Бернард Корнуэлл - Sharpe's Havoc

„But they’ve got the devil on their heels,” Hogan pointed out, „and that encourages a man to swiftness.”

They pressed on. A weak sun at last lit the pale hills, though gray showers fell to north and south. Behind them the French were a great dark mass pressing up against the valley’s narrow end where, like grains of sand trickling through an hourglass, they streamed through Salamonde. Smoke rose from the village as the passing troops plundered and burned.

The French road to safety began to climb now. It followed the defile made by the white-watered Cavado which twisted out of the hills in great loops and sometimes leaped down series of precipices in misted waterfalls. A squadron of dragoons led the French retreat, riding ahead to smell out any partisans who might try to ambush the vast column. If the dragoons saw Hogan and his men high on the northern hills they made no effort to reach them for the riflemen and Portuguese soldiers were too far away and much too high, and then the French had other things to worry about for, late in the afternoon, the dragoons arrived at the Ponte Nova.

Sharpe was already above the Ponte Nova, gazing down at the bridge. It was here that the French retreat might be stopped, for the tiny village that clung to the high ground just beyond the bridge bristled with men and, on first seeing the Ponte Nova from high in the hills, Hogan had been jubilant. „We’ve done it!” he said. „We’ve done it!” But then he trained his telescope on the bridge and his good mood died. „They’re ordenanqa,” he said, „not a proper uniform there.” He gazed for another minute. „There’s not a single bloody gun,” he said bitterly, „and the bloody fools haven’t even destroyed the bridge.”

Sharpe borrowed Hogan’s glass to stare at the bridge. It possessed two hefty stone abutments, one on each bank, and the river was spanned by two great beams over which a wooden roadway had once been laid. The ordenanqa, presumably not wanting to rebuild the bridge entirely once the French were defeated, had removed the plank roadway, but left the two enormous beams in place. Then, at the edge of the village on the bridge’s eastern side, they had dug trenches from which they could smother the half-dismantled bridge with musket fire. „It might serve,” Sharpe grunted.

„And what would you do if you were the French?” Hogan asked.

Sharpe stared down into the defile, then looked back westward. He could see the dark snake of the French army coming along the road, but further back there was no sign yet of any British pursuit. „Wait till dark,” he said, „then attack across the beams.” The ordenanqa was enthusiastic, but it was little more than a rabble, ill armed and with scarce any training, and such troops might easily be panicked. Worse, there were not many ordenanqa at the Ponte Nova. There would have been more than enough if the bridge had been fully broken, but the twin beams were an invitation to the French. Sharpe trained the telescope on the bridge again. „Those beams are wide enough to walk on,” he said. „They’ll attack in the night. Hope to catch the defenders sleeping.”

„Let’s just hope the ordenanga stay awake,” Hogan said. He slid off the mule. „And what we do,” he said, „is wait.”

„Wait?”

„If they are stopped here,” Hogan explained, „then this is as good a place as any to watch out for Mister Christopher. And if they get across…?„He shrugged.

„I should go down there,” Sharpe said, „and tell them to get rid of those beams.”

„And how will they accomplish it?” Hogan wanted to know. „With dragoons firing at them from the other bank?” The dragoons had dismounted and spread along the western bank and Hogan could see the white puffs of their carbine smoke. „It’s too late to help, Richard,” he said, „too late. You stay here.”

They made a rough camp in the boulders. Night fell swiftly because the rain had come again and the clouds shrouded the setting sun. Sharpe let his men light fires so they could brew tea. The French would see the fires, but that did not matter for as the darkness shrouded the hills a myriad flames showed in the high grounds. The partisans were gathering, they were coming from all across northern Portugal to help destroy the French army.

An army that was cold, wet, hungry, bone-weary, and trapped.

Major Dulong still smarted from his defeat at Vila Real de Zedes. The bruise on his face had faded, but the memory of the repulse hurt. He sometimes thought of the rifleman who had beaten him and wished the man was in the 31st Leger. He also wished that the 31st Leger could be armed with rifles, but that was like wishing for the moon because the Emperor would not hear of rifles. Too fiddly, too slow, a woman’s weapon, he said. Vive le fusil. Now, at the old bridge called Ponte Nova, where the French retreat was blocked, Dulong had been summoned to Marshal Soult because the Marshal had been told that this was the best and bravest soldier in all his army. Dulong looked it, the Marshal thought, with his ragged uniform and scarred face. Dulong had taken the bright feather plume from his shako, wrapped it in oilcloth and tied it to his saber scabbard. He had hoped to wear that plume when his regiment marched into Lisbon, but it seemed that was not to be. Not this spring, anyway.

Soult walked with Dulong up a small knoll from where they could see the bridge with its two beams, and see and hear the jeering ordenanga beyond. „There are not many of them,” Soult remarked, „three hundred?”

„More,” Dulong grunted.

„So how do you get rid of them?”

Dulong gazed at the bridge through a telescope. The beams were both about a meter wide, more than enough, though the rain would doubtless make them slippery. He raised the glass to see that the Portuguese had dug trenches from which they could fire directly along the beams. But the night would be dark, he thought, and the moon clouded. „I would take a hundred volunteers,” he said, „fifty for each beam, and go at midnight.” The rain was getting worse and the dusk was cold. The Portuguese muskets, Dulong knew, would be soaked and the men behind them chilled to the bone. „A hundred men,” he promised the Marshal, „and the bridge is yours.”

Soult nodded. „If you succeed, Major,” he said, „then send me word. But if you fail? I do not want to hear.” He turned and walked away.

Dulong went back to the 31st Leger and he called for volunteers and was not surprised when the whole regiment stepped forward, so he chose a dozen good sergeants and let them pick the rest and he warned them that the fight would be messy, cold and wet. „We will use the bayonet,” he said, „because the muskets won’t fire in this weather and, besides, once you have fired one shot you will not have time to reload.” He thought about reminding them that they owed him a display of bravery after their reluctance to advance into the rifle fire on the watchtower hill at Vila Real de Zedes, then decided they all knew that anyway and so held his tongue.

The French lit no fires. They grumbled, but Marshal Soult insisted. Across the river the ordenanga believed they were safe and so they made a fire in one of the cottages high above the bridge where their commanders could keep warm. The cottage had one small window and just enough flame light escaped through the unshuttered glass to reflect off the wet cross beams that spanned the river. The feeble reflections shimmered in the rain, but they served as a guide for Dulong’s volunteers.

They went at midnight. Two columns, fifty men in each, and Dulong told them they must run across the bridge and he led the right-hand column, his saber drawn, and the only sounds were the river hissing beneath, the wind shrieking in the rocks, the pounding of their feet and a brief scream as one man slipped and fell into the Cavado. Then Dulong was climbing the slope and found the first trench empty and he guessed the ordenanga had taken shelter in the small hovels that lay just beyond the second trench and the fools had not even left a sentry by the bridge. Even a dog would have served to warn them of a French attack, but men and dogs alike were sheltering from the weather. „Sergeant!” the Major hissed. „The houses! Clean them out!”