Sharpe's Waterloo Part 43

"Fire!" Another frontal volley. A horse reared in the smoke between two of the abandoned cannon. Its rider fell backwards and his helmet struck a gun-wheel with a sickening crack. A dying horse drummed the turf with its hooves. An unhorsed Cuira.s.sier scrabbled at his buckles to remove the weight of his armour. Another Cuira.s.sier, fallen on his back, jerked to twist his huge weight of steel out of the cloying mud. A musket bullet spurted mud beside the struggling man. "Leave those lobsters alone!" the Guards Major shouted. "They're out of it! Go for the live 'uns!"

Sharpe watched a cavalryman beating impotently at a captured gun with his sword. The French, like the British cavalry earlier, had brought no implements to disable the guns. A French Hussar officer fired a pistol at a flank of the Guards' square and was. .h.i.t by a full platoon's volley in revenge.

"Cease fire! Front ranks reload!" The charge had streamed clear past these foremost squares; all except for a few timid hors.e.m.e.n who were reluctant to risk the fatal corridors and had therefore hung back at the ridge's crest. The bravest and luckiest hors.e.m.e.n had already succeeded in riding clean right through the staggered squares, only to be faced by a line of British and Dutch cavalry. The French troopers, scattered and broken, knew they would be cut down by the waiting sabres, so turned to race back towards the safety of the valley. Like a great wave the cavalry had broken and divided about the squares, now it must ebb back before reforming. The smoke began to shred and clear, revealing that the other squares were unbroken. Dead men and horses littered the s.p.a.ces between the squares. An unhorsed Lancer, reeling with concussion or weakness, staggered like a drunk towards the ridge crest.

"Present!" The Guards Colonel had seen that the French charge was now returning, and he would give the hors.e.m.e.n more fire as they tried to regain their own lines. The thunder of their hooves became louder, then the first frightened men appeared. "Fire!" A white Carabinier's uniform seemed to turn instantly red. A horse collapsed, rolled and broke its rider's leg. Another wounded man was clinging to the mane of his horse, his face white with terror as he desperately ran through the staggered walls of fire. The unhorsed Lancer was ridden over by his own men. He screamed as he fell and as the hooves pounded his flesh to jelly.

"Fire!" a Guards Lieutenant called.

The flood of hors.e.m.e.n flowed past, this time retreating, and Sharpe had a glimpse of a red-haired man in the gorgeous uniform of a Marshal of the Empire, his hat gone, screaming at his troops. Riderless horses had joined the fleeing mob. A few cavalrymen ran among the horses, some of them trying to grab the reins of a free horse.

"Fire!" A pigtailed Dragoon with a broken sword slumped over his horse's neck, but somehow clung on. Sharpe could smell blood and leather and horse-sweat. The uniforms were flecked with mud. The horses' eyes rolled white as they galloped and their breath pumped loud and harsh.

The hors.e.m.e.n went as they had come. As soon as the last Frenchmen had pa.s.sed, the British gunners sprinted out of the squares to regain their undamaged guns. A few cannon had been left loaded with canister and the portfires touched the quills to send barrels of the killing musket-halls at the rumps of the fleeing cavalry. The ground between the squares was a slaughteryard where the dead and the dying lay among rye stalks hammered into the mud that was thick with hoofprints and horse dung.

"Sad, really." The Guards Major offered Sharpe a pinch of snuff.

"Sad?"

"Wonderful looking horses!" The Major, who was clearly so popular with his men, proved to have a rather melancholy demeanour when he was no longer performing for them. "A d.a.m.ned pity to throw good horseflesh away, but what can one expect of a paltry gunner like Bonaparte? Do you care for snuff?"

"No. Thank you."

"You should. It clears out the lungs." The Major snapped his box shut, then vigorously sniffed the powder off his hand. Some of his Guardsmen had run forward to plunder the French corpses and the Major shouted at them to put the wounded horses out of their misery before they robbed the dead. A Cuira.s.sier with a musket bullet in his thigh was dragged back into the square. A Guardsman picked up the wounded man's glittering helmet with its long horsehair plume and, replacing his shako with the gaudy headgear, pranced along the square's face in a grotesque parody of a barrack gate wh.o.r.e. His comrades cheered him.

