Sharpe's Eagle

CHAPTER 17

In sixteen years’ soldiering Sharpe had rarely felt such certainty that battle was about to be joined. The Spanish and British armies had combined at Oropesa and marched on to Talavera, twenty-one thousand British and thirty-four thousand Spanish, a vast army swollen by mules, servants, wives, children, priests, pouring eastwards to where the mountains almost met the River Tagus and the vast arid plain ended at the town of Talavera. The wheels of one hundred and ten field guns ground the white roads to fine dust, the hooves of over six thousand cavalry stirred the powder into the air where it clung to the infantry who trudged through the heat and listened to the far-off crackle as the leading Spanish skirmishers pushed aside the screen of French light troops. To left and right Sharpe could see other plumes of dust where cavalry patrols rode parallel to the line of march; closer by, in the fields, the Battalion saw small groups of Spanish soldiers who had fallen out of the march and now lay, apparently unconcerned, chatting with their women, smoking, watching the long columns of British infantry file past.

The men were hungry. Hard as Wellesley tried, thorough as the Commissary could be, nevertheless there was simply not enough food for the whole army. The area between Oropesa and Talavera had already been scoured by the French, now it was searched by Spanish and British, and the Battalion had only eaten ‘Tommies’, pancakes made from flour and water, since they left Oropesa the day before. It was a time for tightening belts, but the prospects of action had raised men’s spirits, and when the Battalion marched past the bodies of three French skirmishers they forgot their hunger at their first sight of French infantry.

Sharpe told his Light Company that the dead men with their fringed epaulettes were the famous French Voltigeurs, the skirmishers, the men with whom the Light Company would fight their own private battle between the lines before the big Battalions clashed. The men of the South Essex, who had not seen enemy infantry before, stared curiously at the blue-jacketed bodies that had been thrown down beside a church wall. Dark stains marked the uniforms, their heads were bent back in the strange attitude of the dead, one man had a finger missing where Sharpe supposed it had been hacked off to get at a valuable ring. Ensign Denny stared at them with fascination: these were the famous French infantry that had marched the length and breadth of Europe; he looked at the moustached faces and wondered how he would feel when he saw similar faces, but animated, staring at him over the browned barrel of the French musket.

The French made no resistance to the west of Talavera or in the town itself. The armies marched through or past the town and on a mile until they stopped at dusk on the banks of a small river that flowed into the Tagus. The Battalion marched to the north of the town, and Sharpe wondered how Josefina would find a room there. Hogan had promised to look after her, and Sharpe stared at the crowds pressing into the narrow streets as though he might catch a glimpse of her. The men grumbled. They were tired and hungry and they resented being denied the pleasures of the town. They could see officers on horseback riding towards the old walls, their wives and children walked there, but the troops went on to the Alberche and camped in the cork groves that sloped down to the shallow river. Tomorrow they must fight. If they survived tomorrow then would come the time to buy drink in Talavera, but first they must cross the River Alberche and defeat the army of Marshal Victor. Fires were lit throughout the trees, the Battalions swiftly settling in for the night, glancing apprehensively at the far river-bank where hundreds of smoke plumes mingled and shivered over the French camp. The armies had finally been brought together, British, Spanish and French, and tomorrow they must fight, and Sharpe’s company squatted by their fires and wondered about the men just across the river who sat by similar fires and made the same jokes in a different language.

Sharpe and Harper strolled to the river’s edge where the Battalion’s leading picquets were settling for a night’s guard duty. Two men of the Light Company, dressed in greatcoats, nodded at Sharpe and jerked their thumbs across the river. A French picquet stood watching them, three men smoking pipes, while another Frenchman filled his canteen at the water’s edge. The man looked up, saw the Riflemen, and raised a hand. He shouted something but they did not understand him. Sharpe shivered slightly. The sun had lost its heat, was reddening in the west, and the chill of the night was already making itself felt. He waved back at the Frenchman and turned back towards the cork grove.

Now was the time for the rituals before battle. Sharpe walked through the trees and chatted with men who prepared themselves with the obsessions for detail that all men thought might protect them in the chaos of the fight. The Riflemen had stripped their locks, pinned the massive rifle main springs with nails, and brushed every scrap of dirt from the machinery. Men put new flints in their muskets or rifles, unscrewed them and put them in again, looking for the perfect fit that would never come loose, turn sideways, or shatter in the pan. Pots of boiling water were carried carefully from the fires and poured into the barrels of the guns to flush out every last powder deposit, because tomorrow a man’s life might depend on how fast he could reload his musket. Joining the noise of the insects were the sounds of hundreds of stones rubbing endlessly on bayonets, the countrymen sharpening the blades as they used to sharpen reaping hooks or wide-bladed scythes. Men repaired uniforms, sewed on buttons, made new laces, as though to be comfortable was to be safer. Sharpe had been through the ritual a hundred times; he would go through it again tonight the way that a knight in times far past must have strapped every piece of armour, tightened each piece, delayed the next until the first was secure. Some Riflemen emptied all the fine powder from their horns and spread the black grains on clean white cloth to ensure there were no damp lumps that could clog the measuring spout in battle. There were the same jokes: „Don’t wear your hat tomorrow, Sarge, the French might see your face and die laughing.“ That one always worked as long as the Sergeant did not see which man had shouted from the shadows; other men were asked to go and sleep with the French so their snoring would keep the enemy awake; the stale jokes were as much a part of the battle as the bullets which would begin to fly at first light.

