own, but he judged it not the right moment to say so. Windham looked again at the letter. ‘Splendid man, our Rector. Rides like a trooper. Know what his text was?’
Sharpe waited for a gun to fire. ‘Numbers. Chapter thirty-two, verse twenty-three, sir?’ He spoke mildly.
The Colonel looked at him. ‘How the devil did you know?’ He seemed to suspect that the Rifleman might have been reading his post. Leroy was grinning.
Sharpe decided not to say that he had slept in a dormitory in a foundling home that had the text painted in letters three feet high down the wall. ‘It seemed appropriate, sir.’
‘Quite right, Sharpe, damned appropriate. “Be sure your sin will find you out.” It found him out, eh? Died of the gangrene!’ Windham laughed and turned to greet Major Collett who was bringing the Colonel’s servant laden with bottles of wine. The Colonel smiled at his officers. ‘Thought we’d celebrate. We’ll drink to tonight’s attack.’
The guns fired through dusk, and on till, in the darkness, the bugles brought an overwhelming force of British infantry forward against the small redoubt. The gunners on the city wall, hearing the British cannonade stop, lowered their own muzzle and fired over the Picurina at the hill-slope. The roundshot smashed into file after file of the attackers, but they closed up and walked on, and then there were deeper explosions from the city and the watchers on the hill saw the dark red streaks of the shell-fuses arc over the lake as the howitzers started firing. The shells exploded in scarlet blossoms. Riflemen of the 95th formed a skirmish line, curving round the fort, and Sharpe could see the needle flames flickering round the line, seeking the loopholes. The French in the fort held their fire, hearing the commands in the darkness, listening to the rifle bullets overhead, waiting for the actual assault.
On the hill the watching officers could see little except the flames of guns and explosions. Sharpe was fascinated by the guns on the city’s parapets. Each shot spewed flame that, for a few seconds, was bright and stabbing as the shot sped away, but then, for a brief moment, the flame contracted into a strange, writhing shape that existed independently of the cannon; a fading, twisting beauty, like a fire ghost, like intricate folds of flame-made drapery that swirled and disappeared. The sight had a mesmerizing beauty, nothing to do with war, and he stood and watched, drinking the Colonel’s wine, until a cheer from the dark field told him that the attacking battalions had lowered their bayonets for the charge. And stopped.
Something had gone wrong. The cheer died. The ditch, that ran clear round the small fort, was deeper than anyone expected and, unseen from the low hilltop, flooded with rainwater. The attackers had expected to jump into the ditch and, using the short ladders they carried, climb easily on to the fort and carry their bayonets to an outnumbered enemy. Instead they were checked. The French defenders crawled to their splintered ramparts and opened fire. Muskets crackled over the ditch. The British fire hammered uselessly at the fort’s stonework and shattered palisades while the French toppled men into the water or drove them back into the ranks behind. The French, sensing victory, rammed and fired, rammed and fired, and then, to light their helpless targets, lit the oil-soaked carcasses they had been keeping for the final assault, and rolled the lights down the face of the fort.
It was a fatal mistake. Sharpe, on the hilltop, saw the attackers milling helplessly at the lip of the ditch. In the sudden flame-light, the British were easy targets for the French gunners on the city walls who fired at the sides of the fort, slicing whole ranks of men into eternity with single shots and forcing the attackers to the shelter of the fort’s front edge. But the light also revealed a strange weakness in the fort. Sharpe borrowed Forrest’s glass and, through the dim lens, could see that the defenders had driven wooden spikes into the face of the ditch to stop an attempt to climb its inner face. The spikes effectively reduced the width of the ditch to less than thirty feet and, as the glass was impatiently snatched from him by Major Collett, he saw the first ladders laid like a bridge on to the convenient spikes. It was the 88th, the same Regiment that he had fought beside at Ciudad Rodrigo, the men from Connaught. Three ladders held, despite their green, wet, sagging timbers, and the Irishmen made their precarious crossing, into the eye of a musket storm, and some dropped into the drowning ditch, but others scrambled across and the dark uniforms, lit by fire, climbed the fort’s escarpment as others crossed behind them.
The lights of the carcasses died, the battlefield went dark, and only the sounds told the story of the fight to the hilltop. Screams came clearly, but few shots, which told those who understood that the bayonets were at work. Then there were cheers, that spread back among the attackers, and Sharpe knew that the British had won. The Connaught Rangers would be hunting the French survivors in the roundshot-shattered fort, the long, thin blades searching the broken timber and he grinned in the night at the thought of a fight well fought. Patrick Harper would be jealous. The men from Connaught would have a few tales to tell, of how they had walked the precarious bridge, and won. Windham’s voice disturbed his thoughts.
‘That’s it, gentlemen. Our turn next.’
There was a brief silence, then Leroy’s voice. ‘Our turn?’
‘We’re going to blow up the dam!’ Windham’s voice was full of enthusiasm.
There were a dozen questions, all asked at once, and Windham chose one to answer. ‘When? I don’t know when. Three days’ time, probably. Keep it to yourselves, gentlemen, I don’t want every Tom, Dick and Harry to know. There should be some surprise in our attack.’ Windham laughed, his good mood had lasted.
‘Sir?’ Sharpe’s voice was low.
‘Sharpe? That you?’ It was difficult to distinguish shapes in the darkness.
‘Yes, sir. Permission to rejoin the Company for the attack.’
‘You’re a bloodthirsty bastard, Sharpe.’ Windham’s voice was cheerful. ‘You ought to be my gamekeeper. I’ll think about it!’ He moved off down the trench, leaving Sharpe uncertain whether he was being considered as gamekeeper or soldier.
There was a sudden glow in the trench beside him and the smell of pungent tobacco. Leroy’s voice, deep and amused, came with the smoke. ‘With any luck, Sharpe, one of us will die. You’ll get your Captaincy back.’
‘It had occurred to me.’
The American laughed. ‘Do you think any of us think of anything else? You’re a bloody ghost, Sharpe!’ He put on a morbid tone. ‘You remind us of our mortality. Which one of us will you replace?’
‘Any offers?’
Leroy laughed. ‘Not me, Mr Sharpe, not me. If you think I left Boston just so you could get my shoes, you’re wrong.’
‘Why did you leave Boston?’
‘I’m an American, with a French name, from a Royalist family, fighting for the English, for a German king, who’s mad. There, what does that tell you?’
Sharpe shrugged in the darkness. He could think of nothing to say. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Nor do I, Sharpe, nor do I.’ The cigar glowed bright, then faded. Leroy’s voice was low and private. ‘I sometimes wonder if I chose the wrong side.’
‘Did you?’
Leroy was silent for a moment. Sharpe could see his profile staring down at the dark city. ‘I suppose so, Sharpe. My Father took an oath to defend the King’s Majesty and I kind of inherited the burden.’ He laughed. ‘Here I am, defending away.’ Sharpe had rarely heard Leroy talk so much. The American was a silent man who watched
