Sharpe’s Eagle: The Talavera Campaign, July 1809

‘The last resort, sir.’ Simmerson mimicked Sharpe but secretly he was pleased. It was the answer he had wanted. ‘You’re soft, Sharpe! Could you teach men to fire three rounds a minute?’

Sharpe could feel the challenge in the air but there was no going back. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Right!’ Simmerson rubbed his hands together. ‘This afternoon. Forrest?’

‘Sir?’

‘Give Mr Sharpe a company. The Light will do. Mr Sharpe will improve their shooting!’ Simmerson turned and bowed to Hogan with a heavy irony. ‘That is if Captain Hogan agrees to lend us Lieutenant Sharpe’s services.’

Hogan shrugged and looked at Sharpe. ‘Of course, sir.’

Simmerson smiled. ‘Excellent! So, Mr Sharpe, you’ll teach my Light Company to fire three shots a minute?’

Sharpe looked out of the window. It was a hot, dry day and there was no reason why a good man should not fire five shots a minute in this weather. It depended, of course, how bad the Light Company were at the moment. If they could only manage two shots a minute now then it was next to impossible to make them experts in one afternoon but trying would do no harm. He looked back to Simmerson. ‘I’ll try, sir.’

‘Oh you will, Mr Sharpe, you will. And you can tell them from me that if they fail then I’ll flog one out of every ten of them. Do you understand, Mr Sharpe? One out of every ten.’

Sharpe understood well enough. He had been tricked by Simmerson into what was probably an impossible job and the outcome would be that the Colonel would have his orgy of flogging and he, Sharpe, would be blamed. And if he succeeded? Then Simmerson could claim it was the threat of the flogging that had done the trick. He saw triumph in Simmerson’s small red eyes and he smiled at the Colonel. ‘I won’t tell them about the flogging, Colonel. You wouldn’t want them distracted, would you?’

Simmerson smiled back. ‘You use your own methods, Mr Sharpe. But I’ll leave the triangle where it is; I think I’m going to need it.’

Sharpe clapped his misshapen shako on to his head and gave the Colonel a salute of bone-cracking precision. ‘Don’t bother, sir. You won’t need a triangle. Good day, sir.’

Now make it happen, he thought.

CHAPTER THREE

‘I don’t bloody believe it, sir. Tell me it’s not true.’ Sergeant Patrick Harper shook his head as he stood with Sharpe and watched the South Essex Light Company fire two volleys to the orders of a Lieutenant. ‘Send this Battalion to Ireland, sir. We’d be a free country in two weeks! They couldn’t fight off a church choir!’

Sharpe gloomily agreed. It was not that the men did not know how to load and fire their muskets; it was simply that they did it with a painful slowness and a dedication to the drill book that was rigorously imposed by the Sergeants. There were officially twenty drill movements for the loading and firing of a musket, five of them alone applied to how the steel ramrod should be used to thrust ball and charge down the barrel and the Battalion’s insistence on doing it by the book meant that Sharpe had timed their two demonstration shots at more than thirty seconds each. He had three hours, at the most, to speed them up to twenty seconds a shot and he could understand Harper’s reaction to the task. The Sergeant was openly scornful.

‘God help us if we ever have to skirmish alongside this lot! The French will eat them for breakfast!’ He was right. The company was not even trained well enough to stand in the battle-line, let alone skirmish with the Light troops out in front of the enemy. Sharpe hushed Harper as a mounted Captain trotted across to them. It was Lennox, Captain of the Light Company, and he grinned down on Sharpe.

‘Terrifying, isn’t it?’

Sharpe was not sure how to reply. To agree might seem to be criticising the grizzled Scot who seemed friendly enough. Sharpe gave a non-committal answer and Lennox swung himself out of the saddle to stand beside him.

‘Don’t worry, Sharpe. I know how bad they are, but his Eminence insists on doing it this way. If he left it to me I’d have the bastards doing it properly but if we break one little regulation then it’s three hours’ drill with full packs.’ He looked quizzically at Sharpe. ‘You were at Assaye?’ Sharpe nodded and Lennox grinned again. ‘Aye, I remember you. You made a name for yourself that day. I was with the 78th.’

‘They made a name for themselves too.’

Lennox was pleased with the compliment. Sharpe remembered the Indian field and sight of the Highland Regiment marching in perfect order to assault the Mahratta lines. Great gaps were blown in the kilted ranks as they calmly marched into the artillery storm but the Scotsmen had done their job, slaughtered the gunners, and daringly reloaded in the face of a huge mass of enemy infantry that did not have the courage to counter-attack the seemingly invincible Regiment. Lennox shook his head.

‘I know what you’re thinking, Sharpe. What the devil am I doing here with this lot?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘I’m an old man, I was retired, but the wife died, the half pay wasn’t stretching and they needed officers for Sir Henry bloody Simmerson. So here I am. Do you know Leroy?’

‘Leroy?’

‘Thomas Leroy. He’s a Captain here, too. He’s good. Forrest is a decent fellow. But the rest! Just because they put on a fancy uniform they think they’re warriors. Look at that one!’

He pointed to Christian Gibbons who was riding his black horse on to the field. ‘Lieutenant Gibbons?’ Sharpe asked.

‘You’ve met then?’ Lennox laughed. ‘I’ll say nothing about Mr Gibbons, then, except that he’s Simmerson’s nephew, he’s interested in nothing but women, and he’s an arrogant little bastard. Bloody English! Begging your pardon, Sharpe.’

Sharpe laughed. ‘We’re not all that bad.’ He watched as Gibbons walked his horse delicately to within a dozen paces and stopped. The Lieutenant stared superciliously at the two officers. So this, Sharpe thought, is Simmerson’s nephew? ‘Are we needed here, sir?’

