The water in the canteens was brackish, the food down to the last mildewed crumbs, and in the hour before dawn the ground was slippery with dew. It was cold. The Company, foul-mouthed and evil-tempered, slithered and fell as they went down the dark hillside to the black valley. Kearsey, his steel scabbard crashing against rocks, tried to keep up with Sharpe.

‘Almeida, Sharpe. It’s the only way!’

Sharpe stopped, towered over the Major. ‘Damn Almeida, sir.’

‘There’s no need for cursing, Sharpe.’ Kearsey sounded peevish. He had arrived, as night fell, and launched himself into a rehearsed condemnation of Sharpe that had petered out when he saw an undamaged Teresa calmly watching him. She had spoken to him in Spanish, driving down his objections, until the Major, confused by the speed of events that he could not control, had fallen into an unhappy silence. Later, when the wind stirred the night grass, and sentries twitched as the black rocks seemed to move, he had tried to persuade Sharpe to turn south. Now, in the creeping dawn, he had returned to the subject.

‘The French, Sharpe. You don’t understand. They’ll be blocking the Coa. You must go south.’

‘And damn the bloody French, sir!’

Sharpe turned away, slipped, and cursed as a boot flew from beneath him and he sat down, painfully, on a stone. He would not go to Almeida. The French were about to start the siege and would be concentrating in force. He would go west, towards the Coa, and take the gold to the General.

The turf on the valley floor was springy, easy to walk, but Sharpe crouched and hissed at his men to be quiet. He could hear nothing, see nothing, and his instinct told him the Partisans had gone. Sergeant Harper crouched beside him.

‘Bastards have gone, sir.’

‘They’re somewhere.’

‘Not here.’

And if not, then why had they gone? El Católico would not give up the gold, nor Moreno the chance to punish the man whom he thought had mutilated his daughter, so why was the valley so empty and quiet? Sharpe led the way over the grass, his rifle cocked, and looked at the hill ahead, littered with rocks, and he imagined the muskets ambushing them as they climbed. The hillside could hide a thousand men.

He stopped again, at the foot of the slope, and the eerie feeling came back of being alone in the world, as if, while they were walking on the ridge the day before, the world had ended and the Angel of Death had forgotten the Light Company. Sharpe listened. He could hear his men breathing, but nothing else. Not the scrabble of a lizard on the rocks, the thump of a frightened rabbit, no birds, not even the wind on the stones. He found Kearsey.

‘What’s over the hill, sir?’

‘Summer pasture for sheep. Spring water, two shelters. Cavalry country.’

‘North?’

‘A village.’

‘South, sir?’

‘The road to Almeida.’

Sharpe bit his lip, stared up the slope, and pushed away the sensation of being alone. His instinct told him that the enemy was near, but which enemy? Ahead was foraging country, enemy patrols, and Kearsey had claimed that the French would hold the countryside in force so that they could strip it of food. And if the French were not there? He looked behind, at the valley, and was tempted to stay in the low ground, but where was El Católico? Waiting up the valley? Or had his men hidden the horses and climbed the hill? He knew the Company was nervous, frightened both of the stillness and Sharpe’s caution, and he stood up.

‘Rifles! Skirmish line. Lieutenant! Follow with the Company. Forward!’

This, at least, was a trade they knew, and the Riflemen split into skirmishing pairs and spread out into the thin, elastic screen that sheltered the main battle-line in a fight. The Rifles were trained to this, taught to think independently and to fight on their own initiative without orders from an officer. One man moved as his partner covered him, just as in battle one man reloaded while the other watched to see if any enemy was aiming at his comrade during the vulnerable and clumsy wielding of ramrod and cartridge. Fifty yards behind the Green Jackets, clumsy and noisy, the Redcoats climbed the hill, and Teresa stayed with Knowles and watched the elusive shapes, fleeting glimpses, of the Riflemen. She was wearing Sharpe’s greatcoat, covering the white dress, and she could sense the apprehension among the men. The world seemed empty, the dawn rising on grey rocks and limitless grass, but Teresa knew, better even than Sharpe, that only one thing could have driven away the Partisans and that the world was not empty. Somewhere, watching them, were the French.

The sun rose behind them, lancing its light across the ridge they had walked the day before, and Sharpe, ahead of the Riflemen, saw it touch gold on the hill-crest seventy yards ahead. The rock was covered in light and at its base, half hidden by shadowed grass, was a dull red colour and he turned, casually, and waved his men flat as if he wanted to give them a rest. He yawned, massively, stretched his arms, and sauntered across the line to where Harper had stopped the left-hand pairs. He looked down the slope and waved at Knowles, laconically indicating for the heavily laden group to lie down, and then he nodded amicably at the Sergeant.

