And only fifty paces away.

"Now, Sergeant Major, " Sharpe said, and he stepped back through the advancing ranks and tried not to feel sorry for the Frenchmen he was about to kill.

«Fire!» Harper shouted, and this time the whole line fired in unison so that their bullets smacked home in one lethal blow. "Platoon, fire! " Harper shouted before the echo of the volley had died away. "From the centre!»

Sharpe could see nothing of the enemy now, for they were hidden behind a thick cloud of grey-white powder smoke, but he could imagine the horror. Probably the whole French front rank was dead or dying, and most of the second rank, too, and the men behind would be pushing and the men in front stumbling on the dead and wounded, and then, just as they were recovering from the first volley, the rolling platoon fire began. "Aim low! " Harper shouted. "Aim low!»

The air filled with the rotten-egg stench of powder smoke. The men's faces were flecked with burning powder scraps, while the paper cartridge wadding, spat out behind each bullet, started small, flickering fires in the grass.

On and on the volleys went as men fired blindly down into the smoke, pouring death into a small place, and still they loaded and rammed and fired, and Sharpe did not see a single man in his own regiment fall. He did not even hear a French bullet. It was the old story, a French column was being pounded by a British line, and British musketry was crushing the column's head and flanks and flecking its centre with blood.

Sharpe had posted a man wide of the line so that he could see past the smoke.

"They're running, sir! They're running! " the man shouted excitedly. "Running like hell!»

"Cease fire! " Sharpe bellowed. "Cease fire!»

And slowly the smoke cleared to show the horror on the winter grass. Blood and horror and broken men. A column had met a line. Sharpe turned away. "Mister d'Alembord."