Sharpe 18 - Sharpe's Siege Read Online Free PDF Page B

hardly more than guerites.”
    Bampfylde looked to Sharpe. “Surprise and speed, Major! They can't defend the complete enceinte, and the frigate will distract them!” So much, it seemed, for the problems of capturing a fortress. The talk moved on to the proposed naval operations inside the Bassin d'Arcachon, where more chasse-marees awaited capture, but Sharpe, uninterested in that part of the discussion, let his thoughts drift.
    He did not see Bampfylde's plush, shining cabin, instead he imagined a rising grass slope, scythed smooth, called a glacis. Beyond the glacis was an eight foot drop into a granite faced, sheer-sided ditch twenty feet wide.
    At the far side of the ditch his men would be faced with a ten foot climb that would lead to a gentle, inward-facing slope; the counterguard. The counterguard was like a broad target displayed to the marksman on the inner wall, the enceinte. Men would cross the counterguard, screaming and twisting as the balls thumped home, only to face a twelve foot drop into a flooded ditch that was sixteen feet wide.
    By now the enemy would be dropping shells or even stones. A boulder, dropped from the twenty foot high inner wall, would crush a man's skull like an eggshell, yet still the wall would have to be climbed with ladders if the men were to penetrate into the Teste de Buch. Given a month, and a train of siege artillery, Sharpe could have blasted a broad path through the whole trace of ditches and walls, but he did not have a month. He had a few moments only in which he must save a frigate from the terrible battering of the fort's heavy guns.
    “Major?” Abruptly the image of the twenty foot wall vanished to be replaced by Bampfylde's quizzically mocking smile. “Major?”
    “Sir?”
    “We are talking, Major, of how many men would be needed to defend the captured fortress while we await reinforcements from the south?”
    “How long will the garrison have to hold?” Sharpe asked.
    Wigram chose to answer. “A few days at the most. If we do find that Bordeaux's ripe for rebellion, then we can bring an Army corps north inside ten days.”
    Sharpe shrugged. “Two hundred? Three? But you'd best use Marines, because I'll need all of my Battalion if you want me to march inland.”
    It was Sharpe's first trenchant statement and it brought curious glances from the junior naval officers. They had all heard of Richard Sharpe and they. watched his weather-darkened, scarred face with interest.
    “Your Battalion?” Wigram's voice was as dry as old paper.
    “A brigade would be preferable, sir.”
    Elphinstone snorted with laughter, but Wigram's expression did not change. “And what leads you to suppose, Major, that the Prince of Wales's Own Volunteers are going to Arcachon?”
    Sharpe had assumed it because he had been summoned, and because he was the de facto commander of the Battalion, but Colonel Wigram now disabused him brutally.
    “You are here, Major, because you are supernumerary to regimental requirements.” Wigram's voice, like his gaze, was pitiless. “Your regimental rank, Major, is that of captain. Captains, however ambitious, do not command Battalions. You should be apprised that a new commanding officer, of due seniority and competence, is being appointed to the Prince of Wales's Own Volunteers.”
    There was a horrid and embarrassed silence in the cabin. Every man there, except for the young Captain Bampfylde, knew the bitter pangs of promotion denied, and each man knew they were watching Sharpe's hopes being broken on the wheel of the Army's regulations. The assembled officers looked away from Sharpe's evident hurt.
    And Sharpe was hurt. He had rescued that Battalion. He had trained it, given it the Prince of Wales's name, then led it to the winter victories in the Pyrenees. He had hoped, more than hoped, that his command of the Battalion would be made official, but the Army had decided otherwise. A new man would be appointed; indeed, Wigram said, the new commanding