Sharpe's Rifles by Bernard Cornwell Page A

staring into the immense sky

that promised yet more bad weather. His drawn sword was still in his hand and, almost in a daze,

he tried to push it home into its metal scabbard. The blade, still sticky with blood, stopped

halfway, and he saw to his astonishment that a bullet had pierced the scabbard and driven the

lips of metal inwards.
    “Sir?”
    Sharpe looked round to see a nervous Sergeant Williams. “Sergeant?”
    “We lost four men, sir.”
    Sharpe had forgotten to ask, and he cursed himself for the omission. “Who?”
    Williams named the dead, though the names meant nothing to Sharpe. “I thought we’d have lost

more,” he said in wonderment.
    “Sims is wounded, sir. And Cameron. There are some others, sir, but those are the worst.” The

Sergeant was only doing his job, but he was shaking with nerves as he spoke to his

officer.
    Sharpe tried to gather his thoughts, but the memory of the dead children was withering his

senses. He had seen dead children often enough, who had not? In these past weeks he had passed a

score of the army’s children frozen to death in the ghastly retreat, but none of them had been

murdered. He had seen children beaten till their blood ran, but not till they were dead. How

could the French have waited in the village and not first hidden their obscene butchery? How

could they have committed it in the first place?
    Williams, troubled by Sharpe’s brooding silence, muttered something about finding a stream

from which the men could fill their canteens. Sharpe nodded. “Make sure the French haven’t fouled

the water, Sergeant.”
    “Of course, sir.”
    Sharpe twisted to look at the burly man. “And the men did well. Very well.”
    “Thank you, sir.” Williams sounded relieved. He flinched as another scream sounded from the

village.
    “They did very well.” He said it too hastily, as if trying to distract both their thoughts

from the scream. The French prisoners were being questioned, then would die. Sharpe stared south,

wondering whether the clouds would send rain or snow. He remembered the man in the red coat, the

chasseur of the Imperial Guard, and the man in the black coat beside him. Why those two men

again? Because, he thought, they had known Vivar was coming, yet the one thing the French had not

reckoned on was Riflemen. Sharpe thought of the moment at the hilltop when the first green-jacket

had gone past him, sword-bayonet fixed, and he recalled another failing of his own. He had never

ordered the swords to be fixed, but the men had done it themselves. “The men did very well,”

Sharpe repeated, “tell them that.”
    Williams hesitated. “Sir? Wouldn’t it be better if you told them?”
    “Me?” Sharpe turned abruptly towards the Sergeant.
    “They did it for you, sir.” Williams was embarrassed, and made more so because Sharpe did not

respond to his awkward words. “They were trying to prove something, sir. We all were. And hoping

you’d…“
    “Hoping what?” The question was asked too harshly, and Sharpe knew it. “I’m sorry.”
    “We were hoping you’d let Harps go, sir. The men like him, you see, and the army’s always let

men offpunishment, sir, if their comrades fight well.”
    The bitterness Sharpe felt for the Irishman was too strong to let him grant the request

immediately. Til tell the men they did well, Sergeant.“ He paused. ”And I’ll think about

Harper.“
    “Yes, sir.” Sergeant Williams was plainly thankful that, for the first time since he had come

under Sharpe’s orders, the Lieutenant had treated him with some civility.
    Sharpe realized that too, and was shocked by it. He had been nervous of leading these men, and

frightened of their insubordination, but he had not understood that they were also frightened of

him. Sharpe knew himself to be a tough man, but he had always thought of himself as a reasonable

one, yet now, in the mirror of William’s nervousness, he saw