Sharpe walked past the fires, swapping jokes, accepting tots of hoarded spirits, feeling the edges of bayonets, telling the men that the next day would not be bad. Nor should it be. The combined British and Spanish far outnumbered the French; the allies had the initiative, the battle should be short, swift, and victory almost a certainty. He listened to men boasting of the deeds they would perform next day and knew that the words covered their fear; it was right that they should. Other men, more quietly, asked him what it would be like. He smiled and told them they would see in the morning, but it would not be as bad as they feared, and shrugged away his knowledge of the chaos they would all have to surmount when the attacking infantry walked into the storm of canister and musket shot. He left the fires behind, skirted the bigger blaze where the officers’ servants prepared the thin stew of salt beef that was the last of the hoarded supplies, and out of the trees altogether. In the last light of dusk he could see a farmhouse five hundred yards away where earlier he had seen the sixteenth Light Dragoons go with their horses. He crossed the fields and went into the yard. A line of troopers in blue and scarlet uniforms waited by the armourer. Sharpe waited for them to finish and then unsheathed the huge sword and carried it to the wheel. This was part of his ritual, to have the sword sharpened by a cavalry armourer because they made a finer edge, and the armourer looked at his Rifleman’s uniform and grinned. He was an old soldier, too old to ride into battle, but he had seen it all, done it all himself. He took the blade from Sharpe, tested it with a broad thumb, and then pressed it onto the pedalled stone. The sparks flowed off the wheel, the blade sang; the man swept it lovingly up and down the edge and then sharpened the top six inches of the back blade. He wiped the sword with an oily piece of leather.

“Get yourself a German one, Captain.” It was an old argument, whether the Kligenthal blades were better than the British. Sharpe shook his head. “I’ve eaten German swords with this one.”

The armourer cackled a toothless laugh and peered down the edge. “There you are, Captain. Take care of it.”

Sharpe put some coins on the wheel frame and held the sword up to the last light of the western sky. There was a new sheen on the edge, he felt it with his thumb and smiled at the armourer. “You’ll never get a Kligenthal as sharp as that.”

The armourer said nothing but from behind him he took out a sabre and handed it to Sharpe. Sharpe sheathed his sword and took the curved blade. It felt as if it had been made for him; its balance was a miracle, as if the steel were not there even though it flashed in the red light. He touched the blade. It would have sliced through silk as cleanly as it must cut through the breastplate of the French cavalry. “German?” Sharpe asked.

“Yes, Captain. Belongs to our Colonel.” The armourer took the blade back. “And I haven’t begun to sharpen it yet!”

Sharpe laughed. The sabre must have cost two hundred guineas. One day, he promised himself, one day he would own such a sword, not taken from the dead, but a sword that was inscribed with his name, forged to his height, balanced for his grip. He went back to the trees and in the sky over the river he could see the glow of the enemy fires where twenty-two thousand Frenchmen were sharpening their own blades and wondering about the morning. Not many would sleep. Most would doze through the night, their wakefulness laced with apprehension, searching the eastern sky for a dawn that might be the last one they would ever see. Sharpe lay awake for part of the night and rehearsed the next day in his head. The plan was simple enough. The Alberche ran in a curve to join the River Tagus, and the French were on the inside of the bend. In the morning the Spanish trumpets would sound, their thirty guns be unleashed, and the infantry would splash across the shallow river to attack the outnumbered French. And as the French retreated, as assuredly they must, so Wellesley would throw the British onto their flank. And Marshal Victor would be destroyed, his army broken between the hammer of the Spanish and the anvil of the British, and as the blue infantry withdrew the cavalry would come through the water and turn retreat into carnage. And once that was done, all perhaps before the citizens of Talavera went to their Sunday morning mass, there would only be King Joseph Bonaparte’s twenty thousand men between the allies and Madrid. It was all so simple. Sharpe slept in his greatcoat, curled by the embers of a fire, a gilded eagle threading his sleep.

There were no bugles to wake them in the morning, nothing that might alert the French to the dawn attack instead of the more civilised hour of mid-morning, when most men could be expected to fight. Sergeants and corporals shook the men awake; soldiers cursed the dew and the cold air that rasped in their throats. Every man glanced towards the river, but the far bank was shrouded in mist and darkness; there was nothing to be seen, no sound to be heard. They had been forbidden to relight the fires in case the sudden lights should warn the French, but somehow they managed to heat water and threw in the loose tea-leaves, and Sharpe gratefully accepted a tin mug of the scalding liquid from his Sergeant. Harper was kicking dirt onto the fire; the men had risked a small blaze rather than go without tea, and he looked up at Sharpe and grinned. “Permission to go to church, sir?”

