‘You’re hurt, sir!’ Anderson was beside him.
‘I’m fine.’ He was not. He could feel blood wet on his back, and his right shoulder was flaming with pain, but speed was everything. He drew his sword, flinching at the agony, and hurried up the ramp. A musket fired, the ball plucking at Sharpe’s left sleeve, then Rifleman Finn was past him and his sword-bayonet sliced into the man who had fired. Sharpe had expected to emerge into a vast cellar, instead he was in a small room lit by lanterns that hung from stone arches. A door was to his right. He tugged it open and there was the large cellar filled with trays of growing mushrooms.
‘You’re bleeding badly.’ Harper was beside him.
‘Just a scratch, Pat.’ He nodded at the volley gun. ‘Is that thing reloaded?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Load it. We might need it.’
The larger cellar appeared to be empty except for the mushrooms. Sharpe suspected Lanier had left a small squad of men with the cannon, confident that the canister would prove enough to defend the tunnel against any intruders. Harry Price appeared at Sharpe’s elbow. ‘Are you all right, sir?’
‘Never better, Harry. I thought you were guarding our rear?’
‘Sergeant Miller’s there, sir. Which way do we go now?’
‘We find the stairs up to the house. Lieutenant Anderson!’
‘Sir?’
‘You did well, Lieutenant. Can your men load and fire that cannon?’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘Bang some more canister down the tunnel, quick!’
Anderson looked puzzled. ‘You want us—’
‘Lanier will hear it and think the tunnel’s still being defended. Quick, Lieutenant.’
Anderson went back down the ramp as Sharpe headed towards the cellar’s far side. The crackle of musketry was louder here, an incessant noise that had the familiar rhythm of platoon fire. Then the small French six-pounder fired again, the report almost deafening Sharpe, but it was followed by another monstrous crash from above. ‘That’s another cannon,’ Harper called from where he was ramming the balls down the volley gun.
Sharpe swore, knowing he had underestimated Lanier. Sharpe was reading the battle by sound, and the platoon volleys were closer than the rest of the musketry, which told him Lanier had trained his men to be as efficient with their muskets as the British and, worse, the Frenchman did not have one cannon, but two. ‘Three,’ he said, as yet another cannon fired from above. He imagined the canister flensing across the vineyard, shredding the advancing ranks. It was a mess, and his fault. But then there was a stone stairway and Sharpe pounded up the steps, the Light Company following, and crashed through a door into a vast kitchen. A woman screamed, but went silent as Sharpe turned on her with his sword. ‘Stay here,’ he told the woman, who crouched beside the stove.
‘This way.’ Sharpe headed for a door that evidently led into the main house. He paused before opening it. ‘Make sure you’re all loaded,’ he told the Light Company. He waited till the last man had rammed a rifle or musket, then opened the door. The hallway stretched in front of him and it was empty. The noise of the battle was much louder now and it spoke of bad news. Sharpe could hear the disciplined fire of the defending French and could tell that the return fire was sporadic and, worse, ill-disciplined. Windows were shattering as the men under Morris’s command fired too high. God damn it, he should have led the battalion’s main attack, which had plainly stalled under the defending fire. ‘McGurk!’
‘Mister Sharpe?’
‘Go and tell Lieutenant Anderson to stop firing the cannon and bring me his last four rockets. You’ll find me upstairs.’ There was no point in Anderson keeping up the six-pounder’s firing because any moment now Lanier would learn that Sharpe and his men were already in the house. McGurk went back into the kitchen while Sharpe led his men up the big stairway. He kept expecting to meet defenders, but the house seemed deserted. He went into the first room he found, a dark bedroom, and went to the shattered window from where he could look down onto the wide forecourt.
Lanier’s battalion was in line and, astonishingly, only a line of two ranks which, Sharpe guessed, Lanier had copied from the British. They were kneeling, presumably to make it harder for the redcoats down the slope to hit them, but each company took turns to stand and fire. And they were good, reloading as fast as any redcoat battalion. A musket ball hammered above Sharpe’s head to hit the wall behind him. He stepped back from the window, not wanting to be killed by his own men, then peered out again as one of the cannons fired. There were two, one on each flank of Lanier’s battalion, and they were sending gouts of canister fire to shred the grapevines and shatter the men who sheltered in the rows. Harry Price appeared beside Sharpe and looked down at the carnage. ‘Christ,’ he said.
‘He won’t be much help, Harry, but split your Riflemen into two squads. One to the right and one to the left. Each squad to find a window and kill the gunners.’
‘Yes, sir.’
A loud volley crashed from the vineyard and Sharpe saw that Kippen’s Prussians had fired and were now advancing in a line of three ranks. He could see the cannon on the right of Lanier’s line being slewed around to face the threat. The two guns had been firing diagonally across the slope, but now that right-hand gun would aim straight down the rows of vines to eviscerate Kippen’s men. He could see a gunner swabbing the barrel, another carrying the powder charge ready to be rammed down the cleansed gun, while a third had the canister ready. ‘Hurry!’ Sharpe muttered to his Riflemen, who would be finding a room from which to shoot. He sheathed his sword, flinching at the pain in his shoulder, and unslung his own rifle. It was loaded, but in his haste at the tunnel’s far end he had not wrapped the bullet with its leather patch, which meant this shot would be inaccurate. He raised it to his shoulder and aimed at the man holding the canister. Pain was racking his back, but he forced the gun’s butt into his shoulder and lined the sights on the man, raised the rifle’s barrel a half inch, and pulled the trigger. Smoke billowed from the barrel, Sharpe cried aloud at the pain, then stepped to one side of the window. The smoke cleared slowly and he saw that he had missed. The man had fallen, but appeared uninjured and was picking up the canister that he slammed into the muzzle, and a second man rammed it down the tube. The Prussians were getting closer, their bayonets reflecting the moonlight.
The cannon to the left of Lanier’s line fired, evidently aimed at the redcoats among the vines. They should have been attacking alongside Kippen, but it was plain the remaining companies were further down the slope and sheltering between the rows of vines. Sharpe had given Kippen two of his companies, but there was no sign of them, and he suspected Morris had somehow held them back. ‘I’m going to kill the bastard,’ Sharpe said aloud.