Sharpes command, p.25
Sharpe's Command, page 25
The change of hands surprised El Héroe, who backed away, and Teresa followed up by slicing the knife towards his face, driving El Héroe even further back. He seemed to have forgotten he carried a sabre because he made no parry or counter-stroke, but just stepped backwards again, whereupon Teresa tossed the knife back to her right hand and threw it.
She threw the blade straight at El Héroe’s face and he twisted desperately away and stumbled, falling to one knee. The knife had missed him by inches and skittered across the paving stones to come to rest beside a Scottish Sergeant, who picked it up and went as if to throw it back to Teresa.
But Teresa had turned and ran to the tower steps. El Héroe shouted in apparent victory. He could see she was unarmed and he still had the sabre. He got to his feet and strutted towards the tower. Now, he knew, she could not dodge or skip away, she had nowhere to go unless she dragged the tower door open. He was cursing her as he stalked closer.
‘Now, Mister Sharpe?’ Hagman asked.
‘No, Dan, she’s won.’
‘Dear Lord, preserve her!’ Love prayed.
‘She’s a cunning lass,’ Harper said approvingly, because Teresa had seized hold of the pike’s shaft that had pinned the French officer to the wooden jamb of the tower’s door. Till now El Héroe’s weapon had outranged her, its blade far longer than her knife, but now she held a nine-foot pike with a blade discoloured by congealed blood, and El Héroe, seeing the danger, stopped. Teresa came down the steps slowly, levelling the pike at his belly.
‘You knew she was going for the pike, Richard?’ Hogan asked.
‘It’s what I’d have done,’ Sharpe said, then touched Hagman’s shoulder. ‘It’s all right, Dan, you can relax.’
‘Pity, Mister Sharpe, I was looking forward to killing the bugger.’ Hagman rested the rifle and, with practised skill, pulled the trigger and eased the doghead down safely.
‘Have you ever faced lancers, Richard?’ Hogan asked, nodding down towards Teresa, who was holding the pike levelled at her enemy.
‘I have.’
‘Nasty things,’ Hogan said.
‘The trick,’ Sharpe said, ‘is to get past the blade, then the bugger holding the shaft is easy meat.’ There was a double click as Hagman recocked the rifle. ‘Hold it, Dan.’
‘Holding it, Mister Sharpe.’
Hagman had cocked the rifle because it seemed that El Héroe had worked out the trick for himself because he used his sabre to knock the pike’s blade to one side and then leaped forward, safely past the narrow blade and with his sabre swinging back in another haymaking slash aimed at Teresa’s head.
‘God! She’s fast!’ Hogan breathed, ‘how did she do that?’
Teresa had evidently anticipated the move because, with lightning speed, she had kept the pike swinging round until its butt end faced El Héroe. And the pike’s butt was fitted with a small spike, an inch of metal designed to help the pikeman ram the weapon into the ground if he was facing cavalry. She ducked beneath the wild sabre stroke and rammed the spike forward to hit El Héroe in the chest. She hit hard, hard enough Sharpe thought to have broken one of El Héroe’s ribs, and the blow stopped the Spaniard short and elicited a gasp of pain. Teresa jabbed the pike’s butt again and El Héroe stepped back, sabre low now, and obviously hurt.
Teresa also retreated, far enough to let her swing the pike back so that its blade again faced El Héroe. Then she stepped forward, jabbing the blade towards her enemy, who flinched as he raised his sabre to knock the pike aside. ‘Broken rib?’ Hogan suggested.
‘Aye, she’s hurt him,’ Harper said happily.
Another jab of the pike, and this time El Héroe managed to hit the sabre against the pike’s shaft, but Teresa had seen the parry coming and held the pike so rigidly that the sabre’s light blade scarcely moved the heavier pike. She jerked it up and lunged, striking El Héroe’s sword arm just beneath the shoulder. He squealed as she pulled the blade downwards, starting more blood to stain the yellow sleeve. ‘She’s weakening his arm,’ Harper said approvingly.
‘He hasn’t got long,’ Hogan said happily.
‘She’ll make him suffer first,’ Sharpe said.
‘Surely not?’ Love spoke softly.
‘She hates him,’ Sharpe said, ‘and she should. He’ll not die easy.’
