Sharpe's Rifles

CHAPTER 17

The shot warned, not of de l’Eclin’s arrival, but of the approach of a Cazador patrol. Their horses were whipped to blood and lather. Vivar, who had returned with Sharpe to discover what had prompted the shot, translated the picquet’s message. “They saw French Dragoons.”

“Where?”

“About two leagues to the south-west.”

“How many?”

“Hundreds.” Vivar interpreted his patrol’s anxious report. “The Frenchmen chased them and they were lucky to escape.” He listened to more excited words. “And they saw the chasseur.” Vivar smiled. “So! We know where they are now. All we must do is hold them out of the city.”

“Yes.” Somehow the news that the enemy was at last approaching served to calm Sharpe’s apprehension. Most of that nervousness had been concentrated on Colonel de PEclin’s cleverness, but the prosaic knowledge of which road the enemy was on, and how faraway his forces were, made him seem a less fearsome opponent.

Vivar followed the tired horsemen through the gap in the barricade. “You hear the hammers?” he called back.

“Hammers?” Sharpe frowned, then did indeed hear the echoing ring of hammers on anvils. “Caltrops?”

Til send them to you, Lieutenant.“ Vivar started up the hill. ”Enjoy yourselves!“

Sharpe watched the Major walk away, then, on an impulse, he threaded the barricade and followed him up the cobbled street. “Sir?”

“Lieutenant.”

Sharpe made certain he was out of his men’s earshot.

“I want to apologize for what happened in the tavern, sir, I…“

“What tavern? I haven’t been in a tavern all day. Tomorrow, maybe, when we’re safely away from these bastards, we’ll find a tavern. But today?” Vivar’s face was entirely serious. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“I don’t like it when you call me ”sir“,” Vivar smiled. “It/ means you’re not being belligerent. I need you belligerent, Lieutenant. I need to know Frenchmen are going to die.”

They’ll die, sir.“

“You’ve put men in the houses?” Vivar meant the houses which lay along the road outside the city’s perimeter.

“Yes, sir.”

“They can’t defend against an attack from the west there, can they?”

“It won’t be from the west, sir. We’ll see them to the west first, but they’ll attack from the south.”

It was plain as a pikestaff that Vivar was unhappy with Sharpe’s deployment, but he also had faith in the Rifleman’s skills and that faith made him swallow his protest. “You’re a typical British soldier,” he said instead, “talking of taverns when there’s work to do.” He laughed and turned away.

Feeling shriven, Sharpe went back to the fortified hilltop where, behind a brushwood breastwork strung between tree stumps, two dozen Riflemen waited. They had a fine view from the hill-crest, but Sharpe had no doubt that, once the enemy committed himself to the attack, this strong picquet would go down to the houses where the rest of his men waited. The attack would be from the south, not the west. “You heard the Major!” he warned his Riflemen. “The bastards are coming! They’ll be here in another hour.”

In fact it took nearer three hours. Three hours of increasing worry that the Dragoons were hatching wickedness, and three hours during which the first clinking sacks of caltrops were delivered to the hilltop. Only then did the two-man picquet of Cazadores which had been posted at the brink of the dead ground rowel their horses back to the city. ”Dragons! Dragons!“ They made gestures over their heads to imitate the shape of the French helmets, and pointed west to the dead ground.

”Si!“ Sharpe shouted, ”Cronos!”

The Riflemen, some of whom had been laughing over the wicked small spikes of the caltrops, went back to their barricades. The landscape stayed empty. Sharpe looked south, expecting to see the other close picquet withdrawing, but there was no sign of the Cazadores who had been posted to guard the southern approach to the city.

“Bloody hell!” Hagman spat in horror at the sudden smell which came across the grassland. It was the rancid stench of saddle and crupper sores that came on the chill west wind from the dead ground. The Riflemen wrinkled their noses against the foul odour.

Sharpe watched the innocent and empty scene which hid the attackers. Doubtless the French officers, concealed by the ragged bushes at the valley’s edge, were watching the city. Behind those officers the Dragoons would be preparing for battle. He imagined helmets being crammed onto pig-tailed heads, and long swords scraping out of metal scabbards. The horses, knowing what was to come, would be pawing the ground. Men would be nervously shortening stirrup leathers or wiping sweat from their reins. Sharpe wondered if he had been wrong; if, instead of feinting from the west and attacking from the south, the French would simply charge to the barricades and then just claw at the defences.