Sharpe grinned back. It was Sunday. He tried to work out the date. They had left Plasencia on the seventeenth and that had been a Monday, and he counted the days forward on his fingers. Sunday 23 July, 1809. There was still no light in the eastern sky, the stars shone brightly, the dawn still two hours away. Behind them, on a track that ran between the cork grove and the fields, there was a rumbling and clanking and cursing as a battery of artillery unlimbered. Sharpe turned, the tea cradled in his hands, and watched the dim shapes as the horses were led away and the field guns pointed across the river. They would herald the attack, hurling their round shot at the French lines, tearing holes in the French Battalions as Sharpe led his skirmishers into the river. It was cold, too cold to feel any excitement; that would come later. Now were the hours to feel apprehensive, to tighten belts and buckles, to feel hungry. Sharpe shivered slightly in his greatcoat, nodded his thanks to Harper, and made his way down the grove between the lines of his men who stamped their feet and swung their arms and resurrected the more successful jokes of the previous evening. Somehow they were not as funny in the small hours before dawn.

He left the trees and walked onto the patch of grass that lay beside the river. His boots swished through the dew and warned the sentries of his coming. He was challenged, gave the password, and greeted as he jumped down onto the shingle at the water’s edge.

“Anything happening?”

“No, sir.”

The water slid blackly beneath the tendrils of mist. There was an occasional slap and swirl from the river as a fish twisted and disturbed the surface. Sharpe peered over his cupped hands and blew on his fingers; there was the faintest dot of red light on the far bank that suddenly glowed brighter. The French sentry was smoking a cigar or a pipe. Sharpe looked to his left. The eastern sky at last had a suspicion of colour, a flat silver grey that silhouetted the hills, the first sign of dawn. He clapped one of the sentries on the shoulder. “Not long now.”

He climbed the brief bank between the shingle and the grass and walked back to the trees. From the French lines he could hear a dog barking, the whinny of a horse, and then the sound of bugles. They would start lighting their fires, start cooking a breakfast, and hopefully they would be still eating it when the Spanish bayonets came at them from the west. He suddenly felt a longing for devilled kidneys and coffee, for any food other than the thin stew and the Tommies and the old ship’s biscuits that the Battalion had lived on for a week. He remembered the garlic sausage they had collected from the enemy dead at Rolica and hoped he would find some that morning on the bodies of the men who were grumbling round their fires just across the river.

Back in the grove he took off his greatcoat, rolled it tight, and strapped it to his pack. He shivered. He took the rag off the lock of his rifle that had protected it from the dew and tested the tension of the spring with his thumb. He slung it on his shoulder, slapped his sword, and started moving the Light Company down to the treeline. The skirmishers would go first, the thin line of Riflemen and redcoats wading the Alberche to drive off the sentries and lock up the French Voltigeurs so that they could not blunt the attack of the massed British Battalions which would follow on to the French flank. He made the men lie down a few feet inside the grove where they merged into the shadows of the trees, while behind he could see the other nine companies of the Battalion forming up for the assault that could not be far away.

Dawn crept over the mountains, flooding the valley with a silver-grey light, shrinking the pools of shadow and revealing the shapes of trees and bushes on the far bank. It would still be a few moments, Sharpe decided, before the Spanish would break the silence and start the attack. He walked along the treeline, nodded to the Captain of the Light Company of the 29th who was on his right flank, made the polite small talk, wishing each other luck, and then strolled back to stand beside Harper. They did not speak but Sharpe knew the big Irishman was thinking of the promise Lennox had extracted from them by the bridge. But for Sharpe the Eagle had more urgency. If he could not pluck it from its perch today there might not be another chance for months and that meant no chance at all. In a few weeks, unless he could blunt Simmerson’s letter, he might be on a ship for the West Indies and the inevitable fever that made the posting a virtual death warrant. He thought of Josefina, asleep in the town, her black hair spread on a pillow, and wondered why suddenly his life had been enmeshed in a series of problems that one month ago he had not even suspected existed.

Muskets banged erratically in the distance. The men cocked their ears, murmured to each other, listened to the sporadic firing that rattled up and down the French lines. Lieutenant Knowles came up to Sharpe and raised his eyebrows in a question. Sharpe shook his head. “They’re clearing their muskets, that’s all.” The French sentries had been changed and the men going off duty were getting rid of their charges that might have become damp in the night air. Musket fire would not herald the attack. Sharpe was waiting for the red flashes that would illumine the western sky like summer lightning and show that the Spanish artillery was opening the battle. It could not be far off.

There were shouts from the river. Again the men pricked their ears, strained forward, but again it was a false alarm. A group of the enemy appeared, chasing and shouting at each other in horseplay, carrying buckets to the water’s edge. One of them held up his bucket and shouted something to the British bank; his companions all laughed, but Sharpe had no idea what the joke was.

“Watering horses?” Knowles asked.

