Sharpe's Fury - 11 (33 page)

The Spaniard rode away and Sir Thomas looked back east. The French were coming in two huge columns. He planned to face the northern column with Wheatley’s brigade, while General Dilkes and his guardsmen would confront the column closest to the Cerro del Puerco. And that made him think of the Spaniards on the hill. The French would surely send their southern column to take that hill and they must not be allowed to do so, or else they could sweep down from its summit to attack the right flank of his hasty defense. He turned south, leading his remaining aides toward the Cerro del Puerco.

That hill, he thought as he rode back into the pines, was his one advantage. There were Spanish cannons on the summit, and those guns could fire down on the French. The hill was a fortress protecting his vulnerable right flank, and if the French could be held on the plain then the brigade on the hill could be used to make an attack on the enemy’s flank. Thank God, he was thinking as he rode out of the trees, that the hill was his.

Except it was not. The Cerro del Puerco had been abandoned and, even as Sir Thomas had ridden south, the first French battalions were climbing the hill’s eastern slopes. The enemy now held the Cerro del Puerco and the only allied troops in sight were the five hundred men of the Gibraltar Flankers. Instead of holding the high ground, they were forming into a column of march at the hill’s foot. “Browne! Browne!” Sir Thomas shouted as he cantered toward the column. “Why are you here? Why?”

“Because I’ve got half the French army climbing the damned hill, Sir Thomas.”

“Where are the Spaniards?”

“They ran.”

Sir Thomas stared at Browne for a heartbeat. “Well, it’s a bad business, Browne,” he said, “but you must instantly turn around again and attack.”

Major Browne’s eyes widened. “You want me to attack half their army?” he asked incredulously. “I saw six battalions and a battery of artillery coming! I’ve got only five hundred thirty-six muskets.” Browne, deserted by the Spaniards, had watched the mass of infantry and cannon approaching the hill, and had decided that retreat was better than suicide. There were no other British troops within sight, he had no promises of reinforcement, and so he had led his Gibraltar Flankers north, off the hill. Now he was being told to go back, and he took a deep breath, as if steeling himself for the ordeal. “If we must,” he said, stoically accepting his fate, “then we will.”

“You must,” Sir Thomas said, “because I need the hill. I’m sorry, Browne, I need it. But General Dilkes is coming. I’ll bring him up to you myself.”

Browne turned to his adjutant. “Major Blakeney! Skirmish order! Back up the hill! Drive the devils away!”

“Sir Thomas?” an aide interrupted, then pointed to the hill’s summit, where the first French battalions were already appearing. Blue coats were showing at the skyline, a great array of blue coats ready to come down the slope and scour their way along the pinewood.

Sir Thomas gazed at the French. “Light bobs won’t stop them, Browne,” he said. “You’ll have to give them volley fire.”

“Close order!” Browne shouted at his men who had started to deploy into skirmish order.

“They have a battery of cannon up there, Sir Thomas,” the aide said quietly.

Sir Thomas ignored the news. It did not matter if the French had all the emperor’s artillery on the hilltop, they still had to be attacked. They had to be thrown off the hill, and that meant the only available troops must climb the slope and make an assault that would hold the French in place until General Dilkes’s guardsmen came to assist them. “God be with you, Browne,” Sir Thomas said too quietly for the major to hear. Sir Thomas knew he was sending Browne’s men to their deaths, but they had to die to give the Guards time to arrive. He sent an aide to summon Dilkes’s men. “He’s to ignore my last order,” Sir Thomas said, “and to bring his men here with the utmost speed. The utmost speed! Go!”

Sir Thomas had done what he could. The coastline between the villages of Barrosa and Bermeja was two miles of confusion into which two French attacks were developing, one against the pinewood while the other had already captured the crucial hill. Sir Thomas, knowing that the enemy was on the brink of victory, must gamble everything on his men’s ability to fight. Both his brigades would be outnumbered, and one must attack uphill. If either failed, the whole army would be lost.

Behind him, in the open heath beyond the pinewood, the first rifles and muskets fired.

And Browne marched his men back up the hill.

CHAPTER 11

S
HARPE AND HIS RIFLEMEN,
still accompanied by Captain Galiana, walked through the Spanish army that mostly seemed to be resting on the beach. Galiana dismounted when they reached the village of Bermeja and led his horse through the hovels. General Lapeña and his aides were there, sheltering from the sun under a framework on which fishing nets hung to dry. There was a watchtower in the village, and its summit was crowded with Spanish officers staring south with telescopes. The sound of musketry came from that direction, but it was very muffled, and no one in the Spanish army seemed particularly interested. Galiana remounted when they left the village. “Was that General Lapeña?” Sharpe asked.

