Sharpe's Waterloo Part 48

A shattered gun limber and two dead horses lay not far away and Sharpe crouched in the wreckage to see whether it gave him the cover he needed.

"You'll never hit the b.a.s.t.a.r.d from this distance," Harper said. "They don't call him Slender Billy for nothing."

"I will if G.o.d's on my side."

"I wouldn't rely on G.o.d today." The Irishman stared about the ridge top, seeking an idea, then saw a file of green-jacketed Riflemen running towards the valley. The Prince had spurred his horse to follow the Riflemen, thus taking himself closer to the embattled crest of the ridge.

"Where are those lads going?" Harper asked.

Sharpe saw the Greenjackets, and understood. The Duke must have gathered the remnants of his Riflemen and ordered them to stop the French guns firing from La Haye Sainte. It was a desperate throw, but Riflemen alone might succeed in silencing the murderous guns. Fifty Greenjackets were preparing to charge over the crest, and the Prince, who had never lacked bravery, could not resist going forward to watch their fight.

Sharpe suddenly upped and ran towards the Riflemen who had stopped just short of the crest and now crouched in a group as they fixed their long, bra.s.s-handled sword-bayonets onto their rifle muzzles. "You're not coming," he shouted at Harper who had begun to follow him.

"And how will you stop me?"

"You b.l.o.o.d.y deserve to die." Sharpe dropped at the back of the squad of Riflemen, all of whose faces were blackened by the powder sc.r.a.ps exploded from their rifles' pans. Their commanding officer was Major Warren Dunnett whose face showed understandable resentment when he recognized Sharpe. "Are you taking over?" he asked stiffly.

"It would be a great honour to serve under your command once again, Dunnett." Sharpe could be very tactful when he wished.

Dunnett, pleased with the compliment, smiled grimly. "We make' this very quick!" he spoke to his fifty men. "Use the blades to clear the slope, then make your shots count! Once you've fired, tap reload and hold off the Voltigeurs. You understand?" The men nodded, and Dunnett waited. He waited so long that Sharpe wondered whether Dunnett had lost his nerve, but instead it seemed that there was another identical group of Riflemen who were attacking from the far side of the highway and Dunnett's men merely waited for their signal so that the two groups crossed the ridge crest at the same moment.

Sharpe looked behind him. The Prince was fifty yards away, but staring over the Riflemens' heads towards La Haye Sainte. Sharpe, to lessen his chances of being recognized, smeared mud on his scarred face and shoved his tricorne hat into his belt.

From somewhere beyond the high-road a bugle called the familiar running triplets of the order to open fire. "That's the signal, my boys! Let's go!" Dunnett had waited six years to avenge himself on the French and now, his sabre drawn, he led the Riflemen over the crest.

The appearance of the Rifles was so sudden that the closest French skirmishers were trapped. The sword-bayonets rammed down, were kicked free, then carried on. Dunnett shouted an incoherent challenge and slashed madly with his sabre, not striking anyone, but hissing the blade so fiercely through the smoky air that the French scrambled to escape such an apparent maniac. The fifty Riflemen on the far side of the road attacked with the same sudden and vicious desperation, driving the panicked Voltigeurs down the long slope. The mad charge stopped a hundred yards short of La Haye Sainte as the Riflemen abandoned the pursuit of the French to take up their firing positions. First, before aiming, they undipped their sword-bayonets so that the heavy blades would not unbalance their rifles.

Each man had loaded carefully. They had cleaned their rifle barrels by the old expedient of p.i.s.sing down the barrels, sluicing the caked powder deposits loose, then pouring out the fouled liquid. Then, when the barrels had dried, and using the extra-fine powder they carried in their horns, the Riflemen had charged their rifles. They had wrapped their bullets in a sc.r.a.p of greased leather that not only helped the bullet grip the spiralling lands in the barrel, but, when the weapon was fired, expanded to block any of the exploding gas escaping past the bullet through the barrel's grooves. It took over a minute to load a rifle so meticulously, but the resultant shot would be as accurate as any weapon in the world.

Now, in the brief s.p.a.ce and time they had won, the Riflemen aimed at the gunners who were visible above the hedge of La Haye Sainte's kitchen garden. The range was a hundred yards; a simple rifle shot, but misted by the drifting smoke. The gunners in the garden were too busy serving their guns to be aware of the threat.

Dunnett did not hurry his men. He must have been tempted to urge them to fire quickly, for the French skirmishers were regrouping at the foot of the slope, but instead he trusted his men and they did not disappoint him.

The first rifles crashed their bra.s.s b.u.t.ts into shoulders bruised raw by a day's fighting. White smoke spurted across the slope. The French skirmishers began firing uphill and two Greenjackets lurched backwards. Other Riflemen still took careful aim. A gunner stared over his rammer at the slope and a bullet took him in his open mouth. A French artillery officer spun backwards, half clambered up, then began crawling under his gun's trail. More rifles fired. The officer slumped flat. A handful of gunners fled to the farmhouse where they crowded and obstructed each other in the narrow door, and where they were struck by a flail of rifle-fire. Those Greenjackets who had already fired reloaded, not with the fine powder and wrapped bullet, but by tap loading with a normal cartridge. Then they turned their weapons on the skirmishers.

