'Nearly always, sir.

Maybe they were mad to try this test, yet Sharpe wanted to deal fairly with Gilliland's enthusiasm. The rockets were inaccurate, so much so that they had become a joke to Sharpe's men who loved to watch the veering, crashing and burning of Gilliland's toys. Yet most of the rockets did travel towards the enemy, however curious their path, and perhaps Gilliland was right. Perhaps they would terrify and there was only one way to find out. To become the target himself.

Harper scratched his head. 'If my Mother knew, sir, that I was standing against a wall with thirty bloody rockets aimed at me… He sighed, touched the crucifix around his neck. Sharpe knew the artillerymen were jointing the sticks. Each twelve pounder needed two lengths of stick. The first length was slotted into a metal tube on the side of the rocket head and then fixed in place by crimping the metal with pliers. A similar metal tube, similarly crimped, joined the two sticks into a ten-foot shaft that balanced the rocket head. The shaft had another use, a use that intrigued and impressed Sharpe. Each trooper in the Rocket Cavalry kept a lance-head in a special holster on his saddle. The lance-head could be hammered onto the jointed sticks and then carried into battle on horseback. Gilliland's men were not trained to fight with the lance, any more than they were trained in the use of the sabres they all carried, but there was an ingenuity about the detached lance-head that pleased Sharpe. He had appalled Gilliland by insisting that the Rocket Troop rehearse cavalry charges.