On the ramparts the Portuguese died as the wind plucked them outwards. The great defences, nearest the cathedral, were smashed down, and debris filled the ditches so that a huge, flat road was hammered into the heart of the fortress, and still the powder caught. New boilings of flame and smoke writhed into the horror over Almeida, shudder after shudder, a convulsive spasm of the hilltop and the monstrous explosions died, leaving only fire and darkness, the stench of hell, a silence where men were deafened by destruction.
A French gunner, old in his trade, who had once taught a young Corsican Lieutenant how to lay a gun, spat on his hand and touched it to the hot muzzle of the barrel that had fired the last shot. The French were silent, unbelieving, and in the killing-ground before them stones, tiles, and burnt flesh dropped like the devil’s rain.
Twenty-five miles away, in Celorico, they heard the sound and the General put down his fork and went to the window and knew, with terrible certainty, what it was. There was no gold. And now the fortress that could have bought him six weeks of failing hope had gone. The smoke came later, a huge grey curtain that smeared the eastern sky, turned morning sunlight into dusk, and edged the border hills with crimson like a harbinger of the armies that would follow the cloud to the sea.
Almeida had been destroyed.
CHAPTER 24
Kearsey was dead, killed in an instant as he said his prayers on the town rampart, and five hundred other men snatched into eternity by the flame, but Sharpe did not know that yet. He knew he was dying, of suffocation and heat, and he braced his back against the smooth, curved interior of the massive oven and pushed with his legs at a charred length of timber that blocked the door. It collapsed and he pushed himself out, into a nightmare, and turned to pull Teresa clear. She spoke to him, but he could hear nothing, and he shook his head and went to the other opening and pushed away some rubble as Harper crawled out, his face ashen.
The ovens had saved their lives. They were built like small fortresses, with walls more than three feet thick and a curved roof that had sent the blast harmlessly overhead. Nothing else remained. The cathedral was a flaming pit, the castle gone, the houses so much dust and fire, and down the street Sharpe had to look a hundred yards before he saw a house that had survived the blast, and it was ablaze, the flames licking at the rooms which had been opened to the world, and the heat was grey around them as he took Teresa’s arm.
A man staggered into the road, naked and bleeding, shouting for help, but they ignored him, ran to the cellar door that was covered with fallen stone, and dragged it clear. There was a thumping beneath and shouts, and Harper, still dazed, pulled back the stones and the cellar flap was forced open, and Lossow and Helmut came out. They spoke to Sharpe, who could not hear, and ran towards their own house, at the bottom of the hill, away from the horror, through the Portuguese soldiers who stared, open-mouthed, at the inferno that had once been a cathedral.
Sharpe dropped in the kitchen, found a bottle of the Germans’ beer, and knocked the top of, put it to his lips, and let the cool liquid flow into his stomach. He hit his ears, shook his head, and his men stared at him. He shook his head again, willing the sound to come back, and felt tears in his eyes. Damn it, the decision had been made, and he put his head back and stared at the ceiling and thought of the General, and of the blazing pit, and he hated himself.
‘You had no choice, sir.’ Knowles was speaking to him; the voice sounded far away, but he could hear.
He shook his head. ‘There’s always a choice.’
‘But the war, sir. You said it had to be won.’
Then celebrate it tomorrow, Sharpe thought, or the next day, but dear God, I did not know, and he remembered the flung bodies, stripped of all dignity, wiped out in an instant, draped like streaked fungus on the hot rubble.