“It was,” Galiana said sourly. He had walked the horse to avoid being noticed by the general.

“Why doesn’t he like you?” Sharpe asked.

“Because of my father.”

“What did your father do?”

“He was in the army, like me. He challenged Lapeña to a duel.”

“And?”

“Lapeña wouldn’t fight. He is a coward.”

“What was the argument about?”

“My mother,” Galiana said curtly.

South of Bermeja the beach was empty except for some fishing boats drawn up on the sand. The boats were painted blue, yellow, and red and had large black eyes on their bows. The musketry was still muffled, but Sharpe could see smoke rising beyond the pine trees that ran thick behind the dunes. They walked in silence until, perhaps half a mile beyond the village, Perkins claimed to have seen a whale.

“What you saw,” Slattery said, “was your bloody rum ration. You saw it and drank it.”

“I saw it, I did sir!” He appealed to Sharpe, but Sharpe did not care what Perkins had or had not seen and ignored him.

“I saw a whale once,” Hagman put in. “It were dead. Stinking.”

Perkins was gazing out to sea again, hoping to see whatever it was he had taken to be a whale. “Maybe,” Harris suggested, “it was backed like a weasel?” They all stared at him.

“He’s being clever again,” Harper said loftily. “Just ignore him.”

“It’s Shakespeare, Sergeant.”

“I don’t care if it’s the Archangel bloody Gabriel, you’re just showing off.”

“There was a Sergeant Shakespeare in the 48th,” Slattery said, “and a proper bastard he was. He choked to death on a walnut.”

“You can’t die from a walnut!” Perkins said.

“He did. His face turned blue. Good thing too. He was a bastard.”

“God save Ireland,” Harper said. His words were not prompted by Sergeant Shakespeare’s demise, but by a cavalcade storming down the beach toward them. The baggage mules, which had been retreating down the beach rather than on the track in the pinewood, had bolted.

“Stand still!” Sharpe said. They stood in a tight group as the mules split to pass on either side. Captain Galiana shouted at passing muleteers, demanding to know what had happened, but the men kept going.

“I didn’t know you were in the 48th, Fergus,” Hagman said.

“Three years, Dan. Then they went to Gibraltar, only I was sick so I stayed at the barracks. Almost died, I did.”

Harris snatched at a passing mule that evaded his grip. “So how did you join the Rifles?” he asked.

“I was Captain Murray’s servant,” Slattery said, “and when he joined the Rifles, he took me with him.”

“What’s an Irishman doing in the 48th?” Harris wanted to know. “They’re from Northamptonshire.”

“They recruited in Wicklow,” Slattery said.

Captain Galiana had succeeded in stopping a muleteer and got from the fugitive a confused tale of an overwhelming French attack. “He says the enemy has taken that hill,” Galiana said, pointing to the Cerro del Puerco.

Sharpe took out his telescope and, again using Perkins as a rest, he stared at the hilltop. He could see a French battery at the crest and at least four blue-coated battalions. “They’re up there,” he confirmed. He turned the glass toward the village between the hill and the sea and saw Spanish cavalry there. There were also Spanish infantry, two or three thousand of them, but they had marched a small way north and were now resting among the dunes at the top of the beach. Neither the cavalry nor the infantry seemed concerned by the French possession of the hill and the sound of the fighting did not come from its slopes, but from beyond the pinewood on Sharpe’s left.

Sharpe offered the glass to Galiana who shook his head. “I have my own,” he said, “so what are they doing?”

“Who? The French?”

“Why don’t they attack down the hill?”

“What are those Spanish troops doing?” Sharpe asked.

“Nothing.”

“Which means they’re not needed. Which probably means there’s a lot of men waiting for the Crapauds to come down the hill, and meanwhile the fighting’s over there”—he nodded toward the pinewood—“so that’s where I’m going.” The panicked mass of mules had gone by. The muleteers were still hurrying north, scooping up the loaves of hard bread jolted out of the animals’ panniers. Sharpe picked one up and broke it in half.

“Are we looking for the 8th, sir?” Harper asked him as they walked toward the pines.

