And all Pailleterie needed to do was wait.
"It was my fault, " Sharpe said bitterly.
"I shouldn't have fired so soon, " Price admitted.
"I shouldn't have put Pat Harper across the river, " Sharpe said. "I should have kept our men together."
Ensign Hickey said nothing, but just looked heartbroken. He had not thought Captain Sharpe could be defeated.
"Bloody hell! " Sharpe swore uselessly. He had pulled his surviving men back to the village where they could shelter behind garden walls. The fort was a hundred paces away, and he had thought about making an attack on it, but he would have to lead his men round to the far side and then through the archway and he guessed the French would be expecting that approach.
The store-room door had been shut, and was doubtless barricaded. Every now and then a black fur hat showed on the parapet as an hussar peered over to make certain the British troops were not planning any mischief.
Daniel Hagman, keeping watch from the river bank, reported that the frogs had tipped the cart into the river. "I got one of the bastards, sir, " he said, "and Harris popped another."
"Well done, Dan, " Sharpe said morosely, then wondered why the French would clear the barricade away. and the answer was depressingly obvious. Because they were expecting more men, that was why. Because the hussars were only holding the bridge long enough to let a flood of bloody Crapauds across the river. Because all hell was about to be loosed on the British supply lines, and Captain Richard Sharpe would be blamed. «Jesus!» Sharpe cursed.
"He doesn't seem to be on our side today, " Hagman said.
The only good news was that Harper had brought his men safely back across the Tormes. He had led them a mile westwards and used a fisherman's skiff to ferry them over the river, and it was reassuring for Sharpe to have the big Irishman and the twenty rifleman back at his side, but he did not know what he could do with them. Have them killed in a forlorn attack on the fort's gate?
The Scotsman, MacKeon, came and squatted beside Sharpe. He was smoking a short foul pipe that he now pointed towards the fort. "It reminds me, Captain, " he said, "of that terrible place in India."
Sharpe wondered if MacKeon was drunk. The fort at San Miguel was nothing like Gawilghur. The Indian fort had been built on a clifftop, dizzyingly high above the Deccan plain, while San Miguel was a decaying ruin built beside a river. "It don't look much like Gawilghur to me, " Sharpe said.
"Mebbe not, " MacKeon said, tapping the pipe out against a stone, "but the pigtailed fellows reckon there's only one way in. And they're guarding that entrance, like as not, but there's always a back way, Captain, always a back way. And you were the laddie that found it at Gawilghur." He pointed the stem of his pipe at the fort. "See that great crack?"
MacKeon was pointing to a jagged fissure that began low on the shadowed western wall then zig-zagged up the stones almost to the parapet. For a moment Sharpe was wondering whether the Scotsman really expected the light company to climb the wall, then saw that, maybe a third of the way up, a whole section of stone had fallen away. The space looked like a small cave and was half hidden by ivy, but MacKeon was right. It was a back way in, and an agile man could squeeze through the gap, but to what? Sharpe could not remember seeing a hole inside the fort, so where did it lead?
"Sergeant Harper?"
"Sir?"
"If a frog shows his head above that parapet, shoot him." The riflemen could keep the French out of sight, and if they were out of sight they could not see what mischief Sharpe planned. He unbuckled his sword belt, let the clumsy weapon drop, and then, with the rifle slung on his shoulder, ran across the waste ground to the fort's wall. No Frenchman saw him, for they were keeping their heads below the parapet. They might have captured the fort, but they had a healthy respect for the rifles.
It was a hard climb. Much worse than the cliff at Gawilghur, Sharpe reckoned. That had been steep, but not vertical, and there had been bushes to provide handholds. The crack in the fort wall gave plenty of handholds, but it sloped from left to right and Sharpe had to scrabble to find footholds in the old wall, but he hauled himself up, half expecting a pistol to bang above him, and then at last he could grab the ivy's thick trunk and that helped. One good lodgement for his foot and he could thrust himself up into the hole.
The hole was smaller than it had looked, but Sharpe turned sideways and squeezed between the stones. His rifle caught on the ivy, and his uniform snagged on the edge of the stones, but he untangled himself and pushed on until his head was inside the fort. A foul stench assailed him, and at first he could see nothing but darkness, then he saw chinks of light above him and heard footsteps on timber and realised that he had entered the space above the store-room's barrel-vaulted stone ceiling and the lowermost timber floor. He wriggled on until he was inside the wall and wondered what he had achieved. There was no way to mount an attack from here. It would take men far too long to climb the wall, and they could only enter one at a time and even when they were inside, what could they do? They would be trapped in a narrowing space between two floors, and as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he saw that the floor beams were oddly ragged, and then he realised he was staring at thousand of bats hanging from the timbers. "Bloody hell, " he muttered, and he tried to forget the bats and looked about him and saw that the space was thick with supporting timbers, some quite small, but all placed to support the floors on the curved stone roof that was thick with bat dung. It was the dung that stank so high.
A rifle banged, then another. A Frenchman shouted in alarm high above Sharpe, then another laughed. Sharpe looked out of the cave-like opening and saw two puffs of smoke lingering by the buildings where his men were sheltering. He pushed back through the crack and pointed a finger at Perkins, the youngest and most agile of the riflemen.
