Sharpe's Rifles (3 page)

Rifleman Cooper cut the hobble of the Quartermaster’s mule and dragged the recalcitrant beast
up the road. Murray gave the mule a cut on its backside with his heavy sword, making it leap
forward. “Why don’t you let it go?” he shouted at the Lieutenant.

“Because I damn well need it.” The Lieutenant ordered Cooper to take the mule off the road and
up the northern hillside to clear the field of fire for Dunnett’s two companies. The greenjackets
were trained to the skirmish line, to the loose chain of men who took shelter and sniped at the
enemy, but on this retreat the men in green formed ranks as tight as the redcoats and used their
rifles for volley fire.

“Form! Form!” Sergeant Williams was shouting at Murray’s company. The French advanced gingerly
to the bridge. There were perhaps a hundred of them, a vanguard mounted on horses that looked
desperately tired and weak. No horse should have been campaigning in this weather and on these
bitter mountain roads, but the Emperor had launched these Frenchmen to finish off the British
army and so the horses would be whipped to death if that meant victory. Their hooves were wrapped
in rags to give purchase on slippery roads.

“Rifles! Fix swords!” Dunnett shouted. The long sword-bayonets were tugged from scabbards and
clipped onto the muzzles of the loaded rifles. The command was probably unnecessary. The French
did not look as though they would try another charge, but fixed swords was the rule for when
facing cavalry, so Dunnett ordered it.

The Lieutenant loaded his rifle. Captain Murray wiped moisture from the blade of his Heavy
Cavalry sword which, like the Lieutenant’s rifle, was an eccentricity. Rifle officers were
expected to wear a light curved sabre, but Murray preferred the straight-bladed trooper’s sword
that could crush a man’s skull with its weight alone.

The enemy Dragoons dismounted. They left their horses at the bridge and formed a skirmish line
that spread either side of the road. “They don’t want to play,” Murray said chidingly, then he
twisted round in hope of a glimpse of the British cavalry. There was none.

“Fall back by companies!” Major Dunnett shouted. “Johnny! Take your two back!”

“Fifty paces, go!” Murray’s two companies, accompanied by the Quartermaster and his mule,
stumbled back the fifty yards and formed a new line across the road. “Front rank kneel!” Murray
shouted.

“We’re always running away.” The speaker was Rifleman Harper. He was a huge man, an Irish
giant in a small-statured army, and a troublemaker. He had a broad, flat face with sandy eyebrows
that now were whitened by frozen sleet. “Why don’t we go down there and choke the bastards to
death. They must have bloody food in those bloody packs.” He twisted round to stare westwards.
“And where the hell’s our bloody cavalry?”

“Shut up! Face front!” It was the Quartermaster who snapped the order.

Harper gave him a lingering look, full of insolence and disdain, then turned back to watch
Major Dunnett’s companies withdraw. The Dragoons were dull shapes in the middle distance.
Sometimes a carbine fired and the wind snatched at a smear of grey smoke. A greenjacket was hit
in the leg and swore at the enemy.

The new Lieutenant guessed it was now about two hours before midday. This fighting retreat
should be over by early afternoon, after which he would have to hurry ahead to find some
cattleshed or church where the men could spend the night. He hoped a commissary officer would
appear with a sack of flour that, mixed with water and roasted over a fire °f cowdung, would have
to suffice as supper and breakfast. With luck a dead horse would provide meat. In the morning,
the men would wake with stomach cramps. They would again form ranks; they would march, then they
would turn to fight off these same Dragoons.

Dragoons who now seemed happy to let the Riflemen slip away. “They’re not very eager today,”
the Lieutenant grumbled.

“They’re dreaming of home,” Murray said wistfully. “Of chicken and garlic in a pot, good red
wine, and a plump girl in bed. Who wants to die in a miserable place like this if that’s waiting
for you?”

“We’ll retire by column of half companies!” Dunnett, convinced that the enemy would not risk
closing the gap, planned to turn his back on them and simply march away. “Captain Murray? Your
men first, if you please.”

But before Murray could give an order, the new Lieutenant’s voice called in urgent
warning,“

“Ware cavalry behind!”

“They’re ours, you fool!” Dunnett’s distaste for the Quartermaster could not be
disguised.

