grey stallion, ordered his men to fix bayonets and advance. ‘En avant! En avant!’ The drums beat frantically as the French line lurched forward and the Portuguese, caught as they deployed, panicked as the leading companies, already decimated by the French volleys, broke. The rear companies kept their ranks and tried to shoot past their own comrades at the French.
‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ Lawford had said when he saw the French athwart the ridge. He had seemed stunned by the sight, and no wonder, for he was seeing a battle lost. He was seeing an enemy column occupy the land where his battalion had been posted. He was seeing disaster, even personal disgrace. The French General, Sharpe presumed he was a general for the man’s blue coat had as much gold decoration as the frock of a successful Covent Garden whore, had hoisted his plumed hat on his sword as a signal of victory. ‘Dear God!’ Lawford said.
‘About turn,’ Sharpe said quietly, not looking at the Colonel and sounding almost as though he were talking to himself, ‘then right wheel ’em.’
Lawford gave no sign of having heard the advice. He was staring at the unfolding horror, watching the Portuguese being cut down by bullets. For a change it was the French who outflanked an allied column and they were giving to the blue-coated troops what they themselves usually received. The French were not in proper line, not in their three ranks, it was more like a thick line of seven or eight ranks, but enough of them could use their muskets and the men behind jostled forward to fire at the hapless Portuguese. ‘Call in the skirmishers,’ Lawford said to Forrest, then gave an anxious glance at Sharpe. Sharpe remained expressionless. He had made his suggestion, it was unorthodox, and it was up to the Colonel now. The Portuguese were running now, some streaming down the reverse slope of the ridge, but most hurrying back to where a half-battalion of redcoats had halted. The French had more ground to exploit and, even better, they could attack the exposed left flank of the South Essex. ‘Do it now,’ Sharpe said, maybe not quite loud enough for the Colonel to hear.
‘South Essex!’ Lawford shouted loud above the splintering noise of muskets. ‘South Essex! About turn!’
For a second no one moved. The order was so strange, so unexpected, that the men did not believe their ears, but then the company officers took it up. ‘About turn! Smartly now!’
The battalion’s two ranks about-turned. What had been the rear rank was now the front rank, and both ranks had their backs to the slope and to the big, stalled column that was still exchanging fire with the ridge top. ‘Battalion will right wheel on number nine company!’ Lawford shouted. ‘March!’
This was a test of a battalion’s ability. They would swing like a giant door, just two ranks thick, swing round across rough country and across the bodies of their wounded comrades and the dying fires, and they must do it holding their ranks and files while under fire, and when they had finished, if they finished at all, they would form a musket line facing the new French columns. Those Frenchmen, seeing the danger, had checked their charge and started firing at the South Essex, allowing the Portuguese to reform on the half-battalion of redcoats who had been marching behind them on the road. ‘Dress on number nine!’ Lawford shouted. ‘Start firing when you’re in position!’ Number nine company, which had been the battalion’s left flank when it had been facing downhill, was now the right flank company and, because it formed the hinge of the door, it had the smallest distance to march. It took only seconds for the company to be reformed and James Hooper, its Captain, ordered the men to load. The light company, which normally paraded outside number nine, was running behind the swinging battalion. ‘Get your fellows in front, Mister Slingsby!’ Lawford shouted. ‘In front! Not behind, for God’s sake!’
‘Number nine company!’ Hooper bellowed. ‘Fire!’
‘Number eight company!’ The next was in line. ‘Fire!’
The outer companies were running, holding on to open cartridge boxes as they scrambled over the uneven turf. A man was hurled backwards, twitching from a bullet’s strike. Lawford was riding up behind the swinging door, the colours following him. Musket balls hissed past him as the voltigeurs, closest to the battalion, shot at its officers. The light company, slightly downhill and on the flank of the battalion, began firing at the French, who suddenly saw that the South Essex would form an outflanking line that would soak them with dreaded British musketry, and the columns’ officers began shouting at men to deploy into three ranks. The General on the white horse was shoving at men to hurry them into place and a ragged procession of French infantry, all of them remnants of the failed first attack, was coming up the hill to join the seven battalions that had breached the British line. The drummers were still beating their instruments and the Eagles had gained the heights.
‘South Essex!’ Lawford was standing in his stirrups. ‘Half-company fire from the centre!’
The Portuguese who had broken in the face of the devastating French musketry were coming back to join the South Essex’s line. Redcoats were also forming on that left flank. More battalions, brought from the peaceful southern end of the ridge, were hurrying towards the gap, but Lawford wanted to seal it himself. ‘Fire!’ he shouted.
The South Essex had lost a score of men as they clumsily wheeled around on the summit’s ridge, but they were in their ranks now and this was what they had been trained to do. To fire and reload. That was the essential skill. To tear off the ends of the thick cartridge paper, prime the gun, close the frizzen, upend the musket, pour the powder, put in the ball, ram the ball and paper, drop the ramrod into the barrel rings, bring the musket to the shoulder, pull the doghead to full cock, aim at the smoke, remember to aim low, wait for the order. ‘Fire!’ The muskets smashed back into bruised shoulders and the men, without thinking, found a new cartridge, tore the end off with their blackened teeth, began again, and all the while the French balls came back and every now and then there would be a sickening thud as a ball found flesh, or a smack as it struck a musket stock, or a hollow pop as it punctured a shako. Then the musket was back up in the shoulder, the doghead was back, the command came, and the flint drove onto the strike plate, flying the frizzen open as the sparks flashed down and there would be a pause, less than the time it took for a sparrow’s heart to beat, before the powder in the gun fired and the redcoat’s cheek would be burning because of the scraps of fiery powder thrown up from the pan, and the brass stock would hammer back into his shoulder, and the corporals were bellowing behind, ‘Close up! Close up!’ Which meant a man was dead or wounded.
All the while the sound of the musketry flared out from the centre, an unending noise like breaking sticks, but louder, much louder, and the French muskets were banging away, but the men could not see those because the powder smoke was thicker than the fog that had wreathed the ridge at dawn. And every man was thirsty because when they bit open the cartridges they got scraps of saltpetre from the gunpowder in their mouths and the saltpetre dried a man’s tongue and throat so that he had no spit at all. ‘Fire!’ and the muskets flamed, making the cloud of powder smoke suddenly lurid with fire, and the hooves of the Colonel’s horse thumped close behind the rearward rank as he tried to see across the smoke, and somewhere else, way behind the ranks, a band was playing ‘The Grenadiers’ March’, but no one was really aware of it, only of the need to pull a new cartridge out and tear off the tip and get the damn musket loaded and get the damn thing done.
They were thieves and murderers and fools and rapists and drunkards. Not one had joined for love of country, and certainly not for love of their King. They had joined because they had been drunk when the recruiting sergeant came to their village, or because a magistrate had offered them a choice between the gallows and the ranks, or because a girl was pregnant and wanted to marry them, or because a girl did not want to marry them, or because they were witless fools who believed the recruiter’s outrageous lies or simply because the army gave them a pint of rum and three meals a day, and most had been hungry ever since. They were flogged on the orders of officers who were mostly gentlemen who would never be flogged. They were cursed as drunken halfwits, and they were hanged
