“In there!” Sharpe saw a courtyard to his left and he pushed his prisoners through the archway. He left half a dozen greenjackets to guard them, then went back to the medieval maze that was a confusion of fighting. Some alleys were peaceful, while in others there were brief, furious fire-fights as desperate Frenchmen were cornered. One cuirassier, trapped in an alley, laid about with his sword and put six volunteers to flight before a crash of musket bullets smashed his defiance. Most of the French barricaded themselves in their billets. Spanish muskets blasted doors open, men died as they charged up narrow stairs, but the French were outnumbered. Two houses caught fire, and men screamed horribly as they were burned alive.
Most of the surviving enemy, except those who held the great building in the plaza, were to the south of the city where, in a slew of houses, their officers enjoined them to a sturdy defence. Sharpe’s men took over two housetops and their rifle fire drove the French from windows and courtyards. Vivar led a dismounted charge of Cazadores and Sharpe watched the red and blue-coated cavalry flood into the enemy-held buildings.
Vivar’s careful plan, which would have sent men to each of the city’s exits, had crumbled in the heat of victory so that men who should have been driving the enemy eastwards were killing and plundering wherever they could. Yet it was this very savagery which drove the attackers through the city, and made the French flee, either to the countryside, or to the French headquarters in the plaza.
The rising sun revealed that the tricolour was gone from the cathedral’s high dome. In its place, bright as a jewel, a Spanish standard caught the small breeze. It bore the coat of arms of Spanish royalty; a banner for the morning, but not the banner of Santiago that would be unfurled in the cathedral. Sharpe thought how beautiful the city’s skyline was in this dawn. It was an intricate tangle of spires, domes, pinnacles, cupolas and towers, all misted by smoke and sunlight. Above the whole scene was the great cathedral itself. A group of blue-coated Frenchmen appeared on the balustraded balcony of one of the bell towers. They fired downwards, then a volley from below drove them back. One of the Spanish bullets clanged against a bell. The other church bells of the city rang their peals of victory, even though the stammer of musket fire still testified to the last vestiges of French resistance.
A Rifleman beside Sharpe tracked two Frenchmen scrambling across a roof fifty yards away. The Baker rifle slammed back into his shoulder and one of the enemy slid bloodily down the tiles and fell into the street. The other, in desperation, hurled himself across the roof ridge to disappear. Vivar’s men had hunted forward with sabre and carbine, and Sharpe could see French soldiers running into the southern fields. He told his men to hold their fire, then led them down to the street where the beauty of the city’s skyline was replaced by the curdling stench of blood. One of the Riflemen laughed because a child was carrying a human head. A dog lapped at blood in a gutter and snarled when the Riflemen came too close.
Sharpe went back to the edge of the plaza where musket fire still whip-cracked above the flagstones. The wide space was empty but for the dead and dying. The French were still barricaded inside the vast and elegant building from which, whenever a Spaniard dared show himself in the plaza, a thunder of musketry crashed out.
Sharpe kept his Riflemen out of sight. He sidled to the very corner of the street from where he could see what lavish wealth a dead saint had brought to the city’s centre. The wide plaza was surrounded by buildings of spectacular beauty. A scream turned him, and he saw a Frenchman being thrown from one of the cathedral’s bell towers. The body twisted as it fell, then was mercifully hidden by a lower terrace. The cathedral was a miracle of delicately carved stone and intricate design, but on this day, in the labyrinth of its carved roofs, men died. Another Spanish standard was hung from the bell tower as the last Frenchman was killed there. The great bells began their joyful sound, even as a volley of musketry from the French-held side of the plaza tried to take revenge on the Spaniards who had hung the banner into the dawn.
A Spaniard burst from the cathedral’s western doors to brandish a captured French flag. Immediately a fusillade splintered from the west of the plaza, and its bullets buzzed and cracked about the man. By a miracle he lived and, clearly knowing that this day he was both invincible and immortal, he pranced mockingly down the cathedral steps and through the scattered corpses of the plaza. Each step of the way the enemy’s captured flag was riddled by the hissing bullets, but somehow the man lived and the Riflemen cheered as, at last, he stalked into the cover of the street with his tattered trophy safe.
Standing in the shadows, Sharpe had watched the French-held building and had tried to gauge how many muskets or carbines had fired from its facade. He estimated at least a hundred shots, and knew that, if the French had as many men on every other side of the great building, then this would prove a stubborn place to take.
He turned as hooves sounded behind him. It was Bias Vivar, who must have known what threat waited in the plaza for he slid out of the saddle well short of the street’s ending. “Have you seen Miss Louisa?”
“No!”
“Nor me.” Vivar listened to the musketry from the plaza. “They’re still in the palace?”
Tn force,“ Sharpe said.
Vivar peered round the corner to stare at the building. It was under fire from men on the cathedral roof. Window panes shattered. French muskets answered the fire, spurting smoke into the rising sun. He swore. “I can’t leave them in the palace.”
“It’ll be damned hard to get them out.” Sharpe was wiping blood from his sword blade. “Have we found any artillery?”
“None that I’ve seen.” Vivar jerked back as a musket ball slapped the wall close to his head. He grinned as though apologizing for a weakness. “Perhaps they’ll surrender?”
“Not if they think they’ll get slaughtered.” Sharpe gestured to the street behind, where a disembowelled French corpse witnessed to the fate awaiting any enemy who was caught by the townspeople.
Vivar stepped away from the corner. “They might surrender to you.”
“Me!”
“You’re English. They trust the English.”
“I have to promise them life.”
A Spaniard must have shown himself somewhere on the plaza’s edge, for there was a sudden, echoing crash of musket fire which bore witness to just what strength the French had crammed inside the palace. Vivar waited until the splintering volleys were done. “Tell them I’ll set the palace on fire if they don’t surrender.”
Sharpe doubted whether the stone building could be fired, but that was not the threat the French feared most. They feared torture and horrid death. “Can the officers keep their swords?” he asked.
Vivar hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”
“And you guarantee that every Frenchman will be safe?”
“Of course.”
Sharpe did not want to negotiate the surrender; he felt such diplomacy would be done better by Bias Vivar, but the Spaniard seemed convinced that an English officer would be more reassuring to the French. A Cazador trumpeter sounded the cease-fire.
A bedsheet was found, tied to a broom handle, and waved around the street corner. The trumpeter repeated the call to cease fighting, but it took a full quarter-hour just to convince the vengeful Spaniards about the plaza’s rim that the call was genuine. It was a further ten minutes before a French voice called suspiciously from the palace.
Vivar translated. “They’ll see one man only. I hope it isn’t a trick, Lieutenant.”