“Oh, Christ!” Murray had turned to look up the road along which the four companies must
retreat. “Rear rank! About turn! Major Dunnett! They’re crapauds!”

God alone knew how, but a new enemy had appeared behind. There was no time to wonder where
they had come from, only to turn and face the three fresh squadrons of Dragoons. The French
cavalry rode with open cloaks which revealed their pink-faced green coats. They carried drawn
swords. They were led, curiously, by a chasseur; an officer in the red coat, scarlet pelisse and
black fur hat of the Emperor’s Imperial Guard. Alongside him, mounted on a big roan, was an
equally strange figure; a man dressed in a black riding coat and boots that were gleaming
white.

Dunnett gaped at the new enemy. Riflemen frantically reloaded empty weapons. The Quartermaster
knelt, braced his rifle by looping its sling about his left elbow, and fired at the
chasseur.

He missed. Rifleman Harper jeered.

A trumpet sounded from the enemy. There was death in its shrill note.

The chasseur’s sabre was raised. Beside him the man in the civilian coat drew a long slim
sword. The cavalry broke into the trot and the new Lieutenant could hear the hooves on the frozen
ground. The Regiment of Dragoons still rode in squadrons that could be distinguished by the
colour of their horses. The first squadron was on black horses, the second on bays, and the third
on chestnuts; it was an arrangement common in peacetime, but rare in battle that swiftly diluted
the pattern with remounts. The trumpeters were on greys, as were the three men who carried the
guidons on their long staffs. The small flags were bright against the low clouds. The Dragoons’
long swords were even brighter, like blades of pale ice.

Major Dunnett realized his Riflemen were in danger of annihilation. “Rally square! Rally!
Rally!”

The greenjackets contracted into the rally square; a clumsy formation whereby men crowded
together for protection against cavalry. Any man who found himself in the front rank knelt and
jammed his rifle butt into the turf so that his sword-bayonet’s blade could be held rigid. Others
reloaded their rifles, skinning their frozen knuckles on the sword-bayonets’ long blades as they
rammed the charges home. Rifleman Cooper and his mule sheltered in the middle of the
square.

The chestnut squadron wheeled from the rear of the French charge, drew carbines, and
dismounted. The other two squadrons spurred into the canter. They were still a hundred paces away
and would not rowel their horses to the gallop till they were very close to their
target.

“Fire!” Dunnett shouted.

Those Riflemen who had reloaded fired.

A dozen saddles were emptied. The Riflemen jostled each other, shaking themselves into ranks
so that the rally square became a real square from which every rifle could fire. There were three
ranks of them now, each plumed with bayonets.

“Fire!” More rifles spat, more cavalry fell, then the chasseur officer, instead of pressing
the charge home, wheeled his horse away and the two squadrons sheered off to unmask the
dismounted men who now opened fire with their carbines. The first Dragoons, the company which had
waited by the bridge, closed on the square’s eastern face.

The rally square made a perfect target for the dismounted

Dragoons. If the Riflemen shook themselves into line to sweep the makeshift infantry away,
then the mounted cavalry would spur their horses back into motion and the greenjackets would
become mincemeat. The chasseur Colonel, the Lieutenant thought, was a clever bastard; a clever
French bastard who would kill some good Riflemen this day.

Those Riflemen began to fall. The centre of the square soon became a charnel house of wounded
men, of blood, screams and hopeless prayer. The rain was stinging harder, wetting the rifle pans,
but enough black powder fired to spit bullets at the enemy who, crouched in the grass, made small
and elusive targets.

The two mounted squadrons had wheeled away to the west, and now reformed. They would charge
along the line of the road, and the frozen steel of their heavy straight swords would burn like
fire when it cut home. Except, so long as the Riflemen stayed together, and so long as their
unbroken ranks bristled with the pale blades, the horsemen could not hurt them. But the enemy
carbines were taking a fearful toll. And when enough Riflemen had fallen the cavalry charge would
split the weakened square with the ease of a sword shattering a rotten apple.

Dunnett knew it, and he looked for salvation. He saw it in the low cloud which misted the
hillside just two hundred yards to the north. If the greenjackets could climb into the obscuring
shroud of those clouds, they would be safe. He hesitated over the decision. A Sergeant fell back
into the square, killed clean by a ball through his brain. A Rifleman screamed as a bullet struck
his lower belly. Another, shot in the foot, checked his sob of pain as he methodically reloaded
his weapon.

