Sharpes Battle   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

"Fire!" a voice shouted and the muskets and rifles cracked from the loopholed houses. A Frenchman went down, his blood thick in the water. Another fell on the clapper bridge and was unceremoniously pushed into the ford by the men crowding behind. Sharpe and Harper both fired from the inn garden, their bullets spinning over the lower roofs to plough into the mass of attackers who were now shielded from the artillery on the ridge by the village itself.

The first French attackers burst against the village's eastern walls. Bayonets clashed against bayonets. Sharpe saw a Frenchman appear on a top of a wall, then jump down into a hidden yard. More Frenchmen followed him across the wall. "Sword on, Pat," Sharpe said and drew his own sword as Harper clicked the sword bayonet onto his rifle. They ducked through the garden door and ran down the main street to find their progress blocked by a double rank of redcoats who were waiting with charged muskets and fixed bayonets. Twenty yards further down the street there were more redcoats who were firing over a makeshift barricade of window shutters, doors, tree branches and a pair of commandeered handcarts. The barricade was shaking from the assault of the French on the far side and every few seconds a musket would be thrust through the entanglement and blast fire, smoke and bullet at the defenders.

"Ready to open files!" the redcoat Lieutenant called. He looked to be about eighteen years old, but his West Country voice was firm. He nodded a greeting to Sharpe, then looked back to the barricade. "Steady now, boys, steady!"

Sharpe knew he would not need the sword yet, so sheathed it and reloaded his rifle instead. He bit the bullet off the cartridge, then held the round in his mouth as he pulled the rifle's hammer back one click to the half cock. He could taste the acrid, salty powder in his mouth as he poured a pinch of powder from the cartridge into the lock's open pan. He held tight to the rest of the cartridge as he pulled the frizzen full up to close the pan cover, then, with the rifle so primed, he let its brass stock fall to the ground. He poured the rest of the cartridge's powder into the muzzle, crammed the empty waxed cartridge paper on top of the powder to serve as wadding, then bent his head to spit the bullet into the gun. He yanked out the steel ramming rod with his left hand, spun the ramrod so that the splayed head faced downwards and thrust the rod hard down the barrel.