Sharpe's Havoc Part 27

"I like a dark night," Annette whispered to him.

"You're a veritable walking encyclopaedist, Lieutenant," Vuillard said, "so tell me what damage your sh.e.l.ls did today?"

"Very little, sir, I'm afraid." Pelletieu, almost overwhelmed by Annette's perfume, looked as though he was about to faint. "That summit is prodigiously protected by boulders, sir. If they kept their heads down, sir, then they should have survived mostly intact, though I'm sure we killed one or two."

"Only one or two?"

Pelletieu looked abashed. "We needed a mortar, sir."

Vuillard smiled. "When a man lacks instruments, Lieutenant, he uses what he has to hand. Isn't that right, Annette?" He smiled, then took a fat watch from his waistcoat pocket and snapped open the lid. "How many rounds of sh.e.l.l do you have left?"

"Thirty-eight, sir."

"Don't use them all at once," Vuillard said, then raised an eyebrow in mock surprise. "Don't you have work to do, Lieutenant?" he asked. The work was to fire the howitzer through the night so that the ragged forces on the hilltop would get no sleep, then an hour before first light the gunfire would stop and Vuillard reckoned the enemy would all be asleep when his infantry attacked.

Pelletieu sc.r.a.ped his chair back. "Of course, sir, and thank you, sir."

"Thank you?"

"For the supper, sir."

Vuillard made a gracious gesture of acceptance. "I'm just sorry, Lieutenant, that you can't stay for the entertainment. I'm sure Mademoiselle Annette would have liked to hear about your charges, your rammer and your sponge."

"She would, sir?" Pelletieu asked, surprised.

"Go, Lieutenant," Vuillard said, "just go." The Lieutenant fled, pursued by the sound of laughter, and the Brigadier shook his head. "G.o.d knows where we find them," he said. "We must pluck them from their cradles, wipe the mother's milk from their lips and send them to war. Still, young Pelletieu knows his business." He dangled the watch on its chain for a second, then thrust it into a pocket. "First light at ten minutes to four, Major," he spoke to Dulong.

"We'll be ready," Dulong said. He looked sour, the failure of the previous night's attack still galling him. The bruise on his face was dark.

"Ready and rested, I hope?" Vuillard said.

"We'll be ready," Dulong said again.

Vuillard nodded, but kept his watchful eyes on the infantry Major. "Amarante is taken," he said, "which means some of Loison's men can return to Oporto. With luck, Major, that means we shall have enough force to march south on Lisbon."

"I hope so, sir," Dulong answered, uncertain where the conversation was going.

"But General Heudelet's division is still clearing the road to Vigo,"

Vuillard went on, "Foy's infantry is scouring the mountains of partisans, so our forces will still be stretched, Major, stretched. Even if we get Delaborde's brigades back from General Loison and even with Lorges's dragoons, we shall be stretched if we want to march on Lisbon."

"I'm sure we'll succeed all the same," Dulong said loyally.

"But we need every man we can muster, Major, every man. And I do not want to detach valuable infantry to guard prisoners."

There was silence round the table. Dulong gave a small smile as he understood the implications of the Brigadier's words, but he said nothing.

"Do I make myself clear, Major?" Vuillard asked in a harder tone.

"You do, sir," Dulong said.

"Bayonets fixed then," Vuillard said, tapping ash from his cigar, "and use them, Major, use them well."

Dulong looked up, his grim face unreadable. "No prisoners, sir." He did not inflect the words as a question.

"That sounds like a very good idea," Vuillard said, smiling. "Now go and get some sleep."

Major Dulong left and Vuillard poured more port. "War is cruel," he said sententiously, "but cruelty is sometimes necessary. The rest of you"-he looked at the officers on both sides of the table-"can ready yourselves for the march back to Oporto. We should have this business finished by eight tomorrow morning, so shall we set a march time of ten o'clock?"

For by then the watchtower on the hill would have fallen. The howitzer would keep Sharpe's men awake by firing through the night and in the dawn, as the tired men fought off sleep and a wolf-gray light seeped across the world's rim, Dulong's well-trained infantry would go in for the kill.

At dawn.

