Sharpe's Battle Part 52

"I've got my greenjackets here, sir."

"And the b.u.g.g.e.rs can remember how to fight?"

"I think they can, sir."

"Then skirmish for me. Those are your new administrative duties, Mister

Sharpe. I have to keep the division a safe distance in front of the Frog infantry which means we'll all have to endure the attentions of their gunners and horse, but I'm expecting my rifles to plague the horses and kill the d.a.m.n guns, and you can help them." Craufurd twisted in his saddle. "Barratt?

Distribute the ammunition and send the wagon back with the wounded. Go to it,

Sharpe! And keep a good lookout, we don't want to abandon you out here on your own."

Sharpe hesitated. It was a risky business asking questions of Black Bob, a man who expected instant obedience, but the General's words had intrigued him. "So we're not staying here, sir?" he asked. "We're going back to the ridge?"

"Of course we're b.l.o.o.d.y going back! Why the h.e.l.l do you think we marched out here? Just to commit suicide? You think I came back from leave just to give the b.l.o.o.d.y Frogs some target practice? Get the h.e.l.l on with it, Sharpe!"

"Yes, sir." Sharpe ran back to fetch his men and felt a sudden mingled surge of fear and hope.

For Wellington had abandoned the roads back to Portugal. There could be no safe withdrawal now, no steady retreat across the Coa's fords, for Wellington had yielded those roads to the enemy. The British and Portuguese must stand and fight now, and if they lost they would die and with them would die all hopes of victory in Spain. Defeat now did not just mean that Almeida would be relieved, but that the British and Portuguese army would be annihilated.

Fuentes de Onoro had become a battle to the death.

CHAPTER 10.

Sunday's first attack on Fuentes de Onoro was made by the same French infantrymen who had attacked two days before and who had since been occupying the gardens and houses on the stream's eastern bank. They a.s.sembled silently, using the stone walls of the orchards and gardens to disguise their intentions and then, without an opening volley or even bothering to throw out a skirmish line, the blue-coated infantry swarmed across the tumbled walls and plunged down to the stream. The Scottish defenders had time for one volley, then the

French were in the village, clawing at the barricades or clambering over the walls thrown down by the howitzer sh.e.l.ls that had fallen among the houses in the two hours since dawn. The French drove the Scots deep into the village where one surge trapped two companies of Highlanders in a cul de sac. The attackers turned on the cornered men in a frenzy, filling the alley's narrow confines with a storm of musketry. Some of the Scots tried to escape by pus.h.i.+ng down a house wall, but the French were waiting on the far side and met the wall's collapse with more volleys of musket fire. The surviving

Highlanders barricaded themselves in houses bordering the stream, but the

French poured fire at windows, loopholes and doors, then brought up galloper guns to fire across the stream until at last, with all their officers killed or wounded, the dazed Highlanders surrendered.

The attack on the cornered Highlanders had drained men from the main uphill a.s.sault which stalled in the village's centre. The Warwicks, again in reserve, came down from the plateau to help the remaining Scots and together they first stopped the French, then drove them back towards the stream. The fight was fought at murderously close range. Muskets flamed just feet from their targets, and when these were empty men used their guns as clubs or else stabbed forward with bayonets. They were hoa.r.s.e from shouting and from breathing the smoky dust that filled the air in the narrow, twisting streets where gutters ran with blood and bodies piled to block each door and entryway.

The Scots and Warwicks fought their way downhill, but each time they tried to push the French out of the last few houses the newly emplaced guns in the orchards would open fire with canister to fill the village's lower streets and alleys with a rattling sleet of death. Blood trickled to the stream. The village's defenders were deafened by the echo of muskets and the crash of artillery in the streets, but they were not so deaf that they did not hear the ominous tattoo of approaching drummers. New French columns were crossing the plain. The British guns on the ridge were slas.h.i.+ng roundshot into the advancing ranks and blasting case shot that exploded above their heads, but the columns were vast and the defenders' cannons few, and so the great ma.s.s of men marched on into the eastern gardens from where, with a vast shout, a horde of men in s.h.a.ggy black bearskin hats swept over the stream and up into the village.