Teresa had found a rhythm with the heavy pike that jabbed again and again. She did not drive the long narrow blade home, but contented herself with breaking El Héroe’s skin until his bright yellow uniform was dotted with blood stains on his arms, chest and thighs, none of the wounds disabling him, but each enraging and humiliating him. And each starting a huge cheer from the watching redcoats. El Héroe was close to tears and constantly tried to swat the pike away, and each swing of the sabre plainly hurt him as his chest muscles pulled against the broken rib.
Then, at last, a massive swipe of the sabre managed to knock the pike aside so unexpectedly that it flew from Teresa’s grip to clatter on the paving stones. ‘Oh, my dear Lord!’ Love gasped.
‘No, Dan!’ Sharpe said, seeing Hagman raise his rifle and brace for the shot. ‘Don’t shoot.’
‘Shoot, man!’ Hogan ordered.
‘No, Dan! No!’
Hagman lowered the rifle. Teresa had dropped to one knee and El Héroe, seeing his opportunity, sprang forward with the sabre raised for a final death-dealing blow. He bellowed in triumph, ignoring the searing pain in his chest as he began the fatal downward stroke, but then the bellow turned into a terrifying scream. The sabre flew from his hand, he clutched at his crotch with both hands and screamed again.
‘There’s always a second knife,’ Sharpe explained calmly. ‘She keeps it up her left sleeve.’
‘God save Ireland,’ Harper said, ‘but she’s a grand lass.’
‘Vicious too,’ Hogan added.
Teresa had dropped almost to the ground before striking upwards and now she rolled to one side, got to her feet and walked round her screaming victim whose thighs were sheeted with blood.
Hagman laughed, ‘Right in his goolies!’
El Héroe was crouched, still clutching his crotch and still wailing. ‘Don’t hold them, you eejit!’ Harper bellowed, ‘Count them!’
‘Poor bastard,’ Hogan murmured, then Teresa kicked the wailing man in the arse, toppling him to the stones where the blood spread. Then she raised the smaller knife in her right hand and bowed to Sharpe, who blew her another kiss. The redcoats were cheering wildly as El Héroe bled to death in the courtyard’s centre.
‘Did she do what I think she did?’ Lieutenant Love had gone pale.
‘She did,’ Sharpe said, ‘and she gouged the blade too.’
‘So die traitors,’ Hogan said. ‘Now let’s finish what we came to do.’
Separate Soult and Marmont, by destroying a bridge.
Sharpe went down to the courtyard where El Héroe’s corpse lay in a fly-ridden pool of blood. The courtyard was still crowded, though men were giving the corpse a wide berth. General Hill had arrived, his face beaming and, seeing Sharpe, he beckoned him. ‘I am told we owe you thanks, Major Sharpe.’
‘Every man involved deserves thanks, sir.’
‘True, true! And Fort Ragusa is ours too?’
‘Thanks to Lieutenant Love, sir.’
‘Cupid strikes, eh?’ Hill asked with a smile. ‘I’ll make sure he gets credit, but General Howard and Colonel Cadogan tell me you were the first man over the rampart here?’
‘I’m sure two of the Colonel’s men got there before me, sir.’
Hill nodded. ‘A nasty business, escalade,’ he said, then glanced at the corpse. ‘And I’m told your wife put on quite a show!’
‘He was a traitor, sir, and got his deserts.’
Teresa, seeing Sharpe with Hill and his aides, had hung back, but now the General beckoned her forward. He bowed to her. ‘Madame!’ he said. ‘I am told you disposed of El Héroe?’
‘He was a Spaniard,’ Teresa said coldly, ‘so it was a Spaniard’s duty to kill him.’
‘I thank you for it,’ Hill said, bowing again. ‘With allies like you, I cannot see how we can lose this war!’ Which, Sharpe thought, was a generous comment from a man who at first had not wanted Teresa’s help. Then Hill looked past Sharpe and his face brightened. ‘What do you bring me, Captain?’ he asked happily.
A Captain of the Highlanders was carrying two French eagles, the proud standards of every French regiment. Each eagle had a flag attached. ‘I’d like to claim they were taken in battle, sir,’ the captain said, ‘but in truth they were being stored in the tower.’
‘They were taken in battle,’ Hill said loudly enough to be heard by every man in the courtyard, ‘by exceedingly brave men!’
