want to make a solo attack, but he had his pride, and he hoped his men would follow. They did not. Instead they called to him, told him not to be a fool, but he walked on, looking at Sharpe, and his sword was ridiculously slim as he lowered it to the guard. He said something to Sharpe, who shook his head, but the Frenchman insisted and lunged at Sharpe, who was forced to leap back and bring up the huge sword in a clumsy parry. Sharpe’s anger had gone in the cool air, the fight was over, and he was irritated by the Frenchman’s insistence. ‘Go away! Vamos!’ He tried to remember the words in French, but he could not.
The Irish laughed. ‘Put him over your knee, Captain!’ The Frenchman was little more than a boy, ridiculously young, but brave. He came forward again, the sword level, and this time Sharpe jumped towards him, growled, and the Frenchman rocked back.
Sharpe dropped his own blade. ‘Give up!’
The answer was another lunge that came close to Sharpe’s chest. He leaned back and beat the sword aside. He could feel his anger returning. He swore at the man, jerked his head down the ramparts, but still the fool came forward, incensed by the Irish laughter, and again Sharpe had to parry and force him back.
Harper finished the farce. He had worked his way behind the officer and, as the Frenchman looked at Sharpe for another attack, the Sergeant coughed. ‘Sir? Monsewer?’ The officer looked round. The giant Irishman smiled at him, came forward unarmed and very slowly. ‘Monsewer?’
The officer nodded to Harper, frowned, and said something in French. The huge Sergeant nodded seriously. ‘Quite right, sir, quite right.’ Then a giant fist travelled from some place low down, up, and straight on to the Frenchman’s chin. He crumpled, the Connaught men gave an ironic cheer, and Harper laid the senseless body beside the rampart. ‘Poor wee fool.’ He grinned at Sharpe, immensely pleased with himself, and looked over towards the breach. The fight still went on, but Harper knew his part in the assault was done, and well done, and that nothing could touch him this night. He jerked his thumb at the Connaught Rangers and looked at Sharpe. ‘Connaught lads, sir. Good fighters.’
‘They are.’ Sharpe grinned. ‘Where’s Connaught? Wales?’
Harper made a joke at Sharpe’s expense, but in Gaelic, so that he was forced to listen to the Rangers’ good-humoured laughter. They were in good spirits, happy, like the Sergeant from Donegal, that they had played a good part in this night’s fight, a part that would make a fine story to weave through the long winter nights in some unimaginable future. Harper knelt to go through the unconscious Frenchman’s pockets and Sharpe turned to look at the breach.
The 45th, on the far side, were dealing with the second gun. They had found planks, abandoned in the trench, and thrown them over to the casement lip and Sharpe watched, admiringly, as the Nottinghamshire men charged across the perilous path and took their long bayonets to the gun crew. The growl had become a whoop of victory and the dark beast in the ditch uncoiled across the undefended breach and swarmed past the two silent guns towards the streets of the town. A few shots came from doors and windows, but only a few, and the British horde flooded down the rubble to where the breach had smothered the old mediaeval wall. It was over.
Or nearly. A second mine had been put in the ruins of the old wall. Black powder had been crammed into an old postern and now the French lit the fuse and ran back into the streets. The mine exploded. Flame streaked up from the darkness, old stones shattered outwards, boiling smoke and dust, and with it came the stench of roasted flesh and the head of the victorious column was uselessly decimated. For a second there was a stunned silence, time just to draw breath, and then the shout was not for victory, but for revenge, and the troops took their anger into the defenceless streets.
Harper watched the howling mob flow into the city. ‘You think we’re invited?’
‘Why not?’
The Sergeant grinned. ‘God knows, we’ve deserved it.’ He was dangling a gold watch and chain and he started forward towards the ramp that led down towards the houses. Sharpe followed and suddenly stopped. He froze.
Down where the second mine had exploded, lit by a flickering length of old timber, was a mangled body. One side seemed sleek with new blood, a sleekness speckled with the ivory of bone, but the other side was gorgeous in yellow facings and gold lace. A fur-trimmed cavalry cloak covered the legs. ‘Oh God!’
Harper heard him and saw where he was looking. Then both men were racing down the ramp, slipping on ice and slushy snow, and running towards Lawford’s body.
Ciudad Rodrigo was won; but not at this price, Sharpe thought, dear God, not at this price.
CHAPTER FOUR
There was a scream from inside the town, shots as men blew open the doors of houses, and over it all the sound of triumphant voices. After the fight, the reward.
Harper reached the body first, plucked the cloak to one side, and bent over the bloodied chest. ‘He’s alive, sir.’
It seemed to Sharpe like a parody of life. The explosion had sheared Lawford’s left arm almost clean from his body, crushed the ribs and flicked them open so they protruded through the remnants of skin and flesh. The blood was flowing beneath the once immaculate uniform. Harper began tearing the cloak into strips, his mouth a tight line of anger and sorrow. Sharpe looked towards the breach where men still clambered towards the houses. ‘Bandsmen!’
The bands had played during the assault. He remembered hearing the music and now, idiotically, he could suddenly identify the tune he had heard. ‘The Downfall of Paris’. By now the bandsmen should be doing their other job, of caring for the wounded, but he could see none. ‘Bandsmen!’
Miraculously Lieutenant Price appeared, pale and unsteady, and with him a small group of the Light Company. ‘Sir?’
‘A stretcher. Fast! And send someone back to battalion.’
Price saluted. He had forgotten the drawn sword in his hand so that the blade, a curved sabre, nearly sliced into Private Peters. ‘Sir.’ The small group ran back.
Lawford was unconscious. Harper was binding the chest, his huge fingers astonishingly gentle with the tattered flesh. He looked up at Sharpe. ‘Take the arm off, sir.’
‘What?’
‘Better now than later, sir.’ The Sergeant pointed at the Colonel’s left arm, held by a single, glistening shred of tissue. ‘He might live, sir, so he might, but the arm will have to go.’
A splintered piece of bone protruded from the stump. The arm was bent unnaturally upwards, pointing towards the city, and Harper was binding the brief stump to stop the weakly pulsing blood. Sharpe picked his way to Lawford’s head, treading carefully for the ground was slick, though whether with blood or ice it was impossible to see. The only light came from the burning timber. He put the point of his sword down into the bloodied mess and Harper moved the blade till it was in the right place. ‘Leave the skin, sir. It’ll flap over.’
It was no different from butchering a pig or a bullock, but it felt different. He could hear crashes from the city, punctuating the screams. ‘Is that right?’ He could feel Harper manipulating the blade.
‘Now, sir. Straight down.’
Sharpe pushed down, with both hands, almost
