Perhaps it was the tempo of the guns that made the men so certain that the assault was this Sunday night, or else the sight of newly made siege ladders in the Engineers’ park. Two of the attacks, the one on the castle, and the one by the river, at the San Vincente bastion, would carry ladders to try a surprise escalade. It could not work, of course, the walls were too high. The battle would be lost or won in the breaches.
‘Company!’ Hakeswill’s voice grated at them. ‘On your feet! Hup, hup, hup!’
They scrambled to their feet, pulling jackets straight, and Major Collett was there with Captain Rymer. The Major waved the men down again. ‘You can sit.’
This had to be the announcement, Harper thought, and he watched as Collett drew out a sheet of paper and unfolded it. There was a buzz of excitement in the Company, a shout for silence from Hakeswill, and Collett waited for quiet. He looked at them belligerently. The assault, he said, would be soon, but they knew that, and they waited for orders. The Major paused and looked down at the piece of paper. ‘This order has come, and I will read it to you. You will listen. “I advert the army’s attention to the events pursuant of the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo.”’ Collett read in a flat, hard voice. He could not pronounce Ciudad with the soft ‘C’, so instead pronounced it ‘Quidad’. ‘“The inhabitants of that town, citizens of Britain’s ally, Spain, were offered every kind of insult and injury. There will be no repetition of that behaviour in Badajoz. Any attacks on civilian property will be swiftly and condignly punished by death, the apprehended perpetrators being hung at the place of their crime.”’ He folded the paper. ‘You understand? Keep your thieving hands to yourself and your breeches buttoned. That’s all.’ He glared at them, turned on his heel, and marched away to the next company. The Light Company looked at each other, shrugged, and laughed at the message. Who would do the hanging? The provosts would not be far to the front in any fighting, it would be pitch dark in the streets, and a soldier deserved some loot for fighting through a breach. They were the ones who would do the fighting, and the dying, and who did not need a drop of drink after that? Not that they intended any harm to any civilians. The Spanish, most of whom in Badajoz were on the enemy’s side, could choose for themselves how they welcomed the victors. They could leave their doors open and the drink on the table, or they could choose to be unfriendly, in which case? They grinned and went back to sharpening the seventeen-inch blades.
A few moments later a second rumour arrived, as strong as the first which had announced the assault, and this rumour, flashing through the camp, brought relief and frustration. Everything was postponed. They had all been given another twenty-four hours to live.
‘Where are we going?’ someone shouted.
They laughed, forgetting Hakeswill’s baleful presence. ‘Badajoz!’
Tomorrow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Suddenly there was optimism. Hogan’s face, so long lined with concern, crinkled at the eyes; there was an urgency in his speech, a new hope. Two loyal Spaniards had escaped from the city, climbing the wall by the river, and had safely reached the British lines. Hogan’s finger stabbed down on to the familiar map. ‘There, Richard, there. Tomorrow we’ll destroy it!’
The finger was pointing towards the wall between the two breached bastions. The Spaniards said it was weak, that it had not been repaired properly after the previous sieges, and they swore that a few shots would bring the wall tumbling down. It would mean a third breach, a sudden breach, a gap that the French would have no time to fill with careful defences. Hogan’s fist slammed on to the map. ‘We’ve got them!’
‘Tomorrow then.’
‘Tomorrow!’
April 6th dawned with a clear sky, and a light so pure that, before the siege batteries opened fire, the city could be seen with every roof, church, tower, and bastion delicately etched. It was a spring morning, full of hope as green as the new plants, a hope put there by a third, surprise breach. The gunners made their minimal adjustment, the trails inching around on the platforms, and then the order was given. Smoke jetted, thunder echoed over the lake, the balls smashed at the repaired masonry as the gunners slaved, dragged at their weapons, rammed, sponged, and rammed again, working with a knowledge of victory. To the south, clear of the smoke-fog on the lake, the Engineers peered at the unbroken stretch of wall. It jetted dust in a hazy cloud, started from the dry mortar by the cannon-strike, but it held all morning. The cannons hammered on, smiting the wall with shattering force until, early in the afternoon, the labour was rewarded.
The wall began to slide, not piece by piece as the bastions had given, but in one solid, spectacular chunk. Hogan jumped for the joy of it. ‘It’s going!’
Then the view was lost. Dust boiled up like smoke from an explosion, the sound rolled across the water, and the gun crews cheered themselves hoarse. The dust drifted slowly away and there, where once there had been a seemingly solid wall, was now a third, huge breach; as wide as the others, but fresh, undefended, and the orders were given. Tonight, gentlemen, tonight at dusk. Into the breaches and the gates of Spain would belong to Britain.
All afternoon, as clouds came from the east, the guns fired so that the French could not work in the breaches. The gunners worked willingly. Their job was done and this was the last day of effort, the twenty-second day of the siege, and tomorrow there would be no more heaving and sweating and no more enemy counter-battery fire. Badajoz would be theirs. The Engineers counted ladders and hay-bags, stacked the huge axes that the leading troops would take into the attack, and thought of the comfortable beds that waited in the city. Badajoz was theirs.
The orders, just twenty-seven paragraphs, were issued at last and the men listened in silence as their officers told them the news. Bayonets were polished again, muskets checked, and they listened to the flat notes of the cathedral clock. First darkness and Badajoz was theirs.
Captain Robert Knowles, now part of the Third Division, stared up at the huge castle with its colony of kestrels. The Third Division, carrying the longest ladders, was to cross the stream and climb the castle rock. No one expected the attack to work, it was merely a diversion to keep troops pinned in the castle, but Knowles’s men grinned at him and swore they would climb the wall. ‘We’ll show them, sir!’ And they would try, he knew, and so would he, and he thought how splendid it would be if he could reach Teresa first, in the house with two orange trees, and hand her and the child safely to Sharpe. He looked again at the vast castle, on its high, steep rock, and he vowed he would fight as Sharpe fought. The devil with a fake attack! They would attack for real.
The Fifth Division, brought back across the river, would mount another escalade with ladders; this time against the north-east bastion, the San Vincente, which towered above the slow river. Like the castle attack, it was intended to pin down enemy troops, to stop reinforcements going to the south-east corner, for it was there, at the three breaches, that Wellington knew he must win his victory.
The breaches. The Fourth and Light Divisions would make the real attack; the assault on the three breaches and the men, waiting as the clouds spread over the sky, imagined the boiling of troops in the ditch, the fighting that was to come, but they would win. Badajoz would be taken. The guns fired on.
Sharpe found a cavalry armourer who put the huge sword against a treadled wheel and the sparks flowed from the edge. He had checked his rifle and loaded the seven-barrelled gun. Even though his own orders forbade him to go into the ditch he wanted to be ready. He was a guide, the only man who had already walked