Sharpe's Eagle by Bernard Cornwell Page B

Sharpe. The men in red stood appalled and nervous. Sharpe noted that

Harper had put a file of Riflemen at each end of the company, the vulnerable flanks which would

be the weakest points of his force and where only steady nerves and rigid bayonets would deter

the swooping horsemen. Two nervous Lieutenants had been pushed into the files, and like the other

men of Sterritt's company they flicked their eyes at the crowd near the bridge. They wanted to

run, they wanted the safety of the other bank, but Sharpe could also see two steady Sergeants who

had seen battle before and calmly waited for orders.
    "We're going forward. To the colours." Some of the faces were white with fear. "There's

nothing to be frightened about. As long as you stay in ranks. Understand? You must stay in

ranks." He spoke simply and forcibly. Some of the men still looked towards the fugitives and the

bridge. "If anyone breaks ranks they will be shot." Now they looked at him. Harper grinned. "And

no-one fires without my orders. No-one." They understood. He unslung his rifle, threw it to

Pendleton and drew his great killing blade. "Forward!"
    He walked a few paces in front listening to Harper call out the dressing and rhythm of the

advance. He hurried. There was little time, and he guessed that the first two hundred yards would

be easy enough. They advanced over the flat, open ground, unencumbered by horsemen. The difficult

stretch was the final hundred paces when the company would have to keep in ranks while they

stepped over the dead and wounded and when the French would realise the danger and challenge

them. He wondered how much time had elapsed since the fatal Spanish volley; it could only be

minutes, yet suddenly he was feeling again the sensations of battle. There was a familiar

detachment; he knew it would last until the first volley or blow, and he noticed irrelevant

details; it seemed as if the ground were moving beneath him rather than he walking on the dusty,

cracked soil of early summer. He saw each sparse blade of pale grass; there were ants scurrying

round white specks in the dirt. The fight round the colours seemed far away, the sounds tiny, and

he wanted to close the gap. There were the beginnings of excitement, elation even, at the

nearness of battle. Some men were fulfilled by music, others by trade; there were men who took

pleasure in working the soil, but Sharpe's instincts were for this. For the danger of battle. He

had been a soldier half his life, he knew the discomforts, the injustices, he knew the

half-pitying glances of men whose business let them sleep safe at night, but they did not know

this. He knew that not all soldiers felt it; he could feel ashamed of it if he gave himself time

to think, but this was not the time.
    The French were being held. Someone had organised the survivors of the British square, and

there was a kneeling front rank, its muskets jammed into the turf, bayonets reaching up at the

chests of the horses. The sabres cut ineffectively at the angled muskets; there were shouts,

screams of men and horses, a veil of powder smoke in which flashes of flame and steel ringed the

colours. As he walked, the great sword held low in his hand, he could see riderless horses

trotting round the melee where Chasseurs had been shot or dragged from the saddles. Some of the

French were on foot, scything their blades or even tearing with bare hands at the British ranks.

An officer of the South Essex forced his horse out of the ring, the ranks closing instantly

behind him. He was hatless, his face unrecognisable under a mask of blood. He wrenched his horse

into a charge and lunged his slim, straight sword into the body of a Chasseur. The blade stuck.

Sharpe watched him tug at the handle, his crazed fanaticism turning to fear, and in an instant a

Frenchman showed how it should be done, his sabre neatly spearing into the Englishman's chest;

the blade turned,