«Whoah!» Venables shouted in delight and Sharpe looked up to see that a round shot had struck the edge of an irrigation canal and bounced vertically upwards in a shower of soil. Tig-ears says he once saw two cannonballs collide in mid-air, " Venables said.

"Well, he didn't actually see it, of course, but he heard it. He says they suddenly appeared in the sky. Bang! Then flopped down."

"They'd have shattered and broken up, " Sharpe said.

"Not according to Pig-ears, " Venables insisted.

"He says they flattened each other." A shell exploded ahead of the company, whistling scraps of iron casing overhead. No one was hurt and the files stepped round the smoking fragments. Venables stooped and plucked up a scrap, juggling it because of the heat.

"Like to have keepsakes, " he explained, slipping the piece of iron into a pouch.

"I'll send it home for my sisters. Why don't our guns stop and fire?"

"Still too far away, " Sharpe said. The advancing line still had half a mile to go and, while the six-pounders could fire at that distance, the gunners must have decided to get really close so that their shots could not miss. Get close, that was what Colonel McCandless had always told Sharpe. It was the secret of battle. Get close before you start slaughtering.

A round shot struck a file in seven company. It was on its first graze, still travelling at blistering speed, and the two men of the file were whipped backwards in a spray of mingling blood.

«Jesus,» Venables said in awe.

«Jesus!» The corpses were mixed together, a jumble of splintered bones, tangled entrails and broken weapons. A corporal, one of the file closers stooped to extricate the men's pouches and haversacks from the scattered offal.

"Two more names in the church porch, " Venables remarked.