In fact it took nearer three hours. Three hours of increasing worry that the Dragoons were hatching wickedness, and three hours during which the first clinking sacks of caltrops were delivered to the hilltop. Only then did the two-man picquet of Cazadores which had been posted at the brink of the dead ground rowel their horses back to the city. ”Dragons! Dragons!“ They made gestures over their heads to imitate the shape of the French helmets, and pointed west to the dead ground.
”Si!“ Sharpe shouted, ”Cronos!”
The Riflemen, some of whom had been laughing over the wicked small spikes of the caltrops, went back to their barricades. The landscape stayed empty. Sharpe looked south, expecting to see the other close picquet withdrawing, but there was no sign of the Cazadores who had been posted to guard the southern approach to the city.
“Bloody hell!” Hagman spat in horror at the sudden smell which came across the grassland. It was the rancid stench of saddle and crupper sores that came on the chill west wind from the dead ground. The Riflemen wrinkled their noses against the foul odour.
Sharpe watched the innocent and empty scene which hid the attackers. Doubtless the French officers, concealed by the ragged bushes at the valley’s edge, were watching the city. Behind those officers the Dragoons would be preparing for battle. He imagined helmets being crammed onto pig-tailed heads, and long swords scraping out of metal scabbards. The horses, knowing what was to come, would be pawing the ground. Men would be nervously shortening stirrup leathers or wiping sweat from their reins. Sharpe wondered if he had been wrong; if, instead of feinting from the west and attacking from the south, the French would simply charge to the barricades and then just claw at the defences.
“Jesus Christ!” The blasphemy was torn from Hagman as the hidden valley suddenly sprouted a line of cavalry; a great line of Dragoons who trotted forward with billowing cloaks and drawn swords. They had taken the cloth covers from their helmets so that the gold-coloured metal shone in the afternoon light. “There’s thousands of the buggers!” Hagman pushed his rifle forward.
“Don’t fire!” Sharpe called. He did not want the Riflemen to fire for fear that they would trigger the fingers of the
Cazadores behind the barricades. The Spanish muskets and carbines, being smooth-bored, were far less accurate than the rifles, and a volley fired at this distance was a volley wasted.
Sharpe could have saved his breath for, within seconds of the cavalry’s appearance, the first muskets fired. He swore, turned, and saw that the city’s roofs were crammed with civilians who wanted to kill the French. Immediately the first shots sounded, so all the men behind the barricades began to fire. A huge volley crackled and spat flames, smoke belched to hide the city’s flank, and scarce a single Frenchman fell. The range, over three hundred yards, was hopelessly long. Even if a bullet struck it was likely to be spent, and would bounce harmlessly off a thick uniform coat or a horse’s winter pelt.
The horsemen checked their slow advance. Sharpe looked for de l’Eclin’s red pelisse and could not see it. He mentally divided the line into quarters and made a swift count of one quarter, then multiplied the result by four to reach a total of three hundred. This was not the attack. This was a display of strength, spread into an impressive line, but only meant to draw eyes westward. “Watch the south!” Sharpe called to his men. “Watch the south!”
The firing from the city had drawn Sergeant Harper up from the buildings that guarded the southern approach. He stared at the line of Dragoons and whistled. “That’s a rare lot of mischief, sir.”
“Only three hundred men,” Sharpe said calmly.
“Is that all, now?”
A French officer drew his sword and cantered forward. After a few strides he spurred his horse into a gallop and curved its path so that he would swoop within a hundred yards of the city’s defence. Muskets crackled from the barricades, but he galloped safe through the wild shots. Another officer started forward, and Sharpe guessed the Frenchmen would keep tantalizing the defenders until the real attack erupted.
Hagman pulled back his rifle cock as the second French officer spurred to full speed. “Can I teach the bugger a lesson, sir?”
“No. Let them be. This is just a fake. They think it’s working, so let them play.”
Minutes passed. A whole squadron of Dragoons trotted down the front of the line, then reversed their path to gallop derisively back. Their defiance prompted another huge volley to ripple down the city’s western buildings, and Sharpe saw the ground flecked by the strike of the balls and knew that the Spaniards’ shots were falling short. A second squadron, holding a guidon high, trotted northwards. Some of the stationary Frenchmen sheathed their swords and fired carbines from the saddle, and every French shot provoked an answering and wasteful volley from the city.
Another officer displayed his bravery by galloping as close as he dared to the city’s defences. This one had less luck. His horse went down in a flurry of blood and mud. A great cheer went up from the barricades, but the Frenchman slashed his saddle free and ran safely back towards his comrades. Sharpe admired the man, but schooled himself to keep watching the south.
South! That was where the attack would come, not here! De I’Eclin’s absence from the west meant that the chasseur must be with the men who crept about the city’s southern flank. Sharpe was sure of it now. The French were waiting for the sun to sink even lower so that the shadows would be long in the broken southern ground. In the meantime this western diversion was calculated to stretch the defenders’ nerves and waste the city’s powder, but the attack would come from the south; Sharpe knew it, and he stared obsessively south where nothing moved among the falling ground. Somewhere beyond that ground was the southern picquet of mounted Cazadores, and he became obsessed that the Spaniards had been overwhelmed by a French attack. There could be seven hundred Dragoons hidden to the south. He wondered whether to send a patrol of Riflemen to explore the shadows.
“Sir?” Harper had stayed on the hilltop and now called urgently. “Sir?”
Sharpe turned back to the west, and swore.
Another squadron of Dragoons had come from the dead ground, and this one was led by a horseman wearing a red pelisse and a black fur colback. A horseman on a big black horse. De l’Eclin. Not to the south, where the bulk of Sharpe’s Riflemen were deployed, but to the west where the Frenchman could wait until the sinking sun was a dazzling and blinding ball of fire in the defenders’ eyes.
“Do I pull the lads out of the buildings?” Harper asked nervously.
“Wait.” Sharpe was tempted by the thought that de l’Eclin was clever enough to make himself a part of the deception.
The French waited. Why, Sharpe wondered, if this was their main attack, would they signal it so obviously? He looked south again, seeing how the shadows darkened and lengthened. He stared at the rutted road and scanned the hedgerows. Something moved in a shadow; moved again, and Sharpe clapped his hands in triumph. “There!”
The Riflemen twisted to look.
“Cazadores, sir.” Harper, knowing that he disappointed Sharpe’s expectations, sounded subdued.
Sharpe pulled open his telescope. The approaching men were in Spanish uniform, suggesting that they were either the southern picquet bringing news or else one of the parties that had gone south-east to break down the bridges over the river. Or perhaps they were disguised Frenchmen? Sharpe looked back at the chasseur, but de l’Eclin was not moving. There was something very threatening in his utter stillness; something that spoke of a rampant and chilling confidence.
Sharpe obstinately clung to his certainty. He knew that his men no longer believed him, that they prepared themselves to fight the enemy who paraded so confidently in the west, but he could not surrender his obsession with the south. Nor could he rid himself of the conviction that de l’Eclin was too subtle a soldier to put all his hopes in a straightforward and unsubtle attack.