all wait. He had taken only Sharpe’s telescope, with its distinctive brass plate, which he planned to leave beside Teresa’s body. He picked up his hat, stared down into the interior. ‘Then he’ll be blamed, won’t he? Or else that bastard Irishman!’
‘Sergeant?’
The eyes rolled up. ‘Private Clayton?’
‘The oil, Sergeant.’
‘Don’t bloody stand there!’ Hakeswill held up his bayonet. ‘Oil it. And be careful! Don’t spoil the edge.’ He let Clayton walk away and then looked down into the hat. ‘Nasty little boy! Perhaps he’ll die tonight, and that will make things easier for us.’
Harper watched the twitching, malevolent face and wondered what was inside the shako. The whole Company wondered, but no one dared ask. It was Harper’s opinion that there was nothing inside, that the whole performance was a contrived demonstration of madness to unsettle the Company. The Irishman sharpened his own bayonet, the unfamiliar musket bayonet that lacked the rifle blade’s handle, and he made his own plans for the night. There were still no orders, but the army, with its strange, collective instinct, knew that the assault was planned and if, as seemed likely, the South Essex were ordered into the breach, Harper intended staying close to Hakeswill. If a chance came to kill the Sergeant, he would, or else he would try to make sure that Hakeswill did not slip alone into the city. Harper had decided not to volunteer for the Hope, not unless Hakeswill volunteered, and he thought that unlikely. Harper’s job was to protect Teresa, as it was Sharpe’s, the whole Company’s, even Captain Robert Knowles’s, who had visited his old Light Company and listened seriously as Harper told of Hakeswill’s threat. Knowles had grinned, reassured Harper, but still the Irishman feared the consequences of the chaos in a breach. He leaned back and listened to the guns.
The gunners, with the same instinctive knowledge that the assault was imminent, served their guns with extra effort as if each stone shard chipped from the breaches would save an infantryman’s life. The smoke from the twelve batteries hung like a sea-fog above the still waters of the flooded stream, smoke so thick that the city could hardly be seen, and more smoke was pumped relentlessly from the huge guns. The cannon were like bucking monsters that hissed and steamed between each shot as the blackened gunners sponged and rammed, then heaved the beasts back on to target. The gunners could not see the breaches, but the wooden recoil platforms were marked with deep cuts and the officers and Sergeants lined the gun trails on the cuts, checked the elevation screw. With a flick of the glowing match the gun would bellow again, leap back, and a heavy iron ball would vanish in the fog with a sudden whorl of smoke that was followed by the grinding crash of impact.
Perhaps it was the tempo of the guns that made the men so certain that the assault was this Sunday night, or else the sight of newly made siege ladders in the Engineers’ park. Two of the attacks, the one on the castle, and the one by the river, at the San Vincente bastion, would carry ladders to try a surprise escalade. It could not work, of course, the walls were too high. The battle would be lost or won in the breaches.
‘Company!’ Hakeswill’s voice grated at them. ‘On your feet! Hup, hup, hup!’
They scrambled to their feet, pulling jackets straight, and Major Collett was there with Captain Rymer. The Major waved the men down again. ‘You can sit.’
This had to be the announcement, Harper thought, and he watched as Collett drew out a sheet of paper and unfolded it. There was a buzz of excitement in the Company, a shout for silence from Hakeswill, and Collett waited for quiet. He looked at them belligerently. The assault, he said, would be soon, but they knew that, and they waited for orders. The Major paused and looked down at the piece of paper. ‘This order has come, and I will read it to you. You will listen. “I advert the army’s attention to the events pursuant of the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo.”’ Collett read in a flat, hard voice. He could not pronounce Ciudad with the soft ‘C’, so instead pronounced it ‘Quidad’. ‘“The inhabitants of that town, citizens of Britain’s ally, Spain, were offered every kind of insult and injury. There will be no repetition of that behaviour in Badajoz. Any attacks on civilian property will be swiftly and condignly punished by death, the apprehended perpetrators being hung at the place of their crime.”’ He folded the paper. ‘You understand? Keep your thieving hands to yourself and your breeches buttoned. That’s all.’ He glared at them, turned on his heel, and marched away to the next company. The Light Company looked at each other, shrugged, and laughed at the message. Who would do the hanging? The provosts would not be far to the front in any fighting, it would be pitch dark in the streets, and a soldier deserved some loot for fighting through a breach. They were the ones who would do the fighting, and the dying, and who did not need a drop of drink after that? Not that they intended any harm to any civilians. The Spanish, most of whom in Badajoz were on the enemy’s side, could choose for themselves how they welcomed the victors. They could leave their doors open and the drink on the table, or they could choose to be unfriendly, in which case? They grinned and went back to sharpening the seventeen-inch blades.
A few moments later a second rumour arrived, as strong as the first which had announced the assault, and this rumour, flashing through the camp, brought relief and frustration. Everything was postponed. They had all been given another twenty-four hours to live.
‘Where are we going?’ someone shouted.
They laughed, forgetting Hakeswill’s baleful presence. ‘Badajoz!’
Tomorrow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Suddenly there was optimism. Hogan’s face, so long lined with concern, crinkled at the eyes; there was an urgency in his speech, a new hope. Two loyal Spaniards had escaped from the city, climbing the wall by the river, and had safely reached the British lines. Hogan’s finger stabbed down on to the familiar map. ‘There, Richard, there. Tomorrow we’ll destroy it!’
The finger was pointing towards the wall between the two breached bastions. The Spaniards said it was weak, that it had not been repaired properly after the previous sieges, and they swore that a few shots would bring the wall tumbling down. It would mean a third breach, a sudden breach, a gap that the French would have no time to fill with careful defences. Hogan’s fist slammed on to the map. ‘We’ve got them!’
‘Tomorrow then.’
‘Tomorrow!’
April 6th dawned with a clear sky, and a light so pure that, before the siege batteries opened fire, the city could be seen with every roof, church, tower, and bastion delicately etched. It was a spring morning, full of hope as green as the new plants, a hope put there by a third, surprise breach. The gunners made their minimal adjustment, the trails inching around on the platforms, and then the order was given. Smoke jetted, thunder echoed over the lake, the balls smashed at the repaired masonry as the gunners slaved, dragged at their weapons, rammed, sponged, and rammed again, working with a knowledge of victory. To the south, clear of the smoke-fog on the lake, the Engineers peered at the unbroken stretch of wall. It jetted dust in a hazy cloud, started from the dry mortar by the cannon-strike, but it held all morning. The cannons hammered on, smiting the wall with shattering force until, early in the afternoon, the labour was rewarded.
The wall began to slide, not piece by piece as the bastions had given, but in one solid, spectacular chunk. Hogan jumped for the joy of it. ‘It’s going!’
Then the view was lost. Dust boiled up like smoke from an explosion, the sound rolled across the water, and the gun crews cheered themselves hoarse. The dust drifted slowly
