Sharpes Eagle   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

“Sir?”

He turned and looked at the Sergeant. He told him, flatly and simply, what had happened and watched the broad Irish face turn bleak with anger.

“How is she?”

Sharpe shook his head. “She lost a lot of blood. They beat her.”

The Sergeant searched the ground in front of him, sifting through the firelight and the humped shadows, the far musket flashes that could be French or English. When he spoke his voice was soft. “And the two of them? What will you do?”

“Lieutenant Berry died in tonight’s battle.”

Harper turned and looked at his Captain, at the blade which lay red beside him, and smiled slowly. “The other one?”

“Tomorrow.”

Harper nodded and turned back to the batde. The French had been held, judging by the position of the musket flashes, as if in pushing ever deeper into the lines they had marched into a thickening opposition they at last could not break. Sharpe searched the darkness to his right. The French must have sent more troops, but there was no sign of them. The ground in front was bare of movement. He turned round.

“Lieutenant Knowles!”

“Sir!” The voice came from the darkness but was followed by Knowles’ anxious face coming up the slope. “Sir? You’re all right, sir?”

“Like a dog with a bone, Lieutenant.” Knowles could not understand Sharpe’s seeming content. Rumours had run through the company since Harper and the Riflemen had returned without the Captain. “Tell the men to fix bayonets and come up here. It’s time we joined in.”

Knowles grinned. “Yes, sir.”

“How many men do we have?”

“Twenty, sir, not counting the Rifles.”

“Good! To work then.”

Sharpe stood up and walked onto the hilltop. He waved the Riflemen forward and waited for Knowles and his group to climb into the light. Sharpe waved left and right with the sword.

“Skirmish order! Then slowly forward. We’re not trying to take on the column but let’s flush out their skirmishers.”

The bayonets gleamed red in the firelight, the line walked steadily forward, but the enemy skirmishers had disappeared. Sharpe took them to a hundred yards from the enemy column and waved the men down. There was nothing they could do except watch a demonstration of British infantry at its best. The French had ploughed their way almost to the end of the hill but had been checked by a Battalion that Sharpe guessed must have marched from the foot of the hill and now stretched itself ahead of the French like an impassable barrier.