He aimed his own rifle, waited till the first redcoats appeared at the end of the street, then fired at a rooftop. The redcoats sought shelter as the rifles cracked, and then began returning the fire. Musket balls flew overhead to crack against the citadel’s walls. ‘Fix swords,’ Sharpe shouted, ‘and follow me! Come on!’
It took a moment for the Riflemen to fix the long sword-bayonets on their rifles, but then they followed Sharpe across the grass towards the door of the bastion. Musket shots flew over them, the crackle of the guns unceasing. Major Vincent, his sword drawn, ran beside Sharpe. All of them were in their dark uniforms. ‘Ouvrez! Ouvrez!’ Vincent bellowed for the door to be opened as they neared the bastion. Sharpe drew his sword. It was a long, straight blade, designed to be carried by a heavy cavalryman, but Sharpe liked it. It was reputed to be clumsy, but a strong man could make havoc with the long heavy blade and the very sight of it put the fear of God into enemies.
The bastion’s door swung open, letting a shaft of lantern light show on the gravel path. Two blue-uniformed men stood there, beckoning for Sharpe and his companions to run faster. ‘Vite! Vite!’ one of them called. He could see the redcoats coming from the trees and waved Sharpe and his men forward. Sharpe, outpacing Vincent, slammed the sword’s blade into the man’s belly so hard that it went clean through and stuck in the door’s wooden jamb. Riflemen thrust past him, their sword-bayonets slashing forward.
Sharpe tugged the sword free, put his foot on the chest of the dying man, and dragged the blade out of his belly. The Frenchman was making a mewing noise and clutching at the wound, so Sharpe finished him with a cut to the throat, then pushed into the tunnel.
The bastion was a triangular wedge with stone walls filled with earth, originally designed to protect the citadel’s gate from artillery bombardment. The tunnel inside was a dogleg, entering on one side of the wedge, then turning towards the gate. ‘Keep going!’ Sharpe shouted. He pushed to the front and led them around the sharp bend and saw another door ahead. To its right was a second door that Sharpe guessed was the guardroom. He sensed rather than saw that second door close. ‘Pat!’
‘Sir?’
‘Volley gun!’
Sharpe stood by the guardroom door, waited for Harper, then kicked the door wide open. He had an impression of blue-coated men in lantern light, of a table where there was bread, cheese and playing cards, then Harper pulled the trigger, the volley gun filled the tunnel with noise and smoke, and the blue-coated men were hurled backwards. That was stupid, Sharpe thought to himself, the noise of the volley gun was so massive that it must have alarmed the guards on the main gate, but there was no time to worry about stupidity. He hoped they would think it was all part of the pretend battle between the fugitives and the pursuing redcoats. He thrust open the larger door and found himself running across the stone bridge that crossed the dry moat. The gate was huge in front of him. ‘Open!’ he bellowed in French.
The Frenchmen defending the gate had seen dark-uniformed men being pursued by redcoats. They had watched as the fugitives went into the bastion, and now they opened the main gate and beckoned them to safety. ‘Cooper!’ Sharpe shouted.
‘Sir?’
‘Bugle?’
‘I’ve got it, sir.’
‘Sound it!’ Sharpe shouted, not caring he spoke in English, and ran through the half open gate. A big Sergeant waited there and Sharpe ripped the tip of his sword through the man’s throat as his Riflemen came behind, their bayonets seeking other Frenchmen, while just beyond the gate, Cooper blew the signal to charge. The bugle told the redcoats that the gate was captured and that they should run to reinforce the Riflemen. Two or three muskets fired from the citadel’s high walls, but there was small resistance in the vast courtyard where Sharpe stood over the bloodied men who had guarded the gate. ‘Form line!’ he called to his men.
The fifteen Riflemen made a line and reloaded their weapons. The courtyard stretched away towards the southern wall, broken only by a solitary tree that grew in the yard’s centre. There was no enemy in sight, though Sharpe could still hear sporadic musketry coming from the rampart above the gate, presumably aimed at his redcoats who would be filing into the bastion’s tunnel. ‘Sergeant Harper!’
‘Sir?’
‘Take half a dozen men and finish off those bastards. Must be a way up there!’
‘Pleasure, sir.’ Harper began to reload the volley gun. ‘Won’t be a minute, sir!’
‘Any idea where the prison is?’ Sharpe asked Vincent.
‘God knows,’ Vincent said. The long courtyard was surrounded on all sides by two-storey buildings, three if you included the dormer windows jutting from the slate roofs.
‘They’re dozy bastards,’ Sharpe grunted. ‘We’ve killed what? A dozen men? The rest of them must be awake by now.’
‘And there they are,’ Vincent said. A file of infantrymen had appeared from a door at the courtyard’s far end, maybe thirty of them, and were being hurried towards the gate. ‘Rifles,’ Sharpe called, ‘target practice.’
The moon cast shadows in front of the hurrying Frenchmen, who scattered as the first rifle bullets struck home. Most sought shelter behind the tree, which was some two hundred paces away, but still the rifle bullets struck mercilessly. Then Sharpe heard a massive shot from above and knew that Pat Harper had fired the volley gun. A spattering of other shots sounded, then silence, before Captain Price was standing beside Sharpe. ‘All here, sir.’
‘Lose any men?’
‘A couple are wounded. There were buggers on the roof.’
‘Pat Harper dealt with them.’
‘Good.’
‘Cooper!’
‘Mister Sharpe?’
‘Reveille! Wake the buggers up! Keep repeating it till I tell you.’
The bugle sounded over and over as the rest of the battalion came through the gate. They were too many to shelter under the gate’s arch, so Sharpe lined them in two ranks across the courtyard. ‘Prince of Wales’s Volunteers!’ he shouted, using the battalion’s new name. ‘One volley. Aim at the buggers by the tree.’ He doubted any of the musket balls would hit. At two hundred paces a musket was notoriously inaccurate, but the sheer weight of the volley would give the French pause. ‘Make ready!’ He paused. ‘Fire!’
The volley crashed out, the sound echoing back from the buildings. A scream sounded somewhere beyond the thick smoke. ‘Reload! Rifles, keep firing!’
Cooper was still blowing his bugle, and its sound was answered by another bugle call from the courtyard’s far end. ‘Cease fire!’ Sharpe bellowed. ‘Enough, Cooper! Save your breath!’
The thick smoke slowly cleared and Sharpe saw that French troops, their white crossbelts visible in the moon-shadowed further end of the courtyard, were being hurried into position. Three officers walked towards the chateau’s entrance. The man in the centre had a wooden leg, which made a hollow sound when it struck the courtyard’s cobbles. ‘Gourgand,’ Sharpe said sourly.