That prompted a loud cheer from the redcoats, many of whom were clutching bottles plundered from the fort’s storerooms. Hill touched the fringed flags of both eagles, as if he could scarcely believe they were real, then looked at Hogan. ‘And the pontoon bridge?’
‘Half is destroyed, and the other half should be firewood soon, sir.’ Even as Hogan spoke the explosions began on the northern bank as pontoon after pontoon was gutted by powder kegs. Smoke blossomed above the fort’s ramparts.
‘And what do we do about this?’ General Hill gestured at the fort’s high walls. ‘If we leave it the scoundrels will just move back in, and presumably make another bridge?’
‘We’ll knock down enough of the walls to make the forts useless,’ Hogan said, ‘and they’ll have to bring pontoons from France or make new ones here if they want a crossing, and El Sacerdote has burned their timber framework at the old bridge.’
‘Then I’d say our work is done!’ Hill said happily and then, much louder, ‘Very well done!’ Then the General stiffened as a screech sounded from the tower where a redcoat’s jacket hung from the flagstaff. ‘Oh good G …’ General Hill began irritably, stopping abruptly before he uttered a blasphemy, ‘Good gracious! Someone’s murdering a cat!’
A piper of the 71st had climbed the tower and had begun playing. The Scottish soldiers in the courtyard cheered. ‘Back to Portugal, sir?’ General Howard asked.
‘Tomorrow, I think. Let’s make sure there’s nothing here the scoundrels can salvage first.’
El Héroe’s corpse was carried to the river and tossed in, joining the scorched fragments of the bridge to float downstream. More captured French powder was ferried over the Tagus to where redcoats used sledgehammers and picks to make cavities in the walls of Fort Ragusa. The powder kegs were crammed into the holes and exploded to raucous cheers. The French cannon and mortars that survived the demolition were spiked. A small group of French soldiers, survivors of the day, watched from a hill half a mile away, doubtless flinching when the fort collapsed in a cloud of powder and smoke dust.
Sharpe and Teresa walked back over the hills to see that the French garrison in Castle Miravete was still under the fire of a battery of British nine-pounders. ‘Now you assault them?’ Teresa asked, seeing the damage the British guns had wreaked in the earthern berm that protected the fortress. They had done good work because at least two of the big French twelve-pounders were out of action, and the gunners at the rest were being harried by riflemen of the King’s German Legion.
‘No need,’ Sharpe said, ‘they’re only here to protect the pontoon bridge. Once we’ve gone they’ll go too.’ He looked northwards, over the low hills, to see the great plume of smoke drifting slowly westwards on the breeze. ‘We’ve won, love,’ he said, ‘and you killed the bastard.’
‘I did it too quickly,’ Teresa said, ‘I wanted him to suffer.’
‘Good Christ!’ Sharpe said. ‘He suffered. He’s still screaming on his way to hell!’
‘I was frightened you’d have one of your men shoot him before I killed him,’ Teresa said, watching as a British shell exploded against the wall of Miravete Castle.
‘Never crossed my mind,’ Sharpe said.
‘You are a bad liar,’ Teresa said. She put her arm through Sharpe’s. ‘So back to Portugal?’
‘For a few weeks.’
‘Just a few weeks?’
‘We just unlocked the door to Spain, love,’ Sharpe said, ‘and we’ll be going through it. All the way to France.’
‘And I go with you,’ Teresa said, ‘all the way.’
‘And we’ll win,’ Sharpe said, ‘because the sorry bastards don’t have rifles, and we do.’
HISTORICAL NOTE
Major-General Sir Rowland ‘Daddy’ Hill’s raid on Almaraz in the spring of 1812 was one of the great British successes in the Peninsular War. It followed the hard fighting that had succeeded in capturing the two great frontier fortresses, Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, that barred any British advance into Spain. With those cities captured the one great danger facing a British invasion of French-held Spain was the possibility of the French combining the armies of Soult and Marmont to oppose Wellington’s army. The River Tagus divided those two formidable armies and Wellington’s solution to his problem of keeping them separated was as ingenious as it was daring. He would make the Tagus impassable.
