'A hundred and eighty-two, sir. With officers, of course, there's more.
'Yes. Sharpe grinned, trying to break through Brooker's reserve. 'And we're holding off a whole army.
'Yes, sir. Brooker sounded gloomy.
'Don't worry, Captain. You'll get ninety Fusiliers from the Convent tonight.
'You think so, sir?
Sharpe almost snapped that he would not have said it if he did not think so, but he bit back the reproof. He needed Brooker's co-operation, not his enmity. 'And there's still nearly a hundred and fifty on the watchtower hill.
'Yes, sir. Brooker's face was lugubrious, like a Methodist preacher who revelled in hell-fire predictions.
'You checked the prisoners?
Brooker had not, but he was frightened of Sharpe. 'Yes, sir.
'Good. I don't need those bastards up my backside. Put fresh men on as guards tonight.
'Do we feed them, sir?
'No. Let the bastards starve. Do you have the time, Captain?
Brooker pulled a heavy turnip watch from his pocket. 'A quarter to four, sir.
Sharpe walked to a great hole in the wall where stones had fallen from an arrow slit. The snow was slanting down over the valley. It was dark outside, the sky almost black, the clouds bringing a premature dusk. Below him he saw Captain Cross by a new grave, a smaller grave, and he saw a Rifleman who had once been a bugler put the dead boy's instruments to his lips. First he played the Buglers' call, short and simple, the notes clear in the darkening valley. Then, a long call, requested by Sharpe for the dead lad, the call that was for setting the watch. It ended in long, slow notes, played sweetly. Ich hatt' einen Kameraden.
There was a scrape of feet at the door, a cough for attention, and Sharpe turned to see a Rifleman. 'Yes?
'Compliments of Captain Frederickson, sir. He held out a piece of paper.
'Thank you. Sharpe unfolded it. 'Partisans to north, east and south. Password tonight? Do I get a fight or not? This time it was signed 'Captain William Frederickson, 5th Batt', 60th, retired. Sharpe smiled, borrowed a pencil from Brooker, and rested the paper on the broken ledge of the arrow slit. 'Password tonight; patience. Countersign; virtue. Expect your fight at dawn. During night no patrols of mine will go east of stream. Good hunting. Richard Sharpe. He gave it to the Rifleman, watched him go, then gave the password to Brooker. 'And you'd better warn the sentries about Partisans. Some may want to come in in the night.
'Yes, sir.
And cheer up, you bastard, Sharpe wanted to add. 'Carry on, Captain Brooker.
The minutes passed. Artillerymen brushed snow from the touch-holes of guns that would soon be too hot for the snow that lay an inch deep on the brass barrels, each barrel more than seven feet long between the five foot high wheels. Each gun caisson had dropped forty-eight roundshot, the trail boxes on the guns themselves contained another nine each, and the gunners would be happy to fire all those shots to bring the eastern face of the Convent crashing to the ground to let in the Battalion of attacking infantry. This Battalion had been at the rear of the Column, virtually untouched by the rockets, and they would attack in the very last light. Then the guns would move in under the cover of darkness, embrasures would be hacked in the south wall, and these twelve-pounder monsters would take on the Castle itself. Let the gunners show how it ought to be done.
By five minutes to four the valley seemed deserted. The Fusiliers were behind stone walls, the Riflemen on the hill were in the shallow scoops they had fashioned beneath the thorns, the French were masked by the village.
Sharpe climbed the gatehouse turret, stamped his feet on the cold snow, talked with the Riflemen whose post this was. 'Must be nearly time.
Serge bags were thrust down barrels, then the roundshot that was strapped to the wooden shoe which would burn off in flight. Spikes were thrust into touch-holes to pierce the powder bags, then the priming tube thrust home, the slant of the touch-hole making the quills slant forward so that they would be expelled in that direction. The Colonel looked at his watch. Two minutes to four. 'A pox on those bastards. Fire!
Eight guns slammed back, eight trails gouging the clean snow, and the crews were instantly to work, straightening the guns with handspikes and ropes, other men sponging out the hissing barrel, others ready with the next charge.
The first shots bounced a hundred yards short of the convent, rose, and slammed into the wall. As the barrels grew hotter that first bounce would creep towards the Convent till there was no bounce at all. 'Fire!
The guns were hidden from the gatehouse, but the long muzzle flames spread red flashes on the snow and Sharpe watched each volley bloom rose-red on the whiteness. They were good. The shots came faster, the rhythm creeping up to the swinging team-work of well trained artillerymen where each man knew his job, and each man took pride in doing it well, and the rose-red flashed, the balls smashed at the Convent, and the wall, which had not been built for defence, cracked and crumbled.
'Fire!
The smoke drifted towards the convent, drifted slowly with the falling snow, and now the flakes hissed as they hit the hot barrels, and again the guns bucked back, wheels bouncing, and again the teams dragged them round, rammed them, primed them, fired them, and the gates of the Convent had already gone.
'Fire!
And each volley seemed to tinge the drifting cloud with red so that the sky was grey-black, the valley white, and the northern edge a place of redness. 'Fire!
The noise echoed from the hills, jarred snow from the eaves of the village houses, tinkled the glasses in the inn's kitchen.
'Fire!
A length of wall collapsed, dust looking like smoke, and the next roundshot smashed through an interior wall, breaking plaster and old stone, and the guns smashed back again, their crews hot and sweating despite the cold, and the gunner Colonel grinned in pleasure for his men.
'Fire!
The upper cloister was open to the valley now, the closed Convent torn apart by the close range gunnery, and the first acrid smoke of the early volleys was drifting between broken pillars and fallen carvings.
'Fire!
The hornbeam was struck on the trunk, it seemed to fly in the air, roots tearing up tiles and snow, and the buttons and ribbons that had decorated it were thrown to the ground with the falling tree.
'Fire!
The cat that had walked so delicately on the Christmas morning tiles now hissed, claws outstretched, in the cellar. The fur on its back was upright. The building seemed to shake around it.
'Fire!
A Rifleman on the gatehouse pointed. 'Sir?
The French Battalion were moving along the northern fringe of the valley, their blue coats dark in the gloom where the smoke rolled over the snow.
'Fire!
The last volley, crashing down a carved archway, bringing tiles slipping in an avalanche of clay and snow from the roof, and the Voltigeurs cheered, ran clumsily on the snow, and the first muskets fired at the Convent.
'Now. Sharpe said. 'Now!
'Sir?
'Nothing. It was nearly dark, so much so that his eyes played tricks in the gloom.
The Convent's defenders, sheltered in the inner cloister, ran as they had been ordered to run. Up the stairs, up the ramp of the cloister furthest from the guns, and then to their places. One volley, muskets and rifles pricking the dusk, and then they jumped. Some went down rubble into the upper cloister, clambered over the wreckage of the wall, and sprinted towards the Castle. Others jumped from the roof, falling clumsily on the snow covered slope, and they too ran for the safety of the ramparts. Sharpe looked up the valley. There was no cavalry, there was no need to send out the three Companies of Fusiliers to cover the retreat.