Sharpe’s Company: The Siege of Badajoz, January to April 1812

CHAPTER TWO

The orders came late in the afternoon, surprising no one, but stirring the battalions into quiet activity. Bayonets were sharpened and oiled, muskets checked and re-checked, and still the siege guns hammered at the French defences, trying to unseat the hidden, waiting cannon. Grey smoke blossomed out of the batteries and drifted up to join the low, bellying clouds that were the colour of wet gunpowder.

Sharpe’s Light Company, as Hogan had requested, were to join the Engineers on the approach to the largest breach. They would be carrying huge hay-bags that would be thrown down the steep face of the ditch to make a vast cushion on to which the Forlorn Hope and the attacking battalions could safely jump. Sharpe watched as his men filed into the forward trench, each holding one of the grotesquely stuffed bags. Sergeant Harper dropped his bag, sat on it, pummelled it into comfort, and then lay back. ‘Better than a feather bed, sir.’

Nearly one man in three of Wellington’s army came, like the Sergeant, from Ireland. Patrick Harper was a huge man, six feet four inches of muscle and contentment, who no longer thought it odd that he fought for an army not his own. He had been recruited by hunger from his native Donegal and kept in his head a memory of his homeland, a love of its religion and language, and a fierce pride in its ancient warrior heroes. He did not fight for England, less still for the South Essex Regiment, but instead he fought for himself and for Sharpe. Sharpe was his officer, a fellow Rifleman and a friend if it was possible for a Captain and a Sergeant to be friends. Harper was proud to be a soldier, even in his enemy’s army, because a man could take pride in doing a job well. One day, perhaps, he would fight for Ireland, but he could not imagine how that could happen because the land was crushed and persecuted, the flames of resistance trampled out, and, in truth, he did not give the prospect much thought or hope. For the moment he was in Spain and his job was to inspire, discipline, humour, and cajole the Light Company of the South Essex. He did it brilliantly.

Sharpe nodded at the hay-bag. ‘It’s probably full of fleas.’

‘Aye, sir, it probably is.’ Harper grinned. ‘But there’s no room on my body for another flea.’ The whole army was verminous; lice-ridden, flea-bitten, but so inured to the discomfort that they hardly noticed it. Tomorrow, thought Sharpe, in the comfort of Ciudad Rodrigo, they could all strip off, smoke out the lice and fleas, and crush the uniform seams with a hot iron to break the eggs. But that was tomorrow.

‘Where’s the Lieutenant?’

‘Being sick, sir.’

‘Drunk?’

Harper’s face flickered in a frown. ‘That’s not for me to say, sir.’ Which meant, Sharpe knew, that Lieutenant Harold Price was drunk.

‘Will he be all right?’

‘He always is, sir.’

Lieutenant Price was new to the Company. He was a Hampshire man, the son of a ship-builder, and gambling debts and unwanted pregnancies among the local girls had persuaded his sober, church-loving father that the best place for young Price was in the army. The ship-builder had purchased his son an Ensign’s commission and, four years later, had been happy to pay the five hundred and fifty pounds that had secured Master Price’s promotion to Lieutenant. The father had been happy because the vacant Lieutenancy was in the South Essex, a Regiment that was safely abroad, and he was glad to see as great a distance as possible between himself and his youngest son.

Robert Knowles, Sharpe’s previous Lieutenant, had gone. He had bought himself a Captaincy in a Fusilier Battalion, making the vacancy Price had purchased, and Sharpe, at first, had not liked the change. He had asked Price why, as the son of a ship-builder, he had not joined the navy.

‘Seasick, sir. Could never stand up straight.’

‘You can’t do that on land.’

Price had taken a few moments to understand, then his round, friendly, misleadingly innocent face had grinned. ‘Very good, sir. Droll. But still, sir, on land, if you follow me, there’s always something solid underneath. I mean if you fall over, then at least you know it’s the drink and not the bloody ship.’