‘Bloody voltigeurs on the crest.’

Voltigeurs, the French skirmishers, the light infantry who fought against the British Light Companies. Sharpe squatted on the ground, his back to the enemy, and talked softly.

‘Saw the red eqaulette.’

Harper looked over Sharpe’s shoulder, flicking his eyes along the crest, and swore quietly. Sharpe plucked a blade of grass and pushed it between his teeth. Another twenty yards and they would have been in range of the French muskets. He swore as well.

Harper squatted. ‘And if there are infantry, sir…

‘There are bloody cavalry as well.’

Harper jerked his head sideways, down the slope, to the empty, still-shadowed valley. ‘There?’

Sharpe nodded. ‘They must have seen us yesterday. Walking on a bloody ridge like virgins.’ He spat into the grass, scratched irritably through the torn hole in his left sleeve. ‘Bloody Spanish.’

Harper yawned for the benefit of the watching enemy. ‘Time we had a proper fight, sir.’ He spoke mildly.

Sharpe scowled. ‘If we could choose where.’ He stood up. ‘We go left.’

The hillside to the left, to the south, offered more cover, but he knew, with a terrible certainty, that the Light Company was outnumbered by the enemy and almost certainly outflanked as well. He blew his whistle, waved to the south, and the Company moved along the side of the hill while Sharpe and Harper, quietly and slowly, warned the Riflemen of the enemy skirmishers above.

Kearsey climbed up from the Redcoats. ‘What are we doing, Sharpe?’

Sharpe told him about the skirmishers above. Kearsey looked triumphant, as if he had been proved right.

‘Told you, Sharpe. Pastureland, village. They’re locking up the country and the food. So what do you do now?’

‘What we do now, sir, is get out of this.’

‘How?’

‘I have no idea, Major, no idea.’

‘Told you, Sharpe! Capturing Eagles is all very well, but out here in enemy country things are different, eh? El Católico didn’t get caught! Must have smelt the French and vanished. We’re sitting ducks.’

‘Yes, sir.’

There was no point in arguing. If El Católico had the gold he would not even have come this far, but as Sharpe worked his way round the hill he knew that at any moment the journey could end, the men with the gold caught between voltigeurs and cavalry, and in a month’s time someone at the army headquarters would wonder idly whatever happened to Captain Sharpe and the Light Company that was sent on the impossible job of bringing back Spanish gold. He turned on Kearsey.

‘So where is El Católico?’

‘I doubt if he’ll help you, Sharpe.’

‘But he won’t give up the gold, will he, Major? I suppose he’s happy to let the French ambush us and then he’ll ambush them, right?’

Kearsey nodded. ‘It’s his only hope.’

Rifleman Tongue, educated and argumentative, spun round.‘Sir!’

The shout was his last; the bang of a musket muffled it, the smoke hanging in front of a rock just twenty yards from him, and Tongue went on spinning and falling, and Sharpe ignored Kearsey and ran ahead. Harper was crouching and searching for the man who had fired at Tongue. Sharpe raced past, knelt by the Rifleman, and lifted up the head. ‘Isaiah!’

The head was heavy; the eyes were sightless. The musket ball had gone cleanly between two ribs and killed him even as he shouted the warning. Sharpe could hear the ramrod rattle as the enemy skirmisher pushed his next round into the barrel; then the unseen enemy’s partner fired, the ball missing Sharpe by inches because the Frenchman had suddenly seen Harper. The Sergeant’s rifle bullet lifted the Frenchman up off the ground; he opened his mouth to scream, but only blood came out and he dropped back. Sharpe could still hear the scraping of the iron ramrod; he stood up with Tongue’s rifle and ran forward. The voltigeur saw him coming, panicked, and scrambled backwards, and Sharpe shot him in the base of the spine and watched the man drop his musket and fall in agony to the hillside.

Parry Jenkins, Tongue’s partner, seemed almost in tears. The Welshman stooped over Tongue’s body, unbuckling the ammunition pouch and canteen, and Sharpe threw him the dead man’s rifle. ‘Here!’ A French ball thudded into his pack, pushing him forward, and he knew that the enemy skirmish line had bent down the hill, cutting their southward advance, and he waved his men down and ran back to Jenkins.

‘Have you got everything?’

‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. God, I’m sorry, sir.’

