The other two Battalions raised a cheer, lowered their bayonets, and ran at the rubble of the eastern wall. No muskets fired from the defenders, no rifles, and the gun that would have flanked them lay on its side, shattered, useless on the stones. The two men who would have fired it sprawled lifeless on the cobbles.
A Rifleman on the keep’s ramparts shouted for Sharpe, shouted loud, but the message never reached him. The French were in the courtyard.
CHAPTER 28
The news had come from Salamanca, where so much news came from because the Rev. Dr Patrick Curtis had been Professor of Astronomy and Natural History at the University of Salamanca. Strictly speaking Don Patricio Cortes, as the Spanish called him, was still Professor, and still Rector of the Irish College, but he had been in temporary residence in Lisbon ever since the French had discovered that the seventy-two year old Irish priest was interested in things other than God, the stars, and the natural history of Spain. Don Patricio Cortes was also Britain’s chief spy in Europe.
The news reached Dr Curtis in Lisbon two evenings before Christmas. He was hearing confessions in a small church, helping out the local priest, and one of the penitents had nothing to confess and gave news through the grille instead. Hurriedly Dr Curtis left his booth, smiling apologetically at the parishioners, and after hastily crossing himself he undid the papers that had been sent to him across the border. The messenger, a trader in horses who sold to the French so he could travel unimpeded, shrugged. ‘I’m sorry it’s late, Father. I couldn’t find you.’
‘You did well, my son. Come with me.’
But time was desperately short. Curtis went to Wellington’s quarters and there he fetched Major Hogan from dinner, and the small Irish Major, who was also in charge of what Wellington liked to call his ‘intelligence’, rewarded the messenger with gold and then hurried the captured French despatch to the General.
‘God damn.’ The General’s cold eyes looked at Hogan. ‘Any doubt?’
‘None, sir. It’s the Emperor’s code.’
‘God damn.’ Wellington gave the smallest apologetic shrug towards the elderly priest, then blasphemed again. ‘God damn.’
There was time to send word to Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, to roust Nairn out of Frenada and have the Light Division moving, but that was not what worried the Peer. He was worried by the French diversionary attack that would come from the hills and descend on the valley of the Douro. God damn! This spring Wellington planned a campaign the like of which had never been seen in the Peninsula. Instead of attacking along the great roads of invasion, the roads that led eastward from Ciudad Rodrigo and from Badajoz, he was taking troops where the French thought they could not go. He would lead them north-east from the hills of Northern Portugal, lead them on a great circuit to cut the French supply road and force battle on a perplexed and outflanked enemy. To do it he would need pontoons, the great clumsy boats that carried roadways across rivers, because his invasion route was crossed by rivers. And the pontoons were being built at the River Douro and the French force was planning to descend on that area, an area that would normally be of small importance except this winter. God damn and damn again. ‘Apologies, Curtis.’
‘Don’t mention it, my Lord.’
Messengers went north that night, messengers who changed horses every dozen miles or so, messengers who rode to warn the British that the French were coming, and Wellington followed them himself, going first to Ciudad Rodrigo because he feared to lose that great gateway into Spain. With any luck, he thought, Nairn could hold the French at Barca de Alva.
Major General Nairn looked once at the order, thought for a moment, then disobeyed. The Peer had forgotten, or else had not connected the name Adrados with the Gateway of God, that the British already had a force that could block the French. A pitifully small force, a single Battalion with a raggle-taggle collection of Riflemen and Rockets, but if it could hold the pass just twelve hours then Nairn could reinforce it. His cold magically disappeared.