The dislike had not lasted. It was impossible to dislike Lieutenant Price. His life was a single-minded pursuit of the debauchery denied him by his stern, God-fearing family, and he retained enough sense to make sure that when he was supposed to be sober he was, at the very least, upright. The men of Sharpe’s Company liked him, were protective towards him because they believed he was not long for this world. They reasoned that if a French bullet did not kill him, then the drink would, or the mercury salts he took for the pox, or a jealous husband, or, as Harper said admiringly, sheer bloody exhaustion. The big Sergeant looked up from his hay-bag, nodded down the trench. ‘Here he is now, sir.’

Price grinned weakly at them, winced as twenty-four pounds of roundshot hammered overhead towards the city, then stared agape at Harper. ‘What are you sitting on, Sergeant?’

‘Hay-bag, sir.’

Price shook his head in admiration. ‘Christ! They should issue them every day. Can I borrow it?’

‘My pleasure, sir.’ Harper stood up and courteously waved the Lieutenant to the bag.

Price collapsed, groaned in satisfaction. ‘Wake me when glory calls.’

‘Yes, sir. Which one’s Glory?’

‘Irish wit, oh God, Irish wit.’ Price closed his eyes.

The sky was darkening, the grey clouds turning sinister, bringing on the inexorable moment. Sharpe pulled his huge sword a few inches from the scabbard, tested the honed edge, and pushed it back. The sword was one of his symbols, with the rifle, which proclaimed he was a fighter. As a Light Company officer, he should have kept to the tradition that decreed he carried a Light Cavalry sabre. He hated the curved, light blade. Instead he used a Heavy Cavalry sword, straight-bladed and ill-balanced, that he had picked up from a battlefield. It was a brute of a weapon, thirty-five inches of cumbersome steel, but Sharpe was tall and strong enough to wield it easily. Harper saw Sharpe’s thumb test the edge. ‘Expecting to use it, sir?’

‘No. We don’t go beyond the glacis.’

Harper grunted. ‘There’s always hope.’ He was loading his seven-barrelled gun, a weapon of extreme unorthodoxy. Each of the barrels was a half inch wide and all seven were fired by a single charge that punched out a spray of death. Only six hundred had been made by the gunsmith, Henry Nock, and delivered to the Royal Navy, but the massive recoil had smashed men’s shoulders and the invention had been quietly discarded. The gunsmith would have been pleased to see the huge Irishman, one of the few men strong enough to handle the weapon, meticulously loading each twenty-inch barrel. Harper liked the weapon, it gave him a distinction similar to Sharpe’s sword, and the gun had been a present from his Captain; purchased from a chandler in Lisbon.

Sharpe pulled the greatcoat tight and peered over the parapet towards the city. There was little to see. The snow, glinting with a myriad of metallic sparks, led to the slope of the glacis which was a continuation of the hill on which Ciudad Rodrigo was built. He could see where the breach was hidden behind the glacis because of the dark scars in the snow where the siege artillery had fired short. The glacis was not designed to stop infantry. It was an earthen slope, easily climbed, that was banked in front of the defences to bounce the roundshot screaming over the defenders, and it had forced Wellington to capture the French forts on nearby hills so that the British artillery could be placed high up and fire down, over the glacis, into the walls.

Beyond the glacis was a ditch, hidden from Sharpe, that would be stone-faced and wide and, beyond the ditch, the modern walls that masked, in their turn, the old mediaeval wall. The guns had pierced both walls, old and new, and turned them into a stretch of rubble, but the defenders would have prepared horrid traps to guard the gap.

It was nine years since Sharpe had been part of a besieging force, yet he could remember clearly the fierceness of the fight as the British had climbed the hill to Gawilghur and plunged into the maze of walls and ditches that the Indians had defended with ferocious bravery. Ciudad Rodrigo should, he knew, be more difficult; not because the men who defended this town were better soldiers, but because, like Badajoz, it was defended with the science of modern engineering. There was something horridly precise about the defences, with their false walls and ravelins, their mathematically sited bastions and hidden cannons, and only passion, anger, or screaming desperation would force the science to yield to the bayonets. The desperation would not subside quickly. Sharpe knew that once the attackers broke through the breach, their blood raised to a desperate pitch, the men would be ungovernable in the town’s streets. It had always been so. If a fortress did not surrender, if its defenders forced the attackers to shed their blood in an assault, then old custom, soldiers’ custom, dictated that all inside the fortress belonged to the attackers’ vengeance. Ciudad Rodrigo’s only hope lay in a short, easy fight.

