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The French kept searching for an opportunity. Whenever a battalion was marching in a column of companies and so looked ripe for attack a sudden surge of horses would flow across the field and the trumpets would rally yet more horse to join the thunderous charge, but then the redcoats' column would break, wheel and march into square with the same precision as if they were drilling on the parade ground of their home barracks. The troops would mark time for an instant as the square was achieved, then the outer rank would kneel, the whole formation would bristle with bayonets and the horsemen would sheer away in impotent rage. A few impetuous Frenchmen would always try to draw blood and gallop too close to the square only to be blasted from their saddles, or maybe a British galloper gun would bloody a whole troop of dragoons or cuirassiers with a blast of canister, but then the cavalry would gallop out of range and the horses would be rested while the square trudged back into column and marched stoically on. The horsemen would watch them go until another flurry of trumpets summoned the whole flux of mounted men to chase yet another opportunity far across the field and once again a battalion would contract into square and once again the horsemen would wheel away with unblooded blades.
And always, everywhere, ahead and behind and in between the slowly withdrawing battalions, groups of greenjackets sniped and harried and killed. French gu
The Emperor's soldiers were also dying. The calm redcoat battalions were leaving scarcely any bodies behind, but the cavalry was being flayed by rifle and ca
Sharpe took his men back another quarter-mile to a patch of rocks where his riflemen could find cover. A pair of British guns was working close to the rocks, blasting roundshot and shell at a newly placed French battery beside the wood Sharpe had just abandoned. The flow of horse began to thicken in this part of the field as the cavalry sought out a vulnerable battalion. Two regiments, one of redcoats and the other Portuguese, were retreating past the battery and the sweating horsemen stalked the two columns. Eventually the press of horse became so thick that the columns marched into squares. "Buggers are everywhere," Harper said, firing his rifle at a chasseur officer. The two British guns had switched their aim to fire canister at the cavalry in an attempt to drive them away from the two infantry squares. The guns crashed back on their trails to jar the wheels up in the air. The gu
A surge and eddy in the mass of horse presaged another move, but instead of riding back across the fields to harry a marching column the cavalry suddenly turned on the two guns. Blood dripped from horses' flanks as riders spurred frantically towards the desperate gu
A charge of British light dragoons saved the guns. The blue-coated horsemen slashed in from the north, sabres cutting down at plumed helmets and parrying swords. More British cavalry arrived to flank the guns that were now galloping frantically northwards. The heavy ca
Sharpe's men had slipped away from the rocks to join another battalion of redcoats. They marched among the companies for a few minutes, then broke off to take position in a tangle of thorns and boulders. A small group of chasseurs in green coats, black silver-looped shakoes and with carbines slung on hooks on their white crossbelts trotted close by. The French had not noticed the small group of riflemen crouched among the thorns. They were continually taking off their shakoes and wiping sweat from their faces with their frayed red cuffs. Their horses were white with sweat. One had a leg matted with blood, but it was somehow keeping up with its companions. The officer stopped his troop and one of the men unclipped his carbine, cocked the weapon and aimed at a British gun that was unlimbering to the east. Hagman put a rifle bullet into the man's head before he could pull the trigger and suddenly the chasseurs were cursing and trying to spur their horses out of rifle range. Sharpe fired, his rifle's report lost in the crackle of sound as his men sent a volley after the enemy troop. A half-dozen of the chasseurs galloped out of range, but they left as many bodies behind. "Permission to rake the bastards over, sir?" Cooper asked.
"Go on, but equal shares," Sharpe said, meaning that whatever plunder was found had to be shared among the whole squad.
Cooper and Harris ran out to filch the bodies while Harper and Fi