Sharpe's Command by Bernard Cornwell

Author:Bernard Cornwell [Cornwell, Bernard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2023-08-28T12:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

Or maybe his luck was holding because, when the leading men of the French charge were about a hundred paces away, a whistle blew. The wounded officer, hit in the leg by a rifle bullet, blew the whistle and every man without a musket fitted with a bayonet stopped and aimed at Sharpe’s Fort. ‘Keep firing!’ Sharpe called. Sharpe had known he could never stop a concerted charge by all the French, but it seemed only the men with fixed bayonets were to assault the wall, and that gave him half a chance.

It was not a foolish decision by whoever commanded the enemy. The charge by the thirty or forty men who had fixed bayonets was coming from Sharpe’s right, while to his left were a hundred or more men with muskets who would swamp his makeshift fort with lead to cover their comrades’ attack. But those muskets were over a hundred paces away, which was still too distant for a smoothbore musket to be accurate, which meant the wounded officer was relying on an overwhelming volume of fire. ‘Keep firing at the buggers with bayonets!’ Sharpe called, and almost immediately the snap sound of the rifles was drowned by a huge volley from the French, but as before most of the shots whipped overhead or else smacked into the stone and timber wall. One ball plucked at Sharpe’s left sleeve. ‘Tap-load,’ he called. ‘Save the muskets till they’re close, lads.’

The charging French, he noticed, were bunching towards their right because that was where the road gave them the best footing, and those men who had already reached the road were stretching their lead over the rest, who were stumbling through the long grass. ‘We wait till they’re real close, Pat,’ Sharpe called.

‘Looking forward to it, sir,’ came the cheerful Irish reply.

Sharpe sheathed his sword and took his rifle back from Teresa. He reloaded it, taking the time to wrap a ball in its leather patch. He then stared at the closest French and picked out a big man who seemed to be shouting as he ran. He levelled the rifle, lined the sights on a broad blue chest and pulled the trigger. By the time the smoke had blown clear the big man had vanished, presumably killed.

‘To me, now. Both muskets.’ Sharpe would form a small line at the bridge’s centre and fire two volleys. He took one of Harper’s two muskets. ‘Your second shot is the volley gun, Pat.’

‘Indeed it is, sir.’

Sharpe tap-loaded his rifle and fired it again, then laid it against the wall. The men charging him were now masking the aim of many of their comrades which meant that fewer musket balls were being fired at Sharpe’s men, and those few were still going high. He reckoned that only about thirty men were charging his position, almost all of them now on the road and all with muskets encumbered by bayonets. He wondered if the muskets were loaded and reckoned most were not.

‘Present,’ he called, not too loudly, and his men raised the French muskets to their shoulders and levelled them.

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