Sharpe's Battle Part 50

Onoro and that victory was now very close. The battle had opened as Ma.s.sena had intended and now it would close as he intended.

"You were saying, Your Majesty, that Wellington has a choice?" Ducos prompted the Marshal who had drifted into a momentary daydream.

"He has a choice," Ma.s.sena confirmed. "He can abandon his right wing which means he also abandons any chance of retreat, in which case we shall break his centre in Fuentes de Onoro and hunt his army down in the hills for the next week. Or he can abandon Fuentes de Onoro and try to rescue his right wing, in which case we shall fight him to the death on the plain. I'd rather he offered me a fight on the plain, but he won't. This Englishman only feels safe when he has a hill to defend, so he'll stay in Fuentes de Onoro and let his right wing go to a h.e.l.l of our making."

Ducos was impressed. It had been a long time since he had heard a French officer sound so optimistic in Spain, and a long time too since the eagles had marched into battle with such confidence and alacrity. Ma.s.sena deserved applause and Ducos happily offered the Marshal the compliments he desired, but he also added a caution. "This Englishman, Your Majesty," he pointed out, "is also skilled at defending hills. He defended Fuentes de Onoro on Friday, did he not?"

Ma.s.sena sneered at the caution. Ducos had elaborated such devious schemes to undermine British morale, but they only sprang from his lack of faith in soldiers, just as Ducos's presence in Spain sprang from the Emperor's lack of faith in his marshals. Ducos had to learn that when a marshal of France put his mind to victory then victory was certain. "On Friday, Ducos," Ma.s.sena explained, "I tickled Fuentes de Onoro with a pair of brigades, but today we shall send three whole divisions into that little village. Three big divisions, Ducos, full of hungry men. What chance do you think that little village has?"

Ducos considered the question in his usual pedantic way. He could see Fuentes de Onoro clearly enough; the village was a meagre sprawl of peasants' hovels being pounded to dust by the French artillery. Beyond the dust and smoke Ducos could see the graveyard and battered church where the road angled uphill to the plateau. The hill was steep, to be sure, but not very high, and on Friday the attackers had cleared the village of its defenders and gained a lodgement among the lower stones of the graveyard and one more attack would surely have driven the eagles clear across the ridge's crest and into the soft belly of the enemy beyond. And now, out of sight of that enemy, three whole divisions of French infantry were waiting to attack, and in the van of that attack

Ma.s.sena planned to put the elite of his attacking regiments, the ma.s.sed companies of grenadiers with their plumed bearskins and fearful reputation.

The cream of France would march against a raddled army of half-broken men.

"Well, Ducos?" Ma.s.sena challenged the Major for his verdict.

"I must congratulate Your Majesty," Ducos said.

"Which means, I suppose, that you approve of my humble plan?" Ma.s.sena asked sarcastically.

"All France will approve, Your Majesty, when it brings victory."

"b.u.g.g.e.r the victory," Ma.s.sena said, "so long as it brings me Wellington's wh.o.r.es. I'm tired of my present bunch. Half of them are poxed, the other half are pregnant and the fat one bawls her eyes out every time you strip the b.i.t.c.h for duty."

"Wellington has no wh.o.r.es," Ducos said icily. "He controls his pa.s.sions."

The one-eyed Ma.s.sena burst into laughter. "Controls his pa.s.sions! G.o.d on his cross, Ducos, but you'd make smiling a crime. Controls his pa.s.sions, does he?

Then he's a fool, and a defeated fool at that." The Marshal wheeled his horse away from the Major and snapped his fingers at a nearby aide. "Let the eagles go, Jean, let them go!"

The drums called for the muster and three divisions stirred themselves for action. Men drained coffee dregs, stowed knives and tin plates in haversacks, checked their cartridge pouches and plucked their muskets from the pyramid stacks. It was two hours after a Sunday dawn and time to close the battle's jaws as all along the Marshal's line, from south in the plain to north where the village smoked under its numbing cannonade, the French smelt victory.

"Pon my soul, Sharpe, but it's unfair. Unfair! You and me both to stand trial?" Colonel Runciman had been unable to resist the lure of witnessing the day's high drama and so he had come to the plateau, though he had taken care not to step too close to the ridge's crest which was occasionally churned by a high French roundshot. A pyre of smoke marked where the village endured its bombardment while further south, way down on the plain, a second smudge of musket smoke betrayed where the French flank attack was driving across the low ground.

"Waste of time complaining about unfairness, General," Sharpe said. "Only the wealthy can afford to preach about fairness. The rest of us take what we can and try hard not to miss what we can't take."

