“That was a terrible shot. Now let’s get the hell out of here! They’ll want revenge for that!”

Sharpe grinned and sprinted back with the Sergeant towards the new skirmish line that was seventy paces behind the stream. The air was full of the ‘boom-boom, boom-boom, boomaboom, boomaboom, boom-boom, Vive L’Empereur’ and the columns were splashing through the stream, the whole plain smothered in French infantry marching beneath countless Eagles towards the thin defensive line that was still being shelled by the guns on the Cascajal. The British guns had a target they could not miss, and Sharpe watched as, time and time again, the solid shot lanced into the columns, crushing men by the dozen, but there were too many men and the files closed, the ranks stepped over the dead, and the columns came on. There was a cheer from the British skirmishers when a spherical case shot, Britain’s secret weapon developed by Colonel Shrapnel, successfully detonated right over one of the columns, and the musket balls, packed in the spherical case, splattered down onto the French and shredded half the ranks, but there were not enough guns to check the attack, and the French took the punishment and kept coming.

Then, for ten minutes, there was no time to watch anything but the Voltigeurs to the front, to do anything but run and fire, run and fire, to try and keep the French skirmishers pinned back against their column. The enemy seemed more numerous, the drumming louder, and the smoke from the muskets and rifles silted the air with an opaque curtain that surrounded Sharpe’s company and the white-coated Voltigeurs with their strange, guttural cries. Sharpe was taking the Light Company back towards the spot where the South Essex should have been, widening the gap between his company and the German skirmishers. His company was down to less than sixty men and, at the moment, they were the only troops between the column and the empty plain at the rear of the British line. He had no chance of stopping the column, but as long as he could slow down the advance then there was a hope that the gap might be filled and the sacrifice of his men justified. Sharpe fought with the rifle until it was so fouled he could hardly push the ramrod into the barrel; the Riflemen had long stopped using the greased patch that surrounded the bullet and gripped the rifling instead; like Sharpe, they were ramming charge and naked ball into their guns as fast as they could to discourage the enemy. Some men were running back, urinating into their guns, and rejoining the battle. It was crude but the fastest method of cleaning the caked powder out of a fouled barrel on the battlefield.

Then, at last, the blessed sound of raking volleys, of the platoon fire, as the troops of the Legion and the Guards tore apart the heads of the French columns and shattered them, drove the ranks back, destroyed the leading troops, hammering the volleys into the out-gunned columns. Sharpe could see nothing. The Dutch Battalion had marched into the gap onto the flank of the 7th Battalion of the King’s German Legion and stopped. The Germans were fighting on two fronts, ahead of them, and to the side where the South Essex should have been, and Sharpe could give them little help. The Voltigeurs had disappeared, back into the column to swell its numbers, and Sharpe and his company, black-faced and exhausted, were left in the centre of the gap watching the rear of the enemy column as it tried to roll up the flank of the Germans.

“Why don’t they march on?” Lieutenant Knowles was beside him, bleeding from the scalp, and with the face, suddenly, of a veteran.

“Because the other columns are being defeated. They don’t want to be left on their own.” He accepted a drink from Knowles’ canteen; his own was shattered, and the water was wonderfully cool in his parched throat. He wished he could see what was happening but the sound, as ever, told its own story. The drumming from the twelve French columns faltered and stopped; the cheers of the British rose into the air; the volleys paused while bayonets scraped from scabbards and clicked onto muskets. The cheers became vengeful screams, and from the top of the Medellin the General Officers watched as the first line of the French attack disintegrated and the line of Germans and Guardsmen chased them backwards, pursuing the shattered columns at bayonet point across the stream, past the horse artillery which had simply been abandoned by the enemy without firing a shot.

“Oh God,” Sharpe groaned in disbelief.

“What?” Knowles looked towards the stream, behind the backs of the Dutch Battalion who were marooned in the middle of the field, to where the victorious Germans were in trouble. The first French columns had fled, broken and defeated, but at the stream was a second line of columns, as large as the first, and the shattered Frenchmen found shelter behind the waiting guns of their reserve. The German and British troops, their blood roused, bayonets wet but muskets unloaded, ran straight into the fire of the reserve French troops, and it was the turn of the British to be shattered by musket volleys. They turned and fled, in total disorder, and behind them the second line of columns, reinforced with the survivors of the first, struck up the drumbeats and started to march into a plain where Simmerson’s gap had been widened to half a mile and where the only British troops were running in disorder.

Sir Henry, safe with the South Essex at the back of the Medellin, saw the second French advance and breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment he had been terrified. He had watched the French columns creep over the plain, the dust rising behind them, the Voltigeurs pushing ahead of them. He had seen the sun flash silver off thousands of bayonets and burn gold off thousands of badges as the trumpets and drums drove the Eagles of twelve columns right up to the stretched British line. And stop. The musketry had gone up and down the British line like a running flame, its thunder drowning all other sounds, and from his vantage point on the hillside Simmerson watched as the columns shook like standing corn struck by a sudden wind as the volleys smashed into them. Then the columns had crumbled, broken, and run, and he could hardly believe that such a thin line could throw back such an attack. He watched, dumbfounded, as the British cheered, as the Union flags went forward, as the bayonets reached for the blue enemy and came back red. He had expected defeat, and in its place saw victory; he had expected the French to carve their way through the British line as though it did not exist, and instead the British were driving twice their number in bloody chaos before them, and with them went his dreams and hopes.

Except the British went too far. The new French columns opened their fire, the Germans and the Guards were split apart and broken, and a new French attack, even bigger than the first, was driving its way forward from the stream. The cheers of the British had gone, the drums were back, and the Union flags were falling back in chaos before the triumphant Eagles. He had been right after all. He turned to point out his perspicacity to Christian Gibbons but instead of his nephew he found himself looking into the eyes of a strange Lieutenant Colonel; or not so strange? He had an idea that he had seen the man before but could not place him. He was about to ask the man what he wanted, but the strange, elegant Lieutenant Colonel spoke first.

“You are relieved, Sir Henry. The Battalion is mine.”

“What… „The man did-not wait to argue. He turned to a smiling Forrest and rapped out a stream of orders. The Battalion was halting, turning, heading back for the battle. Simmerson rode up behind the man and shouted a protest, but the Lieutenant Colonel wheeled on him with a drawn sword and bared teeth, and Sir Henry decided that this was no place for an argument and reined in his horse instead. The new man then looked at Gibbons.