Sharpe's Havoc Part 44

The problem was reaching the bluff. It was not far away, perhaps a half-mile, but between Sharpe and that enticing high ground was the Misarella. "We have to cross that river," Sharpe said.

"How long will that take?" Hogan asked.

"As long as it takes," Sharpe said. "We don't have a choice."

The musketry grew in intensity, crackling like burning thorn, then fading before bursting back into life. The dragoons were crowding the southern bank to swamp the defenders with fire, but Sharpe could do nothing to help.

So, for the moment, he walked away.

In the valley of the Cavado, just twelve miles from the advance guard that fought the ordenanqa across the ravine of the Misarella, the first British troops caught up with Soult's rearguard which protected the men and women still crossing the Ponte Nova. The British troops were light dragoons and they could do little more than exchange carbine fire with the French troops who were drawn across the road to fill the valley between the river and the southern cliffs. But not far behind the dragoons the Brigade of Guards was marching, and behind them was a pair of three-pounder cannons, guns that fired shot so light that they were derided as toys, but on this day, when no one else could deploy artillery, the two toys were worth their weight in gold.

The French rearguard waited while, a dozen miles away, the vanguard readied to attack the Saltador. Two battalions of infantry would a.s.sault the bridge, but it was plain that they would become mincemeat if the thick barrier of thorn were not removed from the bridge's far end. The abattis was four feet high and just as thick and made from two dozen thorn bushes that had been tied together and weighted down with logs, and it made a formidable obstacle and so a Forlorn Hope was proposed. A Forlorn Hope was a company of men who were expected to die, but in doing so they would clear a path for their comrades, and usually such suicidal bands were deployed against the heavily defended breaches of enemy fortresses, but today's band must cross the narrow remnant of a bridge and die under the flail of musket fire, and as they died they were to clear away the thorn abattis. Major Dulong of the 31st Leger, the new Legion d'Honneur medal still bright on his chest, volunteered to lead the Forlorn Hope. This time he could not use darkness, and the enemy was far more numerous, but his hard face showed no apprehension as he pulled on a pair of gloves and then twisted the loops of his saber cords about his wrist so that he would not lose the weapon in the chaos he antic.i.p.ated as the thorns were wrenched aside. General Loison, who commanded the French vanguard, ordered every available man to the river bank to swamp the ordenanga with musket, carbine and even pistol fire and when the noise had swelled to a deafening intensity Dulong raised his saber then swung it forward as a signal to advance.

The skirmis.h.i.+ng company of his own regiment ran across the bridge. Three men could just go abreast on the narrow ribbon of stone and Dulong was in the very first rank. The ordenanqa roared their defiance and a volley blasted from the closest earthwork. Dulong was. .h.i.t in the chest, he heard the bullet strike his new medal and then distinctly heard the snap as a rib broke and he knew the bullet must be in his lung, but he felt no pain. He tried to shout, but his breath was very short, yet he began hauling at the thorns with his gloved hands. More men came, cramming themselves on the bridge's thin roadway. One slipped and fell screaming into the white tumult of the Misarella. Bullets smacked into the Forlorn Hope, the air was nothing but smoke and splintering noise and hissing bullets, but then Dulong managed to pitch a whole section of the abattis into the river and there was a gap wide enough to let a man through and big enough to save a trapped army, and he staggered through it, saber raised, spitting bubbles of blood as his breath labored. A huge shout came from behind him as the first of the support battalions ran toward the bridge with fixed bayonets. Dulong's surviving men cleared away the last of the thorn abattis, a dozen dead voltigeurs were unceremoniously kicked over the roadway's edge into the ravine, and suddenly the Saltador was dark with French troops. They screamed a war cry as they came and the ordenanqa, most of whom were still reloading after trying to stop Dulong's Forlorn Hope, now fled. Hundreds of men ran westward, climbing into the hills to escape the bayonets. Dulong paused by the nearest abandoned earthwork and there he bent over, his saber dangling by the cords tied to his wrist and a long dribble of mingled blood and saliva trickling from his mouth. He closed his eyes and tried to pray.

