Off to their left, a half mile up the hill, the flames stabbed from the siege guns and each flash lit the rolling smoke that filled the air over the floodwaters. The French guns replied, firing at the muzzle flashes, but the enemy fire had slackened in the last two days. They were hoarding their ammunition, saving it for the new batteries of the second parallel.
‘Not long now.’ The Colonel spoke to himself; then, louder. ‘Major Forrest?’
‘Sir?’ Forrest appeared from the darkness.
‘All well, Forrest?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Forrest, like Sharpe, had nothing to do.
There was a sudden crackle of musketry, muffled by distance, from the north and Windham spun round. ‘Not us, I think.’ It was much too far away to be concerned with the Light Company’s attack; far off to the north, across the river, men of the Fifth Division were keeping the French forts occupied. Windham relaxed. ‘Must be soon, gentlemen.’
A shout came from the darkness in front. The three officers froze, listened, and it came again. ‘Qui vive?’ A French sentry had challenged. Sharpe heard Windham suck in breath.
‘Qui vive?’ Louder. ‘Gardez-vous!’ A musket stabbed from the fort towards the dark field.
‘Damn.’ Windham spat the word out. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’
There were more shouts from the fort, followed by a glow of light that grew, showed leaping flames, and a carcass was hurled into the darkness, across the ditch, and Sharpe could see Collett’s companies outlined by the fire.
‘Tirez!’ The shout carried easily. The loopholes of the small fort sprang musket fire, and the British companies replied.
‘Damn!’ Windham shouted. ‘We’re early!’
Collett’s companies were firing in platoon fire, the volleys rolling down the faces of the companies, the balls hammering audibly on the fort’s stonework. The officers were shouting, trying to sound like a larger force, the muskets firing like clockwork. Sharpe watched the defences. The French musket fire was constant and he guessed that each man at a loophole or embrasure had at least two other men loading spare muskets. ‘I don’t think they’re short of defenders, sir.’
‘Damn!’ Windham ignored Sharpe.
The Cathedral clock sent its flat notes out to mingle with the sound of the firefight. More carcasses were lit in the fort, thrown out, and Sharpe heard Collett ordering his men to go back, into the darkness. Windham was pacing up and down, his frustration obvious. ‘Where’s the Light Company? Where’s the Light Company?’
The gunners on the city wall heaved on the traces, turned their cannon, and loaded with grapeshot. They fired, the flames pointing down into the dark field, and Sharpe heard the whistle of shot.
‘Open order!’ Collett’s voice carried back to Sharpe. ‘Open order!’ It was a sensible precaution against grapeshot that would keep casualties low, but it would not help to convince the French that a real attack was in progress. Windham drew his sword.
‘Captain Leroy!’
‘Sir?’ The voice came from the darkness.
‘Forward with your company! On Major Collett’s right!’
‘Yes, sir.’ The Grenadier Company was ordered forward, adding to the confusion.
Windham turned to Sharpe. ‘Time, Sharpe?’
Sharpe remembered hearing the cathedral bell. ‘Two minutes after eleven, sir.’
‘Where are they?’
‘Give them time, sir.’
Windham ignored him. He stared forward at the fort, at the burning carcasses that lit the whole ditch and the front of the field. Small groups of men were running forward, kneeling, firing and sprinting back into the darkness, and Sharpe saw one man fall in a shower of grape, his body motionless in the light of the flames. Two other men ran forward, grabbed his legs, and tugged the body back to their company. ‘Aim! Present! Fire!’ The familiar orders rang round the field, the muskets fired towards the fort, and the deadly grapeshot pattered down from the high walls.
‘Captain Sterritt?’ Windham bellowed.
‘Sir?’
‘Present yourself to Major Collett! Your company will reinforce him!’
‘Yes, sir!’ Another company went forward and Sharpe, guiltily, thought that another Captain had been sent into the range of the grapeshot. He wondered what had happened to Rymer. There was no firing from the rear of the fort, but no explosion either. He looked constantly, waiting for the eruption of flame and smoke, but there was only silence from the dam.
‘Where are they?’ Windham pounded a fist against his thigh, cut at the air with his sword. ‘Damn them! Where are they?’
Men were stumbling back from the fight, wounded by the grapeshot, and Collett was pulling the companies further back. There was no point, he reasoned, in losing men in an attack that was only a fake assault. The fire from the fort slackened. Still no explosion.
‘Damn! We need to know what’s happening!’
‘I’ll go, sir.’ Sharpe could see Windham’s careful scheme collapsing. The French must know by now that the attack was not real, and it would not take any great intelligence to reason that the dam was the real target. He tried to imagine the sappers again, laden with their barrels. ‘They could have been captured, sir. Maybe they’ve not even reached the dam.’
Windham hesitated and, as he paused, Major Collett shouted nearby. ‘Colonel? Sir?’
‘Jack! Here!’
Collett came up, saluted. ‘Can’t go on much longer, sir. We’re losing too many men to that damned grapeshot.’
Windham turned back to Sharpe. ‘How long will it take you to get there?’
Sharpe thought fast. He did not need to go softly, or take the long way round. There was enough noise and chaos in the field to cover his movements and he would go as close as he dared to the fort. ‘Five minutes, sir.’
‘Then go. Listen!’ Windham checked Sharpe’s movement. ‘I want a report, that’s all, d’you understand? See where they are. Have they been discovered? How long till they succeed? Understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I want you back here in ten minutes. Ten minutes, Sharpe.’ He turned to Major Collett. ‘Can you give me ten minutes?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. Off you go, Sharpe! Hurry!’
He began running, his dark uniform invisible against the night, towards the fort and the hidden dam. He went right, skirting the light of the carcasses, heading towards the ravine of the Rivillas downstream of the dam. He stumbled on tussocks, slipped on damp earth, but he was free, alone and free. Grapeshot whistled overhead, fired from the castle, but he was well beneath it, hidden in the darkness, and the stabbing musket flames from the fort were to his left. He slowed down, knowing that the stream could not be far, wary in case French patrols were lurking in the ravine. He unslung the rifle from his shoulder and pulled the flint back to full cock. The spring was heavy, satisfying, and he felt the sear fall into place. He was armed, what was it Hogan said? Cap a pie, whatever that meant, but it felt good and he grinned at the night as he went forward, slowly now, his eyes searching for the ravine’s edge. He had pulled his shako low over his eyes so that the peak hid the white-centred cannon flames from his sight, preserving his night vision, and then he saw a streak of deeper shadow, fringed with bushes, and he knew he had reached the stream bank. He lay flat, pulled himself forward, and peered over the edge.
The ravine was deeper than he had imagined. The bank fell steeply away from him down to a dull sheen of water some eighteen or twenty