Honour and the Sword (68 page)

The boy was nearly up to them, but d’Estrada took his time. He looked down at Stefan, brought the point of his sword right up to his face, then gave the tiniest flick of his wrist and stepped back. I thought he’d killed him at first, then saw the trickle of blood on Stefan’s cheek, and all at once I understood. I remembered how much d’Estrada had wanted the ‘Tanner of Verdâme’, and now I understood the whole bloody thing, and that Stefan had brought it on himself.

André came panting up, and d’Estrada faced him, blade levelled, but at that moment there came a great crash from the Dax-Verdâme Road. The shooting intensified, but there was shouting and screaming, some obviously women, then the pounding of hoofbeats getting louder as they galloped towards us. D’Estrada sketched a tiny salute with his sword, then turned and ran up the road, and I knew the barricade had broken at last.

Jean-Marie Mercier

There was something blocking my mouth and I couldn’t breathe. I tried to brush it away, but the weight was too much, I had to push out my arms and heave. I opened my eyes but had to close them again instantly, because I was looking right into Simon’s face. He was lying on top of me, and he was dead.

I rolled clear, and found I could see sky. My knee still felt as if something were lying on it, but I could see there wasn’t. I expect it was just because I’d been shot there. I could see it bleeding. It was bleeding quite a lot.

A voice said ‘Jean?’

Colin was kneeling up on the roof and obviously very much alive. His arm had a gash running along it, as if a musket ball had scored him as it passed, but otherwise he seemed unhurt.

‘Can you shoot? Georges doesn’t think he’s up to it.’

I rolled back on to my stomach. My knee made a strange kind of sensation that was a little like screaming as I rested it on the roof, but it didn’t seem much to do with me. What was real was Georges’ face next to mine, and he was alive too. His face was grey, almost pale blue, and when I looked down his body I nearly vomited. His lower back and legs were dark, dark red, and I’ve no idea how many bullets he’d taken. But he’d been at the front with me, and Colin just behind us, so I suppose the men at the back had taken the worst of the volley and we had all survived.

I said ‘I can shoot.’

‘Lots of guns,’ said Colin, passing me one. ‘No one else here needs any.’

He was very brave, Colin. He must have been every bit as upset as I was at the death of the rest of us, but honestly no one would have known. He gave the impression he was happy to be there with all those loaded muskets at his disposal.

‘Better be quick,’ he said. ‘Look.’

I focused my eyes over the parapet. The space before the Gate was curiously empty. I could see only two men standing there, and they were the two men I’d most have wanted to see, they were André and Jacques, with Stefan climbing to his feet just beyond them. But there was a tremendous crashing and firing coming from the Dax-Verdâme Road, and when I turned my head that way, I saw a mass of horsemen pouring down it. Some were our own, I could see the unmistakable figure of Bettremieu fighting on horseback, but most seemed to be the enemy, and they were all heading for the Gate.

‘Quick as you like, Col,’ I said, and fired.

He passed me another, even as my first man was toppling off his horse. But too many were through and fighting our men for possession of the first leaf of the Gate. Our own cavalry couldn’t get past them, and there was no one to defend the second except André and Jacques.

I said ‘Faster.’

Jacques Gilbert

I felt so bloody tired, and my leg was nagging at me. I leant back against our leaf of the Gate to take my weight off it.

‘Good idea,’ said André, and came and stood next to me. ‘If they want to shut this Gate, they’ll have to kill us first.’

I didn’t think in my case it would take very much, but it didn’t seem to matter any more. Even as I watched, the leading Spanish cavalry broke away from our men at the first leaf and came galloping towards us.

A shot rang out from the direction of Market Street, then seconds later another, and the cavalrymen both dropped to the stones.

André said ‘There’s men alive up there.’

I looked back to the stable, as yet another shot cracked, then another. It sounded like two men, even three, but the flashes were coming from a single position. I felt a funny kind of prickling behind my eyes.

‘Just one,’ I said. ‘And I bet I know who.’

Jean-Marie Mercier

Next to me a voice said ‘Is Bettremieu wounded yet, Jean-Marie?’

