“We’ve got work, boys. Come on,” Harper said.
The riflemen had been moving toward the column’s flank. There was a foul battle going on between redcoats and Frenchmen, a battle of bayonet and musket butts, but Sharpe had seen Colonel Vandal on his horse. Vandal was in the press of Frenchmen, close to his regiment’s eagle, and he was beating with his saber, not at redcoats, but at his own men. He was shouting at them to fight, to kill, and his passion was holding the men so that the French left flank alone was not retreating, but fighting stubbornly against the Irishmen who attacked from their front. Sharpe thought that by going to the column’s side he might have a clear shot for his rifle, but now he had to rescue Brigadier Moon who was trying to protect the veiled woman. Moon hauled her down beside him and tried to find his pistol, but in his tumble from the curricle the weapon had fallen from his tail pocket. He drew his new saber, a cheap thing purchased in Cádiz, and found the blade was broken, and just then the widowed Marquesa screamed because the French were coming with bayonets.
Then a green-jacketed man came from Moon’s left. The man carried a heavy cavalry sword, a weapon as brutal as it was clumsy, and his first stroke took a Frenchman in the throat. The blood sprayed higher than the eagle on its pole. The man’s head flopped back as his body kept running. Sharpe turned, impaled a second man in the belly with the sword, twisted it fast to stop the flesh gripping the blade, then put his right boot on the man’s belly to give him the leverage to rip the sword free. A bayonet went through his coat, but Captain Galiana was there and his slim sword pierced the Frenchman’s side.
Brigadier Moon, his hand clutching the Marquesa’s hand, just watched. Sharpe had killed one man and put another on the ground in the time it would take to swat a fly. Now two other Frenchmen came at Sharpe, and Moon expected the rifleman to step away from their frenzied attack, but instead he went to meet them and beat a bayonet aside with his sword before driving the blade up into the man’s face. A boot into the crotch crumpled the man. The second lunged with his bayonet, and Moon thought Sharpe must be killed, but the rifleman had sidestepped the lunge with sudden speed and now turned on his attacker. Moon saw the ferocity on the rifleman’s face and felt an unexpected pang of pity for the Frenchman who faced him. “Bastard,” Sharpe snarled, and the sword lunged, hard and fast, and the Frenchman dropped his musket and clung to the blade impaling his belly. Sharpe ripped it out just as Perkins arrived to bayonet the man. Harper was beside Sharpe now and pulled the trigger of the volley gun, with the sound of a cannon firing. Two Frenchmen went backward, blood thick on their white crossbelts. The others had taken enough and were running back to the column.
“Sharpe!” Moon called.
Sharpe ignored the brigadier. He sheathed his sword and took the rifle from his shoulder. He knelt and aimed at Vandal. “You bastard,” he said and pulled the trigger. The rifle’s muzzle was lost in smoke, and when the smoke cleared Vandal was still alive, still on his horse, and still using the flat of his saber to drive his men onto Gough’s Irish. Sharpe swore. “Dan,” he called to Hagman, “shoot that bastard!”
“Sharpe,” the brigadier called again, “the gun!”
Sharpe turned. He saw, without much surprise, that the veiled woman was Caterina and he wondered what kind of bloody fool the brigadier was to bring a woman into this carnage. Then he looked at the abandoned French howitzer and saw that a priming tube was still sticking out of the vent. That meant the short-barreled cannon was loaded. He looked on the scorched grass for the linstock, but could not see it. The half battalion of the 67th, the two companies of the Cauliflowers, and the survivors of the Portuguese cacadores were advancing beyond the gun, going to fight Leval’s last reserve battalion that was hurrying toward the left flank of the beleaguered 8th. The cannon, Sharpe thought, might be more useful if it was aimed at that reserve battalion, but then he remembered poor Jack Bullen. “Sergeant! I want this bloody gun round!”
Harper, Galiana, Sharpe, and Harris lifted the trail and turned the howitzer so it pointed at the 8th of the line. “Here, Sharpe!” The brigadier tossed him a tinderbox.
“Out of the way!” Sharpe shouted to his other riflemen. Then he struck a light and blew the charred linen in the box so that it burst into flame. He took all the linen out of the box, scorching his fingers, and leaned over the gun’s wheel to drop the burning mass onto the priming tube. He heard the powder fizz and ducked away.
The howitzer crashed back, its wheels leaping off the ground as it recoiled. It was a six-inch howitzer and it had been loaded with canister. The balls tore into the French flank with the force of a battalion volley. The cannon had been too close to spread the missiles wide, but where they struck they gouged a bleeding hole in the packed ranks and Sharpe, running aside, saw that Vandal had disappeared. Sharpe drew his sword again, then waited, wanting another sight of the colonel. Behind him the men of the 67th and the 47th and the 20th Portuguese started their volleys against the reserve battalion. Duncan’s guns flayed it with shell and shrapnel. Somewhere a man howled like a dog.
Colonel Vandal was on the ground. His horse was dying, screaming as its head thrashed the sandy soil. Vandal himself was dazed, but he did not think he was wounded. He managed to stand, only to see that the redcoats were closing on his eagle. “Kill them!” he shouted, and the shout was a parched croak. A huge sergeant with a pike was slashing at the French sergeants protecting the standard. “Kill them!” Vandal shouted again, and just then a young and skinny redcoat officer leaped at the color and cut with his sword at Sous-Lieutenant Guillemain who had the honor of holding the emperor’s eagle. Vandal thrust his saber at the thin officer and felt the blade’s tip jar on the man’s ribs. The redcoat ignored the thrust and, with his free hand, grabbed the eagle’s pole and tried to pull it from Guillemain’s grasp. Two French sergeants killed the man, piercing him with their long-bladed halberds, cursing him, and Vandal saw the life fade from the redcoat’s eyes before he had even hit the ground. Then one of the French sergeants recoiled, his left eye nothing but a pit of jellied blood, and a huge voice shouted at the Frenchmen. “Faugh a ballagh!”
Sergeant Masterson had seen Ensign Keogh killed and now Masterson was angry. He had put down one of the killers with the spontoon’s blade, and he slashed at the second, striking the man with the edge of the spear point. He brought it back and rammed the pike at Guillemain’s throat. The lieutenant began gurgling, blood bubbling at his gullet, and Vandal reached for the eagle, but Masterson ripped the spontoon sideways so that Guillemain’s dying body fell across the colonel. Then Masterson tore the eagle out of the Frenchman’s grasp. Captain Lecroix shouted in incoherent rage and slashed his sword at Masterson, but a redcoat thrust his bayonet into Lecroix’s ribs and another hit him on the skull with a musket. The last thing Lecroix saw in this world was the huge Irish sergeant flailing the precious standard. He was using the eagle to beat at the men trying to take it from him, and then a new rush of redcoats came on either side of Masterson and their bayonets went to work. “Lunge!” a sergeant was shouting in a high, cracked voice. “Recover! Stance! Lunge!”
A surge of Frenchmen tried to recover their eagle, but the Irish bayonets were in front of it now. “Lunge! Recover!” the sergeant was shouting, while behind him Masterson was bellowing incoherently and waving the eagle above his head. “Lunge! Recover! Do your work properly!”