The head was heavy; the eyes were sightless. The musket ball had gone cleanly between two ribs and killed him even as he shouted the warning. Sharpe could hear the ramrod rattle as the enemy skirmisher pushed his next round into die barrel; then the unseen enemy's partner fired, the ball missing Sharpe by inches because the Frenchman had suddenly seen Harper. The Sergeant's rifle bullet lifted the Frenchman up off the ground; he opened his mouth to scream, but only blood came out and he dropped back. Sharpe could still hear the scraping of the iron ramrod; he stood up with Tongue's rifle and ran forward. The voltigeur saw him coming, panicked, and scrambled backwards, and Sharpe shot him in the base of the spine and watched the man drop his musket and fall in agony to the hillside.
Parry Jenkins, Tongue's partner, seemed almost in tears. The Welshman stooped over Tongue's body, unbuckling the ammunition pouch and canteen, and Sharpe threw him the dead man's rifle. 'Here! A French ball thudded into his pack, pushing him forward, and he knew that the enemy skirmish line had bent down the hill, cutting their southward advance, and he waved his men down and ran back to Jenkins.
'Have you got everything?
'Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir. God, I'm sorry, sir.
Sharpe hit him on the shoulder. 'Come on, Parry. Not your fault. Down!
They went down the hill, the musket balls over their heads, and found cover in the rocks. Tongue's body would have to stay there, another Rifleman lost in Spain, or was this Portugal? Sharpe did not know, but he thought of the school in the Midlands where Tongue had once taught, appropriately enough, languages, and he wondered if anyone would remember the clever young man with the friendly eyes who took to drink.
'Sir!
Knowles was pointing behind and Sharpe rolled over and looked back the way they had come. French skirmishers in faded bluejackets with red epaulettes were angling down the hill behind them. He stayed on his back, facing his men.
'Rifles! Bayonets!
The French would understand that all right, and feel the fear. He had unconsciously counted the bullets that missed him when he went forward to Tongue's body and he knew, though he had not thought about it, that the hillside in front was sparsely held. The French had put a skirmish line there, thin and spaced, thinking it was enough to drive the British back downhill where, still unseen, the cavalry must wait.
'Lieutenant!
'Sir?
'You'll follow us.
We buy ten minutes, he thought, but we might get outside their cordon, and we might find a place to defend. He knew it was hopeless, but it was better than being driven like fat sheep, and he tugged out his sword, felt its edge, and was on his feet.
'Forward!
One man of each pair watched, the other ran, and Sharpe heard the Bakers cracking the morning apart as the Frenchmen put up their heads to fire at the small, spread band of men in green who screamed at them and had twenty-three inches of steel fixed to their rifles. The few skirmishers in their front ran, or else died from the spinning rifle bullets that could not miss at fifty paces, and the Company kept running. Sharpe was ahead, his sword across his body and his rifle bumping on his back. He saw skirmishers above them on the hillside, and below, but muskets were a terrible instrument for precision work, and he let the enemy fire and knew the odds were in the Company's favour. One man went down, hit in the buttocks, but he was dragged up and they were through the gap and there were just a few panicked French fugitives ahead who had not had the sense to climb the hill. One turned, reached with his musket, and found himself faced with a giant Irishman who split him neatly between the ribs, kicked the blade free, and went on. Sharpe cut at a man with his sword, felt the bone-hammering jar as the Frenchman parried with his musket, and then he ran on and wondered what kind of a dent he had put in the heavy steel edge.
'Come on! Uphill!
That was not what the French expected, so it was the only way to go. The Company had smashed the cordon, lost only one man, and now they forced their tired legs to go up the slope, towards the western crest, and behind them the French orders rang out, the blue-coated officers realigning their men, and there was no time for anything but to force the legs up the impossible slope, feel the pain as the breath hurt the lungs, and then Sharpe made the crest and, without stopping, turned and kept running. The damned French were there, not expecting the British, but there all the same and lined up in files and ranks waiting for orders. Sharpe had a glimpse of a gently falling slope, well grassed, and the French battalion lined in companies, and the French watched, astonished, as the British ran past their front, only a hundred paces away, and not a musket was fired.
There was no escape to the west, none to the north where the skirmishers chased them, and Sharpe knew they must go south and east where the cavalry expected them. It was the only direction that gave time, and time was the only hope. He turned, waved the Riflemen down, and pushed Knowles and the red-jacketed men down the slope.
'Form up a hundred paces down!
'Sir! Knowles acknowledged, leapt over a boulder, and the Company was gone.
'Rifles! Hold them up!
This was a better way of fighting, letting the enemy come to them, and killing them when they were too far away to reply to the rifle fire. Sharpe fought as a Private, ramming the balls down the rifling, picking his targets and waiting for the victim to rush forward. He aimed low, never waited to see if the man fell, but dragged out another cartridge, bit off the bullet, and started to reload. He could hear the rifles around him, firing as fast as they could, which was not fast enough, and he knew that the French would come to their senses soon and overwhelm them with targets and rush them with bayonets. He heard Harper giving instructions, and wondered which of the Riflemen needed to be told that you wrapped the bullet in the small greased patch so that it gripped the rifling, and he was so curious that he dodged through the lingering smoke and saw Teresa, with Tongue's weapon, her face already blackened with powder smoke, kneeling up to fire at a Frenchman.
Then the enemy disappeared, gone to ground, and Sharpe knew the rush was coming.
'Forget the patches!
It was faster to load a naked ball, even though the rifle lost its accuracy, and then he whistled at them, pulling them back, keeping low, so that the enemy would charge an empty piece of ground and find itself under fire from new cover.
'Wait for them!
They waited. There were French shouts, French cheers, and the men in blue and red were criss-crossing towards them, muskets and bayonets catching the light, and still they came and Sharpe knew they were outnumbered horribly, but it was always best to wait.
'Wait! Wait! He saw a confused enemy officer, looking for the British, and knew the man would lose his nerve in just a second.
'Fire!
It was a small volley, but the last they would fire with greased patches, and it was murderous. The enemy dived for cover, threw themselves behind rocks or their own dead, and the Riflemen reloaded, spitting the bullets into the guns, tapping them down by hammering the butts on the ground and not even bothering with ramrods.
'Back!
There were a hundred skirmishers in front of them, pressing forward, lapping them, and the Riflemen went back, tap-loading, firing at their enemies, and always losing ground, going downhill towards the rest of the Company, who were getting closer and closer to the open ground of the valley.
'Back! It was no place to die, this, not while the cavalry had still not appeared and there was a chance, however slim, that the Company could fall back to the far side of the valley. There was no time to think of that, only to keep the Riflemen out of range of the muskets, to hurry the Company down the hill, stopping and firing, running, reloading, and finding new cover. They were doing no damage to the enemy, but the French, terrified of rifles, kept their distance and did not seem to realize that the bullets were no longer spinning; that, bereft of the small leather patch, the rifles were less accurate than the ordinary musket. It was enough for the French that their opponents wore green, the 'grasshoppers' of the British army who could kill at three hundred paces and tear the heart out of an enemy skirmish line.