Sharpe’s Rifles. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ to watch Major Dunnett’s companies withdraw. The Dragoons were dull shapes in the middle distance. Sometimes a carbine fired and the wind snatched at a smear of grey smoke. A greenjacket was hit in the leg and swore at the enemy.

      The new Lieutenant guessed it was now about two hours before midday. This fighting retreat should be over by early afternoon, after which he would have to hurry ahead to find some cattleshed or church where the men could spend the night. He hoped a commissary officer would appear with a sack of flour that, mixed with water and roasted over a fire of cowdung, would have to suffice as supper and breakfast. With luck a dead horse would provide meat. In the morning, the men would wake with stomach cramps. They would again form ranks; they would march, then they would turn to fight off these same Dragoons.

      Dragoons who now seemed happy to let the Riflemen slip away. ‘They’re not very eager today,’ the Lieutenant grumbled.

      ‘They’re dreaming of home,’ Murray said wistfully. ‘Of chicken and garlic in a pot, good red wine, and a plump girl in bed. Who wants to die in a miserable place like this if that’s waiting for you?’

      ‘We’ll retire by column of half companies!’ Dunnett, convinced that the enemy would not risk closing the gap, planned to turn his back on them and simply march away. ‘Captain Murray? Your men first, if you please.’

      But before Murray could give an order, the new Lieutenant’s voice called in urgent warning, ‘’ware cavalry behind!’

      ‘They’re ours, you fool!’ Dunnett’s distaste for the Quartermaster could not be disguised.

      ‘Oh, Christ!’ Murray had turned to look up the road along which the four companies must retreat. ‘Rear rank! About turn! Major Dunnett! They’re crapauds!’

      God alone knew how, but a new enemy had appeared behind. There was no time to wonder where they had come from, only to turn and face the three fresh squadrons of Dragoons. The French cavalry rode with open cloaks which revealed their pink-faced green coats. They carried drawn swords. They were led, curiously, by a chasseur; an officer in the red coat, scarlet pelisse and black fur hat of the Emperor’s Imperial Guard. Alongside him, mounted on a big roan, was an equally strange figure; a man dressed in a black riding coat and boots that were gleaming white.

      Dunnett gaped at the new enemy. Riflemen frantically reloaded empty weapons. The Quartermaster knelt, braced his rifle by looping its sling about his left elbow, and fired at the chasseur.

      He missed. Rifleman Harper jeered.

      A trumpet sounded from the enemy. There was death in its shrill note.

      The chasseur’s sabre was raised. Beside him the man in the civilian coat drew a long slim sword. The cavalry broke into the trot and the new Lieutenant could hear the hooves on the frozen ground. The Regiment of Dragoons still rode in squadrons that could be distinguished by the colour of their horses. The first squadron was on black horses, the second on bays, and the third on chestnuts; it was an arrangement common in peacetime, but rare in battle that swiftly diluted the pattern with remounts. The trumpeters were on greys, as were the three men who carried the guidons on their long staffs. The small flags were bright against the low clouds. The Dragoons’ long swords were even brighter, like blades of pale ice.

      Major Dunnett realized his Riflemen were in danger of annihilation. ‘Rally square! Rally! Rally!’

      The greenjackets contracted into the rally square; a clumsy formation whereby men crowded together for protection against cavalry. Any man who found himself in the front rank knelt and jammed his rifle butt into the turf so that his sword-bayonet’s blade could be held rigid. Others reloaded their rifles, skinning their frozen knuckles on the sword-bayonets’ long blades as they rammed the charges home. Rifleman Cooper and his mule sheltered in the middle of the square.

      The chestnut squadron wheeled from the rear of the French charge, drew carbines, and dismounted. The other two squadrons spurred into the canter. They were still a hundred paces away and would not rowel their horses to the gallop till they were very close to their target.

      ‘Fire!’ Dunnett shouted.

      Those Riflemen who had reloaded fired.

      A dozen saddles were emptied. The Riflemen jostled each other, shaking themselves into ranks so that the rally square became a real square from which every rifle could fire. There were three ranks of them now, each plumed with bayonets.

      ‘Fire!’ More rifles spat, more cavalry fell, then the chasseur officer, instead of pressing the charge home, wheeled his horse away and the two squadrons sheered off to unmask the dismounted men who now opened fire with their carbines. The first Dragoons, the company which had waited by the bridge, closed on the square’s eastern face.

      The rally square made a perfect target for the dismounted Dragoons. If the Riflemen shook themselves into line to sweep the makeshift infantry away, then the mounted cavalry would spur their horses back into motion and the greenjackets would become mincemeat. The chasseur Colonel, the Lieutenant thought, was a clever bastard; a clever French bastard who would kill some good Riflemen this day.

      Those Riflemen began to fall. The centre of the square soon became a charnel house of wounded men, of blood, screams and hopeless prayer. The rain was stinging harder, wetting the rifle pans, but enough black powder fired to spit bullets at the enemy who, crouched in the grass, made small and elusive targets.

      The two mounted squadrons had wheeled away to the west, and now reformed. They would charge along the line of the road, and the frozen steel of their heavy straight swords would burn like fire when it cut home. Except, so long as the Riflemen stayed together, and so long as their unbroken ranks bristled with the pale blades, the horsemen could not hurt them. But the enemy carbines were taking a fearful toll. And when enough Riflemen had fallen the cavalry charge would split the weakened square with the ease of a sword shattering a rotten apple.

      Dunnett knew it, and he looked for salvation. He saw it in the low cloud which misted the hillside just two hundred yards to the north. If the greenjackets could climb into the obscuring shroud of those clouds, they would be safe. He hesitated over the decision. A Sergeant fell back into the square, killed clean by a ball through his brain. A Rifleman screamed as a bullet struck his lower belly. Another, shot in the foot, checked his sob of pain as he methodically reloaded his weapon.

      Dunnett glanced up the hill at the cloud’s refuge. He stroked his small bristly moustache that was beaded with rain, then made his decision. ‘Uphill! Uphill! Keep ranks!’

      The square inched uphill. The wounded screamed as they were carried. French bullets still thumped home and the greenjacket formation became ragged as men stopped to return the fire or help the casualties. Their progress was desperately slow, too slow for Major Dunnett’s frayed nerves. ‘Break and run! Break and run!’

      ‘No!’ The new Lieutenant shouted the countermand, but he was ignored. Dunnett’s order was given, and now it was a race. If the greenjackets could reach cover before the cavalry could reach them then they would live, but if the chasseur officer had judged his distance right, then he would win.

      The red-coated chasseur had judged very well indeed.

      The greenjackets ran, but over the sound of their hoarse breath and the pounding of their boots came the swelling thunder of the hooves.

      A man turned and saw the bared teeth of a horse. He heard a sword hissing above the sound of the trumpet. The Rifleman screamed.

      Then came chaos and slaughter.

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