Бернард Корнуэлл - Sharpe's Enemy

'I don't know! An hour? Maybe two?

Men wanted the French to come, wanted this storm of metal to end, wanted to have this fight done.

Frederickson yelled at the French to attack, called them yellow bastards, women to a man, afraid of a little hill with a few straggly thorns, and still the infantry did not come. One Rifleman screamed in pain because a canister ball was in his shoulder and Frederickson bawled at him to be silent.

The gunners slaved at their machines, served them, hauled at them, fed them with revenge for their dead Colonel.

High on the eastern side of the keep Sharpe watched the village. Once he flinched as a high canister shot struck shards of razor sharp stone from the hole he peered through. Somewhere a man screamed, the scream cut short, and the noise rolled about the valley and the smoke of the guns was drifted high over the pass and still the metal came at the walls and the shells cracked apart in the yard.

'Sir? Harper pointed.

The French were coming.

Not in a column, not in one of France's proud columns, but uncoiling like snakes from the village, four men in a file, and three Battalions were marching down the road, marching fast, and still the guns thundered, and still Sharpe's men died in ones and twos, and still the shells battered at the defenders.

Fifteen hundred men, bayonets fixed, staying in the centre of the valley well away from the flight of the guns.

Sharpe watched them. He had held this place for a day now and he had desperately hoped for two. It would not be. He had one card left to play, just one, and when that was played it would all be over. He would retreat south through the hills, hoping the French cavalry had better targets to chase than his depleted force, and he would leave his wounded to the mercy of the French. He had made the garrison pile their coats and packs at the southern exit from the keep, the exit Pot-au-Feu's men had used and which was now guarded by twenty Fusiliers to stop the faint-hearted leaving early. He grinned at Harper. 'It was a good fight, Patrick.

'It's not over yet, sir.

Sharpe knew different. The curse was on him like a lead weight, and he supposed the curse would bring defeat, would let the French through the pass, and he wondered if he would have time to go to the dungeon before the panic of the scramble southwards and kill the yellow-faced misshapen man. That would lift the curse.

In the dungeon Hakeswill listened. He could read a battle by its sound and he knew the moment was not yet. He had hoped it would be in the night, but a Fusilier Lieutenant had sat with the sentries through much of the darkness, and Hakeswill had done nothing. Soon, he promised himself, soon.

Sharpe turned to the man who had replaced the bugler. 'Ready?

'Yes, sir.

'In a minute. Wait.

The French were close, the Battalions turning towards the Castle, coming over the place where yesterday the rockets had shredded the ranks, but today there was no weapon that fired at them.

The guns stopped. It seemed like silence in the valley.

The left hand Battalion of the French broke into a run, curving further left, heading south-east, and they ran towards the watchtower hill because they would attack from the one direction where Dubreton had rightly guessed there were few defences.

The other two Battalions raised a cheer, lowered their bayonets, and ran at the rubble of the eastern wall. No muskets fired from the defenders, no rifles, and the gun that would have flanked them lay on its side, shattered, useless on the stones. The two men who would have fired it sprawled lifeless on the cobbles.

A Rifleman on the keep's ramparts shouted for Sharpe, shouted loud, but the message never reached him. The French were in the courtyard.

The news had come from Salamanca, where so much news came from because the Rev. Dr Patrick Curtis had been Professor of Astronomy and Natural History at the University of Salamanca. Strictly speaking Don Patricio Cortes, as the Spanish called him, was still Professor, and still Rector of the Irish College, but he had been in temporary residence in Lisbon ever since the French had discovered that the seventy-two year old Irish priest was interested in things other than God, the stars, and the natural history of Spain. Don Patricio Cortes was also Britain's chief spy in Europe.

The news reached Dr Curtis in Lisbon two evenings before Christmas. He was hearing confessions in a small church, helping out the local priest, and one of the penitents had nothing to confess and gave news through the grille instead. Hurriedly Dr Curtis left his booth, smiling apologetically at the parishioners, and after hastily crossing himself he undid the papers that had been sent to him across the border. The messenger, a trader in horses who sold to the French so he could travel unimpeded, shrugged. 'I'm sorry it's late, Father. I couldn't find you.

'You did well, my son. Come with me.

But time was desperately short. Curtis went to Wellington's quarters and there he fetched Major Hogan from dinner, and the small Irish Major, who was also in charge of what Wellington liked to call his 'intelligence', rewarded the messenger with gold and then hurried the captured French despatch to the General.

'God damn. The General's cold eyes looked at Hogan. 'Any doubt?

'None, sir. It's the Emperor's code.

'God damn. Wellington gave the smallest apologetic shrug towards the elderly priest, then blasphemed again. 'God damn.

There was time to send word to Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, to roust Nairn out of Frenada and have the Light Division moving, but that was not what worried the Peer. He was worried by the French diversionary attack that would come from the hills and descend on the valley of the Douro. God damn! This spring Wellington planned a campaign the like of which had never been seen in the Peninsula. Instead of attacking along the great roads of invasion, the roads that led eastward from Ciudad Rodrigo and from Badajoz, he was taking troops where the French thought they could not go. He would lead them north-east from the hills of Northern Portugal, lead them on a great circuit to cut the French supply road and force battle on a perplexed and outflanked enemy. To do it he would need pontoons, the great clumsy boats that carried roadways across rivers, because his invasion route was crossed by rivers. And the pontoons were being built at the River Douro and the French force was planning to descend on that area, an area that would normally be of small importance except this winter. God damn and damn again. 'Apologies, Curtis.’

’Don't mention it, my Lord.

Messengers went north that night, messengers who changed horses every dozen miles or so, messengers who rode to warn the British that the French were coming, and Wellington followed them himself, going first to Ciudad Rodrigo because he feared to lose that great gateway into Spain. With any luck, he thought, Nairn could hold the French at Barca de Alva.

Major General Nairn looked once at the order, thought for a moment, then disobeyed. The Peer had forgotten, or else had not connected the name Adrados with the Gateway of God, that the British already had a force that could block the French. A pitifully small force, a single Battalion with a raggle-taggle collection of Riflemen and Rockets, but if it could hold the pass just twelve hours then Nairn could reinforce it. His cold magically disappeared.

And now he was late. The snow had held him up and he feared he was too late. He had met Teresa coming from the pass and he had listened to her message, charmed her, and then taken her along with his troops who struggled against the snow. Next came Sir Augustus Farthingdale, icy and angry, who insisted that there were complaints, serious complaints, that he wished to make against Major Richard Sharpe, but Nairn politely declined to listen, then rudely insisted, and finally ordered Sir Augustus and Lady Farthingdale on their way. On the evening of December 26th the wind brought more snow and the grumble of guns.