"They'll be in Lisbon by this evening," Vicente said. He helped Sharpe struggle free of a patch of mud. "I will report Major Ferreira, of course."
"He'll be long gone, Jorge. Either that or it'll be his word against yours and he's a major and you're a captain, so you know what that means." He stared into the western mist. "It's a pity," he said. "I owed that big bastard a beating."
"Is that why you followed him?" Sarah asked.
"As much as anything else." He rammed a new bullet down the rifle, primed the lock, closed the frizzen and slung the rifle. "Let's find dry land," he said, "and go home."
"They're not gone!" Harper said suddenly, and Sharpe turned to see, miraculously, that the five men were coming back to the farm. They were hurrying, looking into the mist behind them and Sharpe, unslinging the rifle, wondered what in hell was happening.
Then he saw the skirmish line. For a moment he was sure it had to be a British or a Portuguese company, but then he saw the blue coats and white crossbelts, saw the epaulettes, and saw that some of the men wore short sabers and he knew they were the French. And there was more than one company, for out of the mist a whole horde of skirmishers was appearing.
Then, from the west, came a splintering crackle of muskets. The skirmishers turned towards the sound, paused. The Ferreiras were in the farm buildings now. Harper cocked his rifle. "What in God's name is happening?"
"It's called a battle, Pat."
"God save Ireland."
"He can start by saving us," Sharpe said. For it seemed that, though his enemies were trapped, the French had trapped him.
A vagary of the mist saved Bullen. He was alert, all his men were alert, for shots had sounded to the east, somewhere out in the inundated land towards the river and Bullen had been about to order Sergeant Huckfield to take a dozen men to investigate the sounds when a swirl of wind, driven down from the southern heights, shifted a patch of whiteness on the western side of the ruined barn and Bullen saw men running. Blue-coated men, carrying muskets, and for a second or two he was so astonished that he did nothing. The French, he could hardly believe they were French, were already south of him, evidently running to get between the barn and the forts, and he understood instantly that he could not extricate the men back to the hills. "Sir!" one of the riflemen called, and the word jarred Bullen out of his shock.
"Sergeant Read!" Bullen was trying to think of everything as he spoke. "Redcoats to the farm. The place we went last night. Take your packs!" Bullen had led a patrol to the big farmstead in the dusk. He had followed the raised track at low tide, crossed the stream on the small stone bridge, poked around the deserted buildings, then explored a little way towards the Tagus until he was stopped by marshland. The farm was his best refuge now, a place with stone walls, marsh all around it, and only one approach: the track from the bridge. So long as he could reach that rough road before the French. "Riflemen!" he ordered. "Here! Sergeant McGovern! Pick two men and get Captain Slingsby out of here. Rifles? You're the rearguard! Let's go!"
Bullen went last, walking backwards among the riflemen. The mist had closed again and the enemy was hidden, but when Bullen was only thirty paces from the barn the French appeared there, charging into the ruins, and one of them saw the greenjackets off to the east and shouted a warning. Voltigeurs turned and fired, but their volley was a ragged effort because they were in skirmish order, although enough of the balls went dangerously close to Bullen and he backed away faster. He could see a half-dozen of the Frenchmen running towards him and he was about to turn and flee when some rifles snapped and two of the Frenchmen went down. Blood was bright on grubby white breeches. He turned and saw that the greenjackets were in skirmish order. They were doing what they were trained to do, and now some of them fired again and another Frenchman jerked backwards.
"We can manage them, sir," Hagman said. "Probably just a patrol. Harris! Watch left! You hurry on, sir." He spoke to Bullen again. "We know what we're doing and that pistol ain't much use." Bullen had been unaware of even drawing the pistol that had been a gift from his father. He fired it anyway and fancied that the small bullet struck a Frenchman, though it was far more likely the man had been thrown backwards by a shot from one of the riflemen. Another rifle fired. The greenjackets were going backwards, one man retreating while his partner kept watch. The French were firing back, but at too long a range. Their musket smoke made thicker patches of mist. By a miracle the voltigeurs were not following hard on Bullen's footsteps. They had expected to trap the picquet in the ruined barn and no one had given them orders to divert the attack eastwards, and that delay gave Bullen precious minutes. He realized that Hagman was right and that the riflemen did not need his orders so he ran past them to the bridge where Sergeant Read was waiting with the redcoats. Captain Slingsby was drinking from a canteen, but at least he was causing no trouble. The rifles fired from the mist and Bullen wondered if he should strike directly south, following the marshes by the stream, then he saw there were Frenchmen out in that open space and he ordered the redcoats across the bridge and back to the farm. The riflemen were hurrying back now, threatened by a new skirmish chain of voltigeurs who had come from the mist. Dear God, Bullen thought, but the Crapauds were everywhere!
"Into the farm!" he shouted at the redcoats. The farmhouse was a sturdy building that had been built on the western face of a small rise so that its front door was approached by stone steps and its windows were eight feet above the ground. A perfect refuge, Bullen thought, so long as the French did not bring artillery. Two redcoats hauled Captain Slingsby up the steps and Bullen followed into a long room, parlor and kitchen united in one, with the door and the two high windows facing down the track leading to the bridge. Bullen could not see the bridge in the mist, but he could see the riflemen retreating fast down the track and he knew the French could not be far behind. "In here!" he shouted at the green-jackets, then explored the rest of his makeshift fort. A second door and a single window faced the back where a yard was edged with other low-tiled buildings, while, at one end of the room, a ladder led to an attic where there were three bedrooms. Bullen split the men into six squads, one for each window facing the track, one for the door, and one each for the small rooms upstairs. He posted a single sentry at the back door, hoping the French would not reach the yard. "Break through the roof," he told the men he posted upstairs. The first voltigeurs were on the track now and their musket balls rattled on the farm's stone walls.
"There are men in the yard, sir," the sentry at the back door said.
Bullen thought he meant Frenchmen and snatched open the back door, but saw that one of the strangers was in the uniform of a Portuguese major and the others were all civilians, one of whom was the biggest man Bullen had ever seen. The Portuguese Major stared wide-eyed at Bullen, apparently as astonished to see Bullen as Bullen was to see him, then the Major recovered. "Who are you?" he demanded.
"Lieutenant Bullen, sir."
"There are enemy over there," the Major said, pointing east, and Bullen cursed, for he had been thinking that perhaps his men could wade towards the river and so put themselves under the protection of the British gunboat that he had heard firing in the dawn. Now, it seemed, he was surrounded, so he had no choice but to make the best defense he could. "We will join you," the Major announced, and the five men came into the farmhouse where Bullen, on the Major's advice, put a handful of men in the eastern window to keep a look out for the enemy the Major had seen in the direction of the river. There was a clatter as shattered tiles cascaded from the roof where men broke through from the attic, then a bellow of gunfire as the Portuguese civilians fired at men coming from the east. Bullen turned to see what they were shooting at, and just then a volley crackled from the west and glass shattered in the windows and a redcoat spun back, a bullet in his lung. He began coughing up frothy blood. "Fire!" Bullen shouted.