Sergeant Harper had watched Caterina’s arrival with an expressionless face. “On the strength is she now, sir?”
“She’ll stay with us awhile,” Sharpe said.
“Isn’t that a surprise.”
“And if that bloody priest shows his face, kill him.”
Sharpe doubted Montseny would come near the Isla de León. The priest had been beaten and if the man had any sense he would give up the fight. The best hope for his faction now was that Marshal Victor would beat the allied army, for then Cádiz must inevitably fall and the politicians in its walls would want to make peace with France before that disaster occurred.
That was other men’s business. Sharpe was riding on a long sea-beaten beach. To his east were sand dunes and, beyond them, the marshes. To his west was the Atlantic and to the south, where the beach ended at a river’s mouth, were Spanish soldiers in their sky blue uniforms. From far off across the marshes came the grumble of gunfire, the sound of French cannons bombarding the British batteries guarding the Isla de León. The sound was fitful and faint as distant thunder.
“You look happy,” Caterina said.
“I am.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s clean here,” Sharpe said. “I didn’t like Cádiz. Too many alleys, too much darkness, too much treachery.”
“Poor Captain Sharpe.” She mocked him with a brilliant smile. “You don’t like cities?”
“I don’t like politicians. All those bloody lawyers taking bribes and making pompous speeches. What’s going to win the war is that.” He nodded ahead to where the blue-coated soldiers labored in the shallow water. Two feluccas were anchored in the river’s mouth and longboats were ferrying soldiers to the beach beyond. The feluccas were loaded to the gunwales with baulks of timber, anchors and chains, and piles of planks, the materials needed to make a bridge of boats. There were no proper pontoons, but the longboats would serve, and the resultant bridge would be narrow, though if it was properly anchored it would be safe enough.
Captain Galiana was among the officers. It was Galiana who had invited Sharpe to the beach’s end and he now rode out to greet the rifleman. “How is your head, Captain?”
“It’s getting better. It doesn’t hurt so much as it did. It’s vinegar that cures it. May I present the Señorita Caterina Blazquez? Captain Fernando Galiana.”
If Galiana was surprised that a young woman would have no chaperone he hid it, bowing instead and giving Caterina a welcoming smile. “What we’re doing,” he said in answer to her first question, “is making a bridge and protecting it by building a fort on the other bank.”
“Why?” Caterina asked.
“Because if General Lapeña and Sir Thomas fail to reach the French siege works, señorita, they will need a bridge back to the city. I trust the bridge will not be needed, but General Lapeña thought it prudent to make it.” Galiana gave Sharpe a rueful look as though he deplored such defeatism.
Caterina thought about Galiana’s answer. “But if you can build a bridge, Captain,” she asked, “why take the army south on boats? Why not cross here and attack the French?”
“Because, señorita, this is no place to fight. Cross the bridge here and there is nothing but beach in front of you and a creek to your left. Cross here and the French would trap us on the beach. It would be a slaughter.”
“They sailed south,” Sharpe told her, “so they can march inland and take the French from the rear.”
“And you wish you were with them?” Caterina asked Sharpe. She had heard envy in his voice.
“I wish I was,” Sharpe said.
“Me too,” Galiana put in.
“There’s a regiment in the French army,” Sharpe said, “that I’ve got a quarrel with. The 8th of the line. I want to meet them again.”
“Perhaps you will,” Galiana said.
“No, I’m in the wrong place,” Sharpe said sourly.
“But the army will advance from over there”—Galiana pointed inland—“and the French will march to meet them. I think a determined man could ride around the French army and join our forces. A determined man, say, who knows the country.”
“Which is you,” Sharpe said, “not me.”
“I do know the country,” Galiana said, “but whoever commands the fort here will have orders to stop unauthorized Spanish troops from crossing the bridge.” He paused, looking at Sharpe. “But they will have no orders to stop Englishmen.”
“How many days before they get here?” Sharpe asked.
“Three? Four?”
“I’m under orders to take a ship to Lisbon.”
“No ships will be sailing for Lisbon now,” Galiana said confidently.
“The wind might turn,” Sharpe said.
“It’s nothing to do with the wind,” Galiana said, “but with the possibility that General Lapeña is defeated.”
From what Sharpe had heard, everyone expected Lapeña, Doña Manolito, to be thrashed by Victor. “And if he is defeated?” he asked tonelessly.
“Then they will want every available ship ready to evacuate the city,” Galiana said, “which is why no ship will be permitted to leave until the thing is decided.”
“And you expect defeat?” Sharpe asked brutally.
“What I expect,” Galiana said, “is that you will repay the favor you owe me.”
“Get you across the bridge?”
Galiana smiled. “That is the favor, Captain Sharpe. Get me across the bridge.”
And Sharpe thought he might yet meet Colonel Vandal again.
PART THREE
THE BATTLE
CHAPTER 9
IT WAS CHAOS. BLOODY chaos. It was infuriating. “It is,” Lord William Russell said calmly, “entirely to be expected.”
“God damn it!” Sir Thomas Graham exploded.
“In each and every particular,” Lord William said, sounding far wiser than his twenty-one years, “precisely what we expected.”
“And damn you too,” Sir Thomas said. His horse pricked back its ears at its master’s vehemence. “Bloody man!” Sir Thomas said, slapping his right boot with his whip. “Not you, Willie, him. Him! That bloody man!”
“What bloody man is that?” Major John Hope, Sir Thomas’s nephew and senior aide, asked solemnly.
Sir Thomas recognized the line from Macbeth, but was in too much of a temper to acknowledge it. Instead he put spurs to his horse, beckoned to his aides, and started toward the head of the column where General Lapeña had called yet another halt.
It should all have been so simple. So damned simple. Land at Tarifa and there meet the British troops sent from the Gibraltar garrison, and that had happened as planned, at which point the whole army was supposed to march north. Except they could not leave Tarifa because the Spanish had not arrived, and so Sir Thomas waited two days, two days of consuming rations that were supposed to be reserved for the march. And when Lapeña’s troops did arrive, their boats would not risk crossing the surf on the beach, so the Spanish troops had been forced to wade ashore. They landed soaking, shivering, and starving, in no condition to march, and so another day was wasted.
Yet still it should have been easy. There were just fifty miles to march, which, even with the guns and baggage, should not have taken more than four days. The road went northward, following a river beneath the Sierra de Fates. Then, once out of those hills, they should have crossed the plain by a good road that led to Medina Sidonia where the allied army would turn west to attack the French siege lines that were anchored on the town of Chiclana. That is what should have happened, but it did not. The Spaniards led the march and they were slow, painfully slow. Sir Thomas, riding at the head of the British troops, which formed the rearguard, noted the boots that had torn themselves to pieces and been discarded beside the road. Some weary Spaniards had fallen out of their ranks, joining the broken boots, and they just watched the red-coated and green-jacketed men march by. And maybe that would not have mattered if enough Spaniards, barefoot or not, had reached Medina Sidonia to chase out whatever garrison the French had placed in the town.