Sharpe had watched till the very last seep of twilight had gone from the hill, until there was nothing but bleak darkness, and only then, with Pendleton, Tongue and Harris as his companions, he edged past the outer stone wall and felt his way down the path. Harper had wanted to come, had even been upset at not being allowed to accompany Sharpe, but Harper would need to command the riflemen if Sharpe did not come back. Sharpe would have liked to take Hagman, but the old man was still not fully mended and so he had gone with Pendleton who was young, agile and cunning, and with Tongue and Harris who were both good shots and both intelligent. Each of them carried two rifles, but Sharpe had left his big cavalry sword with Harper for he knew that the heavy metal scabbard was likely to knock on stones and so betray his position.

It was hard, slow work going down the hill. There was a thin suggestion of a moon, but stray clouds continually covered it and even when it showed clearly it had no power to light their path and so they felt their way down, saying nothing, groping ahead for each step and thereby making more noise than Sharpe liked, but the night was full of noises: insects, the sigh of the wind across the hill's flank and the distant cry of a vixen. Hagman would have coped better, Sharpe thought, for he moved through the dark with the grace of a poacher, while all four of the riflemen going down the hill's long slope were from towns. Pendleton, Sharpe knew, was from Bristol where he had joined the army rather than face transportation for being a pickpocket. Tongue, like Sharpe, came from London, but Sharpe could not remember where Harris had grown up and, when they stopped to catch their breath and search the darkness for any hint of light, Sharpe asked him.

"Lichfield, sir," Harris whispered, "where Samuel Johnson came from."

"Johnson?" Sharpe could not quite place the name. "Is he in the first battalion?"

"Very much so, sir," Harris whispered, and then they went on and, as the slope became less steep and they accustomed themselves to this blind journey, they became quieter. Sharpe was proud of them. They might not have been born to such a task, as Hagman had, but they had become stalkers and killers. They wore the green jacket.

And then, after what seemed like an hour since they had left the watchtower, Sharpe saw what he expected to see. A glimmer of light. Just a glimmer that swiftly vanished, but it was yellow, and he knew it came from a screened lantern and that someone, a gunner probably, had drawn back the screen to throw a small wash of light, and then there was another light, this one red and tiny, and Sharpe knew it was the howitzer's portfire. "Down," he whispered. He watched the tiny red glow. It was further away than he would have liked, but there was plenty of time. "Close your eyes," he hissed.

They closed their eyes and, a moment later, the gun crashed its smoke, flame and sh.e.l.l into the night and Sharpe heard the missile trundle overhead and he saw a dull light on his closed eyelids, then he opened his eyes and could see nothing for a few seconds. He could smell the gunsmoke, though, and he saw the red portfire move as the gunner put it aside. "On!" he said, and they crept on down the hill, and the screened lantern blinked again as the gun crew pushed the howitzer's wheels back to the two stones which marked the place where they could be sure that, despite the darkness, the gun would be accurate. That was the realization that had come to Sharpe at sunset, the reason why they had marked the ground, because in the night the French gunners needed an easy method for realigning the howitzer and the two big stones made better markers than gouges in the soil. So he had known this night firing was going to happen and knew exactly what he could do about it.

It was a long time before the howitzer fired again, and by then Sharpe and his men were two hundred paces away and not much higher than the gun. Sharpe had expected the second shot much sooner, then he realized that the gunners would probably s.p.a.ce their sh.e.l.ls through the short night to keep his men awake and that would mean a long time between shots. "Harris? Tongue?" he whispered. "Off to the right. If you get into trouble, get the h.e.l.l back up to Harper. Pendleton? Come on." He led the youngster away to the left, crouching as he moved, feeling his way through the rocks until he reckoned he had gone about fifty paces from the path and then he settled Pendleton behind a boulder and positioned himself behind a low gorse bush. "You know what to do."

"Yes, sir."

"So enjoy it."

Sharpe was enjoying himself. It surprised him to realize it, but he was. There was a joy in thus foxing the enemy, though perhaps the enemy had expected what was about to happen and was ready for it. But this was no time to worry, just time to spread some confusion, and he waited and waited until he was certain he was wrong and that the gunners would not fire again, and then the whole night was split apart by a tongue of white flame, bright and long, that was immediately swallowed by the cloud of smoke and Sharpe had a sudden glimpse of the gun bucking back on its trail, its big wheels spinning a foot high in the air, and then his night vision was gone, seared from his eyes by the bright stab of fire, and he waited again, only this time it was just a few seconds before he saw the yellow glow of the unshielded lantern and he knew the gunners were manhandling the howitzer's wheels toward the stones.

