The French had come in column again. They always came in column. This one was three hundred men wide and nine ranks deep, and that meant most of the French could not use their muskets while every redcoat and every greenjacket could fire his weapon. The balls converged on the French, they drove inward, and in front of the guards and in front of the men from Hampshire there were small flames in the grass where the wadding had started fires.
Sir Thomas held his breath. This was a moment, he knew, when orders would do nothing, when even to encourage the men would be a waste of breath. They knew what they were doing and they were doing it so well that he was even tempted to think he might snatch a victory from what had seemed like certain defeat. But then the crash of a well-orchestrated volley made him ride toward the right of his line and he saw the unbroken ranks of the French grenadiers coming downhill through the smoke of their opening volley. He saw the Scottish guards turning to take on this new enemy, and the riflemen, who were in more extended order around the seaward flank of the hill, drew closer together to pour their fire at the French reinforcements.
Sir Thomas still said nothing. He held his hat in his hand and he watched the grenadiers come down the slope. He saw how each man in the French ranks had a short saber as well as a musket. These were the enemy’s elite, the men chosen to do the hardest work, and they were coming fresh to the fight, but again they came in a column, and the right of his own line, without any orders from Sir Thomas or anyone else, had half turned toward them to give them the benefit of their training. The half battalion of the 67th was right in front of the grenadiers who, unlike the first four battalions, were not checked by the first shots to hit them, but kept coming.
And this, Sir Thomas knew, was how a column should fight. It was a battering ram, and though the head of the column must suffer horribly, the momentum of its mass should take it through an enemy to bloody victory. On battlefield after battlefield across a suffering Europe the emperor’s columns had taken their punishment and marched on to win. And this column, all of them elite troops, was coming downhill and getting ever closer. If it broke through the thin line of red and green, it would turn to its right and murder Sir Thomas’s men with sabers and musket butts. And still it came. Sir Thomas rode behind the 67th, ready to slash with his sword and die with his men if the grenadiers succeeded. Then an officer shouted the command to fire.
Smoke billowed in front of Sir Thomas. Then more smoke. The 67th was firing platoon volleys now, and the Sweeps were up on their right, not bothering to wrap their bullets with leather because at this range they could not miss, and so their fire was almost as quick as the redcoats beside them. On Sir Thomas’s left were his Scotsmen, and he knew they would not break. The noise of the musketry was like a great fire of dry wood. The air stank of rotten eggs. Somewhere a seagull cried, and far behind Sir Thomas the cannons crashed on the heath, but he could not spare a glance for what happened behind him. It was here and now that the battle would be decided. He suddenly realized he was holding his breath and he let it out, glanced at Lord William, and saw His Lordship staring wide-eyed and motionless into the musket smoke. “You can breathe, Willie.”
“Dear Lord,” Lord William said, letting out his breath. “You know there’s a Spanish brigade behind us?” he asked Sir Thomas.
Sir Thomas turned and saw the Spanish troops on the beach. They made no move to reinforce him and even if he ordered them up the hill he knew they would arrive too late to be of any help. This fight could not last that long and so he shook his head. “Damn them, Willie,” he said. “Just damn them.”
Lord William Russell held a pistol, ready to shoot the first grenadier to come through the smoke, but the grenadiers had been stopped by the rifle and musket fire. Their front ranks were dead and the men behind were now trying to reload and fire back, but once a column stopped moving it became a giant target, and Sir Thomas’s men were firing into its heart. Even though the grenadiers were elite troops, they could not fire as fast as the redcoats.
General Dilkes, his horse bleeding in the rump and shoulder, came to Sir Thomas’s side. He said nothing, just stared, then glanced up the hill to where Marshal Victor sat on his horse with his white-plumed hat held low. Marshal Victor was watching three thousand men held by musket fire. He said nothing. It was up to his men now.
On the left of the British line, beyond the First Foot Guards, Major Browne fought his remnant of flankers. Fewer than half the men who had climbed the hill were still able to fire a musket, but they poured their volleys at the nearest French column and, in their eagerness, went higher up the hill to assail the column’s flank.
“Don’t you love the rogues?” Sir Thomas shouted at General Dilkes, and Dilkes was so surprised by the question that he gave a bark of laughter. “Time to give them the bayonet,” Sir Thomas said.
Dilkes nodded. He was watching the redcoats fire their murderous volleys and he reckoned he had just watched his men perform a miracle.
“They’ll run, I vouch,” Sir Thomas said, and hoped he was right.
“Fix bayonets!” Dilkes found his voice.
“On to them, boys!” Sir Thomas waved his hat and galloped back behind the line. “On to them! Push them off my hill! Off my hill!”
And the redcoats, like hounds released, went uphill with bayonets. Marshal Victor, at the crest, heard the screams as the blades began their work. “For God’s sake, fight!” he said to no one in particular, but his six battalions were recoiling. Panic had infected their ranks. The rearmost men, those least in danger, were edging back and the foremost ranks were being savaged by redcoats. The band, well behind the line and still playing the forbidden “Marseillaise,” sensed the disaster coming and the music faltered. The bandmaster tried to rally his musicians, but the loudest noise now was the hoarse war cries of the British. Instead of playing, the band broke and ran. The infantry followed. “The guns,” Victor said to an aide, “get the guns off the hill.” It was one thing to lose a fight, but another to have the emperor’s beloved guns captured, so the gunners brought up their teams and dragged four of the cannons eastward, off the hill. Two could not be saved because the redcoats were too close, so those guns were lost. Marshal Victor and his aides followed the four guns, and the remnants of his six battalions ran for their lives, ran across the hilltop and down its eastern face, and behind them the redcoats and greenjackets came with bayonets and victory.
General Rousseau, who had led the grenadiers, and General Ruffin, who had commanded the beaten division, were both wounded and left behind. Sir Thomas was told of their capture, but he said nothing; he just rode to the hill’s inland crest from where he could see his beaten enemy running. He remembered that long-ago moment in Toulouse when the soldiers of France had insulted his dead wife and had spat in his face when he protested. Back then Sir Thomas had sympathized with the French. He had thought that their ideals of liberty, fraternity, and equality were beacons for Britain. He had loved France.
But that had been nineteen years ago. Nineteen years in which Sir Thomas had never forgotten the mockery given by the French to his dead wife, so now he stood in his stirrups and cupped his hands. “Remember me!” he shouted. He shouted in English, but that did not matter because the French were running too fast and were too far away to hear him. “Remember me!” he shouted again, then touched his wedding ring.
And south of him, beyond the pinewood, a cannon fired.
Sir Thomas turned and put spurs to his tired horse, because the battle was not yet won.
“OH, BLOODY hell,” Sharpe said. The curricle had bounced past him, wheels spinning as they left the ground, and it had dashed across the corner of the French column, then capsized twenty paces from the column’s edge. The woman, black-veiled, was evidently uninjured for she was trying to help the brigadier to his feet, but a dozen Frenchmen from the column’s rear ranks had seen the accident and also seen a profit there. A man festooned with lace could also be festooned with money, and so they darted from the column so that they could rifle the fallen man’s pockets. Sharpe drew his sword and ran.