Sharpe hit him on the shoulder. ‘Come on, Parry. Not your fault. Down!’

They went down the hill, the musket balls over their heads, and found cover in the rocks. Tongue’s body would have to stay there, another Rifleman lost in Spain, or was this Portugal? Sharpe did not know, but he thought of the school in the Midlands where Tongue had once taught, appropriately enough, languages, and he wondered if anyone would remember the clever young man with the friendly eyes who took to drink.

‘Sir!’

Knowles was pointing behind and Sharpe rolled over and looked back the way they had come. French skirmishers in faded blue jackets with red epaulettes were angling down the hill behind them. He stayed on his back, facing his men.

‘Rifles! Bayonets!’

The French would understand that all right, and feel the fear. He had unconsciously counted the bullets that missed him when he went forward to Tongue’s body and he knew, though he had not thought about it, that the hillside in front was sparsely held. The French had put a skirmish line there, thin and spaced, thinking it was enough to drive the British back downhill where, still unseen, the cavalry must wait.

‘Lieutenant!’

‘Sir?’

‘You’ll follow us.’

We buy ten minutes, he thought, but we might get outside their cordon, and we might find a place to defend. He knew it was hopeless, but it was better than being driven like fat sheep, and he tugged out his sword, felt its edge, and was on his feet.

‘Forward!’

One man of each pair watched, the other ran, and Sharpe heard the Bakers cracking the morning apart as the Frenchmen put up their heads to fire at the small, spread band of men in green who screamed at them and had twenty-three inches of steel fixed to their rifles. The few skirmishers in their front ran, or else died from the spinning rifle bullets that could not miss at fifty paces, and the Company kept running. Sharpe was ahead, his sword across his body and his rifle bumping on his back. He saw skirmishers above them on the hillside, and below, but muskets were a terrible instrument for precision work, and he let the enemy fire and knew the odds were in the Company’s favour. One man went down, hit in the buttocks, but he was dragged up and they were through the gap and there were just a few panicked French fugitives ahead who had not had the sense to climb the hill. One turned, reached with his musket, and found himself faced with a giant Irishman who split him neatly between the ribs, kicked the blade free, and went on. Sharpe cut at a man with his sword, felt the bone-hammering jar as the Frenchman parried with his musket, and then he ran on and wondered what kind of a dent he had put in the heavy steel edge.

‘Come on! Uphill!’

That was not what the French expected, so it was the only way to go. The Company had smashed the cordon, lost only one man, and now they forced their tired legs to go up the slope, towards the western crest, and behind them the French orders rang out, the blue-coated officers realigning their men, and there was no time for anything but to force the legs up the impossible slope, feel the pain as the breath hurt the lungs, and then Sharpe made the crest and, without stopping, turned and kept running. The damned French were there, not expecting the British, but there all the same and lined up in files and ranks waiting for orders. Sharpe had a glimpse of a gently falling slope, well grassed, and the French battalion lined in companies, and the French watched, astonished, as the British ran past their front, only a hundred paces away, and not a musket was fired.

There was no escape to the west, none to the north where the skirmishers chased them, and Sharpe knew they must go south and east where the cavalry expected them. It was the only direction that gave time, and time was the only hope. He turned, waved the Riflemen down, and pushed Knowles and the red-jacketed men down the slope.

‘Form up a hundred paces down!’

‘Sir!’ Knowles acknowledged, leapt over a boulder, and the Company was gone.

‘Rifles! Hold them up!’

This was a better way of fighting, letting the enemy come to them, and killing them when they were too far away to reply to the rifle fire. Sharpe fought as a Private, ramming the balls down the rifling, picking his targets and waiting for the victim to rush forward. He aimed low, never waited to see if the man fell, but dragged out another cartridge, bit off the bullet, and started to reload. He could hear the rifles around him, firing as fast as they could, which was not fast enough, and he knew that the French would come to their senses soon and overwhelm them with targets and rush them with bayonets. He heard Harper giving instructions, and wondered which of the Riflemen needed to be told that you wrapped the bullet in the small greased patch so that it gripped the rifling, and he was so curious that he dodged through the lingering smoke and saw Teresa, with Tongue’s weapon, her face already blackened with powder smoke, kneeling up to fire at a Frenchman.

Then the enemy disappeared, gone to ground, and Sharpe knew the rush was coming.

‘Forget the patches!’

It was faster to load a naked ball, even though the rifle lost its accuracy, and then he whistled at them, pulling them back, keeping low, so that the enemy would charge an empty piece of ground and find itself under fire from new cover.