"Withdraw!" Dunnett, the executions neatly carried out, shouted at his men.

"Got the b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Harper shouted.

"Where?"

"Look at the tree, then left thirty yards!"

Sharpe was downhill of Harper. "Kneel down. Aim your rifle at the farm."

Harper, bemused, obeyed. He braced his left leg forward, knelt on his right knee, and aimed his rifle at the kitchen garden which seemed to be filled with dead artillerymen. The first Riflemen were already running uphill. "Hurry, for Christ's sake!" Harper muttered.

Sharpe lay flat on the ground and thrust his rifle between Harper's right thigh and left calf. Now Sharpe was effectively hidden from the staff officers close to the Prince who were all staring at the slaughtered gunners in the farm's garden. The Prince's horse was sideways on to the valley, presenting the Prince's left shoulder to Sharpe's rifle sights.

Sharpe had not had time to load with the good powder, or wrap a ball in leather. Instead he was using the commonplace coa.r.s.e-powder cartridge, but if G.o.d_was good this evening then an ordinary musket cartridge would suffice to avenge a thousand dead men and perhaps to save the lives of a thousand more.

"G.o.d save Ireland," Harper hissed, "but will you b.l.o.o.d.y hurry yourself?"

"Don't fire till I do," Sharpe said calmly.

"We'll b.l.o.o.d.y die together if you don't hurry!" Sharpe and Harper were almost the last Riflemen on the slope. The rest were sprinting back to safety, while the enraged Voltigeurs were hurrying after them. Harper changed his aim to point his rifle at a French officer who seemed particularly lively.

Sharpe aimed at the Prince's belly. The Young Frog was no more than a hundred paces away, close enough for Sharpe to see the ivory hilt of his big sabre. The rifle bullet would fall a foot over a hundred paces, so Sharpe raised the muzzle a tiny fraction.

"For the love of Ireland, will you b.l.o.o.d.y kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.d?"

"Ready?" Sharpe said. "Fire!"

Both men fired together. Sharpe's rifle hammered his shoulder as smoke gouted to hide the Prince.

"Let's get out of here!" Harper saw his target plucked backwards, and now he hauled Sharpe to his feet and both men sprinted away towards the crest. Sharpe had just staged an a.s.sa.s.sination in full view of an army, but no one shouted at him and no one gaped in astonishment because no one, it seemed, had noticed a thing. A French roundshot screamed low overhead. A Voltigeur's-bullet clipped Sharpe's sword scabbard and thudded into the ground.

Sharpe began laughing. Harper joined him. Together they reeled over the crest, still laughing. "Right in the b.l.o.o.d.y belly!" Sharpe said with undisguised glee.

"With your b.l.o.o.d.y marksmanship, you probably killed the Duke."

"It was a good shot, Patrick." Sharpe spoke as fervently as any young Rifleman first mastering the complex weapon. "I felt it go home!"

Major Warren Dunnett saw the two Riflemen grinning like apes and a.s.sumed they shared his pleasure at a task well done. "A successful venture, I think?" Dunnett said modestly, but he was clearly eager for praise.

Sharpe gave it gladly. "Very. Allow me to congratulate you, Dunnett." The efficient Greenjacket foray had taken the French cannon at La Haye Sainte out of the battle. Their gunners were dead, cut down by the best marksmen in either army.

Sharpe led Harper to the rear of a British battery from where he could see Rebecque and a group of other Dutch officers helping the Prince away. The Prince had slumped sideways, and was only being held in his saddle by the support of his Chief of Staff. "Harry!" Sharpe shouted at Lieutenant Webster, the Prince's only remaining British aide. "What happened, Harry?"

Webster spurred across to Sharpe. "It's bad news, sir. The Prince was. .h.i.t in the left shoulder. It isn't too serious, but he can't stay on the field. One of those d.a.m.ned skirmishers. .h.i.t him, I'm afraid."

"Oh, s.h.i.t," Sharpe spoke with obvious remorse.

"It is indeed bad news, sir." Webster offered sympathetic agreement. "But his Highness will live. They're taking him to the surgeons, then back to Brussels."

Harper was trying not to laugh. Sharpe scowled. "A pity." His voice was fervent. "A d.a.m.ned b.l.o.o.d.y pity!"

"It's decent of you to be so upset, sir, especially after the way he's treated you," Webster said awkwardly.

"But you'll present my regards, Lieutenant?"

"Of course I will, sir." Webster touched his hat, then turned to ride after the wounded Prince.

Harper grinned and mocked Sharpe with imitation. "It was a good shot. I felt it go home."

"The b.u.g.g.e.r's gone, hasn't he?" Sharpe said defensively.

"Aye," Harper admitted, then looked ruefully along the British line. "And it won't be long before we're all gone either. I've never seen the like, nor have I."