‘But garrison troops,’ Sharpe said, ‘not nearly as good as us.’
‘We hope, sir.’ The corporal sounded amused.
‘Butler, isn’t it?’ The name suddenly came to Sharpe.
‘Tom Butler, sir.’
The French must have had close to three hundred men lining across the courtyard’s shadowed end. Sharpe suspected that neither their discipline nor their training would match his own battalion, but some of their musket balls would strike home. ‘Battalion,’ he shouted, ‘kneel!’
The movement at the courtyard’s far end had ceased. The French were in line, just like Sharpe’s men, and he guessed they were in their usual three ranks. Gourgand would be hoping his first volley would decimate the redcoats, which was why Sharpe had made them kneel. Badly trained troops tended to fire high, and the kick of the heavy French muskets exaggerated that fault. He heard a voice call a command. ‘Wait for it, lads,’ he said. The French were aiming their muskets.
‘Tirez!’ a voice bellowed, and the far end of the courtyard vanished in a great rill of smoke as the muskets fired. Sharpe heard the balls striking the wall above and behind him. The first rifles were already shooting from the high windows. ‘Battalion, stand! Present!’
The redcoats stood, brought muskets to their shoulders.
‘Aim low! Fire!’
The massive volley flamed and smoked, the balls searing down the courtyard. ‘Platoon fire!’ Sharpe shouted. He heard ramrods scraping in musket barrels. He had not fired his rifle, waiting for the smoke to clear so he could aim the weapon.
‘There’s a good few of them down,’ Butler said as he rammed his musket.
Number Two Company fired, then Four, and the musket fire rippled down the redcoat line. This was what the men were trained to do; to deliver an unending fire of musketry. Sharpe’s men had already sent two shots each down the courtyard and the French had not yet managed their second volley. Sharpe fired his rifle, not really aiming it, just sending the ball down the courtyard and confident it must hit someone. A few shots came back, but still the French, half blinded by the musket smoke, were firing high. Sharpe slung his rifle and took two paces out of the line. ‘Fix swords!’ There was a pause as the bayonets were latched onto the musket barrels. ‘Now charge!’ Sharpe drew his sword and began running, while behind him the men cheered and ran forward.
This will be messy, Sharpe thought. Maybe he should have let the platoon fire go on for another two or three minutes, but the feeble French response had convinced him that the troops he faced were ill-trained.
He ran past the tree and a musket ball whipped past his face. The smoke ahead was thick, undisturbed by any wind, but he could see the French clearly enough, their white crossbelts standing out in the shadows. Some were reloading muskets, but others, seeing the oncoming glint of moonlight on steel blades, were backing away. Gourgand was there, shouting at his men, and Sharpe saw dozens of dead or wounded on the cobblestones. Some men ran towards the doorways, desperate to escape.
‘Battalion, halt!’ Sharpe roared the command. ‘Form line! Present!’
They were twenty paces from the French now. The men lifted their muskets. Sharpe doubted that most were loaded, but it was the threat that would do the job. He looked at the French. ‘Drop your weapons!’ he called in their language. ‘Muskets on the ground! Now!’
The muskets dropped. One, loaded, fired as it dropped and a Frenchman cried out as the ball pierced his foot. Sharpe could see four officers, betrayed by their sword scabbards, lying on the cobbles, which meant his Riflemen had done their work well, but he could no longer see Gourgand.
‘That one-legged bugger’s getting away, sir,’ Butler muttered.
‘Where?’
Butler pointed and Sharpe saw men filing into a doorway. The prisoners, he thought. ‘Number Six Company,’ he bellowed, ‘with me!’
He ran towards the doorway, clearing the French out of his way with the threat of his sword. He hurtled through the door into a lamplit passageway that turned sharply to the left. A musket shot echoed from within the building and Sharpe kept running. He turned the corner and saw he was in the prison. Cells lay on the left of the long passage that was filled with blue-coated French infantrymen, one of whom had just fired through a barred door. ‘Kill them!’
Sharpe leaped forward. There was no room to swing the sword in the narrow passage so he lunged with it, skewering a man’s belly, then kicking him to free the blade. Butler went past him, his bayonet reaching. A musket fired, the sound huge in the stone passageway, and Sharpe saw that the gun had been fired through the bars, aimed presumably at a prisoner, then Colonel Gourgand shouted at his men to cease fire.
‘Hold it, lads!’ Sharpe called. His sword was dripping blood and he used the blade to push the French to either side of the passage as he walked towards Colonel Gourgand, who had his sabre drawn. He reversed the blade and held the hilt towards Sharpe. ‘We surrender, monsieur,’ he said.
‘You bastard,’ Sharpe said, ‘you’d kill the prisoners?’ He took the sabre with his free hand, rested the tip on the flagstone floor, then stamped on the blade. It snapped. He gave the broken part of the blade still attached to the hilt back to Gourgand. ‘Corporal Butler!’
‘Sir?’
‘Guard this bugger.’ He looked back to Gourgand. ‘You have a surgeon here?’
‘Oui.’
‘He can tend your wounded. And Butler?’
‘Sir?’
‘If this bugger gives you any trouble, shoot his other leg.’
‘Pleasure, sir.’
Gourgand might not have understood the language, but he could not mistake Sharpe’s anger, nor the feral expression on Butler’s face. He backed against the wall and held his hands wide.
Major Vincent had come into the passageway. ‘Well done!’ he called. Then held up a hand as Sharpe pushed past him. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To see what damage we’ve suffered.’ Sharpe leaned down to the first man he had killed in the passageway and cleaned his sword on the skirts of the dead man’s jacket. He sheathed the sword. ‘The prisoners are yours, Major. And that bugger Gourgand was about to kill them.’
Sharpe left the prison block and called to Sergeant Huckfield. ‘What’s our butcher’s bill?’
‘Two dead and six wounded. Sergeant Hoskins and Private Peters died.’
‘Damn it,’ Sharpe said. It was a small butcher’s bill, very small, but that was no consolation for the two who had died. ‘The Crapauds have a surgeon,’ he told Huckfield, ‘make sure he treats our men too.’