“I am, but I don’t suppose I’ll find them,” Sharpe said. It was one thing to declare an ambition to find Colonel Vandal, but in the chaos he doubted he would be successful. He did not even know if the French 8th were here, and if they were they might be anywhere. He knew some Frenchmen were behind the creek where they threatened the army’s route to Cádiz. There were plenty more on the distant hill, and plainly others were beyond the pinewood. That was where the guns sounded so Sharpe would go that way. He walked to the top of the beach, scrambled up a sandy bluff, then plunged into the shade of the pines. Galiana, who seemed to have no plan except to stay with Sharpe, dismounted again because the pine branches hung so low.

“You don’t have to come, Pat,” Sharpe said.

“I know that, sir.”

“I mean we’ve got no business here,” Sharpe said.

“There’s Colonel Vandal, sir.”

“If we find him,” Sharpe said dubiously. “Truth is, Pat, I’m here because I like Sir Thomas.”

“Everyone speaks well of him, sir.”

“And this is our job, Pat,” Sharpe said more harshly. “There’s fighting and we’re soldiers.”

“So we do have business here?”

“Of course we bloody do.”

Harper walked in silence for a few paces. “So you never were going to let us go back, were you?”

“Would you have gone?”

“I’m here, sir,” Harper said as if that answered Sharpe. The musketry from their front was heavier. Till now it had sounded like skirmish fire, the thorn-splintering snap of light infantry firing independently, but the heavier noise of volley fire was punching through the trees now. Behind it Sharpe could hear the fine flurry of trumpets and the rhythm of drums, but he did not recognize the tune, so knew it must be a French band playing. Then a series of louder crashes announced that cannons were firing. Balls whipped through the trees, bringing down needles and twigs. The French were firing canister and the air smelled of resin and powder smoke.

They came to a track rutted by the wheels of gun carriages. A few mules were picketed to the trees, guarded by three redcoats with yellow facings. “Are you the Hampshires?” Sharpe asked.

“Yes, sir,” a man said.

“What’s happening?”

“Don’t know, sir. We were just told to guard the mules.”

Sharpe pushed on. The cannons were firing constantly, the volley fire was crashing rhythmically, but the two sides had not come to close quarters because the skirmishers were still deployed. Sharpe could tell that by the sound. Musket and canister balls flicked through the trees, twitching the branches like a sudden wind. “Buggers are firing high,” Harper said.

“They always do, thank God,” Sharpe said. The sound of battle became louder as they neared the edge of the wood. A Portuguese rifleman, his brown uniform black with blood, lay dead by a pine trunk. He had evidently crawled there, leaving a trail of blood on the needles. There was a crucifix in his left hand, the rifle still in his right. A redcoat lay five paces beyond, shuddering and choking, a bullet hole dark on his jacket’s yellow facing.

Then Sharpe was out of the trees.

And found slaughter.

M
AJOR
B
ROWNE
climbed the hill on foot, leaving his horse tied to a pine trunk. The major sang as he climbed. He had a fine voice, much prized in the performances that whiled away the time in the Gibraltar garrison. “Come cheer up, my lads!” he sang. “’Tis to glory we steer, to add something more to this wonderful year; to honor we call you, not press you like slaves, for who are so free as the sons of the waves?” It was a naval song, much sung by the ships’ crews ashore in Gibraltar, and he knew it was not quite appropriate for this attack up the Cerro del Puerco’s northern slope, but the major liked “Heart of Oak.” “Let me hear you!” he shouted, and the six companies of his makeshift battalion sang the chorus. “Heart of oak are our ships, heart of oak are our men,” they sang raggedly. “We always are ready; steady, boys, steady! We’ll fight and we’ll conquer again and again.”

In the brief silence after the chorus, the major distinctly heard the clicking sound of dogheads being pulled back at the hill’s summit. He could see four battalions of French infantry up there and suspected there were others, but the four he could see were cocking their muskets, readying to kill. A cannon was being manhandled forward so that its barrel could point down the hill. A band was playing on the hill’s summit. It played a jaunty song, music to kill by, and Browne found himself tapping his fingers on his sword hilt to the rhythm of the French tune. “Filthy French noise, lads,” he shouted, “take no note of it!” Not long now, he thought, not long at all, wishing he had his own band to play a proper British tune. He had no musicians, so instead he boomed out the last verse of “Heart of Oak.” “We’ll still make them fear, and we’ll still make them flee, and drub them on shore as we’ve drubbed them at sea. Then cheer up, my lads! And with one heart let’s sing, our soldiers, our sailors, our leaders, our king!”