Dear Georges. I shut out the memory of what I’d seen of his lower body and kept firing. I aimed for the cavalry, because no one on foot would have a hope against them, not even André. Colin was wonderful, he had the next gun ready every time, pressing them into my hands, all I had to do was point and shoot.

Georges’ voice was very slurred now. ‘They’re coming, Je’m’rie, our army, I can see them.’

I didn’t dare stop to look. André and Jacques had three or four men on foot to deal with, I couldn’t afford to let any more reach them. Stefan could have gone to help, but he was fighting alongside our men at the other leaf, and I suppose he was too hard pressed. There was another knot of cavalry breaking through, I fired at the leading horse and reached for another musket.

It was only as I was squeezing off the next shot that I recognized the man I’d unhorsed. It was Don Francisco himself, and he was running straight for André.

Jacques Gilbert

I was pulling out from my last man when I saw Don Francisco. My sword was free, I lunged straight at him, but his guard crunched into my jaw, I spun off balance and crashed against the Gate. He was bloody strong, it wasn’t just fat in that great frame of his, there was a lot of muscle too. His sword came plunging in at my belly, but another blade shot underneath and sprang it back up, and that was André, of course, it was the boy. He thrust at the Colonel, driving him outward from the Gate, forcing him into leaving me alone and fighting with himself.

It was ridiculous, Don Francisco was huge, he was nearly a foot taller and a whole lot broader, his sword looked like a child’s toy in his hand. I kept my feet and launched myself after them, but there was another coming in, probably the Colonel’s page, certainly not much of a swordsman, but he had to be dealt with all the same, and it drove me mad because I wanted to get to the boy.

But there was a fury about André I’d never seen before. There was no defending about him now, he was straight at the Colonel, attacking, attacking, footwork flawless, blade darting in and out so fast I could hardly even see it. Don Francisco couldn’t either, he didn’t seem to believe it was happening, he just sort of blinked and gave back, retreating, retreating, his polished boots slipping on the stones.

I finished off the page, and saw three more riders hurtling towards us, but Bettremieu shot out from behind the first leaf of the Gate and practically took the head off the nearest with his sabre, while a bolt from the woods had another. The third got nearly as far as Don Francisco before a musket shot from the stables caught him, and he toppled at André’s feet. André never even turned, he just went on driving that big bastard further and further back till his guard was all to fuck, his sword just dangling from its lanyard, he was trying to ward off the attack with his fat white hands. Then the boy started to hit him. He whipped his blade right down his chest, scoring down his red sash, then drew back and slashed down the other side, slicing right through the padded doublet, and Don Francisco was crumpling, he was falling on his knees, and still the boy was hitting him. He was saying stuff under his breath, and I couldn’t catch it, then I heard the words ‘Robert Thibault’ and knew he was saying names of all the people who’d been killed, he was making them sort of real again, then last of all he said ‘Martin Gauthier,’ and drove his sword right into Don Francisco’s throat, drove it all the way through until his guard was under that fat chin, and only then did he pull out.

Jean-Marie Mercier

Georges’ voice came very faint now. ‘Is my brother there?’

I couldn’t see Dom, but Georges’ eyes were glazing in that drained face, and I said ‘He’s fine, he’s with André, he’s fine.’

Georges’ contented sigh was lost in a triumphant roar below us, and I saw the Spaniards had won control of the first leaf, scattering our men and slamming it shut. More were getting through from the Dax-Verdâme Road, and I couldn’t see our own cavalry any more, they were all unhorsed, even Bettremieu. We still had some infantry fighting, there were archers firing steadily from the fringes of the woods, and some of our civilians were running down from the Square, but we were hopelessly outnumbered. A great rush of soldiers broke clear and ran for the second leaf, where there were only André and Jacques with Bettremieu.

I fired at the first, got him, and reached for another musket. I shot the second, and reached for another. Beside me Georges’ eyes were still as glass and I knew he’d died. I fired, and reached for another gun.