"I suppose", the Major smiled at the soldier's mockery, "that Monsewer's d.a.m.ned guns will start up again?"

But instead it was the British guns on the crest that fired. The sound of the volley told Sharpe that the cannon had been double shotted and the frantic speed with which the crews reloaded was a warning that the cavalry were again approaching up the ridge's front slope.

"My G.o.d! The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds haven't had enough!" the Major said incredulously, then cheered up as he realized he would have another chance to encourage his men. "Mademoiselle Frog is coming back for more, boys! You must have treated her well last time, so give her the same treatment again!"

The cavalry was indeed returning, and this time there were even more hors.e.m.e.n. Reinforcements must have been sent across the valley and it now seemed as though all the cavalry of France was to be hurled in one desperate charge at the British squares. The hors.e.m.e.n streamed over the ridge, and the guns by the squares gave them a greeting of canister before the gunners again ran with their precious implements to the square's safety.

"Hold your fire!" The Guards Major peered through the cannons' smoke. "Wait for it, lads! Wait for it! Fire!"

The muskets could not miss. The heavy b.a.l.l.s thudded into men and horses, piercing breastplates and helmets, turning the majesty of plume and pelisse into screaming pain. There was also pain inside the squares, where those men wounded by the cannon-fire and not given time to retreat to the forest's edge, still sheltered. The battalion officers rode between the wounded, shouting encouragement to each face of their square as the French hors.e.m.e.n flowed past.

The cavalry had returned full of resolve to charge home, but the horses could not be forced to charge the squares that were now given the further protection of makeshift bastions formed of dead and dying horses and men. The new attack flowed about the squares just like the first, except this time the attack went more slowly because the horses were tiring. Those horses that had lost their riders during the first charge dutifully attacked with the second, dumbly obedient to their herd instincts even though those instincts took them up into the storm of canister and musket-fire.

Once again some Frenchmen pierced through the whole depth of arrayed squares, but only to discover the screen of waiting cavalry. This time, instead of risking the return journey through the alleys of musket-fire, some Cuira.s.siers swerved to their left to find another route back to the valley. They discovered a lane which ran behind the ridge and spurred along it, aiming for the open flank. The lane dropped into a deep cutting, its banks too steep and wet for any horse to climb, and at the cutting's end was a barricade of felled trees put there to check any French attempt to attack in the other direction. The hors.e.m.e.n reined in and shouted at the men behind to turn back and find another way around the sunken lane.

Then British infantry appeared at the top of the embankments. These redcoats were fresh, posted to guard against a flank attack that had not happened, and now they found a helpless enemy under their muskets. They opened fire. Volley after volley plunged down into the steep-sided cutting. They fired without pity, firing until not a man nor horse was left whole, and only then did the infantry clamber down through their smoke to the heaps of stirring, crying, whimpering horror. They did not go to help their victims, but to plunder them.

The second charge died as the first had died, but the French were brave, and led by the bravest of the brave, and so they returned. The guns fired a last volley before the charge reached the squares, and this time a vagary of the shifting smoke let Sharpe see a group of charging hors.e.m.e.n blown apart like crops struck by a monstrous scythe. The gunners ran to safety with their rammers as the horses were spurred again at the squares' faces. Again the muskets threw them back, and again the cavalry swerved away. It was sheer madness. Sharpe, not even bothering to unsling his rifle, watched in disbelief. The French were slaughtering their own cavalry, hurling them again and again at the unbroken squares of infantry.

Again the cavalry retreated, allowing the British gunners to reoccupy their undamaged batteries. Some French skirmishers had climbed the ridge either side of the cavalry's path, but there were not enough Voltigeurs to trouble the squares. Some French gunners opened fire in the pause between cavalry charges and their rounds did more damage than all the hors.e.m.e.n had achieved. The gunners were forced to stop their cannonade as the stubborn cavalry wheeled back to charge the squares again. Between each charge a few redcoats were allowed out of the squares to bring back plunder: an officer's gilded sword, a handful of coins, a silver trumpet with a gorgeously embroidered banner. One sergeant unstrapped a dead Dragoon's leopard-skin helmet, only to throw it down with disgust when he saw the leopard skin was merely dyed cloth. Another man laughed to find a small and bedraggled bunch of faded violets stuck in the b.u.t.tonhole of a dead Dragoon General whose white moustache was splashed with blood.

