Chapter Eleven
Herron let the two cannons fire day. Ten men from the 22nd died, and another was wounded. Some would recover, but others would have to wait.
Sharpe knew he couldn't wait for long. It was a war of attrition, and he would soon be leading fewer than twenty wounded men. That is, if he lived that long.
Harper made a dive for Sharpe, avoiding another explosion, "Sweet Christ Almighty!"
"He ain't interested in us, Pat." Sharpe snarled.
Hagman and Wilkins crept towards where Sharpe rolled to miss a cannon shot.
Sharpe did not even look at them, still in a foul temper, "Now bloody what?"
Hagman spoke, "We have a few more dead, and Boris got a burn on his leg. He'll be right as rain in an hour. But sir, I have an idea. It's almost sunset, right?"
Sharpe looked up, "What are you saying Dan?"
Harper chuckled, "God save Ireland, but I got a good feeling at what Dan's thinking.
Sharpe was none the wiser. "What are you talking about, lads?"
Adam Wilkins spoke up with a smile on his face, "Me, sir."
Sharpe stared, and then began to laugh. God, why had he never thought it himself? "You got your permission, Adam. Go and give 'em nightmares of hell."
That night, Sharpe and his riflemen crept down the slope. Sharpe wanted the riflemen, because their dark green colour would blend in with the night. Not only that, they were trained to be skirmishers. They would fire some volleys, and thus distract them from the born killer in their camp.
Sharpe had given Wilkins the chance, and he took it with pleasure.
He stayed by a stone, watching the chaos in which he had always loved to strike. Frenchmen were in disarray, running around, trying to make sense from where they were being attacked. However, this confusion was only on the outskirts of the French camp. So if there was going to be any killing from Wilkins, he'd have to do it fast.
One voltigeur ran up to where Wilkins was hiding. As before, Wilkins shoved a rag into the man's mouth, slitting his throat in a shower of spurting blood.
Wilkins dropped the man, "That one's for Clyde Roan, you bastard."
Back in the darkness, Sharpe knelt by Harper as he fired his rifle, "Did Wilkins mention when he'd be back?"
Harper shook his head, "No, but that lad can really cut a man's throat."
Sharpe smirked because there was no other expression to give. Wilkins was a cheerful enough man at the campfires. He amused the men with his habit of oiling his hair every morning so it hung over his forehead in stiff strands. But when he used his knife to kill men, he became someone other than the handsome young man with a faint smile. He wasn't the only one. Most men in the army had been murderers, rapists, and thieves. Sharpe himself was a hard man. He had killed a man before he was thirteen. He had been brought up in a tough orphanage, had run away, and had lived in the rookeries and hovels of London.
Pendleton stared vengefully at the silhouettes of the French, "I hope he kills a hundred of those Frogs."
Harper grinned, "That's it, lad. Use that enthusiasm for the battles, and you'll live."
Wilkins was alive. He had been spotted a few times, but he was well trained at disappearing, while leaving dead Frenchmen in his wake.
Herron saw him once. They had locked eyes, French General and British rifleman. Wilkins snarled a curse on the French General, and Herron responded by aiming a musket at the man. But he had already melted into the shadow.
Wilkins, knowing he had done enough, headed to the fort, carrying a lighted torch taken from the camp.
Christopher Judson saw the signal, and saw it extinguished. Wilkins was in the fort, and the riflemen could go back. He turned to Cresacre and Harris beside him, "Quick, go tell Mister Sharpe that Wilk's at the fort."
Cresacre slipped away. Harris turned to go, flinching from the sudden volley. Firing his rifle in response, he laughed as a man fell, clutching his shoulder. "Well, that bugger won't be the same, eh, Jud?"
Turning, Harris' laughter died, and his eyes widened.
Christopher Judson, with two bullets in his body, was dead.
Harris ducked down out of instinct. He cut off a sob of shock as he stared at the bullet-wounds in Judson's left cheek and chest.
Sharpe, flanked by ten riflemen, came up to Harris, "Wilkins made it?"
