Sharpe 3-Book Collection 6: Sharpe's Honour, Sharpe's Regiment, Sharpe's Siege (33 page)

There was a plan. Jourdan planned to stop the attack with his guns, and Wellington planned to grip those guns in a fist and squeeze.

The English General thought of his plan like a left hand placed palm downwards on the map.

The thumb was the attack on the heights.

The index finger was the troops who had advanced beneath the heights into the guns’ thunder, the troops who had been stopped by the French artillery, the troops who suffered minute by horrid minute.

The thumb and index finger were supposed to do no more than pin the enemy’s attention, to draw his reserves across to the south and west, and, when that was done, the remaining three fingers would curl in from the north.

But where were they? The men on the plain were dying because the left hand columns were late and Wellington, who hated to see men die unnecessarily, would not even allow himself to be consoled by the fact that the longer he waited, the more his enemy would be convinced that the main attack was coming from the west.

He rode a small way up the slope and stared northwards. The land seemed empty. He clicked his fingers. An aide spurred forward.

The General turned. ‘Hurry them!’

‘My Lord.’

There was no need to explain who should be hurried. There should be three columns coming from the northern hills, columns that would trample the crops over the river, carry the bridges, and fall on the French right. Wellington wondered why in God’s name the French had left the bridges intact. His cavalry scouts had reported no signs of powder ready to blow the arches sky high. It made no sense. The General had feared that his northern attacks would have to wade the fords, their bodies drifting downstream in bloodied water, but the French had left the bridges open.

Yet the three columns which, like fingers, would squeeze the life from the French army, had not appeared and their lateness meant that the French guns were taking a heavy toll on the plain. The fingers of Wellington’s right hand drummed on the pommel of his saddle. He waited, while beneath him the guns shivered the warm morning.

‘Dear Captain Saumier?’

‘Ma’am?‘ He sounded tired. Eight times La Marquesa had sent him limping down the crowded tiers, either for more wine or more pastries.

‘In my coach there is a parasol. Would you be very gallant and fetch it for me?’

‘Entirely my pleasure, ma’am.‘

‘The white parasol, not the black.’

‘There’s nothing else I can fetch you at the same time?’ her escort asked hopefully.

‘Not that I can think of.’

He edged down the crowded bench, his ugly face reddening because he knew that the other women had observed him running errands like a small boy for La Marquesa.

She stared at the battlefield, seeing only the great cloud of cannon smoke. For some reason she found herself thinking about Sharpe, wondering whether he would have been as malleable as this Captain Saumier. Somehow she doubted it. Richard had always been ready to frown and growl his displeasure. He had been, she thought, a man of immense pride, a pride made fragile because it had come from the gutter.

She had felt regret when she had heard he was dead. She was glad then that she had lied to him, had told him that she loved him. Richard, she thought, had wanted her to say that and he had been eager to believe it. She wondered why soldiers, who knew death and horror better than anyone, were so often soggily romantic. Send them to their deaths happy was what the women of this army said; and why not? She tried to imagine being in bed with Captain Saumier, and the thought made her shudder. She cooled herself with her fan. The sun was tryingly hot.

A cavalry officer reined in at the wall’s foot. There had been a succession of such officers all morning who had come to show off to the ladies and shout up news from the fighting that was still hidden by the great bank of smoke. The cavalry officer swept off his hat. All was well, he said. The British were beaten. Soon Jourdan would order the line forward.

La Marquesa smiled. Victory today would mean Ducos’ defeat. A beat of pure malicious pleasure went through her at the thought of that defeat.

She looked away from the smoke. She looked at the empty northern fields, bright with poppies and cornflowers, a scene of innocence on this day of guns and smoke. Far off there, at the foot of the northern hills and too far away to play any part in today’s battle, was a small, story-book castle. She pulled her ivory spyglass open and stared at the tiny old fortress.

And instead she saw troops. Troops trampling the crops flat. Troops spilling from the gullies of the hills, troops swarming southwards towards the right of the French line. She stared. The troops wore red. She knew what she saw; it was the despised Wellington proving to the French yet again that he could not attack. Beneath her the cavalry officer caught a thrown handkerchief, wheeled his horse, and galloped back to the battle.