“No.” Sharpe stifled a yawn. “Artillery buckets. There must be guns to our front.” That was bad news. A dozen men were carrying buckets in which the sponges that damped out the sparks in discharged guns were dipped. The water in the pails would be black as ink after a few shots, and if the guns were directly ahead Sharpe knew that the South Essex might be marching into a storm of canister fragments. He felt tired, achingly tired; he wanted to begin the fight, he wanted the Eagle out of his dreams.

Simmerson and Forrest appeared, both on foot, and stared at the artillerymen filling their buckets. Sharpe said good morning and Simmerson, his antagonism blunted by nervousness, nodded back. “Those musket shots?”

“Just clearing their charges, sir. Nothing else.”

Simmerson grunted. He was doing his best to be civil, as if he realised at this moment that he needed Sharpe’s skill on his side. He pulled out a vast watch, opened the lid, and shook his head. “Spanish are late.”

The light began to lose its greyness. There was a sparkle on the far bank, and behind them Sharpe could see the smoke of the hundreds of French cooking fires. “Permission to relieve the picquets, sir?”

“Yes, Sharpe, yes.” Simmerson was making a huge effort to sound normal, and Sharpe wondered if suddenly the Colonel was regretting the letter he had written. Sometimes the imminence of battle made seemingly intractable quarrels seem like things of no importance. Simmerson looked as if he would say more, but instead he shook his head again and led Forrest further down the line.

The sentries were changed, the minutes passed, the sun climbed over the mist, and the last vestiges of night disappeared like fading cannon smoke in the western sky. Damn the Spanish, thought Sharpe, as he listened to the bugles calling the French Regiments to parade. A group of horsemen appeared on the far bank and inspected the British side through telescopes. There would be no surprise now. The French officers would be able to see the batteries of guns, the saddled cavalry horses, the rows of infantry lined in the trees. All surprise had gone, vanished with the shadows and the cold, for the first time the French would know how many men opposed them, where the attack was planned, and how they should meet it.

The sound of church bells came from the town and Sharpe wondered what Josefina was doing: had the bells wakened her? He imagined her body stretching between warm sheets, a body that would not be his till after battle. The sound of the bells reminded him of England and he thought of all the village churches that would be filling with people. Would they be thinking of their army in Spain? He doubted it. The British were not fond of their army. They celebrated its victories, of course, but there had been no such celebrations for a long time. The navy was feted, Nelson’s captains had been household names, but Trafalgar was a memory and Nelson was in his tomb, and the British went their way oblivious of the war. The morning became warm, the men somnolent; they leaned against the cork trees and slept with their muskets propped on their knees. From somewhere in the French camp was the harsh sound of a muleteer’s bell reminding Sharpe of normality.

“Sir!” A Sergeant was calling him from one of the companies higher in the grove. “Company officers, sir. To the Colonel!”

Sharpe waved his reply, picked up the rifle, left Knowles in charge and walked up the grove. He was late. The Captains stood in a bunch listening to a Lieutenant from Hill’s staff. Sharpe caught snatches of his words.

“Fast asleep… no battle… usual routine.”

There was a buzz of questions. The Lieutenant, glorious in the silvered Dragoon uniform, sounded bored. “The General requests that we keep posted, sir. But we’re not expecting the French to do anything.”

He rode away leaving the officers puzzled. Sharpe made his way towards Forrest to find out what he had missed, when he saw a familiar figure riding hard down the track. He walked into the road and held up a hand. It was Lieutenant Colonel Lawford and he was furious. He saw Sharpe, reined in, and swore.

“Bloody hell, Richard! Bloody, bloody, bloody hell! Bloody Spanish!”

“What’s happened?”

Lawford could barely contain his anger. “The bloody Spanish refused to wake up! Can you believe it?”

Other officers drew round. Lawford took off his hat and wiped his forehead; he had deep circles under his eyes. “We get up at two o’clock in the bloody morning to save their bloody country and they can’t be bothered to get out of bed!” Lawford looked round as though hoping to see a Spaniard on whom to vent his seething fury. “We rode over there at six. Cuesta’s in his bloody coach lying on bloody cushions and says his army is too tired to fight! Can you believe it? We had them. Like that!” He pinched a finger and thumb together. “We would have murdered them this morning! We could have wiped Victor off the map. But no. It’s manana, manana, tomorrow and tomorrow! There won’t be a bloody tomorrow! Victor’s no fool, he’ll march today. Damn, damn, damn.” The Honourable William Lawford stared down at Sharpe. “You know what happens now?”

“No.”

Lawford pointed towards the east. “Jourdan’s over there, with Joseph Bonaparte. They’ll join up with Victor, then we’ll have twice as many to fight. Twice as many! And there are rumours that Souk has scraped an army together and is coming from the north. God! The chance we lost today! You know what I think?” Sharpe shook his head. “I think the bastard wouldn’t fight because it’s Sunday. He’s got priests mumbling prayers round his bloody bed on wheels. Bloody Catholics! And there’s still no bloody food!”

Sharpe felt the tiredness course through him. “What do we do now?”

“Now? We bloody wait. Cuesta says we’ll attack tomorrow. We won’t because the French won’t be there.” Lawford dropped his shoulders and let out a sigh. “Do you know where Hill is?”

