Sharpe's Prey

“Bloody boots,” Sergeant Filmer said to Sharpe. The sole of the Sergeant’s right boot had just come loose and was flapping. “They were a bloody new pair too, sir! Bloody boots.”

A whistle blast checked the skirmishers. They had only advanced a hundred paces, but now they knelt among the shocked wheat. They were far out of musket range, but well within a rifle’s killing distance. Sharpe watched a Danish officer holding on to his hat as he ran down the slope. “They haven’t got enough skirmishers,” he said. Even if the British had not deployed rifles still the enemy had sent too few men forward, which meant, perhaps, that they were relying on the efficiency of their battalion volleys, but only the British army trained with live ammunition, and Sharpe doubted that these Danish regulars could match the redcoats shot for shot. Poor bastards, he thought.

“We’ll skin ‘em alive, sir.” Filmer tore the sole clean off his boot and pushed it into a pocket. He looked up the slope then cocked his rifle. “Skin ’em alive.”

The British guns fired.

It had been as though both armies had been holding their breath. Now the smoke jetted and swelled above the road as the round shot screamed up the hill. The gu

The greenjackets took the Danes by surprise. The enemy’s skirmishers had been waiting for the British to advance into range, but suddenly the bullets were whistling about them and men were being plucked backward.

“Aim for the officers!” Filmer shouted. “And don’t be hurried! Aim proper!”

The riflemen knew exactly what to do. They fought in pairs. One man aimed and fired, then the other protected the first as he reloaded. The Danish skirmishers were recovering from their surprise and coming downhill to get within musket range, but they were too few and the closer they came the faster they were hit. The rifles, unlike the smoothbore muskets, had sights and many of the riflemen wore merit badges because they were expert marksmen. They aimed, fired and killed and the Danes were being hit hard at a range no man would have thought to be lethal. Filmer just watched. “Good boys,” he muttered, “good boys.” The redcoat skirmishers were firing now, but it was the rifles that were doing the damage.

“It works, Lofty!” Sharpe called.

“Bloody well does, sir!” Filmer answered cheerfully.

The enemy officer who had been holding his hat was on the ground. A man ran to him and was struck by two bullets. Riflemen called targets to each other. “See that big dozy bugger with a limp?”

Sharpe was oddly surprised by the noise. He had been in bigger battles than this, far bigger, but he had never realized just how loud it was. The ear-pounding blows of the field guns were overlaid by the crack of the rifles and the brutal coughing of muskets. And that was only the skirmishers. None of the main battalions had so much as fired a volley, yet Sharpe had to shout if he wanted Filmer to hear him. He knew he was sympathizing with the Danes. Most of them, the overwhelming majority of them, would never have been in a battle and the noise alone was an assault on the senses. It was hammering and echoing, unending, crashing gouts of dirty smoke riven with red fire and over it, like a descant, the screams of the wounded and dying. The round shot blasted great lumps of earth from the crest, ripped a Danish ca

The Rifles were pressing forward, going from shock to shock. Little fires left by wadding burned in the stubble. The redcoat skirmishers were adding their fire, but it was not needed. The Rifles were wi

“Forward!” Filmer called.

“Two on the right!” Sharpe shouted.

“See them! Maddox! Hart! Get those bastards!”

The trails of the British field guns were gouging ruts in the road as the weapons recoiled. Smoke thickened until the gu

“On! On!” Du

A riderless horse galloped along the front of the blue-coated Danish troops. Men were being thrown back from the enemy ranks by rifle bullets and the file closers were pushing men to fill the gaps. The Rifles were working. God, Sharpe thought, but it was murder. His rifle was loaded, but he had not shot it.

“Bring on the Frogs, eh, sir?” Filmer said. “Bring on the bloody Frogs!”

Wellesley ordered his cavalry forward on the left flank beside the beach. They were German hussars and they streamed out of the dunes leaving a trail of dust, their drawn blades glittering, and the sight of them must have convinced the Danes that the position was lost, for, long before the advancing redcoat battalions came within range, they began to vanish from the crest. The firing died down as the targets vanished. There was a scatter of bodies higher up the field, but only one greenjacket was down. “Get his boots,” Filmer told a man. “It was Horrible Hopkins,” he told Sharpe, “smacked in the eye.”

“Forward! Forward!” Wellesley’s voice rose sharp. The gu

There was a clamor of bugle and whistle calls. The 43rd stopped. It did not form square, though every man was half expecting the order. The riflemen, vulnerable to a cavalry charge, hurried back toward the protection of the Welshmen’s muskets, but then the German hussars appeared again, this time on the inland flank and the Danish horsemen, outnumbered, checked their advance. Sharpe, his rifle cocked ready to meet the cavalry charge, realized that Sir Arthur Wellesley must have anticipated the Danish maneuver and had his horsemen ready.

The pipes started again and Sharpe saw that the 92nd was being sent straight at the entrenchments. They were not even waiting for the artillery, just marching forward to the beat of the drums and the wild music of the pipes. “Heathen bastards,” Filmer said in a tone of admiration.

Sharpe was remembering Assaye, remembering the Highlanders marching so calmly into the heart of the enemy. The Danes, he reckoned, would have been unsettled by their swift retreat from the crest and now they were being presented with an impudent assault that reeked of confidence. They could see the British artillery unlimbering and knew that the second redcoat battalion was readying to follow the first, yet in all probability it would not be needed, for there was something utterly implacable about the Highlanders. They looked huge in their black fur hats as they advanced toward an angle of the trenches. The defenders far outnumbered them, but the trenches had been too hastily dug and the Scotsmen were attacking one salient corner so that their massed musketry could drown a small portion of the defenses with fire. The men farther down the trenches were too far away to help. “They’re going to run,” Sharpe said.