Sharpe's Rifles

“Ware cavalry!” the new Lieutenant shouted.

“Rifles!” Captain Murray called, “present!”

Rags were snatched from rifle locks. Men’s hands, though numb with the cold, moved quickly.

Because, in the white mist of sleet and ice, there were other shapes. Horsemen.

The shapes were grotesque apparitions in the grey rain. Dark shapes. Scabbards, cloaks, plumes and carbine holsters made the ragged outlines of French cavalry. Dragoons.

“Steady, lads, steady!” Captain Murray’s voice was calm. The new Lieutenant had gone to the company’s left flank where his mule was hobbled.

The redcoat twisted off the road, jumped a frozen ditch, then screamed like a pig in a slaughteryard. A Dragoon had caught the man, and the long straight sword sliced down to open his face from brow to chin. Blood speckled the frosted earth. Another horseman, riding from the other flank, hissed his steel blade to cut into the fugitive’s scalp. The drunken redcoat fell to his knees, crying, and the Dragoons rode over him and spurred towards the two companies which barred the road. The small stream would be no obstacle to their charge.

‘Serrez! Serrez!“ The French word of command came clear to the Riflemen. It meant ’close up!” The Dragoons bunched, booted knee to booted knee, and the new Lieutenant had time to see the odd pigtails which framed their faces before Captain Murray shouted the order to fire.

Perhaps eighty of the rifles fired. The rest were too damp, but eighty bullets, at less than a hundred yards, shattered the single squadron into a maelstrom of floundering horses, falling men, and panic. The scream of a dying horse flayed the cold day.

“Reload!”

Sergeant Williams was on the right flank of Murray’s company. He seized one of the damp rifles which had not fired, scooped the wet sludge from its pan, and loaded it with dry powder from his horn. “Pick your targets! Fire as you will!”

The new Lieutenant peered through the dirty grey smoke to find an enemy officer. He saw a horseman shouting at the broken cavalry. He aimed, and the rifle bruised his shoulder as he fired. He thought he saw the Frenchman fall, but could not be sure. A riderless horse galloped away from the road with blood dripping from its saddle-cloth.

More rifles fired. Their flames spat two feet clear of the muzzles. The French had scattered, using the sleet as a screen to blur the Riflemen’s aim. Their first charge, designed only to discover what quality of rearguard faced them, had failed, and now they were content to harass the greenjackets from a distance.

The two companies that had retreated westwards under Du

“Retire!” Murray shouted.

A few rifles spat a last time, then the men turned and scrambled up the road. They forgot their hunger and desperate tiredness; fear gave them speed, and they ran towards the two formed companies who could hold another French charge at bay. For the next few minutes it would be a cat and mouse game between tired cavalry and cold Riflemen, until either the French abandoned the effort, or British cavalry arrived to drive the enemy away.

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 Du

“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!” Du

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 Du

“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 ru

“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 Du

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!” Du

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

“Ware cavalry behind!”

“They’re ours, you fool!” Du