Bells rang the Angelus in the town. The Catholics in the Company, all Irish, made sketchy crosses and scrambled to their feet as Lieutenant-Colonel the Honourable William Lawford, the South Essex’s Commanding Officer, came into sight. He waved the men down, grinned at the sight of the snoring Price, nodded amicably to Harper, and came and stood beside Sharpe. ‘All well?’

‘Yes, sir.’

They were the same age, thirty-five, but Lawford had been born to the Officers’ Mess. When he had been a Lieutenant, lost and frightened in his first battle, Sergeant Richard Sharpe had been with him, guiding him as Sergeants often guide young officers. Then, when both men had been in the torture chambers of the Sultan Tippoo, Lawford had taught Sharpe to read and write. The skills had made it possible for Sharpe, once he had performed an act of suicidal bravery, to be made into an officer. Lawford stared over the parapet at the glacis. ‘I’ll come with you tonight.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Sharpe knew that Lawford had no need to be there, but also knew he could not dissuade him from coming. He glanced at his Colonel. As usual, Lawford was immaculately uniformed; gold lace glinting above the clean, yellow facings of the scarlet jacket. ‘Wear a greatcoat, sir.’

Lawford smiled. ‘You want me to disguise myself?’

‘No, sir, but you must be bloody cold, and we all like a shot at a fancy Colonel.’

‘I’ll wear this.’ Lawford held up a cavalry cloak, fur trimmed and lavish. The fastening was a gold chain at the neck and Sharpe knew the cloak would billow open and leave the uniform exposed.

‘It won’t hide the uniform, sir.’

‘No, Sergeant.’ Lawford smiled. He had spoken softly and the remark was an acknowledgement that their relationship was still the same, despite the promotions. Lawford was a good officer who had turned the South Essex from a frightened Regiment into a hardened, confident unit. But soldiering was not Lawford’s life; instead it was a means to his ends, political ends, and he wanted success in Spain to pave the way to power at home. In war he still relied on Sharpe, the natural soldier, and Sharpe was grateful for the trust and the freedom.

Beyond the river, towards Portugal, the fires of the British camp glowed bright in the dusk. In the trenches the battalions waiting for the assault shivered, gratefully drank the rum that was issued, and went through the tiny rituals that always preceded battle. Uniforms were pulled straight, belts made comfortable, weapons obsessively checked, and men felt in pockets or pouches for the talismans that kept them alive. A lucky rabbit’s foot, a bullet that had nearly killed them, a memento of home, or just a plain pebble that had caught their eye as they lay under heavy fire on a battlefield. The clocks moved up from the half hour towards the hour.

Generals fidgeted as they tried to persuade themselves their plans were as near perfect as possible, Brigade Majors fussed over last minute orders, while the men themselves wore that wary, stretched look that soldiers have before an event that demands their deaths to make it memorable. Packs were piled, to be guarded by men who would wait in the trenches, and bayonets were slotted and twisted on to musket barrels. The job, General Picton said, would be done with cold iron; and there would be no time to reload a musket in the breach, just to push on, bayonet out, reaching for the enemy. They waited for night. Made small jokes, fought with the imagination.

At seven it was dark. The big church clock in the tower that had been chipped and scarred by cannon balls, whirred as it geared itself to strike the hour. The sound was clearly audible over the snow. The orders must come soon. The siege guns stopped firing, a sudden silence that seemed unnatural after the days of hammering at the defences. Sharpe could hear men coughing, stamping their feet, and the little noises were terrible reminders of how small and frail men were against the defences of a fortress.

‘Go!’ The Brigade Majors had the orders. ‘Go!’

Lawford touched Sharpe’s shoulder. ‘Good luck!’

The Rifleman noticed the Colonel was still uncloaked, but it was too late now. There was a stirring in the trenches, a rustle as the hay-bags were pushed out of the trench, and then Harper was beside him and, beyond the Sergeant, Lieutenant Price, wide-eyed and pale. Sharpe grinned at them. ‘Come on.’

