An Ensign crawled from Brooker's Company, vomiting blood, his eyes giving Sharpe one last accusing look, and then he slumped, only to twitch as a French bullet thumped into his dead body.
Sharpe went back to the rubble, climbed, and he saw where Voltigeurs were close, so close to the trench, in places just twenty yards, and he glimpsed, too, in the skirling smoke, the unmoving bodies of two Riflemen, and he looked left. The column, bayonets bright, was close and still marching. He could see the mouths of the French open, knew they were shouting 'Vive L'Empereur!’ and Gilliland plucked at Sharpe's sleeve. 'Now?’
’No! Wait!
Wait while the Voltigeurs grew bolder, ran a pace or two, knelt, and another Fusilier screamed and was thrown backwards, while blood spattered the ranks and still they loaded and fired, and men cursed as flints broke and the Sergeants brought them the muskets of the dead, and still they fired.
The Voltigeurs were joining the column. It was close now, almost the time for Sharpe to unleash the rockets, and he felt the respite as the Voltigeur bugles called them back, called them to swell the ranks of this overpowering attack, as the drums kept rolling, the sticks frantically wielded by the drummer boys as if by hitting the stretched skins they could personally drive the column into the Castle.
A French Colonel died in front of the column. On the gatehouse one of Cross's men grinned. 'Four. He bit another cartridge, began to reload.
In front of the Convent, Patrick Harper had his seventeen Rifles firing across the valley. They could not miss the column at that range, but they could not hope to stop it.
The General's fingers tapped on his writing case to the rhythm of the drums. He looked at Dubreton as the front of the column seemed to be swallowed in the musket smoke. 'That's that, Alexandre. Good training for them, eh?
On the watchtower hill Frederickson and the captured aide-de-camp stood together. Frederickson scratched beneath his eye-patch. 'Now! Now!
Sharpe cupped his hands. 'Riflemen back! He could see the column now as clear as his own men. He could see the young ones of the front rank who were trying to grow the thick moustaches beloved by the French infantry, he could see the muskets coming down for the single ragged volley that the front rank would fire before the bayonets were unleashed.
'Rocket troop! He waited. Fifty yards. They could not miss. They had never been used on land against the enemy. One thing destroyed a column faster than any other weapon; artillery, and Sharpe was about to unleash a barrage of shells. He saw the French muskets come up for the hurried volley. 'Fire!
The first rockets were already lying in the troughs, the linstocks touched fuses, and for a second nothing happened. The French volley, just fifty musket balls, busied the air, but Sharpe was not aware of it. He heard the first shout from the French, the first triumphant calls of victory, and then it was drowned by the rushing sound of the flaring exhausts, the smoke and sparks and flame bellowing and billowing from the trench, and they were away.
Like fire-balls hurled at unbelievable speed, like the bad dreams of a soldier, death from the ground, searing from the trench, the rockets given no chance to rise into the air, only to hurtle in front of the licking flame torch, bury themselves into the column, rockets coming from front and right, and the French who had started to run saw the sudden unbelievable smoke, a bank thicker than fog, and in the thickness was the serried rank of giant flame, leaping flame, and the rockets drove their heads into the column, file after file, rank after rank, thrusting in, scorching with their tails, shrieking noise louder than the drums, and the first shell-head exploded.
'Fusiliers! Fire! Fire! Fire! The Fusiliers had gone back from the angry rush of flame and now stood, aghast, as they saw the weapon for the first time. Sharpe put anger into his voice. 'Fire! You bastards! Fire!
God, but he had let them come close. He needed the volleys to pluck at the leading ranks, because the French could still win this if they had the wit to rush forward.
More rockets, the second volley, some teams quicker to load the metal troughs than others, a hasty duck as the tail flamed overhead, and then swing another twelve pound rocket into the cradle and touch fire to its tail.
'Faster! Faster! Gilliland was almost jumping up and down in his excitement. 'Faster!
One rocket managed to climb, screaming up into the valley's air, a streak of flame that stacked smoke behind it, and the French at the village saw it, saw the strange thing climb into the low cloud.
'What the hell? The General could see nothing at the Castle, only a huge spread of smoke that seemed shot through with intermittent glow of flame.
'An explosion? Ducos frowned.
A Frenchman came through the smoke, fearful and lost, his bayonet bright, and he saw the men in the trench and he knew his duty. The Riflemen, ordered to stay with the Rocket troop, saw him and two fired. The Frenchman fell back and a rocket lodged in his body, began to turn, spewing sparks and thick smoke, and a Rifle Corporal ran to it, kicked the head free, and it slithered faster and faster on the grass, disappearing into its own smoke.
The northernmost part of the column was escaping the rockets. They heard the noise, the screams, saw the explosions that seemed to come twenty yards inside the ranks, but they pressed ahead and Sharpe called the target to Brooker's Company. 'Fire!
A small volley, but it checked them, put a barrier of dead on the grass, and then Gilliland pushed past Sharpe, hammered a trough into the grass with his boot, and an artilleryman laid a rocket into the trough. Another man struck fire onto a linstock with his pistol-grip steel and flint, and Sharpe stepped away from the terror of flame. 'How many more launchers have you got?
'Four!
'Get them!
The close-packed bodies of the French soaked up the terrible force of the rockets. The missiles slammed home, slowed as they ploughed through the ranks, and then they would stop, lodged in flesh, and the flames of the propellant would make a swathe of scorching space, and then the shell, its fuse hidden in the metal tube, would spatter blood and iron fragments into the French.
No man could go into that flame-lanced cloud. The noise of the drums was drowned utterly, obliterated by the howling rush of the rockets, by the coughing explosions, and still the rockets came, still they searched further into the ranks, gouging new channels of destruction, exploding, and the French could see nothing but smoke, flames to left and right, and their ears were filled by the noise, by screams that came from dying comrades, and they went back.
More rockets had risen over the heads of the column, one drove through at head height and slammed into the open valley, over the trampled grass, and it veered left, climbed, and the French staff watched it in awe. The noise filled the valley, the smoke was stretched behind the long flame, and then the shell exploded north of the village and the fragments smashed outwards from the black smoke and the stick, burning, tumbled to earth.
Ducos watched the smoke of the explosion as if mesmerized. 'Colonel Congreve.
'What?
‘Congreve's rocket system. He snapped the telescope shut.
The General shook his head, looked back at the column. Its rear seemed unshaken, the ranks still formed, but he could see the explosions now, and the front of his huge column seemed to be buried in a writhing flame-filled cloud. 'They're not moving.
Two more rockets arced over the column, struck the ground, bounced, cartwheeled, and exploded in the valley. Two more went north, climbing insanely over the Convent, but mosc were burying themselves in the column, twisting and flaming their way into the human target, searing noise and fire, exploding in the ranks, and the Fusiliers still fired.