Sharpe and Harper used one of the pauses between the French charges to canter out from the Guards' square. It was partly curiosity which drove them. Other staff officers similarly rode between the formations and past the heaps of French dead to discover how other battalions were faring. Sharpe and Harper sought their old battalion and finally spotted the yellow regimental colour of the Prince of Wales's Own Volunteers above the lingering musket smoke. The colour bore the badge of a chained eagle to commemorate the trophy that Sharpe and Harper had captured at Talavera. The redcoats cheered as the two Riflemen trotted out of the misting smoke and into the square's embrace.

"You don't mind if we shelter here, do you?" Sharpe politely asked Ford.

Ford was clearly nervous of Sharpe's motives in seeking out his old battalion, but he could hardly refuse his hospitality and so nodded his reluctant consent. The Colonel nervously plucked off his gla.s.ses and scrubbed at their lenses with his sash. For some reason the spectacles seemed misted and he wondered if it was some strange effect caused by the thickness of powder smoke. Major Vine glared at the Riflemen, fearing that Sharpe had again come to take command as he had at Quatre Bras.

Peter d'Alembord, dismounted, was still unwounded. He smiled at Sharpe. "I don't mind this malarkey! They can try this nonsense all day and night!"

The French tried the nonsense again, and again achieved nothing. They had been lured to the attack by the mistaken apprehension of a British withdrawal, yet, though they had learned their mistake, they seemed incapable of abandoning the suicidal attacks. Again and again they attacked, and again and again the muskets flamed and smoked and the tired horses fell screaming and quivering. Close to Sharpe, between the Prince of Wales's Own Volunteers and a square of the King's German Legion, a French Hussar officer struggled to unbuckle his expensive saddle. Both squares left him undisturbed. The girth of the saddle was trapped by the horse's dead weight, but at last the officer tugged it free and the Germans gave him an ironic cheer. The Frenchmen trudged away with his burden. Two riderless horses trotted down the rear face of Ford's square, but none of his men could be bothered to retrieve the trophies, even though a reward was offered for captured horses. A wounded Cuira.s.sier, divested of his armour, limped southwards. "Hey! Frenchie! Get yourself a horse, you silly b.u.g.g.e.r!" Private Clayton shouted at him.

"Why are the b.l.o.o.d.y fools persisting?" Harry Price asked Sharpe.

"Pride." Sharpe did not even have to think about his answer. These were the hors.e.m.e.n of France and they would not limp back to their own lines to confess failure. Sharpe remembered moments like this from his own experience; at Badajoz the French had filled a stone-faced ditch with British dead, yet still the infantry had attacked the breach. In the end that obstinate pride had brought victory, but these blown horses with their tired riders were now incapable of breaking a square.

Sharpe edged his horse close behind his old light company. Weller was still alive, so was Dan Hagman and Clayton. "How is it, lads?"

Their mouths were dry from biting into the cartridges, their lips were flecked with unburned powder, and sweat had carved clean rivulets down their faces which were blackened by the smoke and s.m.u.ts from the powder exploding in their musket pans. Their fingernails were bleeding from dragging back the heavy flints, yet they grinned and gave an ironic cheer when Sharpe handed down a canteen of rum from his saddle. Colour Sergeant Huckfield had a pocket of spare flints which he doled out to those men whose old ones had been chipped away by repeated firing.

"I know how the gentry feel now," Dan Hagman said to Sharpe.

"How come, Dan?"

"When all the game is driven towards them, and all the rich b.u.g.g.e.rs have to do is aim and fire? It's just like that, innit? Not that I mind. Silly b.u.g.g.e.rs can line up all day to be shot so far as I care." Because so long as the French cavalry were around the squares, so long the dreaded French artillery could not fire at the redcoats.

