And die they did. The roundshot whipped through the columns and musket fire raked the files to slow the already agonizingly slow retreat. The nine shrinking battalions left trails of crushed and bloodied grass as they crawled northwards and the crawl was threatening to come to a full halt when all that would be left of the division would be nine bands of survivors clustered round their precious colours. The French cavalry saw their enemy dying and were content to wait for the perfect moment to pounce and deliver the coup de grвce. One group of chasseurs and cuirassiers rode towards a slight rise in the ground where a long wood was planted. The cavalry's commander reckoned the wood would hide his men as they worked their way to the rear of the dying battalions and so give him a chance to launch a surprise attack that might capture a half-dozen flags in one glorious charge. He led the two troops up the slope, his men trailing behind, when suddenly the tree line exploded with gunsmoke. There were not supposed to be enemy troops among the trees, but the volley ripped the advancing cavalry into chaos. The cuirassier commander went backwards off his horse's rump with his breastplate holed three times. One of his boots was trapped in a stirrup and he screamed as his terrified and wounded horse dragged him bouncing across the grass to leave great splashes of blood. Then his foot came free and he twitched on the grass as he died. Eight other horsemen fell, some had merely been unhorsed and those men ran to find an unwounded mount while their comrades turned and spurred to safety.
Green-jacketed riflemen ran out of the woods to pillage the dead and wounded cavalrymen. The deeply bellied breastplates worn by the cuirassiers were valued as shaving bowls or skillets and even a bullet-holed breastplate could be patched up by a friendly blacksmith. More greenjackets showed at the woods' southern end, then a battalion of redcoats appeared behind them and with the redcoats came a squadron of fresh cavalry and another battery of horse artillery. A regimental band was playing "Over the Hills and Far Away" as yet more redcoats and greenjackets marched into view.
The Light Division had arrived.
The ammunition wagon lumbered across the fields in the wake of the fast-marching Light Division. One of the wagon's axles squealed like a soul in torment, an annoyance for which the driver apologized, "but I've greased her," he told Sharpe, "and greased her again. I've greased her with the best pig's fat rendered down, but that squeak still don't want to go away. It started the day our Bess got killed and I reckons that squeak is our Bess letting us know she's still kicking somewhere." For a time the driver followed a cart track, then Sharpe and his riflemen had to dismount and put their shoulders to the wagon's rear to help the vehicle over a bank and into a meadow. Once back on top of the ammunition boxes the greenjackets decided the wagon was a stage coach and began imitating the calls of the post horns and singing out the stops. "Red Lion! Fine ales, good food, we change the horses and leave in a quarter-hour! Ladies will find their convenience catered for in the passage behind the lounge." The wagon driver had heard it all before and showed no reaction, but Sharpe, after Harris had hollered for ten minutes about pissing in the passage, turned and told them all to shut the hell up whereupon they pretended to be cowed by him and Sharpe had a sudden pang of regret at the things he would miss if he were to lose his commission. Ahead of the wagon the rifles and muskets cracked. An occasional French round-shot that had been fired too high came bounding across the nearby fields, but the three horses plodded on as patiently as though they were harnessed to a plough instead of lumbering into battle. Only once did an enemy threaten and so force Sharpe's score of riflemen off the wagon to form a rank beside the road. A troop of fifty green-coated dragoons appeared way off to the west where their commander spotted the wagon and turned his men in for the attack. The wagon driver stopped the vehicle and was waiting with a knife poised in case he needed to cut the traces. "We takes the horses," he advised Sharpe, "and leaves the Frenchies to ransack the wagon. That'll keep the buggers busy while we makes off." His horses munched the grass contentedly while Sharpe measured the range to the French dragoons whose copper helmets glinted gold in the sunlight.
Then, just when he had decided that he might be forced to take the wagon driver's advice and retreat, a squadron of blue-coated cavalrymen intervened. The newcomers were British light dragoons who tempted the French into a running fight of sword against sabre.
The driver put away his knife and clicked his tongue, provoking the horses forward. The riflemen scrambled back aboard as the wagon swayed on towards a tree line that obscured the source of the growing powder smoke whitening the southern sky.
Then a crash of heavy guns sounded to the north and Sharpe twisted on the wagon's box to see that the rim of the British-held plateau was thick with smoke as the main batteries fired thunderous volleys towards the east. "Frogs are attacking the village again," Sharpe said.
"Nasty place to fight," Harper said. "Be glad we're out here instead, boys."
"And pray the buggers don't cut us off out here," Sergeant Latimer added gloomily.
"You've got to die somewhere, ain't that right, Mister Sharpe?" Perkins called out.
"Make it your own bed, Perkins, with Miranda beside you," Sharpe answered. "Are you looking after that girl?"
"She's not complaining, Mister Sharpe," Perkins said, thereby provoking a chorus of teasing jeers. Perkins still lacked his green jacket and was touchy about the loss of the coat with its distinguishing black armband denoting that he was a Chosen Man, a compliment that was paid only to the best and most reliable riflemen.
The wagon lurched onto a deep-rutted farm track that led south through the trees towards the distant villages overrun by the French. The Seventh Division was marching north from the woods, going back to the plateau, while the newly arrived Light Division deployed across the broader road that led back into Portugal. The retiring battalions marched slowly, forced to the snail's pace by the number of wounded in their ranks, but at least they marched undefeated beneath flying colours.
The wagon driver hauled on the reins to stop the horses among the trees where the Light Division had established a temporary depot. Two surgeons had spread their knives and saws on tarpaulins laid under holm oaks, while a regimental band played a few yards away. Sharpe told his riflemen to stay with the wagon while he sought orders.
The Light Division was arrayed in squares on the plain between the trees and the smoking villages. The French cavalry trotted across the faces of the squares trying to provoke wasteful volleys at too long a range. The British cavalry was being held in reserve, waiting until the French horse came too close. Six guns of the horse artillery were firing at the French cannon while groups of riflemen were occupying the rocky outcrops that studded the fields. General Craufurd, the Light Division's irascible commander, had brought three and a half thousand men to the rescue of the Seventh Division and now those three and half thousand were faced by four thousand French cavalry and twelve thousand French infantrymen. That infantry was advancing in its attack columns from Poco Velha.
"Sharpe? What the hell are you doing here? Thought you'd deserted us, gone to join the bumboys in Picton's division." Brigadier General Robert Craufurd, fierce-faced and scowling, had spotted Sharpe.
Sharpe explained he had brought a wagonload of ammunition that was now waiting among the trees.
"Waste of time bringing us ammunition," Craufurd snapped. "We've got plenty. And what the hell are you doing delivering ammunition? Been demoted, have you? I heard you were in disgrace."