Perkins ran through the grass and weeds to the base of the wall, and again no Frenchman saw the intruder for they were scared of the rifles. "Can you hear me, Perkins?" Sharpe called, keeping his voice low, and when Perkins nodded Sharpe told him what he wanted, then watched as the boy ran back to the village. Sharpe could only wait now, so he settled inside the hole and listened to the French walking an inch or two above his head. He could smell their horses, smell tobacco smoke, and then he heard English being spoken. "You were not in command here, Major?" A French accented voice asked.
"In overall command, yes, of course, " Tubbs answered, "but the defence of the fort, the military defence, was in the hands of a rifle officer. A man called Sharpe."
"He let you down, Major, " the Frenchman said. "His men ran like deer!»
«Disgraceful,» Tubbs said. "If I'm exchanged, monsieur, I shall let the authorities know. But he's a wartime officer, Pailleterie, a wartime officer."
"Aren't we all?" Pailleterie asked.
"Sharpe is up from the ranks, " Tubbs said scornfully. "Things like that happen in war, don't you know? A fellow makes a half-decent showing as a sergeant, and next thing they've stitched a yard of braid on his collar and expect him to behave like a gentleman. But they don't satisfy. Ain't brought up to it, y'see?"
"I came up from the ranks, " Pailleterie said. Tubbs blustered for a few seconds, then was silent. The Frenchman laughed. "More wine, Major? It will console you in defeat."
Bastard, Sharpe thought, meaning Tubbs, not the damned frog, then he wriggled back into the opening because Perkins was running back, this time accompanied by Cooper and Harris who both carried huge bundles wrapped in blankets. Perkins had a makeshift rope made from a half dozen musket slings and he stood close to the wall and threw one end up to Sharpe who caught it on the second attempt, and then there was a pause while the other end was attached to the first big bundle.
It took five or six minutes to haul both bundles up. It was not lifting them that took the time, but manoeuvring their awkward bulk through the narrow crack, and Sharpe was horribly aware of the Frenchmen so close overhead, and of the bats that were shuddering now as they sensed activity close by.
"Might I take the air on the parapet?" Tubbs asked, so close that Sharpe jumped when the major spoke.
"Of course, monsieur, " Pailleterie answered, "but I shall accompany you to keep you safe. If you show your head by the parapet, bang!»
Sharpe listened to the feet climbing the ladders, and then he began piling the contents of the two bundles between the short, slanting timbers that propped up the floor. Perkins had done well. There was straw, kindling and even a stoppered clay jar of lamp oil that a villager had donated, and Sharpe heaped it all up, soaked the wood and straw in lamp oil, and then, with a shudder, scooped his right forefinger through a sticky patch of bat dung.
His rifle was loaded, so he dared not strike a spark with its lock, not till he had blocked the touch-hole and so, stooping near the hole in the wall so he could see properly, he opened the frizzen and dabbed the bat dung into the rifle's touch-hole. He scooped up another scrap and forced it into the hole, then wiped his finger on his overalls.
Now he took out a rifle cartridge, tore it open and discarded the bullet.
He sprinkled most of the powder onto the kindling, but he kept a pinch that he put on top of the torn paper which he now trapped inside the rifle's lock. He cocked the weapon, flinching at the loud click and then, hoping that no Frenchman would think it odd to hear a misfire beneath his feet, pulled the trigger.
The spark flashed and the powder fizzed, but the paper did not catch fire, so Sharpe had to tear another cartridge open for more gunpowder. He placed it in the lock, cocked the gun again, and again pulled the trigger.
This time the paper flickered with small fizzing blue flames, and he took it from the lock, held it downwards so the flames would grow as they climbed the paper, and when it was really burning and the first bats were flickering round his head, he put the paper down among the loose straw. He waited as the flames caught hold, as the gunpowder in the kindling sparked and hissed, and then the fire reached some lamp oil and the flames leaped up the pile of kindling and the smoke began to curl in the dark space that was filling with panicked bats.
Sharpe forced himself through the hole in the wall, tearing his coat on a protruding stone. The smoke had thickened with incredible speed and was boiling out over his head, while bats were all around him and he panicked.
He reached for the ivy and let himself fall. For a second he hung there, staring up at the mix of bats and smoke pouring from the gap in the wall, and then a Frenchman shouted and a rifle cracked, then another, and the ivy was peeling off the wall, lowering Sharpe, and he just let go and fell heavily onto the turf. A pistol cracked and a puff of dust showed a couple of feet to his right where the small bullet struck the ground.
He was winded, but there did not seem to be any bones broke, His belly hurt. He picked up his rifle and half ran, half limped towards the village. A dozen rifles fired, then some muskets flamed and Sharpe heard the balls crack against stone, and then he was safe in the ditch and Pat Harper leaned down and hauled him up into the back yard where the Light Company sheltered.
"Let them piss on that fire, eh, sir?" Harper said, nodding towards the hole in the fort wall that now spewed a thick grey smoke.
"Best thing to do with rats, " Mister MacKeon said, "burn them out."
Sharpe cupped his hands. "Harry?"
"Sir?" Lieutenant Price answered.
"Redcoats in two ranks, if you please. Muskets loaded and bayonets fixed.
Pat?"
"Sir?"
"Rifles to follow me. We charge on my command, Mister Price."