‘Sir!’

‘Sir!’

Marshal Jourdan, who a moment before had been thinking that the battle would be won by two o‘clock, and had been thinking regretfully that his pursuit would mean he could not attend the victory dinner that night, stared to his right.

He could not believe what he saw.

The columns were coming towards him, towards the unguarded flank, and the British Colours were bright over their heads. He had already taken his reserves from the right to re-assault the Puebla Heights, now Wellington had unleashed the weight of his real attack. For one brief, horrid second, Jourdan admired Wellington for waiting this long, for letting his men suffer under the guns long enough to convince the French that the frontal attack was the real attack, then the Marshal began shouting.

The right flanks of the French lines were to turn outwards. There would not be time to stop the British crossing the river, so Jourdan knew he must fight them on the near bank with his guns.

King Joseph, who had retired into his carriage to use his silver chamber pot, came hurrying back into the sunshine. ‘What’s happening?’

Jourdan ignored him. He was staring north, watching the most easterly enemy column that was not coming towards him. It was striking for the Great Road, trying to cut him off from France. He shouted for an aide. ‘What’s the village on the river bend there?’

‘Gamarra Mayor, sir.’

‘Tell them to hold it! Tell them to hold it!’

‘Sir!’

King Joseph, his breeches flap held in his hands, watched in horror as the aide spurred his horse into a gallop. ‘Hold what?’

‘Your kingdom, sir. There!’ Jourdan’s voice was savage. He was pointing at the river bend and the small village of Gamarra Mayor. ‘You!’ He pointed to another aide. ‘Tell General Reille I want his men in Gamarra Mayor. Go!’

If the river was crossed, and the road taken, then a battle, a kingdom and an army were lost. ‘Tell them to hold it!’ he shouted after the officer, then turned back to the west. A gun sounded, no great thing on this day, except this was a British gun and it had been brought to face the French, and the roundshot landed on the slope of the Arinez Hill, bounced, and came to rest a few yards from Jourdan’s horse. It was the first enemy shot to reach the Arinez Hill and it spoke of things to come.

Marshal Jourdan, whose day of triumph was turning sour, tossed his Marshal’s baton into his carriage. It was a red velvet staff, tipped with gold and decorated with gold eagles. It was a bauble fit for a triumph, but now, he knew, he had to fight against disaster. He had sent his reserves to his left, and now his right was threatened. He shouted for news and wondered what happened beyond the bank of smoke which hid this battle for a kingdom.

Richard Sharpe, though he did not know it, galloped within two hundred yards of Wellington. He went north, following the river, shouting at the villagers who watched the battle from the track to clear a path. Across the water he could see the smoke pumping from the French gun line. The canister twitched and tore at the trampled crops.

He slowed at the river bend, forced to negotiate a village street crowded with Battalions who waited to cross the bridges. He shouted at one mounted officer, asking where the Fifth was, and the man waved Sharpe on. ‘The left!’

A Rifle officer, lighting a cigar from the pipe of one of his men, saw Sharpe and his mouth dropped open. The cigar fell to the ground. Sharpe smiled. ‘Morning, Harry. Good luck!’ He put his heels back, leaving the man stupefied by the sight of a disgraced, hanged, and buried man come back from the dead. Sharpe laughed, cleared the village, and put Carbine into a canter that took them due east along the Zadorra’s northern bank.

Ahead of him the Third and Seventh Divisions were launched at the river. They attacked at the double, skirmishers in front, the huge formations splitting apart to stream over the unblown bridges and unguarded fords. Angel was awed by the sight. More than ten thousand infantry were moving, a red tide that assaulted the southern French positions.

A Major galloped towards Sharpe. Behind him a Brigade of infantry were standing, their General impatient at their head. ‘Are you staff?’

‘No!’ Sharpe reined in.

‘God damn it!’ The Major’s sword was drawn. ‘The Peer’s forgotten us! God damn it!’

‘Just go!’

