Sharpe's Revenge by Bernard Cornwell

the trench. Taplow’s men were brawling, stabbing and clawing their way through the battery while, just seventy paces to their left, a fresh enemy battalion was marching through the gunsmoke. The only man to have seen that threat was Frederickson, who had spread his skirmishers in a tenuous line to block the enemy’s approach, but a handful of Riflemen could not hope to stop a determined charge by a whole battalion. Taplow’s men were in utter disorder, seeking only vengeance, yet at any moment the enemy’s counter-attack would come on them like thunder.
    â€˜Form companies!’ Sharpe shouted at the fusiliers. He spurred Sycorax over the shallow trench, then used the flat of his sword on men hunting down the last gunners who were trying to find refuge beneath the hot barrels of their guns. ‘Form companies!’ He found a Major. ‘Are-you in command now?’
    â€˜Command?’ The man was dazed.
    â€˜Taplow’s dead.’
    â€˜Good God!’ The Major gaped at Sharpe.
    â€˜For Christ’s sake, form your men! You’re about to be attacked.’
    â€˜We are?’
    Sharpe twisted to his left and saw that the French battalion had checked their advance while they fixed bayonets yet, despite the small delay, there could not be more than half a minute before the French advanced into the captured battery where they would make mincemeat of the redcoats. Sharpe shouted for the men to form, and a few Sergeants saw the danger and took up the cry, but Sharpe knew it was hopeless. Taplow’s men were oblivious of everything but the captured battery and its small plunder. In less than a minute they would be overwhelmed. He swore under his breath. No one had even thought to spike the enemy guns, and Sharpe wished he had remembered to put a hammer and a few nails in his saddlebag.
    Then, blessedly, he heard a crashing volley and he saw the Highlanders coming out of the smoke bank. Nairn had brought them in to the left of Taplow’s charge, and now the Scots fell on the flank of the advancing French battalion. It took just two Scottish volleys before the French gave up the counter-attack.
    Sharpe found Taplow’s senior Major. ‘Form your battalion!’
    â€˜I can’t ...’
    â€˜Do it. Now! Or else I’ll have you arrested! Move!’
    A French gunner, wounded from a dozen blades, collapsed beside Sharpe’s horse. Redcoats were drinking the powder-stained water from the gun-buckets in which the cannon swabs were soaked between shots. The English wounded were propped against the wicker baskets filled with earth that made the cannon embrasures. One such basket seemed to explode into dirty shreds under the impact of a roundshot and Sharpe realized that French guns, further up the ridge, had begun to fire into the captured battery.
    â€˜You’re the reserve now!’ Sharpe shouted at the Major. ‘Form your men and fall in behind the Highlanders!’
    He did not wait to see if he was obeyed, but spurred after the Scots who were marching onwards. To their left, beyond Nairn’s second battalion, another brigade was going forward. The attack seemed to have broken the outer French crust, but as the British advanced so they would squeeze the French into an ever thicker and more impenetrable defence.
    Sharpe rode past a dead Rifleman and was relieved to see it was not Harper. Nairn’s attack, spirited and bloody, was going well. The Highlanders’ Grenadier Company was in an enemy trench, led by a group of officers and sergeants who used their massive claymore swords to scour the French out. Frederickson’s sharpshooters picked off the fleeing enemy. Two pipers, apparently oblivious of the horror, calmly played their instruments. There was something about that music, Sharpe thought, that suited a battlefield. The noise was like that which a man might make if he was being skinned alive, but it seemed to fill the enemy with fear just as it