“We will,” Sharpe agreed. They would see if the months of hard training at Shorncliffe had been worthwhile. The army had always employed skirmishers, men who ran ahead of the rigid formations to harry and weaken the waiting enemy, but now the army was employing riflemen to make those skirmishers more deadly. There were plenty who said the experiment was a waste of time and money, for rifles were much harder to reload than the smoothbore muskets and so a green jacket could only fire one shot to a musket’s three or even four. The sceptics claimed that the riflemen would be slaughtered while they recharged their expensive weapons, but those weapons could kill at four times the distance of a musket. It was accuracy against quantity.
Both armies waited. Two redcoat regiments were in line, the guns were laid, and the Danes were showing no sign of retreat. Captain Dunnett walked to the right of his line. “You know what to do, Lofty.”
“Skin ‘em alive, sir,” Filmer said.
“Keep your head!” Dunnett called to the men. “Aim properly!” He was about to add some more encouragements, but just then a shrill whistle sounded in short urgent blasts. “Forward!” Dunnett shouted.
The greenjackets were spread right across the British front so that both battalions would have the benefit of their rifles. They walked forward and Filrner’s men kicked down a low fence that divided a meadow from a field dotted with shocked wheat. The light companies of the 43rd and 92nd advanced with the riflemen, a scatter of red coats among the green. The skirmishers stayed well clear of the road for that was where the British guns would fire.
Sharpe climbed the shallow slope and saw the Danish skirmishers double forward from their positions. These were regular soldiers, not militia, and their white crossbelts showed against pale-blue coats. The Danes spread along the hillside, waiting for the British skirmishers to come within range.
“Bloody boots,” Sergeant Filmer said to Sharpe. The sole of the Sergeant’s right boot had just come loose and was flapping. “They were a bloody new pair too, sir! Bloody boots.”
A whistle blast checked the skirmishers. They had only advanced a hundred paces, but now they knelt among the shocked wheat. They were far out of musket range, but well within a rifle’s killing distance. Sharpe watched a Danish officer holding on to his hat as he ran down the slope. “They haven’t got enough skirmishers,” he said. Even if the British had not deployed rifles still the enemy had sent too few men forward, which meant, perhaps, that they were relying on the efficiency of their battalion volleys, but only the British army trained with live ammunition, and Sharpe doubted that these Danish regulars could match the redcoats shot for shot. Poor bastards, he thought.
“We’ll skin ‘em alive, sir.” Filmer tore the sole clean off his boot and pushed it into a pocket. He looked up the slope then cocked his rifle. “Skin ’em alive.”
The British guns fired.
It had been as though both armies had been holding their breath. Now the smoke jetted and swelled above the road as the round shot screamed up the hill. The gunners were already sponging out the barrels as Sharpe saw a scrap of black turf arcing through the sky close to the Danish flag, then heard the whistle blasts again. “Right, lads,” Filmer shouted, “put the bastards down!”
The greenjackets took the Danes by surprise. The enemy’s skirmishers had been waiting for the British to advance into range, but suddenly the bullets were whistling about them and men were being plucked backward.
“Aim for the officers!” Filmer shouted. “And don’t be hurried! Aim proper!”
The riflemen knew exactly what to do. They fought in pairs. One man aimed and fired, then the other protected the first as he reloaded. The Danish skirmishers were recovering from their surprise and coming downhill to get within musket range, but they were too few and the closer they came the faster they were hit. The rifles, unlike the smoothbore muskets, had sights and many of the riflemen wore merit badges because they were expert marksmen. They aimed, fired and killed and the Danes were being hit hard at a range no man would have thought to be lethal. Filmer just watched. “Good boys,” he muttered, “good boys.” The redcoat skirmishers were firing now, but it was the rifles that were doing the damage.
“It works, Lofty!” Sharpe called.
“Bloody well does, sir!” Filmer answered cheerfully.
The enemy officer who had been holding his hat was on the ground. A man ran to him and was struck by two bullets. Riflemen called targets to each other. “See that big dozy bugger with a limp?”
Sharpe was oddly surprised by the noise. He had been in bigger battles than this, far bigger, but he had never realized just how loud it was. The ear-pounding blows of the field guns were overlaid by the crack of the rifles and the brutal coughing of muskets. And that was only the skirmishers. None of the main battalions had so much as fired a volley, yet Sharpe had to shout if he wanted Filmer to hear him. He knew he was sympathizing with the Danes. Most of them, the overwhelming majority of them, would never have been in a battle and the noise alone was an assault on the senses. It was hammering and echoing, unending, crashing gouts of dirty smoke riven with red fire and over it, like a descant, the screams of the wounded and dying. The round shot blasted great lumps of earth from the crest, ripped a Danish cannon wheel to splinters and took a man’s head in an explosion of blood.
The Rifles were pressing forward, going from shock to shock. Little fires left by wadding burned in the stubble. The redcoat skirmishers were adding their fire, but it was not needed. The Rifles were winning and the Danish light troops were going back to their line.
“Forward!” Filmer called.
“Two on the right!” Sharpe shouted.
“See them! Maddox! Hart! Get those bastards!”
The trails of the British field guns were gouging ruts in the road as the weapons recoiled. Smoke thickened until the gunners were firing blind, but still the shots seared home. The green jackets could shoot at the Danish ranks now. They looked for officers as they had been trained to do, took aim, killed and looked again. The Danish ranks shifted uncomfortably, unprepared for this kind of distant fusillade. Then, in the hell of other noises, Sharpe heard the savage flare of the pipes and saw that the 92nd was advancing up the long slope. The British guns were still hammering the enemy center. The Danish guns had stayed silent, but now a great blossom of smoke showed at the hill top, but the sound was all wrong. A gun had exploded.
“On! On!” Dunnett called. “Closer!” The 43rd was advancing now. There was to be nothing subtle here. The Welshmen and the Highlanders were in line and walking straight up the slope. They would march till they were in musket range, then loose a volley and fix bayonets. “Keep killing them!” Dunnett shouted. “Keep killing! I want their officers dead!”
A riderless horse galloped along the front of the blue-coated Danish troops. Men were being thrown back from the enemy ranks by rifle bullets and the file closers were pushing men to fill the gaps. The Rifles were working. God, Sharpe thought, but it was murder. His rifle was loaded, but he had not shot it.
“Bring on the Frogs, eh, sir?” Filmer said. “Bring on the bloody Frogs!”
Wellesley ordered his cavalry forward on the left flank beside the beach. They were German hussars and they streamed out of the dunes leaving a trail of dust, their drawn blades glittering, and the sight of them must have convinced the Danes that the position was lost, for, long before the advancing redcoat battalions came within range, they began to vanish from the crest. The firing died down as the targets vanished. There was a scatter of bodies higher up the field, but only one greenjacket was down. “Get his boots,” Filmer told a man. “It was Horrible Hopkins,” he told Sharpe, “smacked in the eye.”