Sharpe pointed along the track and Lawford rode on. Damn the Spaniards, thought Sharpe, damn everything. He was officer of the day and he would have to organise the picquets, inspect the lines, scrape together some supplies from the Commissary, who would have none. He would not be able to see Josefina. There would be no battle, no Eagle, not even a taste of garlic sausage. Damn.

CHAPTER 17

“I saw a man today… „

“Yes?” Sharpe looked over at Josefina. She was sitting naked on the bed with her knees drawn up and trying to file her toe-nails on the edge of his sword. She was laughing at her attempts, and then she dropped the blade and looked at him. “He was lovely. A blue coat with white bits here.” She brushed her breasts with her hands. “And lots of gold lace.”

“On a horse?”

She nodded. “And there was a bag hanging down… „

“His sabretache. And a curved sword?” She nodded again and Sharpe grinned at her. “Sounds like the Prince of Wales Dragoons. Very rich.”

“How do you know?”

“All cavalrymen are rich. Unintelligent, but rich.”

She cocked her head in her characteristic gesture and frowned slightly. “Unintelligent?”

“All cavalry officers are. The horse has all the brains and they have all the money.”

“Ah, well.” She shrugged her bare shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. I have enough brains for two.” She looked at him and grinned. “You’re jealous.”

“Yes.” He had picked up her penchant for honesty. She nodded seriously.

“I’m bored, Richard.”

“I know.”

“Not with you.” She looked up from her toe-nails and stared at him gravely. “You’re good for me. But we’ve been here a week and nothing is happening.”

Sharpe leaned forward and tugged his boots up over the overalls. “Don’t worry. Something will happen tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?”

“Tomorrow we fight.” This time though, he thought, we will be outnumbered.

She pulled her knees tight into her body, clasped them, and looked questioningly at him. “Are you frightened?”

“Yes.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Who’ll win?”

“I don’t know.”

“Will you get your Eagle?”

“I don’t know.”

She nodded seriously. “I have a present for you. I will give it to you after the battle.”

He was embarrassed. He did not have the money to buy presents. “I don’t want it. I want you.”

“You have me already.” She knew what he meant, but she deliberately misunderstood him. She watched him stand up. “You want your sword?”

“Yes.” Sharpe buckled the belt tight, pulling the scabbard into place.

She grinned at him. “Come and get it.” She lay the great blade on the bed and, rolling over, laid her naked belly on its chill steel.

Sharpe crossed to her. “Give it to me.”

“Get it yourself.”

Her body was warm and strong, the muscles hardened by exercise, and she clung to him. Sharpe pushed her face away and stared into her eyes. “What will happen?” he asked.

“You will get your Eagle. You always get what you want.”

“I want you.”

She shut her eyes and kissed him hard, then pulled away and smiled at him. “We’re just stragglers, Richard. We drifted together, but we’re both on a journey.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You do. We’re going two different ways. You want a home. You want someone to love you and want you, someone to take the burden away from you.”

“And you?”

She smiled. “I want silk dresses and music. Candles in the dawn.” He began to say something, but she put a finger on his lips. “I know what you think. That’s just silliness, but it’s what I want. Perhaps one day I’ll want something sensible.”

“Am I sensible?”

“There are times, my love, when you take things a little too seriously.”

“Are you saying goodbye?”

She laughed. “There! You see? You are taking things too seriously.” She kissed him swiftly, on the tip of his nose. “Come after the battle. Get your present.”

He reached down for the handle of his sword. “Move over, I don’t want to cut you.”

She moved to one side and touched the blade with her finger. “How many men have you killed with it?”

“I don’t know.” It slid into the scabbard, the weight congenial on his hip. He crouched by the bed and took her naked waist in his hands. He stared at her body as if trying to commit it to memory: the fullness of it, the beauty of it, the mystery that made it seem unattainable. She touched his face with a finger.

“Go and fight.”

“I’ll be back.”

“I know.”

Everything seemed unreal to Sharpe. The soldiers in Talavera’s streets, the people who avoided his passage, the afternoon itself. Tomorrow there would be a battle. Hundreds would die, mangled by roundshot, sliced by cavalry sabres, pierced by musket shot, yet still the town was busy. People were in love, out of love, bought their food, made jokes, yet tomorrow there would be a battle. He wanted Josefina. He could hardly think of the battle, of the Eagle—only of her teasing face. She was going from him, he knew that, yet he could not accept it. The battle was almost an irrelevance to the overwhelming need to entrap her, to make her his, and he knew it could not happen.

He walked to the town gate that overlooked the plain to the west. The Light Company was mounting a guard on the gate, and Sharpe nodded at Harper and then climbed the steep steps to the parapet, where Hogan stared down into the olive groves and woods that were full of Spanish soldiers filing into the positions Wellesley had carefully prepared for them. Cuesta, after refusing to attack on the Sunday, had impetuously marched after the retreating French. Now, four days later, his army was scuttling back and bringing behind them a French army that had more than doubled in size. Tomorrow, Sharpe knew, this Spanish army would have to fight. The French would wake them up, and the allied army that could have taken its victory last Sunday would now have to fight a defensive battle against the united forces of Victor, Jourdan and Joseph Bonaparte.