They climbed up on the fire-step, over the parapet, and went in silence towards the breach.

1812 had begun.

CHAPTER THREE

The snow was brittle, crunching beneath Sharpe’s boots, while behind him he could hear the sounds of men slipping in the whiteness, their breath rasping in the cold air, their equipment clinking as they started up the hill towards the glacis.

The crest of the defences were limned by a faint, red haze where the lights in the town, fires and bracketed torches, glowed in the night mist. It seemed unreal, but to Sharpe battles often seemed unreal, especially now as he climbed the snow-slope towards the silent, waiting town and with each step he expected the sudden eruption of cannon and the shriek of grape. Yet the defenders were quiet, as if they were oblivious of the mass of men who churned the snow towards Ciudad Rodrigo. In two hours at the most, Sharpe knew, it would all be over. Talavera had taken a day and a night, Fuentes de Oñoro all of three days, but no man could endure the hell of a breach for more than a couple of hours.

Lawford was beside him, the cloak still held over one arm and the gold lace reflecting the dim, red light ahead. The Colonel grinned at Sharpe; he looked, the Rifleman thought, very young.

‘Perhaps we’re surprising them, Richard.’

The answer was instant. From ahead, from the left and right, the French gunners put matches to the priming tubes, the cannons banged back on their trails, and the canisters were spat over the glacis. The crest of the defences seemed to erupt in great, boiling clouds of smoke that were lit by internal lances of flame that reached from the wall, over the ditch, to spear their tongues of light on to the snow-slope. Following the thunder, so close that the sounds were indistinguishable, came the explosions of the canisters. Each was a metal can packed with musket balls which were blown apart by a powder charge. The balls hammered down. The snow was spotted with crimson.

There were shouts far to the left and Sharpe knew that the Light Division, attacking the smaller breach, were pouring over the glacis into the ditch. He slipped on the snow, recovered, and shouted at his men. ‘Come on!’

The smoke rolled slowly from the glacis, carried south on the night wind, and was then put back by the gunners’ next volley. The canisters cracked apart again, the mass of men hurried as the shouts of officers and Sergeants drove them up the slope to the dubious safety of the ditch. Far back, behind the first parallel, a band played and Sharpe caught a snatch of the tune and then he was at the top of the slope, the ditch black beneath him.

There was a temptation to stay a few feet down the slope and hurl the bags hopefully into the darkness, but Sharpe had long taught himself that the few steps of which a man is afraid are the important steps. He stood on the crest, Lawford beside him, and shouted at his men to hurry. The hay-bags thumped softly down in the blackness.

‘This way! This way!’ He led them right, away from the breach, their job finished, and the Forlorn Hope were jumping down into the ditch and Sharpe felt a pang of envy.

‘Down! down!’ He pushed them flat on the crest of the glacis and the cannons crashed overhead so close that the Light Company could feel the lick of their hot breath. The battalions were coming behind to follow the Forlorn Hope. ‘Watch the wall!’ The best help that the Light Company could be now to the attack was to snipe over the ditch as soon as any target could be seen.

All was blackness. Sounds came from the ditch; boots scuffing, the scrape of a bayonet, a muffled curse, and then the scrabbling of feet on rubble that told him the Hope had reached the breach and were climbing the broken stone slope. Musket flashes dazzled from the breach summit, the first opposition to the Forlorn Hope, but the fire did not appear to be heavy and Sharpe could hear the men still climbing.

‘So far …’ Lawford left the sentence unfinished.

There were shouts from behind and Sharpe turned to see the attackers reaching the crest and jumping recklessly into the ditch. There were shouts as men missed the hay-bags, or landed on their comrades, but the leading battalions were in place, and they were going forward in the darkness, and Sharpe heard the growl that he remembered from Gawilghur. It was an eerie sound made by hundreds of men in a small place, steeling themselves to go into the narrow breach, and it was a sound that would last till the battle was decided.