Dunnett glanced up the hill at the cloud’s refuge. He stroked his small bristly moustache that
was beaded with rain, then made his decision. “Uphill! Uphill! Keep ranks!”

The square inched uphill. The wounded screamed as they were carried. French bullets still
thumped home and the greenjacket formation became ragged as men stopped to return the fire or
help the casualties. Their progress was desperately slow, too slow for Major Dunnett’s frayed
nerves. “Break and run! Break and run!”

“No!” The new Lieutenant shouted the countermand, but he was ignored. Dunnett’s order was
given, and now it was a race. If the greenjackets could reach cover before the cavalry could
reach them then they would live, but if the chasseur officer had judged his distance right, then
he would win.

The red-coated chasseur had judged very well indeed.

The greenjackets ran, but over the sound of their hoarse breath and the pounding of their
boots came the swelling thunder of the hooves.

A man turned and saw the bared teeth of a horse. He heard a sword hissing above the sound of
the trumpet. The Rifleman screamed.

Then came chaos and slaughter.

The horsemen split the greenjackets apart then wheeled to the killing. The great swords
chopped and speared. The new Lieutenant had a glimpse of a man with pigtails swinging beneath his
helmet’s rim. He twisted aside and felt the wind of the Dragoon’s sword on his face. Another
horseman rode at him, but he swung his rifle by its muzzle to crack the horse over the mouth. The
horse screamed, reared, and the Lieutenant ran on. He was shouting for men to close on him, but
the greenjackets were scattered and running for their lives. The Battalion’s mule bolted
eastwards and Cooper, stubbornly trying to save his belongings which were strapped to the beast’s
panniers, was killed by a sword stroke.

Major Dunnett was ridden down to the turf. A seventeen-year-old Lieutenant was caught by two
Dragoons. The first blinded him with a slashing backstroke, the second stabbed into his chest.
Still the horsemen came. Their horses stank with saddlesores because they had been ridden too
hard, but they had been trained to this work. A Rifleman’s cheek Was flensed from his face and
his mouth bubbled with blood and saliva. The French grunted as they hacked. This was a
cavalryman’s paradise; broken infantry and firm ground.

The new Lieutenant still shouted as he climbed. “Rifles! To me! To me! To me!” The chasseur
must have heard him, for he turned his big black horse and spurred towards the Englishman.

The Lieutenant saw him coming, slung his empty rifle, and drew his sabre. “Come on, you
bastard!”

The chasseur held his own sabre in his right hand and, to make his killing cut easy, directed
his horse to the left of the Rifleman. The Lieutenant waited to swing his curved blade at the
horse’s mouth. The cut would stop its charge dead, making it rear and twist away. He had seen off
more horsemen than he could remember with such a stroke. The skill lay in the timing, and the
Lieutenant hoped that the horse’s panicked evasion would shake the rider loose. He wanted that
clever chasseur dead.

A touch of the Frenchman’s spurs seemed to make the horse lunge forward for the killing stroke
and the Lieutenant swung his sabre and saw he had been fooled. The horse checked and swerved in a
manoeuvre which spoke of hours of patient training. The sabre hissed in empty space. The chasseur
was not right-handed but left, and he had changed hands as his horse broke to the right. His
blade glittered as it swept down, aimed at the Rifleman’s neck.

The Lieutenant had been fooled. He had swung early and into nothing, and he was off balance.
The chasseur, knowing this Englishman was dead, was planning his next kill even before his sabre
stroke went home. He had killed more men than he could remember with this simple trick. Now he
would add a Rifle officer to all the Austrians, Prussians, Russians, and Spaniards who had not
been skilful enough.

But the chasseur’s sabre did not cut home. With a speed that was astonishing, the Rifleman
managed to recover his blade into the parry. The sabres met with a clash that jarred both men’s
arms. The Lieutenant’s four-guinea blade shattered, but not before it had taken the force from
the Frenchman’s slashing cut.

The momentum of the chasseur’s horse took him past the Englishman. The Frenchman turned back,
astonished by the parry, and saw him turning to run uphill. For a second he was tempted to
follow, but there were other, easier, targets down the hill. He spurred away.