These new attackers were the ma.s.sed grenadiers: the biggest men and bravest fighters that the attacking divisions could muster. They wore moustaches, epaulettes and plumed bearskins as marks of their special status and they stormed into the village with a roar of triumph that lasted as they swept up the streets with bayonets and musket fire. The tired Warwicks went back and the Scots went with them. More Frenchmen crossed the stream, a seemingly never-ending flood of blue coats that followed the elite grenadiers into the alleys and up through the houses. The fight in the lower half of the village was the hardest for the attackers, for although sheer impetus carried the a.s.sault far into the village heart they were constantly obstructed by dead or wounded. Grenadiers slipped on stones made treacherous by blood, yet sheer numbers forced the attackers on and the defenders were now too few to stop them. Some redcoats tried to clear streets with volley fire, but the grenadiers swarmed through back alleys or over garden walls to outflank the redcoat companies which could only go back uphill through the dust and tiles and burning thatch of the upper village. Wounded men called out pathetically, beseeching their comrades to carry them to safety, but the attack was coming too fast now and the Scots and Englishmen were retreating too quickly. They abandoned the village altogether, fleeing from the upper houses to find a refuge in the graveyard.

The leading French grenadiers charged from the village towards the church above and were met by a volley of muskets fired by men waiting behind the graveyard wall.

The front men fell, but those behind leaped over their dying comrades to a.s.sault the graveyard wall. Bayonets and musket stocks slashed over the stone, then the big French soldiers surged over the wall, even pus.h.i.+ng it down in some places to begin hunting the survivors up through the heaped graves and fallen stones and shattered wooden crosses. More Frenchmen came from the village to bolster the attack, then a splintering deluge of rifle and musket fire flashed from the stony outcrops just above the blood-greased slope.

Grenadiers fell and rolled downhill. A second British volley whipped over the gun-churned graves as still more redcoats arrived to line the ridge's crest and fire their rolling volleys from beside the church and from the saddle of gra.s.sland where Wellington had watched aghast as this spring French tide had risen almost to his horse's hooves.

And there, for a while, the attack stalled. The French had first filled the village with dead and wounded, then they had captured it, and now they held the graveyard too. Their soldiers crouched behind graves or behind their enemy's piled dead. They were just feet from the ridge's summit, just feet from victory while behind them, on a plain gouged by roundshot and scorched by sh.e.l.l and littered with the bodies of dead and dying men, still more French infantry came to help the attackers on.

The day needed just one more push, then the eagles of France would fly free.

The Light Division had formed its battalions into close columns of companies.

Each company formed a rectangle four ranks deep and anything from twelve to twenty files wide, then the ten companies of each battalion paraded in column so that from the sky each battalion now resembled a stack of thin red bricks.

Then, one by one, the battalion columns turned their backs on the enemy and began marching north towards the plateau. The French cavalry gave immediate pursuit and the air rang with a bra.s.sy cacophony as trumpet after trumpet sounded the advance.

"Form square on the front division!" the Colonel of the redcoat battalion nearest Sharpe shouted.

The Major commanding the battalion's leading division of companies called for the first brick to halt and for the second to form alongside it so that two of the bricks now made one long wall of men four ranks deep and forty men wide.

"Dress ranks!" the sergeants shouted as the men shuffled close together and looked right to make sure their rank was ruler straight. While the leading two companies straightened their ranks the Major was calling orders to the succeeding companies. "Sections outward wheel! Rear sections close to the front!" The French trumpets were pealing and the earth was vibrating from the ma.s.s of hooves, but the sergeants' and officers' voices sounded coolly over the threat. "Outward wheel! Steady now! Rear sections close to the front!" The six centre companies of the battalion now split into four sections each. Two sections swung like hinged doors to the right and two to the left, the innermost men of each section reducing their marching pace from thirty to twenty inches, while the men swinging widest lengthened their stride to thirty-three inches and so the sections pivoted outward to begin forming the twin faces of the square whose anchoring wall was the first two companies.

Mounted officers hurried to get their horses inside the rapidly forming square that was, in reality, an oblong. The northward face had been made by the two leading companies, now the two longer sides were formed by the next six companies wheeling outward and closing hard up, while the last companies merely filled in the vacant fourth side. "Halt! Right about face!" the Major in command of the rear division shouted to the last two companies.

"Prepare to receive cavalry!" the Colonel shouted dutifully, as if the sight of the ma.s.sed French horse was not warning enough. The Colonel drew his sword, then swatted with his free hand at a horsefly. The colour party stood beside him, two teenage ensigns holding the precious flags that were guarded by a squad of chosen men commanded by hard-bitten sergeants armed with spontoons.

"Rear rank! Port arms!" the Major called. The innermost rank of the square would hold its fire and so act as the battalion's reserve. The cavalry was a hundred paces away and closing fast, a churning ma.s.s of excited horses, raised blades, trumpets, flags and thunder.

"Front rank, kneel!" a captain called. The front rank dropped and jammed their bayonet-tipped muskets into the earth to make a continuous hedge of steel about the formation.