‘Wait for them!’

They waited. There were French shouts, French cheers, and the men in blue and red were criss-crossing towards them, muskets and bayonets catching the light, and still they came and Sharpe knew they were outnumbered horribly, but it was always best to wait.

‘Wait! Wait!’ He saw a confused enemy officer, looking for the British, and knew the man would lose his nerve in just a second.

‘Fire!’

It was a small volley, but the last they would fire with greased patches, and it was murderous. The enemy dived for cover, threw themselves behind rocks or their own dead, and the Riflemen reloaded, spitting the bullets into the guns, tapping them down by hammering the butts on the ground and not even bothering with ramrods.

‘Back!’

There were a hundred skirmishers in front of them, pressing forward, lapping them, and the Riflemen went back, tap-loading, firing at their enemies, and always losing ground, going downhill towards the rest of the Company, who were getting closer and closer to the open ground of the valley.

‘Back!’ It was no place to die, this, not while the cavalry had still not appeared and there was a chance, however slim, that the Company could fall back to the far side of the valley. There was no time to think of that, only to keep the Riflemen out of range of the muskets, to harry the Company down the hill, stopping and firing, running, reloading, and finding new cover. They were doing no damage to the enemy, but the French, terrified of rifles, kept their distance and did not seem to realize that the bullets were no longer spinning; that, bereft of the small leather patch, the rifles were less accurate than the ordinary musket. It was enough for the French that their opponents wore green, the ‘grasshoppers’ of the British army who could kill at three hundred paces and tear the heart out of an enemy skirmish line.

Pausing to watch the men go back, Sharpe glanced up the hill and saw the crest lined with the French companies. He noticed the uniforms were bright, unfaded by the sun, and he knew this was a fresh regiment, one of the new regiments that had been sent by Bonaparte to finish the Spanish business once and for all. Their Colonel was giving them a grandstand view of the fight and it annoyed Sharpe. No damned French recruit was going to watch his death! He looked at the voltigeurs, trying to find an officer to aim for, and it struck him, as he banged his rifle-butt on the ground, that only twenty minutes ago he had felt as if he were utterly alone on the face of the planet. Now he was outnumbered, ten to one, and the bastards were still coming, bolder now as the British reached the foot of the slope, and a ball smacked into the rock beside him and glanced up to hit Sharpe’s left armpit. It hurt like a dog chewing his flesh, and, throwing up the rifle for a quick shot, he suddenly knew the ricochet had done damage. He could hardly hold the rifle, but he squeezed the trigger and went backwards, keeping pace with his men and looking behind him, to see Knowles pausing on the very edge of the valley like a man fearful of pushing away from the shore. God damn it! There was no choice.

‘Back! Back!’

He ran to Knowles. ‘Come on. Cross the valley!’

Knowles was looking at his shoulder. ‘Sir! You’re hit!’

‘It’s nothing! Come on!’ He turned to the Riflemen, red eyes peering from blackened faces. ‘Form up, lads.’

The girl fell in like another Rifleman and he grinned at her, loving her for fighting like a man, for her eyes that sparkled with the hell of it, and then he waved his right arm.

‘March!’

They went away from the rocks, from the voltigeurs, out into the unnatural calmness of the grass. The French infantry did not follow but stopped at the foot of the slope for all the world as if the Light Company were on a boat and they could not follow. Major Kearsey was jigging with the excitement, his sabre drawn, but his smile went as he saw Sharpe.

‘You’re hit!’

‘It’s nothing, sir. A ricochet.’

‘Nonsense, man.’

Kearsey touched Sharpe’s shoulder, and to the Rifleman’s surprise the hand came away red and glistening.

‘I’ve had worse, sir. It’ll mend.’ It was hurting, though, and he hated the thought of peeling away jacket and shirt to find the wound. Kearsey looked back at the motionless French infantry.

‘They’re not following, Sharpe!’

‘I know, sir.’ His tone was gloomy and Kearsey glanced sharply at him.

‘Cavalry?’

‘Bound to be, sir. Waiting for us to get into the centre of the valley.’

‘What do we do?’ Kearsey seemed to see nothing odd in asking Sharpe the question.

‘I don’t know, sir. You pray.’

Kearsey took offence, jerking his head back. ‘I have prayed, Sharpe! Precious little else for the last few days.’

It had been only a few days, Sharpe thought, and was it all to end like this, between a French battalion and cavalry? Sharpe grinned at the Major, spoke gently.