Not, Sharpe thought bitterly, that the Spanish would have to do too much of the actual killing. Wellesley had drawn his army back to create a defensive line next to Talavera itself. The right-hand end of the line was made up of the town walls, olive groves, tangled fields and woods, all made impregnable by Hogan’s hard work. He had felled trees, thrown up earthworks, strengthened walls, and in the tangle of barricades and obstacles the Spanish troops took up their positions. No French infantryman could hope to fight his way across Hogan’s breastworks as long as the defenders stayed at their posts; instead the French army would swing north to the left side of Wellesley’s line, where the British would wait for the attack. Sharpe looked at the northern plain. There were no obstacles there that an engineer could make more formidable; there was just the Portina stream that a man could cross without the water coming over his boot-tops, and rolling grassland that was an invitation for the massed French Battalions and their long lines of splendid cavalry. In the distance was the Medellin, the hill which dominated the plain, and Sharpe had walked the grass often enough to know what would happen tomorrow. The French columns would cross the stream and attack the gentle slopes of the Medellin. That was the killing place. The Spanish troops, thirty thousand of them, could stay safely behind their breastworks and watch as the Eagles stormed the British in the open northern plain and the smoke covered Medellin.

“How are you?” Hogan asked.

“I’m fine.” Sharpe grinned.

The Irishman turned to watch the Spanish filling up the positions he had prepared. On the plain beyond, hidden by the trees where the Alberche River emptied itself into the Tagus, came the crackle of musketry. It had gone on all afternoon like a distant forest fire, and Sharpe had seen dozens of British wounded carried through the gate into town. The British had covered the last mile of the Spanish retreat and the wounded men said that the French skirmishers had won the day. Two British Battalions had been mauled badly; there was even a rumour that Welles-ley himself had just escaped capture; the Spanish looked nervous, and Sharpe wondered what kind of troops the French had found to hurl against the allied army. He looked down at Harper. The Sergeant, with a dozen men, was guarding the gate of the town, not against the enemy, but to stop any British or Spanish soldiers who might be tempted to lose themselves in Talavera’s dark alleyways and avoid the fight that was inevitable. The Battalion itself was on the Medellin, and Sharpe waited for the orders that would send his company up the shallow Portina stream to find the patch of grass they would defend in the morning.

“And how’s the girl?” Hogan was sitting on the powdery stone.

“She’s happy. Bored.”

“That’s the way of women. Never content. Will you be needing more money?”

Sharpe looked at the middle-aged Engineer and saw the concern in his eyes. Already Hogan had lent Sharpe more than twenty guineas, a sum that was impossible for him to repay unless he was lucky on the battlefield. “No. I’m all right for the moment.”

Hogan smiled. “You’re lucky.” He shrugged. “God knows, Richard, she’s a beautiful creature. Are you in love?”

Sharpe looked over the parapet where the Spanish had filled Hogan’s makeshift fortresses. “She won’t let me be.”

“Then she’s more sensible than I thought.”

The afternoon passed slowly. Sharpe thought of the girl, bored in her room, and watched the Spanish soldiers chop at the beeches and oaks to build their evening fires. Then, with a suddenness that Sharpe had been waiting for, there were flashes of light far away in the hazy trees and bushes that edged the plain to the east. It was the sun, he knew, reflecting from muskets and breastplates. Sharpe nudged Hogan and pointed. “The French.”

Hogan stood up and stared at them. “My God.” He spoke quietly. “There’s a good few of them.”

The infantry marched onto the far plain like a spreading dark stain on the grass. Sharpe and Hogan watched Battalion after Battalion march into the pale fields, squadron after squadron of cavalry, the small squat shapes of guns scattered in the formations, the largest army Sharpe had ever seen in the field. The galloping figures of staff officers could be seen as they directed the columns to their places ready for the next morning’s advance and battle. Sharpe looked left to the British lines that waited beside the Portina. The smoke from hundreds of camp fires wound into the early evening air; crowds of men clustered by the stream and on the Medellin for a far glimpse of their enemy, but the British force looked woefully small beside the massive tide of men, horses and guns that filled the plain to the east and grew by the minute. Napoleon’s brother was there, King Joseph, and with him two full Marshals of France, Victor and Jourdan. They were leading sixty-five Battalions of infantry, a massive force of the men who had made Europe into Napoleon’s property, and they had come to swat this small British army and send it reeling to the sea. They planned to break it for ever to ensure that Britain never again dared to challenge the Eagles on land.

Hogan whistled softly. “Will they attack this evening?”

“No.” Sharpe scanned the far lines. “They’ll wait for their artillery.”

Hogan pointed into the darkening east. “They’ve got guns. Look, you can see them.”

Sharpe shook his head. “Those are just the small ones they attach to each infantry Battalion. No, the big bastards will be back on the road somewhere. They’ll come in the night.”