“Jesus Christ!” The blasphemy was torn from Hagman as the hidden valley suddenly sprouted a line of cavalry; a great line of Dragoons who trotted forward with billowing cloaks and drawn swords. They had taken the cloth covers from their helmets so that the gold-coloured metal shone in the afternoon light. “There’s thousands of the buggers!” Hagman pushed his rifle forward.

“Don’t fire!” Sharpe called. He did not want the Riflemen to fire for fear that they would trigger the fingers of the

Cazadores behind the barricades. The Spanish muskets and carbines, being smooth-bored, were far less accurate than the rifles, and a volley fired at this distance was a volley wasted.

Sharpe could have saved his breath for, within seconds of the cavalry’s appearance, the first muskets fired. He swore, turned, and saw that the city’s roofs were crammed with civilians who wanted to kill the French. Immediately the first shots sounded, so all the men behind the barricades began to fire. A huge volley crackled and spat flames, smoke belched to hide the city’s flank, and scarce a single Frenchman fell. The range, over three hundred yards, was hopelessly long. Even if a bullet struck it was likely to be spent, and would bounce harmlessly off a thick uniform coat or a horse’s winter pelt.

The horsemen checked their slow advance. Sharpe looked for de l’Eclin’s red pelisse and could not see it. He mentally divided the line into quarters and made a swift count of one quarter, then multiplied the result by four to reach a total of three hundred. This was not the attack. This was a display of strength, spread into an impressive line, but only meant to draw eyes westward. “Watch the south!” Sharpe called to his men. “Watch the south!”

The firing from the city had drawn Sergeant Harper up from the buildings that guarded the southern approach. He stared at the line of Dragoons and whistled. “That’s a rare lot of mischief, sir.”

“Only three hundred men,” Sharpe said calmly.

“Is that all, now?”

A French officer drew his sword and cantered forward. After a few strides he spurred his horse into a gallop and curved its path so that he would swoop within a hundred yards of the city’s defence. Muskets crackled from the barricades, but he galloped safe through the wild shots. Another officer started forward, and Sharpe guessed the Frenchmen would keep tantalizing the defenders until the real attack erupted.

Hagman pulled back his rifle cock as the second French officer spurred to full speed. “Can I teach the bugger a lesson, sir?”

“No. Let them be. This is just a fake. They think it’s working, so let them play.”

Minutes passed. A whole squadron of Dragoons trotted down the front of the line, then reversed their path to gallop derisively back. Their defiance prompted another huge volley to ripple down the city’s western buildings, and Sharpe saw the ground flecked by the strike of the balls and knew that the Spaniards’ shots were falling short. A second squadron, holding a guidon high, trotted northwards. Some of the stationary Frenchmen sheathed their swords and fired carbines from the saddle, and every French shot provoked an answering and wasteful volley from the city.

Another officer displayed his bravery by galloping as close as he dared to the city’s defences. This one had less luck. His horse went down in a flurry of blood and mud. A great cheer went up from the barricades, but the Frenchman slashed his saddle free and ran safely back towards his comrades. Sharpe admired the man, but schooled himself to keep watching the south.

South! That was where the attack would come, not here! De I’Eclin’s absence from the west meant that the chasseur must be with the men who crept about the city’s southern flank. Sharpe was sure of it now. The French were waiting for the sun to sink even lower so that the shadows would be long in the broken southern ground. In the meantime this western diversion was calculated to stretch the defenders’ nerves and waste the city’s powder, but the attack would come from the south; Sharpe knew it, and he stared obsessively south where nothing moved among the falling ground. Somewhere beyond that ground was the southern picquet of mounted Cazadores, and he became obsessed that the Spaniards had been overwhelmed by a French attack. There could be seven hundred Dragoons hidden to the south. He wondered whether to send a patrol of Riflemen to explore the shadows.

“Sir?” Harper had stayed on the hilltop and now called urgently. “Sir?”

Sharpe turned back to the west, and swore.

