On the walls the French gunners slackened their fire. They had drowned the ditch in death and now they listened to the screams and moans that came from below. The attacks seemed to have stopped, so the gunners stretched, soaked their faces with water splashed from the buckets used to wet the sponges, and watched as fresh ammunition was brought up the ramp. They did not expect much more effort from the British. A few men had climbed the breaches, one was even impaled on the sabre blades, but it was a hopeless effort. Poor bastards! There was no joy any longer in shouting insults. A sergeant, leather-skinned and hard, leaned on a gun wheel and flinched. 'Christ! I wish they'd stop screaming.
A few men had lit surreptitious cigars that they hid from their officers by leaning deep into the gun embrasures. One man wriggled forward, past the acrid muzzle, until he could peer down into the ditch. The Sergeant called wearily to him. 'Come back! Those Rifle bastards will get you.
The man stayed. He peered down, far down, at the writhing horror in the ditch. He pulled himself back. 'If they get in they'll bloody slaughter us!
The Sergeant laughed. 'They won't get in, lad, not a chance. In two hours you'll be tucked in bed with that horrid thing you call a woman.’
'You're jealous, Sergeant.
'Me? I'd rather go to bed with this. The Sergeant slapped the barrel of his gun. The wreathed 'N', Napoleon's symbol, was searing hot. 'Now get back here, lad, put that bloody cigar out, and look smart. I might need you, God help me.
A call from the observation point. 'Make ready!
The Sergeant sighed and stood up. Another tiny group of idiot British were running towards the Santa Maria breach and his gun covered the approach. He watched them down the length of his glistening gun, saw them slip on blood, stumble on stone, and then they were in his target zone. He stood to one side, touched the match to the powder-filled reed, and the green-jacketed men were beaten into fragments. It was so easy. The Sergeant bellowed orders for the reloading, listened to the hiss as the sponge seared down the bore, and was glad that he was at Badajoz this night. The French had begun to fear this Lord Wellington, to turn him into a bogey man to frighten their sleep, and it was pleasing to show that the English Lord could be beaten. The Sergeant grinned as the bulbous lumps of canvas-wrapped grapeshot were rammed into the cannon. This night Wellington would taste defeat, utter defeat, and the whole Empire would rejoice. This night belonged to France, only to France, and Britain's hopes were being buried where they belonged; in a ditch for the dead.
CHAPTER 26
'This way! This way!" They were going right, away from the San Pedro bastion, clawing a path on the hill's steep side until they had turned a corner and would receive some shelter from the grapeshot. The first attack had been horribly repulsed, but the Third Division would try again. They could hear the fury at the main breach, far away, and see on the sheeted floodwaters the dim reflections of the fires that were consuming the Light and Fourth Divisions. Knowles could feel a madness in the air, beating its dark wings against a city, bringing a night of insane death and crazy effort. 'Light Company! Light Company!
'Here, sir. An old Sergeant, steadying his Captain with a hand, and then a Lieutenant leading a dozen men. My God, Knowles thought, is this all that is left? But then he saw more men, tugging the cumbersome ladder. Another Sergeant grinned at him. 'Do we go again, sir?
'Wait for the bugle. He knew there was no point in making a scattered attack that could be picked off piecemeal by the defenders. The whole Division must go together.
Knowles suddenly felt good. There was an impression in his head, one that had been nagging him, and now he pinned it down. The musket fire had been light from the parapet. The grapeshot had confused him, but now, thinking back to the chaos of the first attack, the shattering ladder, he remembered how few had been the musket flashes from the walls. The French must have left a skeleton garrison in the castle, and a confidence surged through him! They would do it. He grinned at his men, slapped their backs, and they were glad that he was confident. He was trying to think how Sharpe would do this. The danger was not the muskets, the danger was from the defenders toppling the long, rickety ladders. He oordered off a dozen men, under the Lieutenant, and told hem they were not to try and climb the ladder. Instead they were to fire at the ladder's head, scour the parapet of its defenders, and only when the parapet was clear and he had led the men over the battlements were they to follow. 'Understand?
They grinned and nodded, and he grinned back and drew the curved sabre from its scabbard.
The Sergeant laughed. 'I thought you were going to forget it again, sir. The men laughed at him and he was glad of the darkness to cover his blush, but they were good men, his men, and he suddenly understood, as never before, the sense of loss that Sharpe had suffered. Knowles wondered how he was to climb the ladder and hold the sword, and knew he would. have to put the blade between his teeth. He would drop it! He was nervous, but then, instead of bugles, there were shouts and the trampling of feet and the moment had come.
The survivors of the Third Division erupted from the darkness. The carcasses flowed down, and the cannon in the small casde bastion shredded the attack, but they were screaming defiance and the ladders swayed in the ungainly curves until they slammed against the castle wall.
'Up! He jammed the blade between his teeth and gripped the rungs. Musket balls came down and then he heard his own guns firing, the Lieutenant calling the orders, and he was climbing. The great, irregular granite blocks were going past his face, and he scrambled up, the fear a living thing beside him, and he concentrated on keeping the sabre between his teeth. His jaw ached. It was such a stupid tiling to worry about because he was nearing the top and he wanted to laugh and he was afraid, so afraid, because the enemy would be waiting, and he felt his knuckles graze against the granite as the slope of the ladder took him close to the wall. He took the sabre from his mouth.
'Stop firing! The Lieutenant stared up and held his breath.
Knowles had to use his fist, wrapped round the sabre handle, as a prop to help him up the last rungs. It was easier than climbing with the blade in his teeth. He suddenly felt foolish, as if someone might have laughed at him for climbingg a ladder with a sabre in his mouth, and he wondered why the mind chose such irrelevant and stupid thoughts at such: moment. He could hear the guns, the screams, the crash of another ladder, and the man behind pushed at him, and the top was there! This was the moment of death and his fearharrowed him, but he pushed over the top and saw the bayonet come sawing towards him. He leaned to one side, tottering on the ladder, and swung his right arm for balance and, to his surprise, saw the sabre at the end of the arm cleave down into the enemy's head. A hand pushed him from behind, his feet were still pedaling at the rungs, but he had run out of ladder! He was falling forward on to the body of the dead man, and another enemy was coming, so he rolled and twisted and knew he was there. He was on the ramparts! There was a keening in his throat, that he did not hear, a sound of insensate fear, and he thrust up with the sabre, into the man's groin, and the scream winged into the night and the blood pulsed on to Knowles's wrist, and the second man was with him.
They had done it! They had done it! The men were coming up the ladder, and he was filled with a joy that he did not know existed. He was on his feet, his blade bloodied to the hilt, and the enemy were running towards them, muskets outstretched, but the fear was conquered. There was something odd about the Frenchmen's uniforms. They were not blue and white. Knowles had a glimpse of red turnbacks and yellow facings, but then he was jumping forward, remembering that Sharpe always attacked, and the sabre twisted a bayonet aside, flicked up, and he had the man in the throat. 'Light Company! To me! Light Company!