"A stretcher!" a sergeant shouted. "Make a stretcher. Find a doctor!" Two French battalions chased the ordenanqa away from the bridge. A few Portuguese still lingered on a high rocky bluff to the left of the road, but they were too far away for their musket fire to be anything except a nuisance and so the French let them stay there and watch an army escape.

For Major Dulong had prized open the last jaws of the trap and the road north was open.

Sharpe, up in the rough ground south of the Misarella, heard the furious musketry and knew the French must be a.s.saulting the bridge and he prayed the ordenanqa would hold them, but he knew they would fail. They were amateur soldiers, the French were professional and, though men would die, the French would still cross the Misarella and once the first troops were over then the rest of their army would surely follow.

So he had little time in which to cross the river which tumbled white in its deep rocky ravine and Sharpe had to go more than a mile upstream before he found a place where they might just negotiate the steep slopes and rain-swollen water. The mule would have to be abandoned for the ravine was so precipitous that not even Javali could manhandle the beast down the cliff and through the fast water. Sharpe ordered his men to strip the slings off their rifles and muskets, then buckle or tie them together to make a long rope. Javali, eschewing such an aid, scrambled down to the Misarella, waded through and began climbing the other side, but Sharpe feared losing one of his men to a broken leg up in these hills and so he went more slowly. The men eased themselves down, using the rope as a support, then pa.s.sed down their weapons. The river was scarcely a dozen paces across, but it was deep and its cold water tugged hard at Sharpe's legs as he led the crossing. The rocks underfoot were slick and uneven. Tongue fell over and was swept a few yards downstream before he managed to haul himself onto the bank. "Sorry, sir," he managed to say through chattering teeth as water drained from his cartridge box. It took over forty minutes for them all to cross the ravine and climb its other side where, from a peak of rock, Sharpe could just see the cloud-shadowed hills of Spain.

They turned east toward the bridge just as it began to rain again. All morning the dark showers had slanted about them, but now one opened directly above them, and then a crash of thunder bellowed across the sky. Ahead, far off to the south, there was a patch of suns.h.i.+ne lightening the pale hills, but above Sharpe the sky grew darker and the rain heavier and he knew the rifles would have difficulty firing in such a teeming downpour. He said nothing. They were all cold and dispirited, the French were escaping and Christopher might already be over the Misarella and on his way into Spain.

To their left the gra.s.s-grown road twisted up into the last Portuguese hills and they could see dragoons and infantry slogging up the road's tortuous bends, but those men were a half-mile away and the rocky bluff was just ahead. Javali was already on its summit and he warned the remnants of the ordenanga who waited among the ferns and boulders that the uniformed men who approached were friends. The Portuguese, whose muskets were useless in the heavy rain, had been reduced to throwing rocks that bounded down the bluff's eastern face and were nothing but a minor nuisance to the stream of French who crossed the thin lifeline across the Misarella.

Sharpe shrugged off the ordenanqa who wanted to welcome him and threw himself down on the bluff's lip. Rain thrashed the rocks, poured down the cliff's face and drummed on his shako. A crash of thunder sounded overhead to be echoed by another from the southwest, and Sharpe recognized the second peal as the sound of guns. It was cannon fire, and the noise meant that Sir Arthur Wellesley's army must have caught up with the French and that his artillery had opened fire, but that fight was miles away, back beyond the Ponte Nova, and here, at the final obstacle, the French were escaping.

Hogan, panting from the exertion of climbing the bluff, dronned beside Sharpe. They were so close to the bridge they could see the mustaches on the faces of the French infantry, see the striped brown-and-black pattern of a woman's long skirt. She walked beside her man, carrying his musket and his child, and had a dog tied to her belt by a length of string. Behind them an officer led a limping horse. "Is that cannon I'm hearing?" Hogan asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Must be the three-pounders," Hogan guessed. "We could do with a couple of those toys here."

But they had none. Only Sharpe, Vicente and their men. And an army that was escaping.

Back at the Ponte Nova the gunners had manhandled their two toy cannon to the crest of a knoll that overlooked the French rearguard. It was not raining here. An occasional flurry whipped down from the mountains, but the muskets could still fire and the Brigade of Guards loaded their weapons, fixed bayonets and then formed to advance in column of companies.