Another squadron of Dragoons had come from the dead ground, and this one was led by a horseman wearing a red pelisse and a black fur colback. A horseman on a big black horse. De l’Eclin. Not to the south, where the bulk of Sharpe’s Riflemen were deployed, but to the west where the Frenchman could wait until the sinking sun was a dazzling and blinding ball of fire in the defenders’ eyes.

“Do I pull the lads out of the buildings?” Harper asked nervously.

“Wait.” Sharpe was tempted by the thought that de l’Eclin was clever enough to make himself a part of the deception.

The French waited. Why, Sharpe wondered, if this was their main attack, would they signal it so obviously? He looked south again, seeing how the shadows darkened and lengthened. He stared at the rutted road and scanned the hedgerows. Something moved in a shadow; moved again, and Sharpe clapped his hands in triumph. “There!”

The Riflemen twisted to look.

“Cazadores, sir.” Harper, knowing that he disappointed Sharpe’s expectations, sounded subdued.

Sharpe pulled open his telescope. The approaching men were in Spanish uniform, suggesting that they were either the southern picquet bringing news or else one of the parties that had gone south-east to break down the bridges over the river. Or perhaps they were disguised Frenchmen? Sharpe looked back at the chasseur, but de l’Eclin was not moving. There was something very threatening in his utter stillness; something that spoke of a rampant and chilling confidence.

Sharpe obstinately clung to his certainty. He knew that his men no longer believed him, that they prepared themselves to fight the enemy who paraded so confidently in the west, but he could not surrender his obsession with the south. Nor could he rid himself of the conviction that de l’Eclin was too subtle a soldier to put all his hopes in a straightforward and unsubtle attack.

Sharpe opened his telescope to inspect the horsemen who came slowly from the south. He swore softly. They were Spaniards. He recognized one of Vivar’s Sergeants who had white side-whiskers. The mud on the horses’ legs and the picks strapped to the Cazadores’ saddles showed that they were a returning bridge-breaking party.

“Damn. Bloody hell and bloody damnation!” He had been wrong, utterly wrong! The Spaniards who approached from the south had just ridden clean through an area which should have been rife with de l’Eclin’s seven hundred missing men. Sharpe had been too clever by half! “Fetch the men out of the houses, Sergeant.”

Harper, relieved at the order, ran down the slope and Sharpe turned his glass back to the west. Just as he settled the long tube and adjusted the barrels to focus the image, Colonel de l’Eclin drew his sabre and Sharpe was momentarily dazzled by the reflection of sunlight from the curved steel.

He blinked the brightness away, remembering the moment when de l’Eclin had so nearly cut him down by the bridge. It seemed so long ago now; before he had met Vivar and Louisa. Sharpe remembered the black horse charging and his astonishment as the superbly trained beast had swerved right to allow the Colonel to hack down with a left-handed stroke. A man did not expect to face a cack-handed swordsman, and perhaps that explained why so many soldiers were superstitious of fighting against a left-handed opponent.

Sharpe peered through the telescope again. Colonel de l’Eclin was resting his curved blade on his saddle pommel, waiting. The horses behind him moved restlessly. The sun was sinking and reddening. Soon a flag would be unfurled in Santiago’s cathedral, and the faithful would plead with a dead saint to come to their country’s aid. Meanwhile, a soldier of the Emperor’s favourite elite waited for the charge that would break the city’s defences. The feint and the attack, Sharpe realized, would both come from the west. These three hundred horsemen would draw the defenders‘

fire while the rest of the Dragoons, hidden in the dead ground, prepared a sudden lunge that would burst from the fog of powder smoke like a thunderbolt.

Harper was urging the Riflemen uphill. “Where do you want them, sir?”

But Sharpe did not answer. He was watching Colonel de l’Eclin who cut the sabre in flashing practice strokes, as though he was bored. The sun’s reflection from the gleaming blade provoked a ragged and inaccurate volley from the city’s defenders. De l’Eclin ignored it. He was waiting for the sun to become a weapon of awesome power, dazzling the defenders, and that moment was very close.

“Sir?” Harper insisted.

But still Sharpe did not answer for, at that very instant, he had a new certainty. He knew at last what the French planned. He had been wrong about the southern attack, but if he was wrong now then the city, the gonfalon, and all his own men would be lost. All would be lost. He felt the temptation to ignore the new knowledge, but to hesitate was fatal and the decision must be taken. He slammed the telescope shut and pushed it into his pocket. He kicked the sacks of caltrops. “Bring them, and follow me. All of you!”