The French opened fire.

The crest of the hill vanished in a great gray-white rill of choking powder smoke, and in the center, where the battery was deployed, the smoke was thicker still, a sudden explosion of churning darkness, streaked through with flame in the midst of which the canisters shredded apart and the balls whipped down the hill and it looked to Browne, following close on his men’s heels, that almost half of them were down. He saw a mist of blood over their heads, heard the first gasps, and knew the screaming would start soon. Then the file-closers, sergeants, and corporals were shouting at the men to close on the center. “Close up! Close up!”

“Up, boys, up!” Browne shouted. “Give them a drubbing!” He had started with 536 muskets. Now he had a little over 300. The French had at least a thousand more and Browne, stepping over a thrashing body, saw the enemy ramrods flicker in the thinning smoke. It was a miracle, he thought, that he was alive. A sergeant reeled past him, his lower jaw shot away and his tongue hanging in a dripping beard of blood. “Up, boys,” Browne called, “up to victory!” Another cannon fired and three men were snatched back, slamming into the ranks behind and smearing the grass with thick gouts of blood. “To glory we steer!” Browne shouted, and the French muskets started firing again and a boy near him was clutching his belly, eyes wide, blood oozing between his fingers. “On!” Browne shouted. “On!” A ball snatched at his cocked hat, turning it. He had his sword drawn. The French were firing their muskets as soon as they were reloaded, not waiting for the orders to fire in volleys, and the smoke pumped out on the hilltop. Browne could hear the balls striking home in flesh, rapping on musket butts, and he knew that he had done his duty and he could do no more. His surviving men were taking shelter in the slightest dips of the slope or behind thickets, and they were firing back now, serving as a skirmish line, and that was all they could be. Half his men were gone—they were stretched on the hill or limping back down, or bleeding to death, or weeping in agony—and still the musket balls buzzed and whistled and slashed into the broken ranks.

Major Browne walked up and down behind the line. It was not much of a line. Ranks and files were gone, blown to ragged ruin by the artillery or blasted by the musket balls, but the living had not retreated. They were shooting back. Loading and firing, making small clouds of smoke that hid them from the enemy. Their mouths were sour from the saltpeter of the gunpowder and their cheeks burned by sparks from the locks. Wounded men struggled up to join the line where they loaded and fired. “Well done, my boys!” Browne shouted. “Well done!” He expected to die. He was sad about that, but his duty was to stay on his feet, to walk the line, to shout encouragement, and to wait for the canister or musket ball that must end his life. “Come cheer up, my lads!” he sang. “’Tis to glory we steer, to add something more to this wonderful year; to honor we call you, not press you like slaves, for who are so free as the sons of the waves?” A corporal fell back, brains spilling from his forehead. The man must have been dead, but his mouth still moved compulsively until Browne leaned down and pushed the chin gently up.

Blakeney, his adjutant, was still alive and, like Browne, miraculously unwounded. “Our brave allies,” Blakeney said, touching Browne’s elbow and gesturing back down the hill. Browne turned and saw that the Spanish brigade that had fled from the hill was resting not a quarter mile away, sitting in the dunes. He turned away. They would either come or not, and he suspected they would not. “Should I fetch them?” Blakeney asked, shouting over the noise of the guns.

“You think they’ll come?”

“No, sir.”

“And I can’t order them,” Browne said. “I don’t have the rank. And the bastards can see we need help and they ain’t moving. So let the buggers be.” He walked on. “You’re holding them, boys!” he shouted. “You’re holding them!”

And that was true. The French had broken Browne’s attack. They had shattered the red ranks, they had ripped the Gibraltar Flankers apart, but the French were not advancing down the slope to where Browne’s survivors would have made easy meat for their bayonets. They fired instead, tearing more bullets into the broken battalion while the redcoats, the men from Lancashire and the Holy Boys from Norfolk and the Silver Tails from Gloucestershire, shot back. Major Browne watched them die. A boy from the Silver Tails reeled back with his left shoulder torn away by the razor-edged remnants of the canister’s casing so that his arm hung by sinews and broken ribs poked white through the red mess of his shattered chest. He collapsed and began to gasp for his mother. Browne knelt and held the boy’s hand. He wanted to stanch the wound, but it was too big, so the major, not knowing how else to comfort the dying soldier, sang to him.