And the guns, the despised three-pounders, opened on the French and the small b.a.l.l.s, scarcely bigger than an orange each, whipped through the tight ranks and bounced on rock to kill more Frenchmen, and the band of Coldstream Guards struck up "Rule Britannia" and the great colors were unfurled to the damp air, and the three-pound b.a.l.l.s struck again, each shot leaving a long spray of blood in the air as though a giant unseen knife were slas.h.i.+ng through the French ranks. The two light companies of the Guards and a company of the green-jacketed 60th, the Royal American Rifles, were advancing among a jumble of rocks and low stone walls on the French left flank and the muskets and Baker rifles began taking their toll of French officers and sergeants. French skirmishers, men from the renowned 4th Leger, a regiment chosen by Soult to guard his rear because the 4th was famous for its steadiness, ran forward to drive the British skirmishers back, but the rifles were too much for them. They had never faced such long-range accurate fire before and the voltigeurs backed away.

"Take them forward, Campbell, take them forward!" Sir Arthur Wellesley called to the brigade's commander and so the first battalion of the Coldstreamers and the first battalion of the 3rd Foot Guards marched toward the bridge. Their bearskins made them seem huge, the band's drummers thumped for all they were worth, the rifles snapped and the two three-pounders crashed back onto their trails to cut two more b.l.o.o.d.y furrows through the long lines of Frenchmen.

"They're going to break," Colonel Waters said. He had served as Sir Arthur's guide all day and was watching the French rearguard through his gla.s.s. He could see them wavering, see the sergeants das.h.i.+ng back and forth behind the ranks to push men into file. "They're going to break, sir."

"Pray they do," Sir Arthur said, "pray they do." And he wondered what was happening far ahead, whether the French escape route had been blocked. He already had a victory, but how complete would it be?

The two battalions of Guards, both twice the size of an ordinary battalion, marched steadily and their bayonets were two thousand specks of light in the cloud-dimmed valley and their colors were red, white, blue and gold above them. And in front of them the French s.h.i.+vered and the cannons fired again and the blood mist flickered in two long lines to show where the round shots ploughed the files.

And Sir Arthur Wellesley did not even watch the Guards. He was staring up into the hills where a great black rainfall blotted the view. "G.o.d grant," he said fervently, "that the road is cut."

"Amen," Colonel Waters said, "amen."

The road was not blocked because a leaping strip of stone spanned the Misarella and a seemingly endless line of French made their way across the hump-backed arch. Sharpe watched them. They walked like beaten men, tired and sullen, and he could see from their faces how they resented the handful of engineer officers who chivvied them across the bridge. In April these men had been the conquerors of northern Portugal and they had thought they were about to march south and capture Lisbon. They had plundered all the country north of the Douro: they had ransacked houses and churches, raped women, killed men and strutted like the c.o.c.ks of the dunghill, but now they had been whipped, broken and chased, and the distant sound of the two cannon told them that their ordeal was not yet over. And above them, on the rock-strewn hill crests, they could see dozens of bitter men who just waited for a straggler and then the knives would be sharpened, the fires lit, and every Frenchman in the army had heard the stories of the horribly mutilated corpses found in the highlands.

Sharpe just watched them. Every now and then the bridge arch would be cleared so that a recalcitrant horse could be coaxed over the narrow span. Riders were peremptorily ordered to climb down from their saddles and two hussars were on hand to blindfold the horses and lead them across the stone remnant. The rain eased and then became heavy again. It was getting dark, an unnatural dusk brought by black cloud and veils of rain. A general, his uniform heavy with sodden braid, followed his blindfolded horse across the bridge. The water seethed white far below him, bouncing off the rocks of the ravine, twisting in pools, foaming on down to the Cavado. The General hurried off the bridge and then had trouble remounting his horse. The ordenanqa jeered him and hurled a volley of rocks, but the missiles merely bounced on the bluff's lower slopes and rolled harmlessly toward the road.

Hogan was watching the French bunched behind the bridge through his telescope which he constantly wiped clear of water. "Where are you, Mister Christopher?" he asked bitterly.