And in the morning, he thought, the French will open with one of their favourite cannonades, the massed artillery hurling its iron shot at the enemy lines before the dense, drummed columns follow the Eagles across the stream. French tactics were hardly subtle. Not for them the clever manoeuvrings of turning an enemy’s flank. Instead, again and again, they massed the guns and the men and they hurled a terrifying hammer blow at the enemy line and, again and again, it worked. He shrugged to himself. Who needed to be subtle? The guns and men of France had broken every army sent against them.

There were shouts from behind him and he crossed the battlement and peered down at the gate where Harper and his men were on guard. Lieutenant Gibbons was there with Berry, both mounted, both shouting at Harper. Sharpe leaned over the parapet.

“What’s the problem?”

Gibbons turned round slowly. It dawned on Sharpe that the Lieutenant was slightly drunk and was having some difficulty in staying on his horse. Gibbons saluted Sharpe with his usual irony.

“I didn’t see you there, sir. So sorry.” He bowed. Lieutenant Berry giggled. Gibbons straightened up. “I was just telling your Sergeant here that you can go back to the Battalion now, all right?”

“But you stopped on the way for refreshment?”

Berry giggled loudly. Gibbons looked at him and burst into a laugh himself. He bowed again. “You could say so, sir.”

The two Lieutenants urged their horses under the gateway and started up the road to the British lines to the north. Sharpe watched them go.

“Bastards.”

“Do they give you problems?” Hogan was sitting on the parapet again.

Sharpe shook his head. “No. Just insolence, remarks in the mess, you know.” He wondered about Josefina. Hogan seemed to read his thoughts. “You’re thinking about the girl?”

Sharpe nodded. “Yes. But she should be all right.” He was thinking out loud. “She keeps the door locked. We’re on the top floor and I can’t see how they’d find us.” He turned to Hogan and grinned. “Stop worrying about it. They’ve done nothing so far; they’re cowards. They’ve given up!”

Hogan shook his head. “They would kill you, Richard, with as little regret as putting down a lame horse. Less regret. And as for the girl? They’ll try to hurt her, too.”

Sharpe turned back to the spectacle on the plain. He knew Hogan was right, knew that too much was unsettled, but the game was not in his hands; everything must wait for the battle. The French troops had flooded the end of the plain, they flowed round woods, trees, farms, coming ever forward towards the stream and the Medellin Hill. They darkened the plain, filled it with a tide of men flecked with steel, and still they came; Hussars, Dragoons, Lancers, Chasseurs, Grenadiers and Voltigeurs, the followers of the Eagles, the men who had made an Empire, the old enemy.

“Hot work tomorrow.” Hogan shook his head as he watched the French.

“It will be.” Sharpe turned and called to Harper. “Come here!” The big Irish Sergeant scrambled up the broken wall and stood beside the two officers. The first of thousands of fires sparkled in the French lines. Harper shook his massive head.

“Perhaps they’ll forget to wake up tomorrow.”

Sharpe laughed. “It’s the next morning they have to worry about.”

Hogan shaded his eyes. “I wonder how many more armies like that we’ll have to meet before it’s done.”

The two Riflemen said nothing. They had been with Wellesley the year before when he defeated the French at Rolica and Vimeiro, yet this army was ten times bigger than the French force at Rolica, three times larger than Junot’s army at Vimeiro, and twice the size of the force they had thrown out of Portugal in the spring. It went on like the dragon’s teeth. For every Frenchman killed another two or three marched from the depots, and when you killed them then a dozen more came, and so it went on. Harper grinned. “There’s no point in worrying our-selves by looking at them. The man knows what he’s doing.”

Sharpe nodded. Wellesley would not be waiting behind the Portina stream if he thought the next day could bring defeat. Of all the British Generals he was the only one trusted by the men who carried the guns; they knew he understood how to fight the French and, most important, when not to fight them. Hogan pointed.

“What’s that?”

Three-quarters of a mile away French horsemen were firing their carbines. Sharpe could see no target. He watched the puffs of smoke and listened to the faint crackle.

“Dragoons.”

“I know that!“ Hogan said. ”But what are they firing at?“

“Snakes?” During his walks up the Portina Sharpe had noticed small black snakes that wriggled mysteriously in the dank grass by the stream. He had avoided them but he supposed it was possible they lived out on the plain as well, and the horsemen were merely amusing themselves with target practice. It was evening and the flames from the carbine muzzles sparkled brightly in the dusk. It was strange, Sharpe thought, how often war could look pretty.

“Hello.” Harper pointed down. “They’ve woken up our brave allies. Looks like a bloody ants’ nest.”

Below the wall the Spanish infantry had become excited. Men left the fires and lined themselves behind the earth and stone walls and laid muskets over the felled and piled trunks Hogan had placed in the gateways. Officers stood on the wall, their swords drawn, there was shouting and jostling, men pointing at the distant Dragoons and their twinkling muskets.

Hogan laughed. “It’s so good to have allies.”