"Make ready!" The two inside ranks c.o.c.ked their loaded guns, and took aim. The whole manoeuvre had been done at a steady pace, without fuss, and the sudden sight of the levelled muskets and braced bayonets persuaded the leading cavalrymen to sheer away from the steady, stolid and silent square. Infantry in square were just about as safe from cavalry as if they were tucked up at home in bed, and the redcoat battalion, by forming square so quickly and quietly, had made the French charge impotent.

"Very nice," Sergeant Latimer said in tribute to the battalion's professionalism. "Very nicely done. Just like the parade ground at

Shorncliffe."

"Gun to the right, sir," Harper called. Sharpe's men were occupying one of the rocky outcrops that studded the plain and which gave the riflemen protection from the marauding cavalry. Their job was to snipe at the cavalry and especially at the French horse artillery which was trying to take advantage of the British squares. Men in square were safe from cavalry yet horribly vulnerable to sh.e.l.l and roundshot, but gunners were equally vulnerable to the accuracy of the British Baker rifles. A galloper gun had taken position two hundred paces away from Sharpe and the gun's crew was lining the barrel on the newly formed square. Two men lifted the ammunition chest off the gun's trail while a third double-shotted the gun's blackened barrel by ramming a round of canister on top of a roundshot.

Dan Hagman fired first and the man ramming the shot slewed round, then held onto the protruding rammer's handle as though it was his grip on life itself.

A second bullet cracked off the cannon's barrel to leave a bright scratch in the jaded bra.s.s. Another gunner fell, then one of the gun's horses was. .h.i.t and it reared up and kicked at the horse harnessed next to it. "Steady does it,"

Sharpe said, "take aim, boys, take aim. Don't waste the shots." Three more greenjackets fired and their bullets persuaded the beleaguered gunners to crouch behind the cannon and its limber. The gunners shouted at some green- coated dragoons to go and dig the d.a.m.ned riflemen out from their rocky eyrie.

"Someone take care of that dragoon captain," Sharpe said.

"Square's going, sir!" Cooper warned Sharpe as Horrell and Cresacre fired at the distant horseman.

Sharpe turned and saw the redcoat square was shaking itself into a column again to resume its retreat. He dared not get too far away from the protection of the redcoats' muskets. His danger, like that facing every small group of riflemen who covered the retreat, was that his men might be cut off by the cavalry and Sharpe doubted that the long-suffering French hors.e.m.e.n would be willing to take prisoners this day. Any greenjacket caught in the open would most likely be used for sword or lance practice. "Go!" he shouted, and his men scrambled away from the rocks and ran for the cover of the redcoat battalion.

The dragoons turned to pursue, then the leading ranks of hors.e.m.e.n were thrown sideways and turned b.l.o.o.d.y as a blast of canister fired from a British galloper gun smashed into them. Sharpe saw a clump of trees just to the left of the redcoat battalion's line of march and shouted at Harper to lead the men to the small wood's cover.

Once safe among the oaks the greenjackets reloaded and looked for new targets.

To Sharpe, who had served on a dozen battlefields, the plain offered an extraordinary sight: a ma.s.s of cavalry was churning and spilling between the steadily withdrawing battalions, yet for all their noise and excitement the hors.e.m.e.n were achieving nothing. The infantry were steady and silent, performing the intricate drill that they had practised for hours and hours and which now was saving their lives, and doing it in the knowledge that just one mistake by a battalion commander would be fatal. If a column was just a few seconds too slow to form square then the rampaging cuira.s.siers would be through the gap on their heavy horses and gutting the imperfect square from the inside. A disciplined battalion would be turned in an instant into a rabble of panicking fugitives to be ridden down by dragoons or slaughtered by lancers, yet no battalion made any mistake and so the French were being frustrated by a superb display of steady soldiering.

The French kept searching for an opportunity. Whenever a battalion was marching in a column of companies and so looked ripe for attack a sudden surge of horses would flow across the field and the trumpets would rally yet more horse to join the thunderous charge, but then the redcoats' column would break, wheel and march into square with the same precision as if they were drilling on the parade ground of their home barracks. The troops would mark time for an instant as the square was achieved, then the outer rank would kneel, the whole formation would bristle with bayonets and the hors.e.m.e.n would sheer away in impotent rage. A few impetuous Frenchmen would always try to draw blood and gallop too close to the square only to be blasted from their saddles, or maybe a British galloper gun would b.l.o.o.d.y a whole troop of dragoons or cuira.s.siers with a blast of canister, but then the cavalry would gallop out of range and the horses would be rested while the square trudged back into column and marched stoically on. The hors.e.m.e.n would watch them go until another flurry of trumpets summoned the whole flux of mounted men to chase yet another opportunity far across the field and once again a battalion would contract into square and once again the hors.e.m.e.n would wheel away with unblooded blades.