"Maybe the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's gone ahead," Harper said tonelessly. "If I was him, sir, I'd be in the front. Get away, that's what he wants to do."

"Maybe," Sharpe acknowledged, "maybe." He thought Harper was probably right and that Christopher might already be in Spain with the French vanguard, but there was no way of knowing that.

"We'll watch till nightfall, Richard," Hogan suggested in a flat voice that could not hide his disappointment.

Sharpe could see a mile back down the road which was crammed thick as the men, women, horses and mules shuffled toward the bottleneck of the Saltador. Two stretchers were carried over the bridge, the sight of the wounded men prompting shouts of triumph from the orde-nanqa on the bluff. Another man, his leg broken, limped over on a makes.h.i.+ft crutch. He was in agony, but it was better to struggle on with blistered hands and a bleeding leg than fall behind and be caught by the partisans. His crutch slipped on the bridge's stone and he fell heavily, and his predicament provoked another flurry of curses from the ordenanqa. A French infantryman aimed his musket up at the taunting Portuguese, but when he pulled his trigger the spark fell on damp powder and nothing happened except that the jeering became louder.

And then Sharpe saw him. Saw Christopher. Or rather he saw Kate first, recognized the oval of her face, the contrast of her pale skin and jet-black hair, her beauty apparent even in this dark, wet horror of an early dusk, and he saw, surprised, that she was wearing a French uniform which was strange, he thought, but then he saw Christopher and Williamson beside her horse. The Colonel was dressed in civilian clothes and was trying to edge and bully and force his way through the crowd so that he could get across the bridge and so know himself to be safe from his pursuers. Sharpe s.n.a.t.c.hed up Hogan's telescope, wiped its lens and stared. Christopher, he thought, looked older, almost aged with something gray about his face. Then he edged the lens to the right and saw Williamson's sullen face and felt a surge of pure anger.

"Have you seen him?" Hogan asked.

"He's there," Sharpe said, and he put the gla.s.s down, slid his rifle from its new leather case and eased the barrel forward across a lip of rock.

"That's him, so it is." Harper had seen Christopher now.

"Where?" Hogan wanted to know.

"Twenty yards back from the bridge, sir," Harper said, "beside the horse. And that's Miss Kate on the horse's back. And, Jesus!" Harper had seen Williamson. "Is that -"

"Yes," Sharpe said curtly, and he was tempted to aim the rifle at the deserter rather than at Christopher.

Hogan was gazing through the telescope. "A good-looking girl," he said.

"She makes the heart beat faster, right enough," Harper said.

Sharpe kept the rifle's lock covered, hoping to keep the powder dry, and now he took off the sc.r.a.p of cloth, pulled back the flint and aimed the gun at Christopher, and just then the heavens bellowed with thunder, and the rain, which was already heavy, increased in malevolence. It crashed in torrents to make Sharpe curse. He could not even see Christopher now! He jerked the rifle up and stared down into the blurred air which was filled with silver streaks, a cloud-bursting rain, a deluge fit to make a man build an ark. Jesus! And he could see nothing! And just then a slash of lightning sliced the sky in two and the rain drummed like the devil's hoofbeats and Sharpe pointed the barrel toward the heavens and pulled the trigger. He knew what would happen, and it did. The spark died, the rifle was useless and so he threw the weapon down, stood up and drew his sword.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" Hogan asked.

"Going to fetch my d.a.m.n telescope," Sharpe said.

And went toward the French.

The 4th Leger, counted as one of the best infantry units in Soult's army, broke and the two cavalry regiments broke with them. The three regiments had been well posted, dominating a slight ridge that ran athwart the road as it approached the Ponte Nova, but the sight of the Brigade of Guards and the constant smack of rifle bullets and the stinging blows of the twin three-pounders had finished the French rearguard.

Their task had been to halt the British pursuit, then withdraw slowly and destroy the repaired Ponte Nova behind them, but instead they ran.

Two thousand men and fourteen hundred horses were converging on the makes.h.i.+ft roadway across the Cavado. None tried to fight. They turned their backs and they fled, and the whole dark panicked ma.s.s of them was crushed against the river's bank as the Guards came up behind.