“On your feet!” Harper bawled at the Riflemen.

Sharpe began to run. “Follow me! Hurry! Come on!” He cursed himself for not seeing the truth earlier. It was so God-damned simple! Why had the French moved the supplies into the palace? And why had Colonel Coursot stacked grain and hay in the cellars? A cellar was no place to store forage a day or so before it was to be distributed! And there was the business of a thousand horsemen. Even a soldier as experienced as Harper had stared at the Dragoons and been impressed by their numbers. Men often saw a horde where there was only a small force, and how much easier it was for a civilian to make that mistake in the middle of the night. Sharpe ran even harder. “Come on! Hurry!”

For the city was almost lost.

The cathedral’s nave was plainer than the exterior of the building might suggest, but the plainness did not detract from the magnificence of its pillared height. Beyond the long nave, the domed transepts, and the screen was a sanctuary as sumptuous as any in Christendom, and still sumptuous even though the French had torn away the silverwork, wrenched down the statues, and ripped the triptychs from their frames. Behind the altar was an empty void, the space of God, that this dusk was lit by the scarlet rays of the setting sun which slashed through the cathedral’s dusty and smoky interior.

Beneath the altar and above the crypt where the saint lay buried, the opened strongbox stood before the altar.

From the top of the dome which covered the meeting of transepts and aisle, a great silver bowl hung from ropes. It smoked with incense that filled the huge church with a sweet and musty smell. A thousand candles added their smoke to make the shrine a place of mystery, scent, shadows and hope; a place for a miracle.

Two hundred people knelt in the transepts. There were priests and soldiers, monks and merchants, scholars and friars; the men who could carry a message throughout Spain that Santiago Matamoros lived. They would tell an invaded people that the due obeisance had been made, the proper words said, and that the great gonfalon, which had once flared above the massacre of pagans, had been unfurled again.

It was as if Drake’s Drum was at last beaten, or the soil of Avalon erupted in a violent darkness to release a band of woken knights, or as if Charlemagne, roused from his sleep of centuries, drew his battle-sword again to drive away the enemies of Christ. All nations had their legend, and this night, in the great ringing vault of the cathedral, Spain’s legend would be stirred from a thousand years of silence. The candles shivered in a cold wind as the robed priests bowed before the altar.

As they bowed, one of the cathedral’s western doors banged open as though a violent wind had snatched the wood and crashed it against stone. Feet pounded on paving. The soldiers who knelt before the altar twisted towards the sound and reached for their swords. Louisa, kneeling veiled beside Bias Vivar, gasped. The priests checked their words to see who had dared to interrupt the invocations.

Vivar stood. Sharpe had burst into the cathedral and now appeared beneath the Gate of Glory. The Spaniard ran down the long nave. “Why are you here?” There was outrage in his voice.

Sharpe, wild-eyed, did not reply. He stared about the cathedral as though expecting to find enemies. He saw none, and turned back to the western doors.

Vivar reached out a hand to stop the Rifleman. “Wh| aren’t you at the barricades?” /

“He was holding his sabre in his right hand!” Sharpe said. “Don’t you understand? His right hand! Colonel de l’Eclin’s left-handed!”

Vivar stared uncomprehendingly. “What are you talking about?”

“There are three hundred of the bastards out there,” Sharpe’s voice rose to echo from the tall stone of the nave, “only three hundred! And none to the south. So where are the rest? Did you look behind the sacks in the cellars?”

Vivar said nothing. He did not need to.

“Did you search the cellars?” Sharpe insisted.

“No.”

“That’s why your brother’s there! That’s why they wanted a truce! That’s why they saved the supplies! That’s why they had the place prepared! Don’t you see? De l’Eclin is in the palace! He’s been there all day, laughing at us! And he’s coming here!”

“No!” Vivar’s tone did not imply disagreement, only horror.

“Yes!” Sharpe pulled himself from Vivar’s grasp. He ran back through the Gate of Glory, oblivious of its majesty, and tore open the cathedral’s outer doors.

A shout of triumph and a trumpet’s peal of victory turned him back. Sharpe saw, dim through the smoke and incense, a flag unfurl. Not an old, threadbare, motheaten flag which crumbled to the air, but a new and glorious white banner of shining silk, crossed with red; the gonfalon of Santiago, and as it spread, so the bells began to ring.