The hors.e.m.e.n came again, though by now men and beasts were too tired and too wary to charge home. A ma.s.s of enemy cavalry walked their horses to within sixty yards of the Prince of Wales's Own Volunteers and stopped beside a battery of abandoned guns. The horses were sweating and their ribs heaving, yet the cavalry had still not given up hope of breaking the infantry. If brute force would not work, then subtlety might, and every few minutes a group of the cavalry would spur forward in an attempt to provoke a volley from the square's face. If such feint attacks could empty the deadly muskets there was a chance that the remaining hors.e.m.e.n could hack their way through the unloaded ranks with their heavy swords. Lancers, with their long and deadly reach, could easily break a square from a standing horse, but not if the muskets were loaded.

But the battalion was too canny to take the bait. Instead they jeered insults at the French. Some of the hors.e.m.e.n trotted away to find another square, hoping their discipline would be poorer. The great cavalry a.s.sault had reached stalemate. The cavalry, too proud to retreat, were unable to charge, and so they stood their horses just out of effective volley range and tried to bluff the infantry into firing. Hundreds of Frenchmen were dead or dying, yet thousands remained in the saddle, enough to keep alive the desperate hope of victory. Sometimes an officer managed to spur a group into a full-blooded charge and the muskets would spit their flames again, more horses would go down again, and then the stalemate resumed.

"Hold your fire! Hold it!" d'Alembord was suddenly shouting at the square's rear face. "Open ranks!"

Three hors.e.m.e.n had spurred across the field and now took shelter among the Prince of Wales's Own Volunteers. Sharpe, turning in his saddle, saw the Duke of Wellington nodding a curt greeting at Ford who frantically began polishing his lenses. Sharpe looked back to the front where the hors.e.m.e.n still stood threateningly, but did not charge. Two of the Lancers, frustrated and embittered by the stalemate, threw their lances like javelins, but the missiles fell harmlessly short of the front rank. The redcoats jeeringly invited the hors.e.m.e.n to come and get their toys back. 1 Another Lancer jabbed his lance point at a cannon's blackened vent, and achieved nothing.

"Wasting their time." The Duke's voice sounded just behind Sharpe.

Sharpe turned to see that the Duke was talking to him. "Yes, sir."

The Duke's face betrayed neither hope for his army's survival, nor despair for its defeat. He had lost most of his cavalry to a foolish charge, many of his allies had run away, and he was left with scarce half the men he had paraded at the day's beginning, but he looked calm, even detached. He offered Sharpe the ghost of a smile; an acknowledgement of how many battlefields the two men had shared across the years. A more perceptive man than Sharpe might have read some message in the Duke's seeking the companionship of a veteran soldier, but Sharpe merely felt his usual awkwardness when he was in the company of his old commanding officer. "So what do you make of the man?" the Duke asked.

"The man' was clearly the Emperor. "I'm disappointed," Sharpe answered shortly.

The reply amused the Duke. "He might please you yet. He's throwing bits and pieces at us to see what we're made of, but doubtless he'll put a real attack together sooner or later." The Duke looked at the closest enemy hors.e.m.e.n, a mix of Cuira.s.siers, Hussars and Lancers. "Fine-looking devils, aren't they?"

"They are, sir."

The Duke suddenly astonished Sharpe by giving his great whoop of a laugh; 'I was in another square over there and a major was telling his men to make faces at the rogues! "Pull faces," he shouted!

Can you believe it? Pull faces! We shall have to add that order to the drillbook." He laughed again, then shot a look at Sharpe. "Is Orange keeping you busy?"

"He's dismissed me, sir."

The Duke stared disapprovingly for a heartbeat, then gave another neighing laugh which made the nearest redcoats look round in astonishment at their Commander-in-Chief. "I always thought he was a fool to pick you. I told him you were an independent-minded rogue, but he wouldn't listen. At his age they always think they know best." The Duke looked back to the French hors.e.m.e.n who still showed no inclination to close on the square. "If those rascals don't intend to charge, I might make a run for it."