‘Keep praying, sir.’

It was thin pastureland, close-cropped and tough, and Sharpe looked at the grass and thought that in a year’s time the sheep would be back as if there had been no skirmish. The sun had reached the valley floor and insects were busy in the grass-stems, oblivious of the battle overhead, and Sharpe looked up and thought the valley was beautiful. It wound south and west, climbing between steep hills, and ahead of him, out of reach, was a streambed that in spring would make the place a small paradise. He looked behind, saw the voltigeurs sitting by the rocks, the other French companies coming slowly down the hill, and somewhere in the tortuous valley, he knew, the cavalry would be waiting. He was sure they would come from behind now; the way ahead seemed to offer no hiding place, and he knew the Company was trapped. He looked at the ground, level and firm, and imagined the horses walking the first hundred yards, trotting the next fifty, into the canter, the swords raised, and the final gallop of twenty yards that would be split by the fire of the small square, but forty infantry could not hold out long. Pipe smoke went up from the sitting French infantry, front seats for the slaughter.

Patrick Harper fell in beside him. ‘How bad?’ He was looking at the shoulder.

‘It’ll mend.’

The Sergeant grabbed his elbow and, ignoring Sharpe’s protest, pulled the arm up. ‘Does it hurt?’

‘Jesus!’ He could feel a grating in the shoulder, but the huge Irishman’s hands were there, squeezing and hurting. Harper let go.

‘There’s no bone broken, sir. The ball’s trapped. Ricochet?’

Sharpe nodded. A full hit would have broken his shoulder and upper arm. It hurt. Harper looked at the girl and back to Sharpe. ‘It’ll impress the wee girl.’

‘Go to hell.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Harper was worried, trying not to show it.

Trumpets sounded and Sharpe stopped, turned, and as the Company marched on he saw the first horses appear to the north. His heart sank. Lancers again, always bloody lancers, and their green uniforms and pink facings mocked his meagre hopes. The lances were tipped with red and white pennants, held jauntily, and they trotted into formation in the valley and stared at the small group of British infantry. Harper came back to him. ‘Two hundred, sir?’

‘Yes.’

He had heard men say they would rather die of a lance than a sabre, that a sabre just gave horrific cuts that festered and bled a man dry over weeks of agony, whereas a lance was quick and deep. Sharpe spat into the grass; he cared for neither, and he looked left and right.

‘That way.’ He pointed to the eastern side of the valley, back the way they had come, away from the French infantry. ‘On the double!’

They ran, a lurching, stumbling, hopeless run, because even if the lancers waited a full two minutes before they were ordered forward they would still catch the Light Company and lean their weight into the silver blades. Then it really was all over, the whole thing hopeless, and Sharpe remembered the stories of small bands of soldiers who fought out against hopeless odds. He had been wrong. There was a hiding place further up the valley, a deep fold of dead ground to the south that had been shadowed and hidden but suddenly he saw horsemen were filing from it, men in foreign uniforms, sabres drawn, and they were not waiting like the lancers. Instead they trotted forward, knee to knee, and Sharpe knew it was all over.

‘Halt! Company square!’ He put the girl in the centre, with Kearsey. ‘Bayonets!’

They did it calmly and he was proud of them. His shoulder hurt like the devil and he suddenly remembered the rumour that had gone through the army that the French poisoned their musket balls. He had never believed it, but something was wrong, everything blurred, and he shook his head to clear his vision and gave his rifle to Kearsey.

‘I’m sorry, sir. I can’t hold it.’

His sword was still drawn, a dent in the foreblade, and he pushed his way through to the front of the tiny square, an almost useless gesture of defiance, and suddenly realized his men were grinning. They looked at him, started to cheer, and he tried to order silence. Perhaps it was a fine way to die, to cheer the enemy on to the bayonets, but it made no sense to Sharpe. They should save their breath for the killing. The sabres were nearer, the men riding like veterans, without excitement or haste, and Sharpe tried to place the French regiment with blue uniforms, a yellow stripe on the overalls, and tall brown busbies. God damn it! Who were they? At least a man should know who he’s fighting. Sharpe tried to order the muskets up, for the men to take aim, but nothing happened. His voice faded; his eyes seemed not to see.

Harper caught him, lowered him gently.

‘Hold on, sir, for God’s sake, hold on.’

Captain Lossow, resplendent in blue and yellow, saw Sharpe fall, cursed that his squadron had been delayed, and then, like a good professional of the King’s German Legion, forgot about Sharpe. There was work to be done.