Sharpe’s Sword: The Salamanca Campaign, June and July 1812

Sharpe had missed, but one of his men, Hagman probably, struck Delmas’s horse. The Frenchman was pitched forward, the horse down on its knees, while dust spumed up to hide the dying horse and falling man.

‘Skirmish order!’ Sharpe yelled, not wanting his men to be bunched into an easy target for the French artillery in the fortresses across the river. He was running fast now, pumping his arms left and right to tell his men to spread out, while ahead Lieutenant Colonel Windham raced up towards the fallen Delmas.

The Frenchman scrambled to his feet, glanced once behind, and began running. The hounds bayed, stretched out, while Windham, sabre reaching forward, thundered behind.

The first French cannon fired from the fortress closest to the river. The sound of the gun was flat over the water, a boom that echoed bleakly above the beauty of river and bridge, and then the shot struck short of Windham, bounced, and came on up the hill. The French gun barrels would be cold, making the first shots drop short, but even a bouncing shot was dangerous.

‘Spread out!’ Sharpe shouted. ‘Spread out!’

More guns fired, their reports mingling like thunder, and the wind of one bouncing shot almost wrenched Windham from his horse. The beast swerved and only the Colonel’s superb horsemanship saved him. The spurs went back, the sword was held out again, and Sharpe watched as the running Frenchman stopped and turned to face his pursuer.

Another gun from the fortress, a different note to this firing, and the hillside seemed to leap with small explosions of soil where the canister bullets, sprayed from the bursting tin can at the gun’s muzzle, pecked at the soil. ‘Spread out! Spread out!’ Sharpe was running recklessly, leaping rough ground, and he threw away his fired rifle, knowing one of his men would retrieve it, and clumsily drew his huge, straight sword.

Windham was angry. Honour had been trampled by the breaking of Delmas’s parole, and the Colonel was in no mood to offer the Frenchman mercy. Windham heard the canister strike the ground, heard an agonised yelp as one of his hounds was hit, and then he forgot everything because Delmas was close, facing him, and the British Colonel stretched out with his curved sabre so that its point would spear savagely into the fugitive’s chest.

It seemed to Windham that Delmas struck with his sword too soon. He saw the blade coming, was just bracing his arm for the shock of his own blade meeting the enemy, and then Delmas’s beautiful sword, as it had been intended to do, slammed viciously into the mouth of Windham’s horse.

The animal screamed, swerved, reared up, and Windham fought for control. He let his sabre hang by its wrist-strap as he sawed at the reins, as he saw blood spray from his injured horse’s mouth, and as he struggled he never saw the Frenchman move behind, swing, and never knew what killed him.

Sharpe saw. He shouted helplessly, uselessly, and he saw the great sword slam blade-edge into the Colonel’s back.

Windham seemed to arch away from the stroke. Even in death his knees gripped the horse, even as his head dropped, as his arms went limp and the sabre dangled uselessly. The horse screamed again, tried to shake the dead man from the saddle. It fled away from the man who had hurt it, still bucking and hurting, and then, almost mercifully, a barrelload of canister threw man and horse into a bloodied mess on the turf.

The hounds sniffed at the dead man and dying horse. Its hooves drummed the dry earth for an instant, the hounds whimpered, and then the horse’s head was down. Blood drained quickly into the parched soil.

Delmas was limping. The fall must have hurt him, but still he hurried, gritting his teeth against the pain, but now Sharpe was gaining. There were houses at the bridge’s southern end, a small outpost of the university city across the river, and Sharpe saw the Frenchman disappear behind a wall. Delmas was almost onto the bridge.

Another canister load of musket balls flayed into the turf, filling the summer air with their whip-crack of death, and then Sharpe saw Patrick Harper, the giant Sergeant, racing up on his right with his seven-barrelled gun held in his hand. Sharpe and Harper were nearing the houses, nearing the safety afforded by their walls from the French guns in the fortresses, but Sharpe had a sudden premonition of danger. ‘Go wide, Patrick! Wide!’

They swerved right, still running, and as they cleared the corner of the house to get their first glimpse of the roadway running straight across the wide river, Sharpe saw too the kneeling Frenchman pointing a brace of pistols at the place where he expected his pursuers to appear. ‘Down!’

Sharpe sprawled into Harper, sending them both in a bruising fall to the earth, and at that moment the pistols cracked and the two balls sounded sibilant and wicked over their heads.

‘Jesus!’ Harper was heaving himself upright. Delmas had already turned and was limping onto the bridge, hurrying towards the northern bank beneath the three fortresses.

