Once in the schoolhouse, Sharpe and Hogan settled in the kitchen where the French occupiers of the city had left an undamaged table and, because Hogan had left his good map at the General’s headquarters, he used a piece of charcoal to draw a cruder version on the table’s scrubbed top. From the main schoolroom, where Sharpe’s men had spread their blankets, came the sound of women’s laughter. His men, Sharpe reflected, had been in the city less than a day yet they had already found a dozen girls. “Best way to learn the language, sir,” Harper had assured him, “and we’re all very short on education, sir, as you doubtless know.”
“Right!” Hogan kicked the kitchen door shut. “Look at the map, Richard.” He showed how the British had come up the coast of Portugal and dislodged the French from Oporto and how, at the same time, the Portuguese army had attacked in the east. “They’ve retaken Amarante,” Hogan said, “which is good because it means Soult can’t cross that bridge. He’s stuck, Richard, stuck, so he’s got no choice. He’ll have to strike north through the hills to find a wee road up here”-the charcoal scratched as he traced a wiggly line on the table-“and it’s a bastard of a road, and if the Portuguese can keep going in this God-awful weather then they’re going to cut the road here.” The charcoal made a cross. “It’s a bridge called Ponte Nova. Do you remember it?”
Sharpe shook his head. He had seen so many bridges and mountain roads with Hogan that he could no longer remember which was which.
“The Ponte Nova,” Hogan said, “means the new bridge and naturally it’s as old as the hills and one tub of powder will send it crashing down into the gorge and then, Richard, Monsieur Soult is properly buggered. But he’s only buggered if the Portuguese can get there.” He looked gloomy, for the weather was not propitious for a swift march into the mountains. “And if they can’t stop Soult at the Ponte Nova then there’s a half-chance they’ll catch him at the Saltador. You remember that, of course?”
“I do remember that, sir,” Sharpe said.
The Saltador was a bridge high in the mountains, a stone span that leaped across a deep and narrow gorge, and the spectacular arch had been nicknamed the Leaper, the Saltador. Sharpe remembered Hogan mapping it, remembered a small village of low stone houses, but chiefly remembered the river tumbling in a seething torrent beneath the soaring bridge.
“If they get to the Saltador and cross it,” Hogan said, “then we can kiss them goodbye and wish them luck. They’ll have escaped.” He flinched as a crash of thunder reminded him of the weather. “Ah, well,” he sighed, “we can only do our best.”
“And just what are we doing?” Sharpe wanted to know.
“Now that, Richard, is a very good question,” Hogan said. He helped himself to a pinch of snuff, paused, then sneezed violently. “God help me, but the doctors say it clears the bronchial tubes, whatever the hell they are. Now, as I see it, one of two things can happen.” He tapped the charcoal streak marking the Ponte Nova. “If the French are stopped at that bridge then most will surrender, they’ll have no choice. Some will take to the hills, of course, but they’ll find armed peasants all over the place looking for throats and other parts to cut. So we’ll either find Mister Christopher with the army when it surrenders or more likely he’ll run away and claim to be an escaped English prisoner. In which case we go into the mountains, find him and put him up against a wall.”
“Truly?”
“That worries you?”
“I’d rather hang him.”
“Ah, well, we can discuss the method when the time comes. Now the second thing that might happen, Richard, is that the French are not stopped at the Ponte Nova, in which case we need to reach the Saltador.”
“Why?”
“Think what it was like, Richard,” Hogan said. “A deep ravine, steep slopes everywhere, the kind of place where a few riflemen could be very vicious. And if the French are crossing the bridge then we’ll see him and your Baker rifles will have to do the necessary.”