Lennox shook his head. ‘No, Mr Gibbons, we are not. I’ll leave Knowles and Denny with Lieutenant Sharpe while he works his miracles.’ Gibbons touched his hat and spurred his horse away. Lennox watched him go. ‘Can’t do any wrong, that one. Apple of the Colonel’s bloodshot eye.’ He turned and waved at the company. ‘I’ll leave you Lieutenant Knowles and Ensign Denny, they’re both good lads but they’ve learned wrong from Simmerson. You’ve got a sprinkling of old soldiers, that’ll help, and good luck to you, Sharpe, you’ll need it!’ He grunted as he heaved himself into the saddle. ‘Welcome to the madhouse, Sharpe!’

Sharpe was left with the company, its junior officers, and the ranks of dumb faces that stared at him as though fearful of some new torment devised by their Colonel. He walked to the front of the company, watching the red faces that bulged over the constricting stocks and glistened with sweat in the relentless heat, and faced them. His own jacket was unbuttoned, shirt open, and he wore no hat. To the men of the South Essex he was like a visitor from another continent. ‘You’re in a war now. When you meet the French a lot of you are going to die. Most of you.’ They were appalled by his words. ‘I’ll tell you why.’

He pointed over the eastern horizon. ‘The French are over there, waiting for you.’ Some of the men looked that way as though they expected to see Bonaparte himself coming through the olive trees on the outskirts of Castelo Branco. ‘They’ve got muskets and they can all fire three or four shots a minute. Aimed at you. And they’re going to kill you because you’re so damned slow. If you don’t kill them first then they will kill you, it is as simple as that. You.’ He pointed to a man in the front rank. ‘Bring me your musket!’

At least he had their attention and some of them would understand the simple fact that the side which pumped out the most bullets stood the best chance of winning. He took the man’s musket, a handful of ammunition, and discarded his rifle. He held the musket over his head and went right back to the beginnings.

‘Look at it! One India Pattern musket. Fifty-five and a quarter inches long with a thirty-nine-inch barrel. It fires a ball three-quarters of an inch wide, nearly as wide as your thumb, and it kills Frenchmen!’ There was a nervous laugh but they were listening. ‘But you won’t kill any Frenchmen with it. You’re too slow! In the time it takes you to fire two shots the enemy will probably manage three. And, believe me, the French are slow. So, this afternoon, you will learn to fire three shots in a minute. In time you’ll fire four shots every minute and if you’re really good you should manage five!’

The company watched as he loaded the musket. It had been years since he had fired a smooth-bore musket but compared to the Baker rifle it was ridiculously easy. There were no grooves in the barrel to grip the bullet and no need to force the ramrod with brute force or even hammer it down. A musket was fast to load which was why most of the army used it instead of the slower, but much more accurate, rifle. He checked the flint, it was new and well seated in its jaws, so he primed and cocked the gun. ‘Lieutenant Knowles?’

A young Lieutenant snapped to attention. ‘Sir!’

‘Do you have a watch?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Can it time one minute?’

Knowles dragged out a huge gold hunter and snapped open the lid. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘When I fire you will keep an eye on that watch and tell me when one minute has passed. Understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

He turned away from the company and pointed the musket down the field towards a stone wall. Oh God, he prayed, let it not misfire, and pulled the trigger. The swan neck with its gripped flint snapped forward, the powder in the pan flashed, and a fraction later the main charge exploded and he felt the heavy kick as the lead ball was punched out of the barrel in a gout of thick, white smoke.

Now it was all instinct; the never-forgotten motions. Right hand away from the trigger, let the gun fall in the left hand and as the butt hits the ground the right hand already has the next cartridge. Bite off the bullet. Pour the powder down the barrel but remember to keep a pinch for the priming. Spit in the ball. Ramrod out, up, and down the barrel. A quick push and then it’s out again, the gun is up, the cock back, priming in the pan, and fire into the lingering smoke of the first shot.

And again and again and again and memories of standing in the line with sweating, mad-eyed comrades and going through the motions as if in a nightmare. Ignoring the billows of smoke, the screams, edging left and right to fill up the gaps left by the dead, just loading and firing, loading and firing, letting the flames spit out into the fog of powder smoke, the lead balls to smash into the unseen enemy and hope they are falling back. Then the command to cease fire and you stop. Your face is black and stinging from the explosions of the powder in the pan just inches from your right cheek, your eyes smarting from the smoke and the powder grains, and the cloud drifts away leaving the dead and wounded in front and you lean on the musket and pray that the next time the gun would not hang-fire, snap a flint, or simply refuse to fire at all.

He pulled the trigger for the fifth time, the ball hammered away down the field, and the musket was down and the powder in the barrel before Knowles called ‘Time’s up!’

The men cheered, laughed and clapped because an officer had broken the rules and showed them he could do it. Harper was grinning broadly. He at least knew how difficult it was to make five shots in a minute and Sharpe knew that the Sergeant had noticed how he had cunningly loaded the first shot before the timed minute began. Sharpe stopped the noise. ‘That is how you will use a musket. Fast! Now you’re going to do it.’

There was silence. Sharpe felt the devilment in him; had not Simmerson told him to use his own method? ‘Take off your stocks!’ For a moment no one moved. The men stared at him. ‘Come on! Hurry! Take your stocks off!’

Knowles, Denny, and the Sergeants watched, puzzled, as the men gripped their muskets between their knees and used both hands to wrench apart the stiff leather collars.

‘Sergeants! Collect the stocks. Bring them here.’

The Battalion had been brutalised too much. There was no way he could teach them to be fast-shooting soldiers unless he offered them an opportunity to take their revenge on the system that had condemned them to a flogger’s Battalion. The Sergeants came to him, their faces dubious, their arms piled high with the hated stocks.