„I’d rather be down here.“
Distantly, through the incessant crashes that merged into one long rumble, Sharpe could hear the sound of Regimental bands. As long as the bandsmen were playing then the British Battalions were not suffering overmuch from the French bombardment. If Wellesley had not pulled the British line behind the crest the French gunners would be slaughtering the Battalions file by file and the bandsmen would be doing their other job of picking up the wounded and taking them to the rear. Sharpe knew Harper, like himself, was thinking of the promise to Lennox, of the Eagle. He stared across the stream at the empty grass, listened to the cannonade as though it were someone else’s battle, and turned to the Sergeant.
“There will be other days, you know. Other battles.”
Harper smiled slowly, crouched, and flicked a pebble into the clear water. “We’ll see what happens, sir.” He stayed still, listening, then pointed ahead. “Hear that?”
It was the noise Sharpe had been waiting for, faint but unmistakable, the sound he had not heard since Vimeiro, the sound of the French attack. The enemy columns were not in sight, would not be visible for minutes, but through the mist he could hear the serried drummers beating the hypnotic rhythm of the charge. Boom-boom, boom-boom, boomaboom, boomaboom, boom-boom. On and on it would go until the attack was won or lost, the drummer boys thrashing the skins despite the volleys, the endless rhythm that had carried the French to victory after victory. There was a relentless menace about the drumbeats, each repeated phrase brought the French nearer by ten paces, on and on, on and on.
Sharpe smiled at Harper. “Look after the boy. Is he all right?”
“Denny, sir? Tripped over his sword three times but otherwise he’s fine.” Harper laughed. “Look after yourself, sir.”
Sharpe walked back up the stream, the drumbeats nearer, the skirmish line peering apprehensively into the empty mist. Their job was about to begin. The French guns had failed to break the British Battalions and in front of the drums, spread in a vast cloud, the Voltigeurs were coming. Their aim was to get as close to the British Battalions as they could and snipe at the line with their muskets, to thin the ranks, weaken the line, so that when the drummed column arrived the British would be rotten and give way. Sharpe’s skirmishers with the other Light Companies had to stop the Voltigeurs and their private battle, fought in the mist, was about to begin. He found Knowles standing by the stream.
“See anything?”
“No, sir.”
The drumming was louder, competing with the crash of the shells, and at the end of each drummed phrase Sharpe could hear a new sound as the drummers paused to let thousands of voices chant ‘Vive L’Empereur’. It was the victory noise that had terrified the armies of Europe, the sound of Marengo, of Austerlitz, of Jena, the voices and drums of French victory. Then, upstream and out of sight, the Light troops met and Sharpe heard the first crackle of musketry: not the rolling volleys of massed ranks but the spaced, deliberate cracks of aimed shots. Knowles looked at Sharpe with raised eyebrows, the Rifleman shook his head. “That’s only one column. There’ll be at least another one, probably two, and nearer. Wait.”
And there they were, dim figures running in the mist, dozens of men in blue jackets with red epaulettes who angled across their front. The men raised their muskets.
“Hold your fire!” Sharpe pushed a musket down. The Voltigeurs ran into the fire of the 66th and the Royal Americans, they were a hundred paces upstream and Sharpe waited to see if the French skirmish line would reach the South Essex. “Wait!”
He watched the first Frenchmen crumple on the turf, others knelt and took careful aim but it was not his fight. He guessed the French attack, aimed at the Medellin, was going to pass by the South Essex but he was glad enough to let his raw troops see real skirmishing before they had to do it themselves. The French, like the British, fought in pairs. Each man had to protect his partner, firing in turn and calling out warnings, constantly watching the enemy to see if the guns were aimed at him or his partner. Sharpe could hear the shouts, the whistles that passed on commands, and in the background, insistent as a tocsin, the drumming and shouting. Knowles was like a leashed hound wanting to go up the bank to the fight but Sharpe held him back. “They don’t need us. Our turn will come. Wait.”
The British line was holding. The Frenchmen tried to rush the stream but fell as they reached the water. The British pairs moved in short rushes, changing position, confusing their enemy, waiting for the Voltigeurs to come in range and then letting off their shots. The green-jacketed Riflemen of the Royal Americans looked for the enemy officers and Sergeants, and Sharpe could hear the crack of the Rifles as they destroyed the enemy leaders. The sound was rising to its first crescendo, the roar of the cannon, the melding crashes of shells, the drums and voices of the column, and the sound of bugles mixing with the musketry. The mist was thickening with the smoke of the French batteries that drifted westward towards the British line, but soon, Sharpe knew, the mist would be burned off. He felt the faintest breeze and saw a great swirl of whiteness shiver and move and heard Knowles draw breath with amazement before the mist closed down. In the gap was a mass of men, tight-packed marching ranks tipped with steel, one of the columns aiming for the stream. It was time to retreat and, sure enough, Sharpe heard the whistles and bugles and saw the skirmishers to the left start to go backwards towards the Medellin. They left bodies, red and green, behind them.
He blew his own whistle, waved an arm, and listened for the Sergeants to repeat the signal. His men would be disappointed. They had not fired a shot but Sharpe suspected that they would have their opportunities soon enough. The drumming and the chanting went on, the shot crashed overhead, but as the company climbed the hill the mist cut them off from the battle. No-one was shooting at them, no shells landed with spluttering fuses on their piece of the hillside, and Sharpe continued to have the strange sensation of listening to a batde that had nothing to do with him. The illusion vanished as the line climbed out of the mist onto a hillside bright with the early sun. Sharpe checked the line, turned, and heard his men gasp and swear at the view they suddenly encountered.
The crest of the Medellin was empty of soldiers. Only the French shells continued to tear up the earth in great gouts of soil and flame. The skirmishers in front of the French attack scrambled up the slope, ever nearer to the bursting shells, and turned to shoot at the columns that crawled out of the mist like great, strange animals emerging from the sea. The nearest column was too hundred yards to the left and to Sharpe’s raw troops it must have seemed overwhelming. The Voltigeurs were joining its ranks, swelling it, the drummers beat it along with their relentless, hypnotic beating and the deep shouts of ‘Vive L’Empereur’ punctuated the grinding advance. There were three columns climbing the slope; each, Sharpe guessed, had close to two thousand men and over each there hung, glittering in the new sun, three gilded Eagles reaching for the crest.
Sharpe turned his skirmish line to face the column and then waved the men down. There was little they could do at this range. He decided not to rejoin the Battalion; the company would suffer less by staying on the hillside and watching the attack than if they tried to run through the barrage of shells, and as they knelt, watching the huge formation march up the slope, Sharpe saw the men of the King’s German Legion join his crude line. They would be privileged spectators on the edge of the French attack. Ensign Denny came and knelt beside Sharpe, and his face betrayed the worry and fear that the drumming, chanting mass engendered. Sharpe looked at him. “What do you think?”