There were bridges at Toledo, Almaraz, and Alcántara, and the latter two would have provided easy communication between Marmont in the north and Soult to the south of the river. The bridge at Alcántara, closest to Portugal, had been built by the Romans and destroyed early in the war. It was denied to the French by British occupying forces, who could use the bridge thanks to an ingenious device which enabled a sliding timber drawbridge to cross the broken span. The Roman bridge at Toledo was available to the French, but was so far inland that it would impose an enormous delay in marching time. The danger was the bridge at Almaraz, which would offer a swift link between the southern and northern armies of the French. That link was broken in the early years of the war when the Spanish destroyed the northern span, but the French had replaced the shattered bridge with a pontoon bridge a little downriver.
That bridge of boats was guarded by Forts Napoleon and Ragusa, and by two têtes de pont, or bastions. The têtes de pont blocked the immediate entrances to the bridge, while the forts, close by, commanded the approaches to the pontoon bridge. A third fort, Miravete Castle with its outlying works, blocked the road to the bridge in the southern hills above the river. All three forts were formidably strong and garrisoned by around 1,500 French troops. Against them Hill led about 7,000 men, mostly British, but reinforced with a fine Portuguese brigade and some troops from the King’s German Legion.
Hill’s force reached the Miravete pass at dawn on May 17th. The initial plan had been to batter the Miravete fort with artillery, storm it, and then use the main road to carry the heavy artillery down to the river where Fort Napoleon could be similarly attacked, but a reconnaissance of the fort suggested that the Miravete position would be difficult to subdue and the time taken to open the road would give the enemy time to reinforce the two forts guarding the pontoon bridge. An alternative plan was swiftly adopted. One part of Hill’s force would besiege Miravete Castle to keep it busy and to suggest that its capture was the prime objective of the British, and meanwhile General Howard would lead a formidable force through the hills and descend on Fort Napoleon, which would have to be captured by escalade.
That alternative plan also had problems. The sheep track through the hills was more treacherous than expected, the ladders were too long to be carried easily through the twisting path through the trees, and when dawn came on the 18th a substantial part of Howard’s force had still to arrive. Howard nevertheless decided to attack with the 50th and part of the 71st and ordered them forward. The ladder carriers, now carrying much shortened ladders, went first and were met with cannon and musket fire from Fort Napoleon’s defenders who had been aware that the attack was coming. Nevertheless the ladders were successfully carried into the fort’s ditch and swung up against the ramparts, only to discover that the ladders, having been shortened to make their journey through the thickets easier, were now too short. The attackers were trapped in the fort’s ditch where they could be assailed by roundshot and shells simply dropped from the high rampart.
Yet the fort had a weakness; the distance between the foot of the walls and the lip of the ditch. That distance should have been no more than a foot, but at Fort Napoleon that berm was about a yard wide and the attackers realised that by propping the ladders on the berm, rather than planting them in the ditch’s base, they would reach the full height of the wall. Captain Candless of the 50th was supposed to be the first man to scale a ladder and jump down among the defenders. He died, but other men now succeeded in climbing the ladders and routing the French. They would have been much helped by the accurate rifle fire of the British 95th and the Portuguese riflemen who could pick off defenders visible above the ramparts.
French resistance in Fort Napoleon collapsed when the high rampart fell. The commander of the fort tried to rally his men, but was mortally wounded when a Sergeant of the 50th ran him through with a pike. Most of the garrison fled, and the only place to find safety was to cross the bridge and join the defenders of Fort Ragusa.
The bridge was thus crowded with French fugitives and their British pursuers when the centre broke. That centre of the bridge was formed by one, or possibly two, river boats which could be removed if ever the pontoon bridge needed to allow traffic through. Some accounts reckon the bridge broke because Fort Ragusa’s defenders fired on the British pursuers and their roundshot shattered the boats, others reckon that the weight of the fleeing French proved too much for the craft, and others suggest the bridge was deliberately broken to prevent the British from crossing the river and attacking Fort Ragusa. However it happened, the result was that many fugitives drowned, and General Howard’s forces were unable to cross the river to attack the second smaller fort.
So long as Fort Ragusa remained in French hands, so long was General Hill’s purpose unfulfilled. True the British could destroy the bridge with cannon fire, but they were far from Portugal where the British army was located, and would be forced to withdraw before the French sent powerful reinforcements to drive them away. The bridge could be remade and Wellington’s advance north of the Tagus would be threatened by forces from Soult’s army. Fort Ragusa had to be attacked and destroyed, and the river crossing was gone.
