The mounted Dragoons, just forty strong, saw the scarlet-coated enemy come into the open. The horses wheeled and were spurred into a trot. Vivar ignored them. A Spaniard fell, and his comrades swerved round his body and reformed beyond. A trumpet sounded high and shrill, then at last the Major stopped his men and turned them towards the threatened flank.
Sharpe now saw what Vivar planned, and saw that it was brave to the point of idiocy. Ignoring the Dragoons behind the barricade he would pour all his fire into the horsemen. He was trusting the Riflemen to keep the dismounted Dragoons occupied, and Sharpe paced along his line of marksmen and shouted their targets to them. “That bugger by the tree. Kill him!” He saw a man fire in a hurry and he kicked his leg. “Aim properly, you bastard!” Sharpe looked for the telltale scatter of discarded powder which would betray a man who only half-charged his rifle to spare his shoulder the mule-hard kick of the butt, but none of the Riflemen were using that cheap expediency.
Two men at Vivar’s right file were down. They were the price Vivar had to pay. The cavalry was galloping at speed now, their hooves flinging up great gobs of dirty snow and soil.
“Take aim!” Vivar stood on the exposed right flank, the one closest to the barricade and where the greatest danger lay. He raised his sword. “Wait for it, wait for it!”
The snow was thin on the flat ground beside the road. The horses’ hooves thrummed the turf, and the long swords reflected the pale light. The trumpet hurled them on, faster, and the horsemen shouted the first challenge. The Spaniards had not formed a square, but were risking all on one crushing volley from men in line. Only disciplined troops could stand in line against a cavalry charge.
“Fire!” Vivar’s sword flashed down.
The Spanish carbines flamed. Horses tumbled. Blood, men and snow made a whirling chaos. Something screamed, but whether man or horse, Sharpe could not tell. Then, over the scream, came Vivar’s war shout. ”Santiago! Santiago!“
The Galicians cheered, then charged. Not at the barricade, but towards the broken horsemen.
“Jesus Christ!” a Rifleman close to Sharpe muttered, then lowered his weapon. “They’re bleeding mad!”
But it was a magnificent madness. Sharpe’s men watched and he barked at them to keep firing at the enemy behind the barricade. He permitted himself to watch as the tough Galician soldiers discarded their firearms and drew their own long swords. They climbed over the dead horses and stabbed down at dazed Dragoons. Others seized bridles or dragged at riders.
The Frenchmen behind the barricade stood to make their own charge and Sharpe shouted a warning at Vivar, but one which he knew the Spaniard would never hear. He turned. “Sergeant Williams! Keep your men here! The rest of you! Follow!”
The Riflemen ran in a frenzied scramble down the hill. They made a ragged charge that would take the last Dragoons in the flank, and the French saw them coming, hesitated, then fled. Vivar’s men were taking prisoners or rounding up riderless horses, while the surviving Frenchmen scrambled away to safety. The battle was over. The ambushed, outnumbered, had snatched an impossible victory, and the snow stank of blood and smoke.
Then gunfire sounded from the canyon behind Sharpe.
Vivar turned, his face ashen.
A rifle fired, its sound amplified by the echo of rock walls.
“Lieutenant!” Vivar gestured desperately towards the canyon. “Lieutenant!” There was a genuine despair in his voice.
Sharpe turned and ran towards the chasm. The gunfire was sudden and brusque. He could see Sergeant Williams firing downwards, and he knew there must have been more Frenchmen hidden at the canyon’s far end; men who would have blocked the panicked retreat they had expected to provoke. Instead those men must be advancing up the canyon to take Vivar and Sharpe in the rear.
Except they had been stopped by one man. Rifleman Harper had found the rifle of a fallen man and, using the corpse of the mule as a bastion, was holding off the handful of Dragoons. He had cut the bonds from his wrists, using a bayonet that had slashed deep wounds into his hands, but, despite the bleeding cuts, he still loaded and fired his rifle with a fearful precision. A dead French horse and a wounded Dragoon witnessed to the Irishman’s skill. He screamed his Gaelic challenge at the others, daring them to come closer. He turned, wild-eyed, as Sharpe appeared, then turned scornfully back to face the French.