Then he saw Judson. Turning to Isaiah Tongue, he spoke in voice that ground like stone, "Get Sergeant Harper and the rest to head back."
Tongue blinked, and went into the darkness.
Sharpe turned to the east. The sun was rising. Red, pink, and orange loomed out of the horizon. A small sliver of the sun crept into view. A few birds were singing, and not two metres away from Judson, a squirrel scampered up a tree. It was a beautiful morning, but it was lost on the riflemen, who had lost another one of their own.
It had hurt to lose Clyde Roan, and Judson was another loss. The riflemen had survived the retreat of Corunna while stranded in the middle of nowhere. They had made it together, barely escaping death. To lose one of those survivors was a cost of war, but it still hurt.
Slowly, they trailed into the fort, Will Boris, Sharpe, and Harper, the three biggest men, carried the now pale Judson into the fort. Sanders began to sing a mournful tune that caused the morning light to seem sad.
They buried Roan and Judson in secret. Sharpe and his men found a place on the hill, which would never be discovered. To ensure that, they rolled a large boulder over the grave. Wilkins, who had not said a word at all since he had seen his friend's corpse, poured the contents of his canteen into the ground before the sealing.
That same afternoon, Sharpe stared balefully at Herron's main encampment. It had been a standoff so far, but if he could, they'd get off this damn hill.
But before doing so, he would show the French how the Portuguese and British fought.
Will Boris the pugilist walked over to Sharpe, "Damn it sir, those buggers will have a lot to answer for when they face us next time."
Sharpe spat, "You bet two shillings on it."
Harper thought about that, "There's one thing wrong with that, sir."
Sharpe turned, "Yes?"
Harper put on a small grin, "I don't have a bloody penny to bet."
Sharpe, despite himself, laughed. Even Boris began to smile.
The next day, Herron decided to launch a full attack. The howitzers poured shot after shot into the fort, which followed up with the pas de charge. Herron also stationed a squadron of cavalry to ride down any enemy in line. Sharpe was stuck in the fort. So he stationed the wounded who could shoot, plus twenty others at the door. If the door was taken, Sharpe and the men were doomed.
Sharpe himself was standing with Parry Jenkins and Daniel Hagman on the wall. MacGall was also there, as was Oliver Sanders.
The French marched forward. They absorbed the rifle and musket bullets, because they wanted to win. Their General had shamed them, and they wanted to be able to destroy this upstart garrison. They wanted to show him that they were able to meet the standards he had laid out.
Sharpe yelled to the British and Portuguese under his command, "Slattery! Pick two men and take those French leaning to the side. Tarrant! Fire that damn rifle properly! Captain Lewis! Direct the men down below by the door."
He was everywhere; one minute, he'd shoot his rifle alongside some men, then he'd be encouraging others.
The French stubbornly fired at the men. They would not stop until they destroyed Sharpe here. But Sharpe was holding them back.
But just then the wall crumbled.
It was the cannons that Herron had cunningly put to the side, where they had fired at a part of the wall that was farther away from the fight. It had finally crumbled, amid the cheers of the French.
Sharpe roared in anger. He couldn't stop them in time. They were hard pressed on the wall. The French would be in here in a minute, and then it would be all over.
Lewis was looking worriedly up at Sharpe as the men under his command stared at one another, unsure of what to do.
"We're going to die, aren't we Dan?" Young Pendleton, who grinned in a fight, who took things like all of them, was biting his lip to stop from panicking. Beside him, Daniel Hagman was as grim as death as he aimed for the exuberant French.
In a few moments, they'd be in the fort, and Herron would have finally exacted his revenge.
Suddenly, a bellow called out, and a rifle fired. The French recoiled, with looks of anger, but also fear.
Sharpe looked to see what was going on, and saw a lone man, who had survived the collapse of the wall, reloading and firing a rifle at the French.
Sharpe remembered a night of fear, fire, and a lone demon stalking the French with a bloody knife.
It was Adam Wilkins.