Colin Lefebvre

Never seen anything like it, never. It was hand out, next gun, bring it up and fire, hand out again, next gun. Hardly even seemed to be looking where he was shooting, but he must have been, never saw him miss. Leg smashed to pieces, must have ground something terrible against the roof, but it never stopped him. Wincing with the pain, have to say that, face white as dead Georges’, and blood on his chin where he was biting his lip, but he never stopped firing, not for a second.

Couldn’t afford to, neither. Right old mess down there, would have been a massacre if it hadn’t been for us. Left Gate shut now, nothing to be done about that, though our people still fighting the dons for it, trying to get it back. André was holding the other, him and that Libert, and we’d a couple more of our infantry managed to reach them, but a sorry little force all the same. My poor old Jacques in the thick of it too, standing himself up by holding on to the Gate, didn’t look good for anything much.

Jacques Gilbert

The boom of the first leaf closing felt like the end of the world. It drove the boy frantic, he was fighting wilder than ever, and that scared me, he’d got too far away from our own leaf, he was wide open. A couple of infantry had broken through to join us, but there were loads of Spaniards coming at us now, too many even for Jean-Marie to deal with. Not that the boy seemed to care, he was taking all comers, he was whirling about, ducking and sidestepping, the best fencing I’d ever seen him do, but his back was exposed and someone was going to get him in the end.

I peeled myself away from the support of the Gate, and got behind André so we could fight back to back. He knew it was me, he just said ‘Thanks,’ but it came out in a kind of breath and I knew he was exhausted. For a second he even leant against me for support, and my leg hurt so much I nearly fainted, but I wasn’t going to say a word, because he needed me now, my brother, and if taking his weight was all I could do, then at least I was going to do that.

A shot blazed past my head. Some of the enemy were unhorsed cavalry with pistols, and another aimed right at André, but one of our infantrymen leapt on him just as the pistol went off. It must have shot our man right in the stomach, he creased in agony and slumped to the ground, and I saw it was Dom, my patient Brother Shoveller, writhing and choking his life out on the stones. The thought flashed through me that this would kill Georges, but then I remembered Georges was on the stable and must be dead already, and that was a final blow I couldn’t bear. I came hurtling round with my sword and stuck that bastard Spaniard right through the neck, and if I could have killed him again I would.

But I’d left the boy, and turned frantically to see him surrounded, three against him, and one going for his back. Bettremieu roared and charged them, scything down with his sabre, opening up the first from shoulder to navel, but the second turned and thrust his sword full into Bettremieu’s side. With an ordinary man it would have come out the other side, but Bettremieu swung his sabre one last time and brought it down on the neck of the man who’d stabbed him, then collapsed quite gently to the cobbles, and fell on his side. Bettremieu, indestructible Bettremieu, was down.

André saw it, he was crying out, he whipped his sword out of the third man, and made to kneel down by Bettremieu, but there were more coming and our last infantryman down in the rush, and now it was just him and me again, just me and the boy, and everyone dying round us, and now it was our turn to die too. I made a last desperate effort to get to him, whirling round with my sword to keep the bastards at bay, but my leg buckled, it just folded up like a handkerchief, then someone crashed into me, my head smacked hard against the Gate, and everything went totally black.

Carlos Corvacho

I saw it all.

I was in the charge with the Capitán, made it all the way to the Gate. I was fighting side by side with him till he fell, and in a manner of speaking that’s what put me out of it too. I’d taken a ball in the shoulder from somewhere, so I was already on the ground when the big man who’d downed my Capitán came sliding off a cannon dead on top of me, and there I was, pinned under the weight of him. Totally trapped I was, Señor, I couldn’t move at all.

But I was conscious all through, I saw the lot. It was a fine display your Chevalier gave at that Gate, I’ve never seen a better by a Frenchman. Young Gilbert went down at last, and de Roland simply stepped astride him to protect his body, kept his back to the Gate and took on everyone who came near. He held that leaf all by himself, Señor, held it for whole minutes against a great press of our men, held it all alone till the end. No one could take him front on, no one, my Capitán being engaged down the road, but he couldn’t move position without abandoning his friend, so three of our men got round behind the leaf, and started to push it closed.