General Lapeña and his aides were on a small wooded rise where a dozen civilians were arguing. The Spanish general nodded a distant greeting to Sir Thomas. “They are not sure of the way,” Lapeña said, indicating the civilians.
“Who are they?”
“Our guides, of course.”
“And they don’t know the way?”
“They do,” Lapeña said, “but they know different ways.” Lapeña smiled and shrugged as if to suggest such things were inevitable.
“Where’s the sea?” Sir Thomas demanded. The guides looked solemnly at Sir Thomas and then all pointed westward and agreed that the sea lay that way. “Which would make sense,” Sir Thomas said caustically, nodding toward the east where the sky was suffused with new light, “because the sun has a habit of rising in the east and the sea lies to the west, which means our route to Barrosa lies that way.” He pointed north.
Lapeña looked offended. “At night, Sir Thomas, there is no sun to guide us.”
“That’s what happens when you march at night!” Sir Thomas snarled. “You get lost.”
The march began again, now following tracks across an undulating heath dotted with pinewoods. The sea came into sight soon after the sun rose. The track led north above a long sandy beach where the surf broke and seethed before sliding back to meet the next crashing wave. Far out to sea a ship bore southward, only her topsails visible above the horizon. Sir Thomas, riding on the inland flank of his leading brigade, climbed a sandy hill and saw three watchtowers punctuating the coast ahead, relics of the days when Moorish pirates sailed from the Straits of Gibraltar to murder, rob, and enslave. “The nearest, Sir Thomas, is the tower at Puerco,” his liaison officer told him. “Beyond that is the tower of Barrosa, and the furthest is at Bermeja.”
“Where’s Conil?”
“Oh, we skirted Conil in the night,” the liaison officer said. “It is behind us now.”
Sir Thomas glanced at his tired troops who marched with heads down, silent. He looked north again and saw, beyond the tower at Bermeja, the long isthmus leading to Cádiz that was a white blur on the horizon. “We’ve wasted our time, haven’t we?” he said.
“Oh no, Sir Thomas. I am sure General Lapeña means to attack.”
“He’s marching for home,” Sir Thomas said wearily, “and you know it.” He leaned forward on his saddle pommel and suddenly felt every one of his sixty-three years. He knew Lapeña was hurrying for home now. Doña Manolito had no intention of turning east to attack the French; he just wanted to be in Cádiz where, doubtless, he would boast of having marched across Andalusia in defiance of Marshal Victor.
“Sir Thomas!” Lord William Russell spurred his horse toward the general. “There, sir.”
Lord William was pointing north and east. He gave Sir Thomas a telescope and the general extended the tubes and, using Lord William’s shoulder as a slightly unsteady rest, saw the enemy. Not dragoons this time, but infantry. A mass of infantry half hidden by trees.
“Those are the forces masking Chiclana,” the liaison officer declared confidently.
“Or the forces marching to intercept us?” Sir Thomas suggested.
“We know they have troops at Chiclana,” the liaison officer said.
Sir Thomas could not see whether the distant troops were marching or not. He collapsed the glass. “You will go to General Lapeña,” he told the liaison officer, “and give him my compliments, and tell him there is French infantry on our right flank.” The liaison officer turned his horse, but Sir Thomas checked him. The Scotsman was looking ahead and could see a hill just inland of Barrosa, a hill with a ruin on its summit and a place that would offer a position of strength. It was the obvious place to post men if the French were planning an attack. Make Victor’s forces fight uphill, make them die on the slope, and, when they were beaten, march on Chiclana. “Tell the general,” he told the liaison officer, “that we are ready to turn and attack on his orders. Go!”
The liaison officer spurred away. Sir Thomas looked again at the hill above Barrosa and reckoned that the brief and so far disastrous campaign could yet be saved. But then, from far ahead, came the crackle of gunfire. The sound rose and fell in the wind, sometimes almost drowned by the crash of the endless waves, but it was unmistakable, the thorn-burning snap and splintering noise of musket volleys. Sir Thomas stood in his stirrups and stared. He was waiting for the thick smoke of the powder to reveal where the fighting took place, and at last he saw it. It was smearing the beach beyond the third watchtower, but still short of the pontoon bridge that led back to the city. Which meant that the French had already cut them off and were now barring the road to Cádiz and, worse, much worse, were almost certainly advancing from the inland flank. Marshal Victor had the allied force exactly where he wanted it: between his army and the sea. He had them at his mercy.
CHAPTER 10
IT’S NOT OUR FIGHT, sir,” Harper said.
“I know.”
Sharpe’s admission checked the big Irishman who had not expected such ready agreement. “We should be in Lisbon,” he persisted.
“Aye, we should, and we will be, but there are no boats going to Lisbon, and there won’t be, not till this lot’s over.” Sharpe nodded across the Sancti Petri. It was an hour or so after dawn and a mile down the beach beyond the river were blue uniforms. Not the light blue uniforms of the Spanish, but the darker blue of the French. The enemy had come from the inland heath and their sudden appearance had caused General Zayas’s troops to form in battalions that now waited on the northern side of the river. The strange thing was that the French had not come to attack the makeshift fort built on the far side of the pontoon bridge, but were facing south, away from the fort. A cannon in the fort had tried a shot at the French troops, but the ball had plowed into the sand well short and the one failed shot had persuaded the fort’s commander to save his ammunition.
“I mean, sir,” Harper went on, “just because Mister Galiana wants to fight—”
“I know what you mean.” Sharpe interrupted him harshly.
“Then, sir, just what the hell are we doing here?”
Sharpe did not doubt Harper’s bravery; only a fool could do that. It was not cowardice that was provoking the big Irishman’s protest, but a sense of grievance. The one explanation for the French having their backs to the river was that allied forces were farther south, and that implied that General Lapeña’s army, far from marching inland to attack the French siege works from the east, had chosen to advance along the coast instead. So now that army faced what, to Sharpe, looked like four or five battalions of French infantry. And that was Lapeña’s fight. If the fifteen thousand men under Doña Manolito’s command could not crush the smaller force on the beach, then there was nothing Sharpe and five riflemen could do to help. For Sharpe to risk those five lives was irresponsible; that was what Harper was saying, and Sharpe agreed with him. “I’ll tell you what we’re doing here,” Sharpe said. “We’re here because I owe Captain Galiana a favor. We all owe him a favor. If it wasn’t for Galiana we’d all be in a Cádiz jail. So in return we see him across the river, and once we’ve done that, we’re finished.”
“Across the river? That’s all, sir?”
“That’s all. We march him over, tell any Spanish bugger who interferes to jump in the river, and we’re finished.”
“So why do we have to see him over?”
“Because he asked. Because he thinks they’ll stop him if he’s not with us. Because that’s the favor he asked us.”