And, at the same instant, the sledgehammers drove down the planking which had locked the French into the palace. The bells rang for a miracle, and the French, as they had always intended, broke their truce.

French Dragoons attacked from either side of the palace. They must have come from the rear gates of the building, where the stables lay, and as the infantry debouched from the central door, the horsemen burst into the western plaza. The only obstacle to their charge was the low barricade where a handful of dismounted Cazadores fired a ragged volley, then fled.

“Sergeant! Caltrops!” Sharpe shoved Harper towards the cathedral’s southern flank and, seizing two of the sacks himself, shouted at his men to follow him to the northern plaza.

Cavalry could not climb the intricate flights of steps at the cathedral’s western front. Instead the Dragoons planned to surround the shrine, so that no one inside could escape. “Rifles! Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” Sharpe knew there was no point in wasting a volley. Instead the caltrops must hold up this first French onslaught.

It was a threateningly high jump from the platform on the cathedral’s facade to the plaza, but Sharpe had no time to use the steps. He jumped, falling so heavily that a stab of pain shot up from his left ankle. The pain had to be ignored for defeat was as close as a Dragoon’s sword reach. His men followed him, grunting as they dropped to the flagstones.

Sharpe dragged the sacks north. He could see the horsemen to his left.and he knew he had only seconds to spread the vicious spikes across the gap beneath the bridge which led to the bishop’s palace. “That way! Wait for me!” he shouted at his Riflemen, then swung the first sack so that the caltrops clattered and fanned across the narrow space. “Join me, Sergeant!” Sharpe shouted at Harper, but his voice was drowned by the shouts of the French and the scream of their war trumpets. He seized the second sack and shook it loose. The metal spikes rolled and fell, scattering to block the narrow passage.

Harper had disappeared. Sharpe turned and ran after his men. The bells were clanging overhead. A trumpet was shrieking its defiance at the sky. He did not know if the Sergeant was safe, or whether he had blocked the entrance to the plaza at the cathedral’s southern flank.

“Form line! Two ranks!” Sharpe shouted at his desk. Beyond them, in a tumble of panic, men fled from the cathedral’s western transept.

The first horse pierced itself on a spike. The iron went into the frog of its hoof, and then more horses came. They reared, screamed, and lunged in desperation from the pain. Men fell from saddles. A horse, made frantic with agony, bolted back across the plaza. Another reared so high that it toppled backwards and its rider shouted as he fell under the horse’s collapsing body.

“Hold your fire!” The Riflemen had formed a line fifteen yards short of the caltrops. It was a race now. The French infantry would be climbing the western steps to flood into the cathedral. It would take at least a minute for them to reach the door from the transept and erupt behind Sharpe’s back. Some of them, seeing the agony of the horses, had come to kick the iron spikes away. They were led by a Sergeant. “Hagman?” Sharpe said. “Kill that bastard!”

“Sir.” Hagman knelt, aimed, and fired. The Sergeant somersaulted backwards in a jet of blood from his chest. The infantry noticed the Riflemen for the first time. “Fire!” Sharpe shouted.

The volley was small, but it drove more chaos and pain into the narrow space. “Reload!” There was no point in shouting at the greenjackets to hurry. They knew as well as Sharpe how fragile was the balance between survival and death in this darkening city, and to shout them to speed would merely fluster them.

Sharpe turned. The last of Vivar’s congregation was running down the steps. A Spanish officer carried the gonfalon that had been hastily drawn into shining loops. Two priests gathered up their skirts and ran eastwards. Louisa appeared on the steps and Sharpe saw two Cazadores bring her a horse. Vivar pulled himself into his own saddle and drew his sword. “They’re in the cathedral!” he shouted at Sharpe.

“Steady, lads. Fix swords!” As the bayonets were drawn, Sharpe looked around for Harper, but the Irishman was still nowhere to be seen. There were screams within the city. Trumpets were shrill in the evening air. It would be cold tonight. A frost would silver the flagstones where the French would take their revenge for the insults of this day.

