‘Damn.’ Vincent stared at the approaching column. ‘Why are they bothering?’
Sharpe sighed. ‘There’s a French officer over there, Major, who wants to make a name for himself. He’s been stuck on garrison duty while other men do the fighting, and he knows how few we are and he thinks he’s got an easy victory. He’s a bloody idiot!’ Sharpe saw Captain Jefferson, who commanded the Grenadier Company, coming. ‘Captain! Take your company out to the right flank. There’s a ditch there. Go halfway down the slope, then hide in the ditch. When we start filleting the buggers, join in, but wait for us to thin them out.’
‘With pleasure, sir,’ Jefferson said and turned away.
Major Vincent knelt beside Sharpe. ‘You think the enemy is led by an idiot?’
‘I’ve got a line of skirmishers out there, and they’re hurting the buggers, and the idiot hasn’t thought of putting out his own skirmishers. So his men are dying and mine aren’t. I reckon the idiot is planning a direct assault on the wood. It’ll fail.’
Vincent looked at Sharpe. ‘You sound confident, Colonel.’
Sharpe grimaced. ‘Garrison troops, Major, don’t know their arses from their belly buttons. We’ll suck them in, kill a few of them, then go back to sleep.’
‘There’s a lot of them,’ Vincent warned. He sounded nervous.
‘I’ve got just under four hundred and fifty men and he’s got about a thousand,’ Sharpe said, ‘but a thousand isn’t enough. Now excuse me, Major.’
Sharpe walked along the treeline, noting that his men were lying flat at the edge of the trees. ‘It’ll be a battalion volley first, lads,’ he told them as he walked. ‘Wait for my orders. Don’t fire till I tell you! And aim low! You’ll hear rifle fire, ignore it! Wait for my order! This is nothing to get excited about!’ The last men were arriving from the encampment where the fires glowed dully. The French could presumably see that faint glow through the trees and would aim for it, which meant they must climb the shallow rising field directly in front of Sharpe’s battalion. ‘They’re bloody idiots,’ he grumbled to Harper. ‘Want to be heroes.’
‘I’m not complaining,’ Harper said.
‘It annoys me,’ Sharpe said. ‘The bloody war is over and they want to die? It’s a waste of men.’
‘Frenchmen.’
‘They’re good men, Pat. They deserve better.’ Sharpe took the rifle from his shoulder, eased the cock back, then primed the gun with finely mealed powder from the horn every Rifleman carried. The barrel was already charged with powder and a leather-wrapped ball.
‘But you’ll shoot one of the good men?’ Pat Harper asked, amused.
‘With any luck the bastard who’s leading them,’ Sharpe said.
Harper walked to the edge of the trees and gazed northwards past the approaching enemy. ‘Where’s the rest of our army?’
‘Long way north. Probably haven’t crossed the frontier yet.’
‘So we’re all alone?’
‘Just us, no one else,’ Sharpe said. A crackle of muskets and the crisper sound of rifles sounded from the hedgerow where Harry Price’s hidden skirmishers were firing at the leading ranks of the French troops. Men were falling there, but the French kept coming, following the track that curved away from the river and led towards a gated gap in the hedge. From there the track arrowed straight to the moon-shadowed woods where Sharpe’s battalion waited with loaded muskets. Sharpe strolled back to join Vincent. ‘You think they know Napoleon lost the battle?’ he asked.
‘They’ll know,’ Vincent said confidently. ‘Some fugitives must have come this way. Not many, probably, but some.’
‘Then why fight?’
‘Duty?’ Vincent suggested. ‘Honour?’
‘Stupidity,’ Sharpe snarled, pulling back the rifle’s cock. He was tempted to add that what the French were doing was almost as stupid as the orders that had sent his battalion so far ahead of the British pursuit of the defeated French, but he suspected that Major Vincent had been the inspiration for those orders, which left Sharpe only one option; to obey them.
And to obey them he had to end this nonsense. ‘Not long now,’ he said quietly. He was watching the first French ranks advance towards the gated gap in the hedge. Price’s Light Company was hitting those forward ranks hard, dropping more men as the range decreased and the muskets became more accurate. Then a bugle sounded from the French ranks and the column started to run.
‘Now,’ Sharpe said, ‘now!’
‘Now?’ Vincent asked.
‘We suck them in, Major. Come on, man! Move!’ the last words were directed at Captain Price who was far too distant to hear them, but almost immediately the Light Company began to retreat across the field. An ill-aimed scatter of shots pursued them, the musket balls tearing noisily through the leaves above Sharpe’s head. ‘They’re firing high,’ Sharpe said. ‘Badly trained troops, Major.’
‘Garrison troops?’
‘And the Garde Nationale,’ Sharpe said, meaning the French equivalent of the Militia. ‘They’ve been stuck in that town for years while real soldiers fight. Probably get two days’ training a month.’
‘Then why attack us?’
Sharpe had already answered that question more than once, but he knew it came from Vincent’s nervousness. The Major was a brave man, as all exploring officers had to be, but he was not accustomed to the carnage of battle. ‘They’ll attack us,’ Sharpe said patiently, ‘because their damned commanding officer wants to get a Légion d’honneur, or more likely wants to impress his poxy mistress.’
The French had reached the gap, pushed open the big wooden gate, and were now filing through.
‘Someone’s got a lick of sense,’ Sharpe commented as he watched the enemy troops spread across the field’s lower edge. ‘They’ll attack in line.’
‘Don’t they always?’ Vincent asked.
‘Buggers usually attack in column,’ Sharpe said, ‘which makes it easier to kill them. But this idiot,’ he gestured towards the French, ‘must have read his bulletin.’
‘Bulletin?’ Vincent asked.
‘The columns always lose,’ Sharpe said, ‘because only the men in the front rank and the side files can fire their muskets, while every man in a line can pour musketry into them. But last Sunday they were trying to deploy into line, which suggests someone ordered them to stop committing suicide by attacking our lines with columns.’
‘It didn’t work for them last Sunday, though.’
‘Of course not. They fire too slowly, and we’re better.’ Sharpe grinned at the Major. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll beat them.’
Harry Price found Sharpe. ‘Can my boys keep firing?’ he asked. His Light Company was now back among the trees.
‘Your Riflemen can pick off the officers, rest of you wait for the battalion volley. And well done.’
‘We ran away well?’ Price asked, amused.