He aimed at the lantern. His vision was smeared by the aftereffects of the fire, but he could see the square of lamplight clearly enough. He was just about to squeeze the trigger when one of his men on the right of the path fired and the lantern was dropped, its shielding fell away and Sharpe could see two dark figures half lit by the new and brighter light. He edged the rifle left and pulled the trigger, heard Pendleton fire, then he s.n.a.t.c.hed up the second rifle and aimed again into the pool of light. A Frenchman jumped forward to extinguish the lantern and three rifles, one of them Sharpe's, sounded at the same time and the man was s.n.a.t.c.hed backward and Sharpe heard a loud clang like a cracked bell ringing and knew one of the bullets had hit the howitzer's barrel.

Then the light went out. "Come on!" Sharpe called to Pendleton and the two of them ran further to their left. They could hear the French shouting, one man gasping and moaning, then a louder voice calling for silence. "Down!" Sharpe whispered and the two went to ground and Sharpe began the laborious business of loading his two rifles in the dark. He saw a small flame burning back where he and Pendleton had been and he knew that the wadding from one of their rifles had started a small gra.s.s fire. It flickered for a few seconds, then he saw dark shapes nearby and guessed that the French infantry who had been guarding the gun were out looking for whoever had just fired the shots, but the searchers found nothing, trampled the small fire dead and went back to the trees.

There was another pause. Sharpe could hear the murmur of voices and reckoned the French were discussing what to do next. The answer came soon enough when he heard the trampling of feet and he deduced that the infantry had been sent to scour the nearer hillside, but in the dark they merely blundered through the ferns and cursed whenever they tripped on rocks or became entangled by gorse. Officers and sergeants snarled and snapped at the men who were too sensible to spread out and get lost or maybe ambushed in the darkness. After a while they trailed back to the trees and there was another long wait, though Sharpe could hear the clatter of the howitzer's rammer as it shoved and sc.r.a.ped the next sh.e.l.l home.

The French probably thought their attackers were gone, he decided. No shots had come for a long time and their own infantry had made a perfunctory search, and the French were probably feeling safer, for the gunner foolishly tried to revive the portfire by whipping it back and forth a couple of times until its tip glowed a brighter red. He did not need the extra heat to light the reed in the touchhole, but rather to see the touch-hole, and it was his death sentence for he then blew on the tip of the slow match held in the portfire's jaws, and either Harris or Tongue shot him, and even Sharpe jumped with surprise when the rifle shot blistered the night and he had a glimpse of flame far off to his right, and then the French infantry were forming ranks, the fallen portfire was s.n.a.t.c.hed up and, just as the howitzer fired, so the muskets hammered a crude volley in the direction of Tongue and Harris.

And the gra.s.s fires started again. One sprang up just in front of the howitzer and two smaller fires were ignited by the wadding of the French muskets. Sharpe, his eyes still dazzled by the gun's big flame, nevertheless could see the crew heaving at the wheels and he slid the rifle forward. He fired, changed weapons and fired again, aiming at the dark knot of men straining at the nearest gun wheel. He saw one fall away. Pendleton fired. Two more shots came from the right and the gra.s.s fires were spreading and then the infantry realized that the flames were illuminating the gunners, making them targets, and they frantically stamped out the small fires, but not before Pendleton had fired his second rifle and Sharpe saw another gunner spin away from the howitzer, then a last shot came from Tongue or Harris before the flames were at last extinguished.

Sharpe and Pendleton went back fifty paces before reloading. "We hurt them that time," Sharpe said. Small groups of Frenchmen, emboldening themselves with loud shouts, darted forward to search the slope again, but again found nothing.

He stayed another half-hour, fired four more times and then went back to the hilltop, a journey which, in the dark, took almost two hours, though it was easier than going down for there was just enough light in the sky to show the outline of the hill and the broken stub of the watch-tower. Tongue and Harris followed an hour later, hissing the pa.s.sword up at the sentry before coming excitedly into the fort where they told the tale of their exploit.