“Steady now, lads!” The caltrops had delayed the enemy and his men were reloaded, but a mass of mounted Frenchmen still waited beyond the spikes that were being frantically cleared by infantry. Carbine bullets cracked above the Riflemen, but the Dragoons fired from the saddle and aimed too hurriedly. Sharpe knew he only had seconds. He cupped his hands. “Sergeant! Sergeant Harper!”

“Retire, Lieutenant!” Vivar shouted at Sharpe.

“Sergeant Harper!”

“Bastard!” The voice came from the top of the steps that led into the southern transept. Sharpe whipped round. After distributing his caltrops, Harper must have known he could not reach Sharpe by running across the cathedral’s western front. Instead he had taken the short cut through the cathedral and now appeared with a French officer in his left hand. “Bastard!” The Irishman was in a fury. “He tried to kill me, the bastard!” He kicked the Frenchman, hit him, then turned and flung the man back into the cathedral’s darkness. Vivar, seeing more shapes beyond the doors, fired a pistol into the transept.

“Sir!” Hagman warned that the last caltrops were being cleared.

“Present!” Sharpe shouted. “I thought I’d lost you!” he called out to Harper.

“Bugger tried to stick a sword into me! In a church, God damn it! A cathedral. Can you credit it, sir?”

“Jesus Christ! I thought I’d lost you!” Sharpe’s relief at Harper’s survival was heartfelt.

“Sir!” Hagman warned again.

Dragoons and infantry were mixed together in the charge that was funnelled into the narrow space beneath the bridge. Swords were lifted, men shouted their war cry, and the French spurred to vengeance. “Fire!” Sharpe called.

The volley flayed into the narrow space, tumbling horses in blood and pain. A fallen sword clanged and scraped across the stone. The horsemen who followed hacked with their swords to clear a passage through the wounded and dying. Infantry appeared at the top of the cathedral’s southern steps.

“Run!” Sharpe bellowed.

Then was the chaos of flight. The Riflemen sprinted across the plaza to the dubious refuge of a narrow street. Louisa was gone ahead and Vivar, surrounded by a knot of his scarlet-coated elite, shouted at Sharpe to follow her. The Cazadores would stay to meet the French attack.

The Riflemen ran. The retreat from the city had become a mad scramble in the dusk, a plunge downhill through the tight medieval streets. Sharpe led his men into a small plaza decorated with a well and a stone cross. The exits from the plaza were jammed with refugees and he halted his men, formed them into ranks, and allowed the rear rank to tap load their rifles. The men poured in powder, spat the bullet after, then hammered the rifle butt on the ground in the hope that the impact would jar the bullet down. “Present!”

The rifles, their muzzles weighted with sword bayonets, came up. They could not fire yet, for their aim was blocked by the handful of Cazadores who tried to delay the French Dragoons. Swords clashed in the street with a sound like cracked bells. A Spaniard, blood streaming from his face, spurred away from the fight. A Dragoon screamed as his belly was ripped with a sword.

“Major!” Sharpe shouted to Vivar that the rifles were ready.

Vivar slashed at a Frenchman, then turned away from the riposte. “Go! Lieutenant! Go!”

“Major!”

A Cazador went down under a French blade. Vivar lunged to wound the Frenchman. It seemed to Sharpe that the Spaniard must be overwhelmed when suddenly a rush of volunteers in their brown tunics erupted behind the Dragoons and attacked them with knives, hammers, muskets, and swords. Vivar wrenched his horse around and shouted at his men to retreat.

Sharpe had backed his own Riflemen to the eastern edge of the small plaza and now he split them to let the Spaniards through. The volunteers did not want to retreat but Vivar beat them back with the edge of his sabre. Sharpe waited till the plaza was clear and the first enemy appeared at its far side. “Rear rank! Fire!”

The volley was feeble, but it checked the French rush. “Back!” Sharpe drew his sword, knowing he had cut it too fine.

The Riflemen followed Vivar into the next street. It was darker now as the day slipped towards a winter’s night. Muskets fired from the windows above Sharpe, but the small volley could not prevent the French from flooding into the narrow street.

“Behind you!” Harper called.

