?”
“I shall find him, señor,” Galiana said and, with something useful to do, turned his horse toward the woods.
“Tell him I want them on my left,” the colonel roared after him, “on my left!” The colonel was Wheatley, commanding the brigade, and he rode back to where the 28th, the Dandies, the Silver Tails, the Slashers, were being turned into dead and dying men. That suffering battalion was closest to the Spanish troops at Bermeja, but Bermeja was over a mile from the fighting. Lapeña had nine thousand men there. They sat on the sand, muskets stacked, and ate the last of their rations. A thousand of the Spaniards watched the French across the Almanza Creek, but those French were not moving. Any battle beside the Rio Sancti Petri had long died and the herons, encouraged by the silence between the armies, had come back to hunt among the reeds.
Sharpe had taken out his telescope. His riflemen were still firing at the French gunners, but only one of the enemy cannon was still undamaged. That was the howitzer, and Duncan had shredded its crew with a finely judged burst of shrapnel. “Take these nearest bastards,” Sharpe told his men, indicating the French line, and he now watched that line through the glass. The view was of smoke and blue coats. He lowered the telescope. He sensed that the battle had reached a pause. It was not that the killing had stopped, nor that the muskets had ceased firing, but that neither side was making a move to change the situation. They were thinking, waiting, killing while they waited, and it seemed to Sharpe that the French, despite being outfought by the musket fire of the redcoats, had gained the advantage. They had more men, so could afford to lose the musket duel, and their right and center were edging forward. It did not look like a deliberate move, but rather the result of pressure from the men in the rear ranks who were thrusting the French line toward the sea. The French left was stalled, for they were being flayed by Duncan’s guns that had already knocked the French artillery out of the fight, but the French right and center were unaffected by the guns. They had already stepped over the line of dead men that was all that was left of their original front ranks and they were getting bolder. Their fire, inefficient though it was by redcoat standards, was taking its toll. With the widening of the French line and the commitment of one of their two reserve battalions, the laws of mathematics had tipped back to favor the French. They had taken the worst the British could give them, they had survived, and now they edged forward toward their weakened enemy.
Sharpe went back a few paces and looked behind the British line. No Spanish troops were in sight and he knew there were no British reserves. If the men on the heath could not do the job, then the French must win and the army would be turned into a rabble. He went back to his men who were now firing at the nearest French infantry. An eagle showed above them, and near the eagle was a group of horsemen. Sharpe leveled the glass again and, just before the musket smoke obscured the standard, he saw him.