Sharpes Battle   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

The fuses were cut for the desired time, then pushed into the case shot and ignited by the firing of the gun itself, but a fuse that had been left too long would let the shot scream safely over the enemy's heads while one cut too short would explode prematurely. Gunner sergeants were cutting the fuses in different lengths, then laying the ammunition in piles that represented the different ranges. The first shells had fuses over half an inch long that would delay the explosion until the shot had carried eleven hundred yards while the shortest fuses were tiny stubs measuring hardly more than a fifth of an inch that would ignite the charge at six hundred and fifty yards. Once the enemy infantry was inside that distance the gunners would switch to roundshot alone and after that, when the French had closed to within three hundred and fifty yards, the guns would employ canister: tin cylinders crammed with musket balls that spread apart at the very muzzle of the cannon as the thin tin was shredded by the gun's powder charge.

These guns would be firing down the slope and over the stream so that the French infantry would be exposed to shell or shot for their whole approach. That infantry was now forming its columns. Sharpe tried to count the eagles, but there were so many standards and so much movement among the enemy that it was hard to make an accurate assessment. "At least a dozen battalions," he said.

"So where are the others?" Harper asked.

"God knows," Sharpe said. During his reconnaissance with Hogan the night before he had estimated that the French were marching to Almeida with at least eighty infantry battalions, but he could only see a fraction of that host forming their attack columns at the edge of the far woods. "Twelve thousand men?" he guessed.

The last mist evaporated from the village just as the French opened fire. The opening salvo was ragged as the gun captains fired in turn so that they could observe the fall of their shot and so make adjustments to their guns' aim. The first shot fell short, then bounced up over the few houses and walled gardens on the far bank to plough into a tiled roof halfway up the village slope. The sound of the gun arrived after the crash of falling tiles and splintering beams. The second shot cracked into an apple tree on the stream's eastern bank and scattered a small shower of white blossom before it ricocheted into the water, but the next few rounds were all aimed straight and hammered into the village houses. The British gunners muttered grudging approval of the enemy gunners' expertise.

"I wonder what poor sods are holding the village," Harper said.

"Let's go and find out.