Sharpe turned. He screamed his challenge and swung the heavy blade at a horse’s face. The beast swerved, the pig-tailed Dragoon chopped down, but Sharpe had parried quickly and the two swords clanged together. Harper lunged with his bayonet to the horse’s chest and the animal reared, blocking the street, and Sharpe slashed at one of its fetlocks. His sword must have broken bone for, as the horse came down, it collapsed. The Dragoon tried to chop at Sharpe as he fell, but the Rifleman’s sword was hissing up, driven with all his strength, and the steel sliced into the cavalryman’s neck. Blood spurted in a sudden spray that spattered from the gutter to ten feet high on the whitewashed wall of the alley. The broken-legged and screaming horse blocked the street. “Run!” Sharpe shouted.

The Riflemen ran to the next corner where Vivar waited for them. “That way!” He pointed to the left, then spurred in the other direction with his handful of Cazadores.

The Riflemen ran past a church, rounded a corner, and found themselves at the top of a steep flight of steps leading to a street that ran behind a stretch of medieval city wall. Vivar must have known the steps would offer safety from the Dragoons’ pursuit, and had sent them to find refuge while he stayed behind to check the French fury.

Sharpe ran down the steps, then led his men along the street. He had no idea if Vivar was safe, nor if Louisa had escaped, nor even if the gonfalon had survived the turmoil in the narrow streets. All he could do was take the salvation Vivar had offered. “That bastard was a clever bugger!” Sharpe said to Harper. “Inside the city all the time! Christ, he must have been laughing at us!” Doubtless, after Louisa had seen the Frenchmen parade in the plaza, de l’Eclin and most of his men had simply returned to the rear of the palace while a few hundred of the Dragoons had ridden south. It was clever, and it had led to this shambles. There was no honour in it, none, for the French had broken the truce, but Sharpe had seen what little honour there was in this bitter war between Spain and France.

“Fighting in a bloody cathedral!” Harper was still indignant.

“You did for him, anyway.”

“For him! I did for three of the bastards. Three bastards who won’t fight in a cathedral again.”

Sharpe could not help but laugh. He had reached a break in the city wall which opened into empty countryside. The ground fell steeply there, leading to a stream that was a slash of silver in the gathering dusk. Refugees were fleeing across the stream, then climbing towards the hills and safety. There were no Frenchmen in sight. Sharpe presumed that the enemy were still embroiled in the streets where Vivar fought his hopeless delaying action. “Load,” he ordered.

The men stopped and began to load their rifles. Harper, evidently recovered from his indignation at French impiety, checked with his ramrod halfway down the barrel. He began to laugh.

“Share the joke, Sergeant?” Sharpe said.

“Have you seen yourself, sir?”

The men also began to laugh. Sharpe looked down and realized that his trousers, torn already, had ripped clean off his right thigh. He tore at the rotten scraps of cloth until his right leg was virtually naked. “So? You think we can’t beat the bastards half-dressed?”

“They’ll run away in fright if they see you, sir,” Gataker said.

“All right, lads.” Sharpe sensed from their laughter that the men knew they were safe. They had escaped the French, the battle was over, and all they needed to do was cross the small valley and climb into the hills. He looked back once, hoping to see Vivar, but the street was empty. Screams, shouts, shots, and the clangour of steel told of the battles which still filled the inner city, but the Riflemen had slipped through the chaos to this safety. Nor was there any merit in returning to the fight. The duty of every man now was to escape. “Straight across the valley, lads! We’ll stop on the far ridge!”

The greenjackets left the cover of the wall, walking down through the rough, steep pasture which led to the boggy stream where, only this morning, Sharpe had neglected to placate the water spirits. In front of them, and scattered thick throughout the valley, was a mass of refugees. Some were civilians, some wore the ragged brown tunic of Vivar’s volunteers, and a few were Cazadores who had become separated from their squadrons. There was still no sign of Vivar, nor of Louisa, nor of the gonfalon. Two monks, their robes clutched high, waded the stream.

“Shall we wait, sir?” Harper, anxious for Major Vivar’s safety, wanted to stay by the stream.

“On the far bank,” Sharpe said. “We can give covering fire from there.”

Then a trumpet called from the south, and Sharpe turned to find that it was all over. The adventure, the hopes, all the impossible dreams that had come so very close to triumph, were done.

Because, like gold heated to incandescence, the helmets of the enemy flared in the dying sun. Because three hundred Frenchmen had ridden around the city, Sharpe was trapped, and the day of miracles was done.