Sharpe's Waterloo

The flank of the column tried to retreat from the charge, but the Frenchmen only pressed against the ranks behind that still tried to advance to the drumbeat. The sound of the drums was menacing, yet even the men sheltered in the very heart of the column knew that something was wrong. Their left flank was dying from the Brunswicker volleys, the Duke had rallied the redcoats in their front, and now Sharpe’s men struck home on the right.

Sharpe slashed back with his heels, the horse leaped forward, and his sword crashed down like an axe. The blade drove a long splinter from a parrying musket, then hacked down again to thump through a bearskin and drive a Frenchman to his knees. The horse screamed and reared as a bayonet stabbed its chest, but then the redcoats swarmed past Sharpe to carry their blades at the enemy. The Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers had a score to settle, and so they ripped into the Emperor’s immortals with a savagery that only men atoning for a moment’s cowardice could show.

Sharpe’s horse was wounded, but not fatally. It screamed with fear or pain as he crashed a musket aside with his sword then lunged at the Frenchman’s face. The man recoiled from the blade, then went down beneath the bayonets of two snarling redcoats who thrust hard to force their blades through the Frenchman’s heavy blue greatcoat. The enemy were sweating and edging back. The column was so closely packed that the French had no space to use their weapons properly. Sharpe’s men were keening as they killed, crooning a foul music as they lunged and stabbed and gouged and fought across the dead. Sharpe’s horse half stumbled on a corpse and he flailed with the sword to find his balance. The ridge stank of blood and sweat and powder smoke. A vast crash, a

Lieutenant Doggett, still on horseback, shouted at the files to give way then crashed his horse hard into the French ranks and stabbed down with his slim sword. He was screaming madly, covering his terror with a sound mad enough for a smoking field of blood. Ahead of Sharpe an Eagle swayed over the bearskin hats. He slashed his sword towards it, but the French ranks were so close that he could not force a path towards the trophy. He swore at a man as he killed him, then drove the sword into a moustached, sun-ta

They ran. One moment they had been trying to fight, the next they were shouting that the day was lost and they were scrambling backwards from the bloody bayonets with panic and fear on their moustached faces, and the redcoats, panting and bloodied like hounds at their kill, watched in silence as the enemy elite fled. The Guard had been defeated by a remnant of red-coated killers who had sprung from the mud to maul an emperor’s glory.

“Don’t give them a chance to stand!” A commanding voice rose clear among the smoke and chaos. The Duke, cantering his horse behind the victorious battalions, was staring intently at the fleeing French. “Don’t let them stand! Go forward now! See them off our land!” Typically there was an edge of impatience in the Duke’s voice as though his men, having performed the miracle of defeating the Imperial Guard, had disappointed him by not yet converting that defeat into rout. Yet, equally typically, the Duke’s eye had missed nothing and he was not graceless at this moment of salvation. “Mr Sharpe! I am beholden to you! That is your battalion now! So take it forward!”

“ Talion!” Sharpe had no time to savour his reward. Instead he had to straighten his line to face the valley where the French were still massed, and from where their next attack would surely come. “Light company stand firm! Right flank forward! March!”

The battalion wheeled left to face the enemy again. They had to negotiate the bodies of the French dead and dying. A man called for his mother, wailing foully until the slice of a bayonet stilled his voice. A wounded horse, its rump a mess of blood and torn flesh, galloped across the slope in front of Sharpe.“

“Talion will advance!” The Sergeants and Corporals echoed Sharpe’s order. Sharpe could not tell if any officers were left, though he saw Simon Doggett was still alive and he heard Patrick Harper’s voice, and then the smoke cleared from the ridge’s crest and Sharpe advanced his men to the very edge of the valley and, amazingly, miraculously, they saw that there would be no more French attacks for the enemy had not just retreated, but had been broken.

The battle was won and across the whole smoke-wreathed battlefield the enemy infantry was ru

The Earl of Uxbridge, who had lost the Duke his cavalry just as Marshal Ney had lost the Emperor his, reined in beside Wellington who was staring hard at those few enemy who still showed defiance. “Oh damn it!” the Duke said in wonderment. “In for a pe

And so they went. The battered survivors in their shattered ranks went forward at last. Somewhere a piper began his wild Scots music as the redcoats marched in a ragged line down to the valley floor to drive a beaten enemy to final ruin. A few last guns fired from the French ridge as a loser’s defiance at the hour of defeat.

One of the ca

“Have you, by God?” The Duke galloped forward to where his infantry marched down to the valley floor. “Go on! They won’t stand now! Go on!”

Dazed men marched down a slope they had defended all day. Slowly, incredulously, the fact of victory was born in them. They had won, by God, they had won, and to their left, in the east, the sky flickered with new gun-fire and the setting sun shone on dark-uniformed troops who were swarming up the flank of the far French ridge. The Prussians had come at last.

A British regiment of light cavalry, saved to cover the retreat, now trotted forward to exploit the victory. “Eighteenth!” their Colonel shouted. “Follow me!”

“To hell!”

The trumpet sounded the ten dizzying notes. The horsemen careered down the slope, splitting the French survivors, sabring the last gu