LITMIR.BIZ

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speaking out of turn, Sharpe, out of turn.’ Forrest was pleased at the quickening in Sharpe’s voice. ‘The Colonel’s offered our services. The General of Division was talking to him. We may be the lucky ones!’

      ‘When, sir?’

      ‘I don’t know, Sharpe! They don’t tell me these things. Look! The curtain’s going up!’

      Forrest pointed to the huge number one battery. A gunner had snatched the last gabion from the embrasure and one of the guns, silent for half an hour, bellowed flame and smoke down the hillside. The ball, under-aimed, struck the ground in front of the Picurina, scarred the earth as it bounced, and then fell with a tall splash into the lake. The jeer of the French inside the small fort was audible four hundred yards away.

      The gunners raised the barrel half an inch by turning the huge screw beneath the breech. The barrel hissed as it was sponged out. The embrasure had been plugged again as defence against the inevitable fire from the city walls. The powder bags were thrust deep into the gun’s throat, rammed home and the ball trundled into the muzzle. A Sergeant leaned over the touch-hole, thrust down with the spike that punctured the powder bags, and then inserted the tube filled with fine powder that fired the charge. His hand went up, an officer shouted orders and the gabions were pulled from the front of the battery. The men crouched with their hands over their ears as the Sergeant touched the priming tube with a match burning at the end of a long pole, and the gun slammed back on the inclined wooden platform. The ball struck the timber palisade of the Picurina, splintering the tree-trunks, driving the shards of unseasoned wood in vicious showers on the defenders, and it was the turn of the British to cheer.

      Forrest was looking at the fort through his telescope. He tut-tutted. ‘Poor lads.’ He turned to Sharpe. ‘That can’t be very nice for them.’

      Sharpe wanted to laugh. ‘No, sir.’

      ‘I know what you’re thinking, Sharpe. That I’m too charitable to the enemy. You’re probably right, but I can’t help imagining that my son is in there.’

      ‘I thought your son was an engraver, sir.’

      ‘Yes, he is, Sharpe, yes he is, but if he was a French soldier he might be in there and that would be most upsetting.’

      Sharpe gave up trying to follow Forrest’s charitable imaginings and turned back to the Picurina. The other British guns had got the range and the heavy balls were systematically destroying the flimsy defences. The French inside were trapped. They could not retreat, for the lake was to their rear, and they must have known that the cannonade would end in an infantry attack as soon as dusk gave way to night. Forrest frowned at the sight. ‘Why don’t they surrender?’

      ‘Would you, sir?’

      Forrest was offended. ‘Of course not, Sharpe. I’m English!’

      ‘They’re French, sir. They don’t like surrendering either.’

      ‘I suppose you’re right.’ Forrest did not really understand why the French, a nation he thought to be basically civilized, should fight so hard in such an evil cause. He could understand the Americans fighting for Republicanism; a young nation could hardly be expected to have enough sense to recognize the dangers of such a foul political code, but the French? Forrest could not understand that. It was made worse that the French were the most powerful military nation on earth, and thus had harnessed their muskets and horsemen to the spreading Republican evil, and it was Britain’s obvious duty to contain the disease. Forrest saw the war as a moral crusade, a fight for decency and order, and victory to the British would mean that the Almighty, who could not possibly be suspected of Republican sentiments, had blessed the British effort.

      He had explained his beliefs once to Major Hogan and had been deeply shocked when the Engineer had dismissed his ideas. ‘My dear Forrest. You are fighting purely for trade! If Boney hadn’t closed Portugal’s harbours you’d be snug in your Chelmsford bed.’

      Forrest remembered the conversation and looked at Sharpe. ‘Sharpe? Why are we fighting?’

      ‘Sir?’ For a moment Sharpe wondered if Forrest was proposing a surrender to the Picurina Fort. ‘Why are we fighting?’

      ‘Yes, Sharpe. Why do you fight? Are you against Republicanism?’

      ‘Me, sir? I couldn’t even spell it.’ He grinned at Forrest, saw that the Major was serious. ‘Good Lord, sir. We always fight the French. Every twenty years or so. If we didn’t they’d invade us. Then we’d all be forced to eat snails and speak French.’ He laughed at Forrest. ‘I don’t know, sir. We fight them because they’re meddlesome bastards and someone has to stamp all over them.’

      Forrest sighed. He was saved trying to explain the political forces of the world to Sharpe because Colonel Windham and a group of the Battalion’s officers spotted them and joined them at the parapet. Windham was in a good mood. He looked at the British shot flailing at the remains of the French parapet and slapped a palm with a clenched fist. ‘Well done, lads! Give the bastards hell!’ He nodded civilly to Sharpe and grinned at Forrest. ‘Excellent day, Forrest, excellent. Two foxes!’

      Hogan had once mentioned to Sharpe that nothing cheered up a British officer as much as a dead fox. In addition to this double cause for satisfaction Windham had more good news. He pulled a letter from his pocket and brandished it towards Forrest. ‘Letter from Mrs Windham, Forrest. Splendid news!’

      ‘Good, sir.’ Forrest, like Sharpe, was wondering whether the chinless Jessica had given birth to another young Windham, but it was not to be. The Colonel opened the letter, hummed and hawed as he glanced down the first few lines, and Sharpe could tell from the expressions of Leroy and the other newcomers that Windham had already been spreading whatever the good news turned out to be.

      ‘Here it is! We’ve had poacher trouble, Forrest, damned bad trouble. Some rascal’s been in among the pheasants. My good lady caught him!’

      ‘Splendid, sir.’ Forrest tried to sound enthusiastic.

      ‘More than caught him! She bought a new kind of mantrap. Damned thing did so much damage that he died of the gangrene. Here we are. Mrs Windham writes: “It so inspired the Rector that he incorporated Same into last Sunday’s sermon to the undoubted Edification of those in the Parish Unmindful of their Station!”’ Windham beamed at the assembled officers. Sharpe doubted if anyone in the Colonel’s parish was unmindful of their station while Mrs Windham was so mindful of her own, but he judged it not the right moment to say so. Windham looked again at the letter. ‘Splendid man, our Rector. Rides like a trooper. Know what his text was?’

      Sharpe waited for a gun to fire. ‘Numbers. Chapter thirty-two, verse twenty-three, sir?’ He spoke mildly.

      The Colonel looked at him. ‘How the devil did you know?’ He seemed to suspect that the Rifleman might have been reading his post. Leroy was grinning.

      Sharpe decided not to say that he had slept in a dormitory in a foundling home that had the text painted in letters three feet high down the wall. ‘It seemed appropriate, sir.’

      ‘Quite right, Sharpe, damned appropriate. “Be sure your sin will find you out.” It found him out, eh? Died of the gangrene!’ Windham laughed and turned to greet Major Collett who was bringing the Colonel’s servant laden with bottles of wine. The Colonel smiled at his officers. ‘Thought we’d celebrate. We’ll drink to tonight’s attack.’

      The guns fired through dusk, and on till, in the darkness, the bugles brought an overwhelming force of British infantry forward against the small redoubt. The gunners on the city wall, hearing the British cannonade stop, lowered their own muzzle and fired over the Picurina at the hill-slope. The roundshot smashed into file after file of the attackers, but they closed up and walked on, and then there were deeper explosions from the city and the watchers on the hill saw the dark red streaks of the shell-fuses arc over the lake as the howitzers started firing. The shells exploded in scarlet blossoms. Riflemen of the 95th formed a skirmish line, curving round the fort, and Sharpe could see the needle flames flickering round the line, seeking

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