Бернард Корнуэлл - Sharpe's Siege

“Sir.”

The Scylla moved closer, the giltwork of her figurehead gleaming, and Lassan knew the frigate had come to make him look one way while the Marines came from his rear, but he had an American warrior hidden in the woods and Lassan must put his trust in that unexpected ally. He knew that no Marine could pass Killick without shots being fired, and even if the Americans were pushed back then the noise of their battle would give Lassan a chance to man the ramparts by the fortress gate. For the moment that rampart was only garrisoned by three sick men.

If the Scylla’s attack was timed properly, Lassan thought, then the Marines must be close. Lassan looked south, but could see nothing untoward beyond the village, then he turned back seawards in time to watch the frigate’s flying-jib shiver as it turned towards the channel. At the same time the Scylla’s great battle-ensign unfurled from an upper yard.

Lassan’s men crouched by their guns. Their portfires seeped grey smoke into the air and Lassan knew how dry their mouths were and how fragile their bellies felt. On the frigate’s forepeak he could see men clustered around the chasing guns. The officers on the quarterdeck, Lassan knew, would have donned their best uniforms in honour of their enemy while, deep in the frigate’s bowels, the surgeon would be waiting by his razor-sharp scalpels.

The fortress waited. A corporal stood by the flagpole ready, at the first bellow of the guns, to hoist the standard of France. A gull, wide wings still, rode the soft wind above the channel.

Lassan imagined the red coats of Marines in the Americans’ gunsights, then forgot what happened to his south because the frigate’s graceful profile was changing and the white wave at her bows was cutting into the fretted, churning tiderace of the channel.

The frigate seemed to shudder as she met the full force of the Arcachon ebb, then the bellying sails plunged her onwards and the long, reaching spar of the Scylla’s bowsprit bisected the tarred elm pole that marked the inner shoal and Lieutenant Gerard’s voice, harsh and proud, shouted the order to fire.

The French gunners touched portfires to vents, and the battle of Arcachon had begun.

The bellow of the guns rolled like thunder over the rain-sodden land. Instinctively, without any orders, the Riflemen knelt as if to shelter from artillery.

Sharpe ran. His metal scabbard flapped at his side, his rifle slipped from his shoulder to dangle at his elbow, and his pack thumped on to the small of his back.

Sergeant Rossner, leading the small picquet that spied the route ahead, was crouching by a straggle of furze that lined the roadside at the crest of a gentle rise. He gave a Germanic grunt as Sharpe dropped beside him then a jerk of his half-shaven chin to indicate the source of the thunder.

Not that Sharpe needed any such indication. Darkly streaked smoke billowed from the landscape a mile and a half ahead and to Sharpe’s left. Directly ahead of him, and reaching across the whole view, lay the silvered waters of the Arcachon basin, made visible suddenly by this rise in the road, but Sharpe stared only at the fortress, seemingly half-buried in the encroaching sand, and at the white-sailed frigate that coughed her own billow of whiter smoke to meld with the fort’s darker gusts. “Marines, eh?” The German sergeant showed his disgust by spitting on to the road.

Sharpe took out his telescope as Frederickson crouched beside him. From this landward side the Teste de Buch fort looked hardly formidable. It was built low within its protective glacis of packed earth and sand off which, as Sharpe watched, the small shot of the frigate bounced like cricket balls.

The smoke from the fort’s guns drifted northwards, leaving the channel clear for the gunners’ aim. Four guns only were working, but they were served with a quick skill that betrayed the presence of real gunners. God damn Bampfylde’s fisherman, Sharpe thought, for the Teste de Buch was lethal still. It was doing the Scylla damage, while the frigate could make small impression on its massive walls.

Sharpe trained the telescope left. He paused as he saw a throng of people, drably dressed, then realized, from the heavy skirts worn by most of the crowd, that he watched the villagers who, in turn, watched the uneven battle from the crest of the dunes beside the channel. Sharpe looked further south, seeking the bright coats of the Marines, then checked the glass again.

He saw another small crowd of people, but these were not watching the frigate’s struggle, but instead seemed to be crowded at the edge of a group of dark pines. Some, a few, had strolled further north to watch the battle in the channel, but they had chosen a poor vantage point to witness a sight that must be rare in their harsh lives.

“Why?” he spoke aloud.

“Sir?” Frederickson asked.

Sharpe was wondering why villagers, witnessing a contest that would be told to their grandchildren as a great happening in the village’s history, chose such a strange place to watch the event. Most of the villagers had gone to the dunes, seeking the best view, yet a sizeable few were huddled there at the wood’s edge. He stared at them, making out a shape beneath the tree shadows. “William? That wood, where the people are, tell me what you see?”

Frederickson took the precious glass and trained it. He stared for twenty seconds, then shook his head. “It looks like a bloody limber!”

“Doesn’t it?” Sharpe took the glass back and, his guess reinforced by Frederickson’s puzzled confirmation, saw more clearly the box shape slung between the high wheels. He had seen those objects before; the small carts that carried the ready ammunition to French guns. “Bloody Bampfylde,” he said as he stared at the shape beneath the trees, “has been wrong about everything. The fort is defended, they’re not bloody militia, and I’ll wager you a year’s pay they’ve got a damned ambush waiting for the web-foots.“ Sharpe swept the telescope right again to look at the fort. He could just see the gunners working on the water-bastion. Above them, sluggish in the falling breeze, the tricolour was bright, while closer, on the ramparts above the fort’s gate, he could see no one.

He lowered the glass a fraction. It was hard to tell from this low vantage-point, but the approach to the fort seemed to go through a humped landscape of wind-drifted dunes. One thing was certain; which was that all French eyes were glued seawards. “I think we ought to have a snap at it.”

Frederickson grinned. “No ladders?” He mentioned it not to discourage Sharpe, but to encourage a solution.

Sharpe raised the glass. “They’ve kept the drawbridge down.” Where the approach road crossed the inner ditch a solid wooden bridge was suspended by chains. It led to a closed gate. The fact of the drawbridge being down reinforced Sharpe’s suspicion that another French force was hidden in the woods. If that force was pushed backwards by the Marines then their horses would drag the field guns over the bridge and into the fort’s safety.

Sharpe closed the telescope and slid the brass shutters over its lenses. What he planned was risky, even foolhardy, but the Marines marched into ambush and the fort would never again be so unprepared for a surprise attack. Once the hidden field guns opened fire then the garrison would know the enemy was at their rear and men would hurry to the land defences and slide their muskets over the wall.

The road ahead dropped to a stone mill that stood beside a small stream. Beyond that were pale, poor meadows where broken byres served a handful of thin cattle. Beyond that again were the masts of the coastal shipping huddled where another village, betrayed by smoke from its chimneys, lay at the basin’s edge. The Riflemen must cross the stream, slip through the scant cover of the meadows, then work their way into the sandy waste about the fort. Sharpe smiled. “To be truthful I don’t know how we get over the bloody wall.”