The Dragoons, too far away to be seen clearly, went on firing at their unseen targets. Sharpe guessed it was just horseplay. The French were oblivious of the panic they were causing in the Spanish ranks. Every Spanish infantryman had crowded to the breastworks, their backsides illuminated by the fires, and their muskets bristled towards the empty field. The officers barked out commands and to Sharpe’s horror he watched as the hundreds of muskets were loaded.

“What the hell are they doing?” He listened to the rattle of ramrods being thrust down barrels, watched as officers raised their swords. “Watch this,” Hogan said. “You might learn a thing or two.”

No order was given. Instead a single musket fired, its ball thrumming uselessly into the grass, and it was followed by the biggest volley Sharpe had ever heard. Thousands of muskets fired, gouted flame and smoke, a rolling thunder assailed them, the sound seemed to last for ever and mingled with it came the yells of the Spaniards. The fire and lead poured into the empty field. The Dragoons looked up, startled, but no musket ball would carry even a third of the distance towards them so they sat their horses and watched the fringe of musket smoke drift into the air.

For a second Sharpe thought the Spanish were cheering their own victory over the innocent grass but suddenly he realised the shouts were not of triumph, but of alarm. They had been scared witless by their own volley, by the thunder of ten thousand muskets, and now they ran for safety. Thousands streamed into the olive trees, throwing away muskets, trampling the fires in their panic, screaming for help, heads up, arms pumping, running from their own noise. Sharpe shouted down to his men on the gate.

“Let them through!”

There was no point in trying to stop the panic. Sharpe’s dozen men would have been swamped by the hundreds of Spanish who crowded into the gate and streamed into the town. Others circled north towards the roads that led eastwards, away from the French. They would loot the baggage parks, raid the houses in town, spread alarm and confusion but there was nothing to be done. Sharpe watched Spanish cavalry use their swords on the fugitive infantry. They would stop some of them, perhaps by morning they might collect most of them, but the bulk of the Spanish infantry had evaporated, scared, defeated by a handful of Dragoons three-quarters of a mile away. Sharpe began laughing. It was too funny, too idiotic, somehow exactly fitting for this campaign. He saw the Spanish cavalry slash furiously at the infantry, forcing groups of them back to the line, and far away he heard the bugles call more Spanish horse into the hunt. On the plain the French fires formed lines of light, thousands and thousands of flames marking the enemy lines, and not one of the men round those fires would know they had just routed several thousand Spanish infantry. Sharpe collapsed on the wall and looked at Harper.

“What is it you say, Sergeant?”

“Sir?”

“God save Ireland? Not a chance. He’s got his hands full coping with Spain.”

The noise and panic subsided. There were a handful of men left in the grove, others were being driven back by the Spanish cavalry, but Sharpe guessed it would take the horsemen all night to round up the fugitives and force them back to the breastworks, and even then thousands would escape to spread rumours of a great French victory outside Talavera. Sharpe stood up. “Come on, Sergeant, time we were getting back to the Battalion.”

A voice called up from the street. “Captain Sharpe! Sir!”

One of the Riflemen was gesticulating and, next to him, stood Agostino, Josefina’s servant. Sharpe felt his carefree mood disappear to be replaced with an awful dread. He scrambled down the broken stonework, Harper and Hogan behind him, and strode across to the two men. “What is it?”

Agostino burst into Portuguese. He was a tiny man who normally said little but watched all from his wide, brown eyes. Sharpe held up his hand for quiet. “What’s he saying?”

Hogan knew enough Portuguese. The Engineer licked his lips. “It’s Josefina.”

“What about her?” Sharpe had the inklings of disaster, a cold feeling of evil. He let Hogan take his elbow and walk him, with Agostino, away from the listening Riflemen. Hogan asked more questions, let the small servant talk, and finally turned to Sharpe. His voice was low. “She’s been attacked. They locked Agostino in a cupboard.”

“They?” He already knew the answer. Gibbons and Berry.

Sergeant Harper crossed to them, his manner formal and correct. “Sir!”

“Sergeant?” Sharpe forced the hundreds of jostling fears down so that he could listen to Harper.

“I’ll take the men back, sir.”

Sharpe nodded. It occurred to him that Patrick Harper knew more of what was going on than Sharpe had assumed. Behind the careful words there was a concern that made Sharpe regret that he had not taken Harper more into his confidence. There was also a controlled anger in the Irishman. Your enemies, he was saying, are mine.

“Carry on, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir. And sir?” Harper’s face was bleak. “You will let me know what happens?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

Sharpe and Hogan ran into the dark streets, slipping on the filth, pushing their way through the fugitives who were forcing the doors of wine-shops and private houses. Hogan panted to keep up with the Rifleman. It would be a bad night in Talavera, a night of looting, destruction, and rape. Tomorrow a hundred thousand men would march into a maelstrom of fire, and Hogan, catching a glimpse of Sharpe’s snarling face as he hurled two Spanish infantrymen out of his way, feared for the evil that seemed to be welling up in preparation for the morrow. Then they were in the quiet street where Josefina was living and Hogan peered up at the quiet windows, the closed shutters, and prayed that Richard Sharpe would not destroy himself with his huge anger.