Sharpe's Company

A flame flickered on the walls, spread like fire catching on dry thatch, then heaved itself up into the air and down into the ditch. Another flame followed, then another, and the breach was lit like daylight as the carcasses, oil-soaked, hard-packed straw that was bound in tarred canvas, were lit and tossed into the ditch so that the defenders could see their targets. There was a cheer from the French, a triumphant, defiant cheer, and the musket balls plucked at the Forlorn Hope, revealed close to the summit of the jumbled stone slope, and the cheer was answered by the 45th and 88th as the battalions ran forward, a dark mass in the tangled maze of the ditch, and the assault began to look easy.

'Rifles! Sharpe shouted. He had eleven Riflemen left, apart from Harper and himself, of the thirty men he had led away from the horrors of the Coru

He ducked down beside Lawford. The French had switched to grapeshot that left the ca

Lawford touched Sharpe's arm. 'It's too easy!

Muskets spat at the assault, but not enough to check the attack. The men in the ditch felt victory close, easily gained, and the column moved on to the breach like a beast uncoiling from the ditch. Victory was close, just seconds away, and the growl was a cheer that rose with the column's climb.

The French had let them come. They let the Hope reach the very top of the shattered wall and then they unmasked the defence. There was a twin explosion, horrendous and ear-shattering, and flames startled across the breach. Sharpe winced. The cheer was laced with screams, spattered by the rattle of grapeshot, and he saw the French had mounted two guns, in hidden casements dug deep into the core of the walls either side of the breach, that could fire across the attack. They were not small guns, not field-guns, but massive pieces whose flames lanced clear across the full hundred feet width of the breach.

The Forlorn Hope disappeared, snatched into oblivion in a maelstrom of flame and grapeshot, and the head of the column was shattered by the gunfire that lacerated the upper half of the breach, clearing it with contemptuous ease. The growl faltered, turned into cries of alarm, and the column retreated, not from the guns, but from a new danger.

Flames appeared in the smoke-shrouded rubble, livid serpents that flickered in the stone, forked lightning that ran quicksilver down the scoured stones to touch the mines that had been hidden in the breach. The explosions tore the lower slope apart, flinging men and masonry into the air, blowing the first attack into failure. The meat-grinder of the breach had begun to turn.

The growl was still audible. The men from Co

The assault had been bloodily repulsed, but there was no thought except to go forward. The foot of the ramp was crowded with the men of the two battalions who climbed again in the mindless, seething bravery of siege warfare.

Lawford clutched Sharpe's arm, leaned close to his ear. 'Those bloody guns!

'I know! They fired again, a fraction early, and it was plain that no man could climb past their fire. They were dug into the very heart of the town's thick, low wall and no British siege gun could have hoped to reach them; not unless Wellington had fired at each hidden casement for a week until the whole wall collapsed like the breach itself. In front of each gun, revealed by the burning carcasses, was a trench that defended the gu

The troops were climbing again, slower now, wary of the guns and trying to avoid the burning grenades that the French were tossing on to the slope. The red explosions punctured the scattered attackers. Sharpe turned to Harper. 'Are you loaded?

The huge Sergeant nodded, gri

Sharpe gri

Lawford shouted at them. 'What are you doing?

Sharpe pointed at the nearest side of the breach. 'Going after the gun. Do you mind?

Lawford shrugged. 'Be careful!

There was no time to think, just to jump into the ditch and pray that their ankles would not twist or break. Sharpe fell awkwardly, slipping on the snow, but a huge hand grabbed his greatcoat, hauled him upright, and the two men ran across the floor of the ditch. The jump had been twenty feet and it seemed as if they had fallen into the bottom of a giant cauldron, an alchemist's vessel of fire, and the flames poured in from above. Carcasses rolled down, musket and ca

Sharpe had been counting the gaps between the shots and knew that the French gu

They threw themselves into the trench beside the breach, the trench that protected the gun. It was already filled with men sheltering from the grapeshot. The French gu