The two Riflemen ran forward. They were safe for a moment, hidden from the gunners by the houses, but Sharpe knew that as soon as they emerged onto the bridge the canisters would begin to rattle the ancient stones. He led Harper left, into what little protection the crenellated, low parapet might give, but the very instant that they stepped onto the bridge was the moment they both instinctively dropped to the roadway, heads covered, appalled by the sudden storm of canister that tangled the air above the bridge.

‘God save Ireland.’ Harper muttered.

‘God kill that bastard. Come on!’

They crawled, keeping below the parapet, and their pace was pitifully slow so that Sharpe could see Delmas opening the gap between them. In his path the Frenchman seemed to leave a maelstrom of striking shot, screaming stone shards chipped from the road, the noise of metal on stone, yet the Frenchman was untouched, kept safe by the gunner’s accuracy, and Sharpe could sense that Delmas was escaping.

‘Down, sir!’ Harper unceremoniously pushed Sharpe with a huge hand, and Sharpe knew that the horrid seven-barrelled gun was being aimed over his head. He clapped his hands to his ears, abandoning the sword for a second, and waited for the explosion above his head.

It was a horrid weapon, a gift from Sharpe to his Sergeant, and a gun that only a huge man could handle. It had been made for the Royal Navy, intended as a weapon to be fired from the topworks down onto the packed decks of enemy ships, but the vicious recoil of the seven half-inch barrels had thrown the sailors clear out of the rigging, sending them falling with fractured shoulders onto their own decks. Patrick Harper, the huge Irishman, was one of the few men who had the brute strength to use one, and now he aimed the stubby, bunched barrels at the pantalooned figure that was limping beneath the arch of the small fortress.

He pulled the trigger and the gun belched smoke, bullets, and burning wadding that fell onto Sharpe’s neck. It was a deadly gun at close range, but at fifty yards, the distance of Delmas’s lead, it would be a lucky bullet that hit. A single word over Sharpe’s head told him the Irishman had missed.

‘Come on!’

A half dozen Riflemen had crawled onto the bridge after Sharpe and Harper, the rest stayed in the lee of the buildings and frantically loaded their weapons in hope of a clear shot. Sharpe pushed on, cursing the canister that screamed above the roadway. One ball, freakishly ricocheting from the far parapet, struck his boot heel, and Sharpe swore. ‘We’ll have to bloody run, Patrick.’

‘Sweet Jesus!’ The Donegal accent could not hide his feelings about running through the storm of shot. Harper touched the crucifix he wore about his neck. Since he had met Isabella, the Spanish girl he had saved from the rape at Badajoz, he had become more religious. The two might live in mortal sin, but Isabella made sure her huge man paid some respect to their church. ‘Say the word, sir.’

Sharpe waited for another grinding barrelful of canister to crash onto the roadway. ‘Now!’

They sprinted, Sharpe’s sword heavy in his pumping arm, and the air seemed filled with the sound of death and the fear rose in him, fear at this ghastly way of dying, hit by canister and unable to strike back. He skidded into the safety of the small archway beneath the fortress and fell against the wall. ‘God!’

They had survived, God only knew how, but he would not try it again. The air had seemed thick with shot. ‘We’ll have to bloody crawl, Patrick.’

‘Anything you say, sir.’

Daniel Hagman, the oldest man in Sharpe’s Company, and the best sharpshooter in the Battalion, methodically loaded his rifle. He had been a poacher in his native Cheshire, caught one dark night, and he had left wife and family to join the army rather than face the awful justice meted out by the Assizes. He did not use a cartridge with its rough powder, instead he measured his charge from the fine powder kept in his Rifleman’s horn, and then he selected a bullet and rammed it down the barrel. He had wrapped the bullet in a greased leather patch, a patch that would grip the rifling when the gun was fired and give a spin to the bullet which made the weapon so much more accurate than the smooth-bore musket. He primed the gun, aimed, and in his mind was the memory of Rifleman Plunkett who, four years before, had sent a bullet a full and astonishing eight hundred yards to kill a French General. Plunkett was a legend in his regiment, the 95th, because the Baker Rifle was not reckoned to be truly accurate much over two hundred yards, and now Hagman had a clear sight of his target just a hundred yards away.

He smiled. At this range he could pick his spot, and he chose the lower spine, letting the foresight settle a little above it, letting half his breath out, holding it, and then he squeezed the trigger.

He could not miss at that range. The rifle slammed into his shoulder, smoke jetting from pan and muzzle, the burning powder stinging his cheek.

The canister screamed onto the bridge, four cannon-loads fired at once, and Hagman never knew what happened to his bullet. It never reached Delmas. Somewhere in the horror metal over the bridge the bullet was lost, a freak chance, but Delmas still lived, still limped on towards the safety of the far bank.