‘It’s going well!’ Lawford’s face was nervous. It was going too well. The Hope had to be nearing the end of their long climb, the 45th and 88th were on their heels, and still the only French reaction was the few musket shots and the canister that still exploded far behind over the hurrying reserves. Something more had to be waiting in the breach.

A flame flickered on the walls, spread like fire catching on dry thatch, then heaved itself up into the air and down into the ditch. Another flame followed, then another, and the breach was lit like daylight as the carcasses, oil-soaked, hardpacked straw that was bound in tarred canvas, were lit and tossed into the ditch so that the defenders could see their targets. There was a cheer from the French, a triumphant, defiant cheer, and the musket balls plucked at the Forlorn Hope, revealed close to the summit of the jumbled stone slope, and the cheer was answered by the 45th and 88th as the battalions ran forward, a dark mass in the tangled maze of the ditch, and the assault began to look easy.

‘Rifles!’ Sharpe shouted. He had eleven Riflemen left, apart from Harper and himself, of the thirty men he had led away from the horrors of the Corunna retreat three years before. They were the core of his Company, the green-jacketed specialists, whose modern Baker rifles could kill at three hundred paces and more, while the smooth-bore musket, the Brown Bess, was virtually useless at more than fifty yards. He heard the distinctive crack of the weapons, less muffled than the muskets, and saw a Frenchman fall back as he tried to throw another burning carcass down the breach slope. Sharpe wished he had more rifles. He had trained some of his redcoats to use the weapon, but he would have liked more.

He ducked down beside Lawford. The French had switched to grapeshot that left the cannon barrels like duck shot from a fowling piece. He heard the whistle of balls over his head, saw a flame stab down into the ditch towards the crowded battalions, but in the fire-light he could see the redjacketed British were nearing the mid-point of their climb. The Forlorn Hope, still almost intact, were just paces from the top, their bayonets held out, while behind them the lower half of the breach was darkened by the mass of the assaulting column.

Lawford touched Sharpe’s arm. ‘It’s too easy!’

Muskets spat at the assault, but not enough to check the attack. The men in the ditch felt victory close, easily gained, and the column moved on to the breach like a beast uncoiling from the ditch. Victory was close, just seconds away, and the growl was a cheer that rose with the column’s climb.

The French had let them come. They let the Hope reach the very top of the shattered wall and then they unmasked the defence. There was a twin explosion, horrendous and earshattering, and flames startled across the breach. Sharpe winced. The cheer was laced with screams, spattered by the rattle of grapeshot, and he saw the French had mounted two guns, in hidden casements dug deep into the core of the walls either side of the breach, that could fire across the attack. They were not small guns, not field-guns, but massive pieces whose flames lanced clear across the full hundred feet width of the breach.

The Forlorn Hope disappeared, snatched into oblivion in a maelstrom of flame and grapeshot, and the head of the column was shattered by the gunfire that lacerated the upper half of the breach, clearing it with contemptuous ease. The growl faltered, turned into cries of alarm, and the column retreated, not from the guns, but from a new danger.

Flames appeared in the smoke-shrouded rubble, livid serpents that flickered in the stone, forked lightning that ran quicksilver down the scoured stones to touch the mines that had been hidden in the breach. The explosions tore the lower slope apart, flinging men and masonry into the air, blowing the first attack into failure. The meat-grinder of the breach had begun to turn.

The growl was still audible. The men from Connaught and Nottinghamshire were going back to the breach, over their mangled dead, past the blackened, smoking pits where the mines had been dug, and the French screamed insults at them; called them boy-lovers and weaklings, and followed the insults with more burning carcasses and lumps of timber or stone that avalanched on the slope and hurled men back into the blood-soaked base of the breach. The vast guns in their hidden, flanking casements were being reloaded, ready for their next targets, and they came, clawing their way up the blood-slick ramp till the thunder crashed again, the flames slapped at the breach, and the myriad scraps of grapeshot blasted the stones clear.

The assault had been bloodily repulsed, but there was no thought except to go forward. The foot of the ramp was crowded with the men of the two battalions who climbed again in the mindless, seething bravery of siege warfare.

Lawford clutched Sharpe’s arm, leaned close to his ear. ‘Those bloody guns!’