"Even so, Sharpe, it's unfair!" Runciman said reprovingly. The Colonel looked pale and unhappy. "It's the disgrace, you see. A man goes home to England and expects to be decently treated, but instead I'll be vilified." He ducked as a

French roundshot rumbled far overhead. "I had hopes, Sharpe! I had hopes!"

"The Golden Fleece, General? Order of the Bath?"

"Not just those, Sharpe, but of marriage. There are, you understand, ladies of fortune in Hamps.h.i.+re. I've no ambition to be a bachelor all my life, Sharpe.

My dear mother, G.o.d rest her, always claimed I'd make a good husband so long as the lady was possessed of a middling fortune. Not a great fortune, one must not be unrealistic, but a sufficiency to keep our good selves in modest comfort. A pair of coaches, decent stables, cooks that know their business, smallish game park, a dairy, you know the sort of place."

"Makes me homesick, General," Sharpe said.

The sarcasm sailed airily over Runciman's head. "But now, Sharpe, can you imagine any woman of decent family allying herself with a vilified name?" He thought about it for a moment, then gave a slow despairing shake of the head.

"Good G.o.d! I might have to marry a Methodist!"

"It hasn't happened yet, General," Sharpe said, "and a lot could change today."

Runciman looked alarmed. "You mean I could be killed?"

"Or you could make a name for bravery, sir," Sharpe said. "Nosey always forgives a man for good conduct."

"Oh, good Lord, no! Dear me, no. Pon my soul, Sharpe, no. I ain't the type.

Never was. I went into soldiering because my dear father couldn't find a place for me anywhere else! He purchased me into the army, you understand, because he said it was as good a billet as I could ever expect from society, but I'm not the fighting sort. Never was, Sharpe." Runciman listened to the terrible noise of the cannonade pounding Fuentes de Onoro, a noise made worse by the splintering sound of voltigeur muskets firing over the stream. "I'm not proud of it, Sharpe, but I don't think I could endure that kind of thing. Don't think I could at all."

"Can't blame you, sir," Sharpe said, then turned as Sergeant Harper shouted for his attention. "You'll forgive me, General?"

"Off you go, Sharpe, off you go."

"Trade, sir," Harper said, jerking his head towards Major Tarrant who was gesticulating at a wagon driver.

Tarrant turned as Sharpe came near. "The Light Division is ordered south,

Sharpe, but its ammunition reserve is stuck to the north. We're to replace it.

Would you mind if your rifles accompanied it?"

Sharpe did mind. He instinctively wanted to stay where the battle would be fiercest and that was in Fuentes de Onoro, but he could not say as much to

Tarrant. "No, sir."

"In case they get bogged down, d'you see, and have to spend the rest of the day fighting off Frenchmen, so the General wants them to have a plenitude of ammunition. Rifle and musket cartridges, mixed. Artillery are looking after themselves. One wagon should do it, but it needs an escort, Sharpe. French cavalry are lively down there."

"Can we help?" Captain Donaju had overheard Tarrant's hurried explanation of

Sharpe's errand.

"Might need you later, Captain," Tarrant said. "I have a feeling today's likely to be lively all round. Never seen the Frogs so uppity. Have you,

Sharpe?"

"They've got their tails up today, Major," Sharpe agreed. He looked up at the wagon driver. "Are you ready?"

The driver nodded. His wagon was an English four-wheeled farm vehicle with high splayed sides to which were harnessed three Cleveland Bays in single file. "Had four beasts once," the driver remarked as Sharpe climbed up beside him, "but a Frenchie sh.e.l.l got Bess, so now I'm down to three." The driver had woven red and blue woollen braiding into the horses' manes and had decorated his wagon's flanks with discarded cap-plates and thrown horseshoes that he had nailed to the planking. "You know where we're going?" he asked Sharpe as

Harper ordered the riflemen to climb onto the boxes of ammunition stacked on the wagon's bed.

"After them." Sharpe pointed to his right where the plateau offered a gentler slope down to the southern lowlands and where the Light Division was marching south beneath its banners. It was Sharpe's old division, made up of riflemen and light infantry, and it regarded itself as the army's elite division. Now it was marching to save the Seventh Division from annihilation.

A mile away, across the Dos Casas stream and close to the ruined barn that served as his headquarters, Marshal Andre Ma.s.sena saw the fresh British troops leaving the plateau's protection to march south towards the beleaguered redcoats and Portuguese. "The fool," he said to himself, then louder in a gleeful voice, "the fool!"