Read Online Sharpe 3-Book Collection 7: Sharpe's Revenge, Sharpe's Waterloo, Sharpe's Devil by Bernard Cornwell - Free Book Online

you can fire back. It’s much less frightening then.’
    ‘Bless you, sir, I’m not frightened.’
    ‘I am.’ Sharpe grinned, then looked to his right and saw that Frederickson’s men were so far unscathed. Frederickson had taken his Riflemen closer to the enemy, which had been a shrewd move for the Greenjackets made a small and seemingly negligible target compared to the long and cumbersome column of redcoats. The French were firing over the Riflemen’s heads.
    A cavalry officer galloped past Frederickson’s men towards the head of Beresford’s column. Sharpe recognized the man as one of Wellington’s aides, and assumed from his haste that he carried an urgent message. A clue to the message came when the ridge’s northern end suddenly exploded with cannon fire. Sharpe twisted in his saddle and saw that the French had unmasked a dozen batteries that were hammering their missiles down the hill at the attacking Spaniards.
    The Lieutenant frowned. ‘I thought we were supposed to attack at the same time as the Dagoes, sir?’
    ‘We were.’
    God only knew what had gone wrong, but gone wrong it had. The Spaniards, instead of waiting until Beresford’s diversionary attack was in position to the south, had precipitately charged up the ridge’s northern slopes. Their bright uniforms and gaudy colours made a brave show, but it was a gallant display being eviscerated by the concentrated fire of the deadly twelve-pounders.
    ‘Halt! Halt!’ Divisional officers were galloping back down Beresford’s column. ‘Face right! Face right!’
    Battalion officers and sergeants took up the cry and the great column halted and clumsily turned to face the bleak, steep slope at the ridge’s centre.
    Nairn, who had been riding at the head of his brigade, spurred back. ‘Column of half companies!’ he ordered. It seemed that Marshal Beresford must be contemplating an immediate assault on the ridge. Certainly, if Beresford was to divert attention from the Spanish attack then he could not wait till he reached the gentler slopes at the ridge’s southern end, but would be forced to launch his eleven thousand men on a desperate uphill scramble against the French entrenchments.
    The French batteries, seeing the British and Portuguese battalions shake into their attack columns, kept firing. ‘Lie down!’ Nairn shouted. ‘Lie down!’
    The battalions dropped, making themselves a smaller and lower target for the enemy gunners, but leaving the officers on horseback feeling horribly exposed. Sharpe stared at the ridge and feared its muscle-sapping steepness. The sun, just rising above the summit, was suddenly dazzling.
    ‘Wait here, Sharpe!’ Nairn was excited. ‘I’ll discover what’s happening. You wait here!’
    Sharpe waited. After breakfast he had pushed some bread and beef into a saddle bag and now, suddenly hungry, he gnawed at a lump of the meat.
    ‘They’ve cocked it up!’ Colonel Taplow, his red face as bad-tempered as ever, rode to Sharpe’s side. ‘The Spanish have cocked it up, Sharpe!’
    ‘So it seems, sir.’ A cannonball thumped the earth to Sharpe’s left. Sycorax skittered sideways until Sharpe soothed her.
    ‘Seems?’ Taplow was incensed by the mild word. ‘They’ve cocked it up, that’s what they’ve done. Cocked it up!’ He gestured to the north where a new sound erupted as French musketry began flaying the Spaniards. The crackle of musketry was a thick, splintering sound that gave witness to just how many defenders had been waiting for the Spanish. ‘They went too early.’ Taplow seemed to revel in the Spanish mistake. ‘They couldn’t keep their breeches up, could they? Too much damned eagerness, Sharpe. No whippers-in, that’s their problem. No bottom. Not like the English. It’ll be up to us now, Sharpe, you mark my words. It’ll be up to us!’
    ‘Indeed it will, sir.’
    The musketry was unending; a sustained terror of sound just like a million snapping rails of wood. And every snap