The second staggered volley of musket balls whistled out into the void and then the third followed without a pause. It had been a marvelous display, the best infantry in the world showing what it did best, and if that promise of slaughter did not give the enemy pause, then nothing would.
But Picard was not a man to heed a warning, and Sharpe, watching from the crest, saw the French preparing to come forward again.
And just then, far to the south from where the picquet watched the road leading into Spain, a musket fired and Sharpe spun around. He knew the other enemy was coming.
PART THREE
"CAPTAIN d'Alembord! " Sharpe shouted.
"Sir?"
"You take over here, Dally, " Sharpe said, "and I'll take your horse."
The French brigade was forming a column. It could mean only one thing, that they planned to attack straight up the hill. But before advancing their leading rank fired musket volleys at the fifteen remaining wine barrels that blocked the road, the remnant of Sharpe's ingenious and deadly trap.
None of the barrels contained gunpowder, for Sharpe had possessed only a limited supply, but the French were not to know that. Their volleys cleared the road while their skirmishers climbed the small valley's side to chase away riflemen who had already retreated. It would take an hour, Sharpe reckoned, before this brigade was in a fit state to advance, and when they did he doubted it would be with much enthusiasm, for they knew what was waiting for them.
But another thousand Frenchmen were coming from the south in their desperate attempt to escape from Spain, and those men knew they must fight through the pass if they were ever to reach home, and their desperation could make those thousand men far more dangerous than the brigade. Sharpe now rode back through the village to where a picquet watched the enemy approaching from the south.