Yet there was still a chance. The fortresses were built on top of the hill above the river and once the bridge was close to the northern bank the guns could not see the roadway. In a few more yards, Sharpe knew, he would be able to stand up and run in safety, and Delmas knew it too. The Frenchman forced himself on, ignoring the pain, refusing to be beaten, and he managed to force his hurting body into a slow run that took him even further ahead.

Then it seemed that everything would be lost. There were shouts ahead and Sharpe looked up to see blue uniforms running down the hill towards the bridge. Voltigeurs! French Light infantry, their red epaulettes distinctive in the sunlight, and Sharpe swore for he knew that these troops had been sent out of the fortresses to see Delmas to safety. A dozen Frenchmen were coming down the hill, while others waited at its crest.

Sharpe crawled, pushing himself on, Harper’s breathing hoarse behind him. It truly did seem hopeless now. The Voltigeurs would reach Delmas long before Sharpe or Harper could, but he would not give up. A shard of stone, chipped by a canister strike, clanged on the metal scabbard of his sword while another skinned across his knuckles and drew bright blood.

The Voltigeurs were at the bridge’s end, lining it, fumbling their muskets into the firing position, and Delmas was just feet away. A rifle bullet cracked past Sharpe, he saw a French Voltigeur duck away from the passing of the bullet, and then another Frenchman pitched forward. Forward! Sharpe looked up. There was musket smoke from the houses of the city which bordered the wasteland the French had cleared about the fortresses. ‘Look!’ He pointed up. ‘The Sixth must have got here!’

It was not the Sixth Division. The muskets were being fired by the citizens of Salamanca, venting their anger on the French who had occupied the city for so long. The Voltigeurs were caught between the two fires; the Riflemen firing across the long bridge and the Spaniards aiming from behind.

‘Come on!’ They had reached the safe part of the bridge, that part which could not be reached by the guns, but at the same moment Delmas had stumbled into the arms of his rescuers who were already retreating, taking the fugitive up towards the forts.

Sharpe and Harper ran, not caring about the odds, and the French Voltigeur officer calmly turned six of his men around, lined them, and brought their muskets up into the aim.

Sharpe and Harper split automatically, Harper going to the right of the bridge, Sharpe to the left, so that the enemy would have to choose between two smaller targets. Sharpe was shouting now, an incoherent shout of rage that would frighten the enemy, and he could hear Harper bellowing to his right.

Another rifle bullet cracked past them, hitting a Frenchman in the knee and his shout of sudden pain made the others nervous. Two of their number were wounded, both men crawling back towards the hill. Behind them Spanish muskets fired, before them the Riflemen were firing down the long length of the bridge between the two huge men who were screaming defiance at them. The four remaining Voltigeurs pulled their triggers, wanting only to retreat to the safety of the fortresses.

Sharpe sensed the wind of the musket balls, knew he was not hit, and he had the huge sword ready for its first strike. The enemy skirmishers were going backwards, retreating after Delmas, but the officer tried to hold them. He shouted at them, pulled at one of them, and when he saw it was hopeless he turned himself with his long, slim sword waiting for Sharpe.

It was the French officer’s bravery that made the four men turn. Their muskets were not loaded, but they still had bayonets which they twisted onto their muskets, but they were too late to save their Lieutenant.

Sharpe could see the fear in the man’s eyes; wished that he would turn and run, but the man insisted on staying. He moved to block Sharpe, bringing his sword up to lunge, but the huge cavalry sword beat it aside in a numbing, ringing blow, and then Sharpe, not wanting to kill the man, shoulder charged and sent the officer flying backwards onto the roadway of the bridge’s entrance.

The four Voltigeurs were coming back, bayonets outstretched. Sharpe turned towards them, teeth bared, sword ready, but suddenly he could not move. The French Lieutenant had grabbed his ankle, was holding on for dear life, and the Voltigeurs, seeing it, suddenly hurried to take advantage of Sharpe’s loss of balance.

It was a fatal mistake. Patrick Harper, the Irishman, counted himself a friend of Sharpe, despite the disparity in rank. Harper was hugely strong, but, as with so many strong men, he had a touching gentleness and even placidity. Harper was mostly content to let the world go by, watching it with wry humour, but never so in battle. He had been raised on the songs and stories of the great Irish warriors. To Patrick Harper, Cuchulain was not an imaginary hero from a remote past, but a real man, an Irishman, a warrior to emulate. Cuchulain died at twenty-seven, Harper’s present age, and he had fought as Harper fought, with a wild battle song intoxicating him. Harper knew that mad joy too, he had it now as he charged the four men and shouted at them in his own, old language.