Sharpe's Waterloo

Each man had loaded carefully. They had cleaned their rifle barrels by the old expedient of pissing down the barrels, sluicing the caked powder deposits loose, then pouring out the fouled liquid. Then, when the barrels had dried, and using the extra-fine powder they carried in their horns, the Riflemen had charged their rifles. They had wrapped their bullets in a scrap of greased leather that not only helped the bullet grip the spiralling lands in the barrel, but, when the weapon was fired, expanded to block any of the exploding gas escaping past the bullet through the barrel’s grooves. It took over a minute to load a rifle so meticulously, but the resultant shot would be as accurate as any weapon in the world.

Now, in the brief space and time they had won, the Riflemen aimed at the gu

Du

The first rifles crashed their brass butts into shoulders bruised raw by a day’s fighting. White smoke spurted across the slope. The French skirmishers began firing uphill and two Greenjackets lurched backwards. Other Riflemen still took careful aim. A gu

“Withdraw!” Du

“Got the bastard!” Harper shouted.

“Where?”

“Look at the tree, then left thirty yards!“

Sharpe was downhill of Harper. “Kneel down. Aim your rifle at the farm.”

Harper, bemused, obeyed. He braced his left leg forward, knelt on his right knee, and aimed his rifle at the kitchen garden which seemed to be filled with dead artillerymen. The first Riflemen were already ru

Sharpe lay flat on the ground and thrust his rifle between Harper’s right thigh and left calf. Now Sharpe was effectively hidden from the staff officers close to the Prince who were all staring at the slaughtered gu

Sharpe had not had time to load with the good powder, or wrap a ball in leather. Instead he was using the commonplace coarse-powder cartridge, but if God_was good this evening then an ordinary musket cartridge would suffice to avenge a thousand dead men and perhaps to save the lives of a thousand more.

“God save Ireland,” Harper hissed, “but will you bloody hurry yourself?”

“Don’t fire till I do,” Sharpe said calmly.

“We’ll bloody die together if you don’t hurry!” Sharpe and Harper were almost the last Riflemen on the slope. The rest were sprinting back to safety, while the enraged Voltigeurs were hurrying after them. Harper changed his aim to point his rifle at a French officer who seemed particularly lively.

Sharpe aimed at the Prince’s belly. The Young Frog was no more than a hundred paces away, close enough for Sharpe to see the ivory hilt of his big sabre. The rifle bullet would fall a foot over a hundred paces, so Sharpe raised the muzzle a tiny fraction.

“For the love of Ireland, will you bloody kill the bastard?”

“Ready?” Sharpe said. “Fire!”

Both men fired together. Sharpe’s rifle hammered his shoulder as smoke gouted to hide the Prince.

“Let’s get out of here!” Harper saw his target plucked backwards, and now he hauled Sharpe to his feet and both men sprinted away towards the crest. Sharpe had just staged an assassination in full view of an army, but no one shouted at him and no one gaped in astonishment because no one, it seemed, had noticed a thing. A French roundshot screamed low overhead. A Voltigeur’s-bullet clipped Sharpe’s sword scabbard and thudded into the ground.

Sharpe began laughing. Harper joined him. Together they reeled over the crest, still laughing. “Right in the bloody belly!” Sharpe said with undisguised glee.

“With your bloody marksmanship, you probably killed the Duke.”

“It was a good shot, Patrick.” Sharpe spoke as fervently as any young Rifleman first mastering the complex weapon. “I felt it go home!”

Major Warren Du

Sharpe gave it gladly. “Very. Allow me to congratulate you, Du

Sharpe led Harper to the rear of a British battery from where he could see Rebecque and a group of other Dutch officers helping the Prince away. The Prince had slumped sideways, and was only being held in his saddle by the support of his Chief of Staff. “Harry!” Sharpe shouted at Lieutenant Webster, the Prince’s only remaining British aide. “What happened, Harry?”

Webster spurred across to Sharpe. “It’s bad news, sir. The Prince was hit in the left shoulder. It isn’t too serious, but he can’t stay on the field. One of those damned skirmishers hit him, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, shit,” Sharpe spoke with obvious remorse.

“It is indeed bad news, sir.” Webster offered sympathetic agreement. “But his Highness will live. They’re taking him to the surgeons, then back to Brussels.”

Harper was trying not to laugh. Sharpe scowled. “A pity.” His voice was fervent. “A damned bloody pity!”

“It’s decent of you to be so upset, sir, especially after the way he’s treated you,” Webster said awkwardly.

“But you’ll present my regards, Lieutenant?”

“Of course I will, sir.” Webster touched his hat, then turned to ride after the wounded Prince.

Harper gri

“The bugger’s gone, hasn’t he?” Sharpe said defensively.

“Aye,“ Harper admitted, then looked ruefully along the British line. ”And it won’t be long before we’re all gone either. I’ve never seen the like, nor have I.“

Sharpe heard the Irishman’s despair of victory and was tempted to offer agreement, except that a small part of Sharpe refused to give up hope even though he knew victory would need a miracle now. The British army was reduced to a ragged line of shrunken, bleeding battalions who crouched in the mud near to the ridge’s crest that was crowned with smoke and riven by the explosions of mud thrown up by the continuing ca

The two Riflemen trudged through the smoke towards the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers while the French ca

By La Belle Alliance a tentative drum tap sounded. There was a pause as the drummer rammed the leather rings down the white ropes to tighten his drumskin, then the sticks sounded a jaunty and confident flurry. There was another pause, a shouted order, and a whole corps of drummers began to beat the pas de charge.