Rifleman Perkins ran to the door. He was the youngest of Sharpe's men, or was presumed to be the youngest for though Perkins knew neither the day nor the year of his birth, he did not yet need to shave. "Sir?"

"If either of these bastards move, shoot them."

Perkins might be young, but the look on his thin face scared the unhurt Frenchman who reached out a placating hand as though begging the young rifleman not to shoot. "I'll look after the bastards, sir," Perkins said, then slotted his brass-handled sword bayonet onto his rifle's muzzle.

Sharpe saw the girl's clothing which had been tossed under a crudely sawn table. He picked up the greasy garments and handed them to her. She was pale, terrified and crying, a young thing, scarcely out of childhood. "Bastards," Sharpe said to the two prisoners, then ran out into the damp light. A musket ball hissed over his head as he ducked down into cover beside Harper.

"Bastards are good, sir," the Irishman said ruefully.

"I thought you had them tamed?"

"They've got different ideas on the matter," Harper said, then broke cover, aimed, fired and ducked back. "Bastards are good," he said again as he started to reload.

And the French were good. Sharpe had expected the small group of Frenchmen to hurry away from the rifle fire, but instead they had deployed into a skirmish line and so turned the easy target of a marching column into a scattered series of difficult targets. Meanwhile the half-dozen dragoons accompanying the infantry had dismounted and begun to fight on foot while one man galloped their horses out of rifle range, and now the assorted dragoon carbines and infantry muskets were threatening to overwhelm Sharpe's riflemen. The Baker rifles were far more accurate than the Frenchmen's muskets and carbines, and they could kill at four times the distance, but they were desperately slow to load.