‘Go
^?
’

‘Why not?’ Sharpe grinned at the man. ‘Where’s the Fifth?’

‘Keep going!’ The Major had turned his horse and now waved his sword towards the river in a signal to his General. The Brigade picked up its muskets.

‘Come on, Angel!’ Sharpe feared the battle would be over before he could join it.

To Sharpe’s right, as he circled the rear of the now advancing brigade, the British attack reformed on the Zadorra’s southern bank. Ahead of the attack, spread out in the untrodden wheat that was thick with flowers, the Rifles, men of the 95th, went ahead in the skirmish line. They could see the French guns on the Arinez Hill and they knelt, fired, reloaded and advanced.

The bullets, flickering out of the smoke cloud and clanging on the black-muzzled barrels of the French guns, were the first warning the battery had of their danger. ‘Spikes!’

The gunners desperately slewed the guns round, the men heaving on the handspikes as yet more bullets came from the north. ‘Canister!’ the officer shouted, and then a bullet span him round, he clapped a hand to his shoulder, and suddenly his men were running because the Riflemen were charging up the slope. ‘Load it!’

It was too late. The Riflemen, their weapons tipped with the long sword-bayonets, were in the battery. The blades stabbed at the few Frenchmen who tried to swing rammers at the British Riflemen. Some gunners crawled under the barrels of their guns, waiting for a prudent moment to surrender.

Behind the Rifles, spreading in the wheat with their Colours overhead, came the lines of red-jacketed men.

‘Back! Back!’ A French gunner Colonel, seeing his northern battery taken, shouted for the limbers and horses. Men hurled ready ammunition into chests, picked up trails, the trace chains were linked on, the horses were whipped, and the French guns went thundering and rocking and bouncing back towards the second line.

‘Ready!’ Now the French infantry, who had thought the guns had done their task, had to come forward to blunt the British attack. ‘Present! Fire!’ Over the fields that had been flayed with canister came the sound of musketry, the clash of infantry.

The Marquess of Wellington opened his watch case. He had his lodgement on the plain, he had driven the first French line into confusion, but now, he knew, there would be a pause.

Prisoners were being herded back, the wounded were being carried to the surgeons. In the smoke of the battlefield Colonels and Generals were looking for landmarks, seeking out units on their flanks, waiting for orders. The attack had worked, but now the attack had to be re-aligned. The men who had suffered under the French guns must be relieved, new Battalions marched onto the plain to link up with the northern attacks.

Wellington crossed the river. He spurred forward to take command of the next attack, the one that would drive the French army due east, towards Vitoria, and he wondered what was happening to the small finger of his plan’s hand. That finger was the Fifth Division. It marched to a village called Gamarra Mayor, and if it could take that village, cross the river, and cut the Great Road, then it would turn French defeat into a rout. There, Wellington knew, the battle would be hardest, and to that place, as the sun rose to its zenith, Sharpe rode.

Lieutenant Colonel Leroy fiddled with his watch. ‘God damn them!’

No one spoke.

To their right, three miles away, the other columns had struck over the river. The battle there was a roiling cloud of musket and cannon smoke.

The Fifth Division waited.

Three Battalions, the South Essex one of them, would head the attack on Gamarra Mayor. Ahead of Leroy’s men was a gentle slope that led down to the village, beyond which was a stone bridge that crossed the river. Beyond the river was the Great Road. If the Division could cut the road, then the French army was cut off from France.

He snapped open the lid of his watch again. ‘What’s keeping the bloody man?’ Leroy wanted the General of Division to order the attack quickly.

The French were in Gamarra Mayor. This was the only river crossing they had garrisoned, and they had loopholed the houses, barricaded the alleys, and Leroy knew this would be grim work. Three years before, on the Portuguese frontier, he had fought at Fuentes d‘Onoro and he remembered the horrors of fighting in small, tight streets.

‘Christ on his cross!’ Across the river, where the lane from the bridge rose to the Great Road, he could see French guns unlimbering. The attack would now be harder. The guns were just high enough to fire over the village and, even if the British took Gamarra Mayor, the guns would make the bridge murderous with canister.