‘There’s not a Crapaud alive who can kill you, sir.’
Fifty paces to go, and the company immediately in front of Sharpe fired a volley and he sensed the musket balls all around him and heard the thump of them striking men behind him, but somehow they had missed both him and Jefferson. It was the vines, he realised, and that thought gave him a new energy, helped him forget the searing pain in his shoulder and down his back. Volley fire worked against massed troops, but the South Essex was advancing between the vines, in the alleys between the thick rows. One file to an alley, and that meant the battalion was double spaced and the enemy’s muskets, inaccurate at the best of times, were wasting most of their shots on those empty spaces. ‘We’re going to bloody win,’ he said to no one, and watched the company in front start to reload. Lanier had trained them to be fast, as fast as the redcoats, but they were nervous now and he could see men fumbling with cartridges, dropping ramrods. ‘They’re ours!’ he shouted. ‘Fast, you buggers! Fast!’ He tried to run faster, to reach the French while they were still reloading, but his breath was coming hard now, his back was agony and the ground was uneven. Jefferson saw him stumble and, in the moonlight, saw the blood darkening Sharpe’s back. ‘Careful, sir.’
But this was no time to be careful. This was the time to let the madness drive him. This, he suddenly thought, was probably the last fight of a long war, a war that had seen both Washington and Moscow burn, that had scorched the fields of India, and soaked the Spanish plains, and drenched the German and Austrian fields with blood, and if this was the last battle, then Sharpe was bloody well going to win it. ‘Keep going,’ he told Jefferson. The company to his front was mostly ramming their musket barrels, so they were close to being ready to fire, but he also noted that none had fixed bayonets. A bayonet fixed on a musket made it slower to load, so Lanier had kept the barrels clear of the obstruction. ‘We’ll kill them all!’ Sharpe shouted, and found a new release of energy that took him up the last few yards, across the dainty flower bed, and the Frenchman immediately to his front dropped his ramrod, pointed the musket, and pulled his trigger.
A misfire. The powder in the pan flared, but the musket did not fire. God had to love a guttersnipe, and Sharpe hammered the musket to one side and lunged with the sword. Captain Jefferson fired a pistol and the ball hit the man just as the sword pierced his belly. Sharpe was still moving forward, twisting the blade so it did not get stuck in the clinging flesh, and using his left shoulder to hit the man in the second rank. The sword came free and Sharpe swept it in an ugly haymaking swing that sliced across a man’s face and let Sharpe stumble into the open space behind. An officer was there, carrying one of the slim elegant swords of the French infantry, and the man lunged at Sharpe who had tripped and was falling. The blade flashed over Sharpe who, sprawled on the ground, snatched up a handful of gravel and hurled it into the young officer’s face, then swung the heavy sword onto his assailant’s nearest ankle. The man recoiled from the pain, then lanced his narrow sword at Sharpe’s chest. Sharpe could see the man’s grimace, expressing effort as much as pain, and a regret seared through him. What a stupid way to die, killed by a stripling enemy when the war was as good as over, and he rolled fast towards his attacker, whose sword slid over him to strike the gravel. Sharpe hooked the man’s ankles with his left arm, heaved, and the boy went backwards, falling, and Sharpe was on his feet, the sword in his right hand. ‘Bloody fool,’ he told the French officer, and slashed the heavy cavalry blade across his throat.
The Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers had reached Lanier’s men and the bayonets were doing their work. The French, those that lived, were retreating towards the house and Lanier was bellowing at them to stand and fight. Sharpe could hear him, but not see him.
Sharpe had gone through the defenders’ line, which was now breaking into retreating groups harried by the redcoats’ long bayonets. A tall man came at him with a musket, planning to smash the stock at Sharpe’s head, but it was simple to step inside the wild swing and hammer the heavy hilt of his sword into the man’s face. Blood spewed from the blow, then the man went down with a bayonet in his back. Private Carter tugged the bayonet free and grinned. ‘Bugger was trying to kill you, Mister Sharpe!’
‘I knew you’d be close, Jem.’
Carter looked past Sharpe. ‘Bloody house is on fire!’
Sharpe turned. The widow Delaunay’s house was indeed burning, or at least the big hallway where he had been trapped on the staircase was well ablaze, the flames bright beyond the shattered windows through which smoke was now boiling. A Frenchman tugged open the front door and recoiled from a blast of flame that gushed bright. Lanier’s line had reformed with their backs to the house, and Sharpe could see men loading their muskets. ‘South Essex!’ he bellowed. ‘Don’t give them time! Follow me!’
Let the bayonets finish it, he thought. They had already thinned Lanier’s soldiers, most of whom had not fixed bayonets and who were now caught between a burning house and Sharpe’s vengeful redcoats. ‘Kill them!’ he heard himself scream as he ran across the forecourt.
‘Stop! Halt!’ An even louder voice bellowed in English, and Sharpe’s men, confused, checked their charge. ‘South Essex! Halt! Cease fire!’
It was Lanier who had shouted and who now walked calmly between the two lines towards Sharpe. ‘Brave Englishmen!’ he called. ‘You have fought well! But the war is over and there is no need to die. I wish you only to go to your homes, to your wives, to your children.’
Sharpe, astonished and offended that Lanier had given orders to his battalion, and that, moreover, the battalion had obeyed the commands, turned on the Frenchman. ‘South Essex!’ he shouted. ‘This fight’s not over!’
‘But it will be soon!’ Lanier called. He turned to look at Sharpe’s men. ‘You have fought well! But no more men need die. Your Colonel and I will decide this fight.’ He looked at Sharpe, smiling. ‘And if I win, Colonel, your men go back to their billets.’
‘And if I win?’
‘My men will withdraw beyond the Loire, of course.’ Lanier drew his sword, a blade as heavy and long as Sharpe’s crude sword. The man sounded annoyingly calm and supremely confident, and Sharpe could only admire the way Lanier had taken command of the night. ‘That is fair, is it not?’ Lanier appealed to Sharpe’s men. ‘Too many good men have already died in this war, and there is no need for more men to die. One death will decide the night.’