Every half hour or so the Company stopped and the men who had not been carrying the gold-filled packs took over from those who had. It was a painfully slow march. The packs chafed their shoulders, rubbed them raw, and the gold, far from being something from their wildest dreams, became a loathed burden that the men would happily have thrown away if Sharpe had not taken his position at the rear, driving them on, forcing the Company across the bleak plateau. He had no idea how far they had come, even what time of day it was, only that they must keep marching, putting distance between themselves and El Catolico, and his anger snapped when the Company suddenly stopped, dropped, and yelled at them, ‘Get up!’
‘But, sir!’ Knowles, leading the Company, waved ahead. ‘Look!’
Even in the rain, in the crushing weather, it was a beautiful sight. The plateau suddenly ended, dropped to a wide valley through which meandered a stream and a track.
The Agueda. It had to be the river Agueda, off to the left, and the stream at the bottom of the valley flowed east to west to join the river where the track led to the ford. Sharpe’s heart leapt. They had made it! He could see the road start again at the far side of the river; it was the ford at San Anton, and beside the track, on this side of the river, was an ancient fort on a rock bluff that once must have guarded the crossing. At this distance, he guessed a mile and a half, the walls looked broken, stubbled in the grey light, but the fortress had to mark the site of the ford. They had done it!
‘Five minutes’ rest!’
The Company sat down, relieved, cheered up. Sharpe perched on a rock and searched the valley. Second by second his hopes revived. It was empty. No horsemen, no Partisans, nothing but the stream and the track going to the river. He took out his telescope, praying that the driving rain would not seep through the junctions of its cylinders, and searched the valley again. A second road, running north and south, ran this side of the river, but it, too, was empty. By God! They had done it!
‘Come on!’ He clapped his hands, pulled men up and pushed them on. ‘To the river! We cross tonight! Well done!’
The rain still fell, blinding the men as they stumbled down the slope, but they had made it! They could see their goal, feel pride in an achievement, and tomorrow they would wake up on the west bank of the Agueda and march to the Coa. There were British patrols on the far bank, to be sure not as many as there were French, but the river Agueda marked some kind of limit, and after a day’s effort like this they needed that limit. They almost ran the last part of the slope, splashed through the stream, boots crunching on its gravel bed, and then stamped on to the wet track as if it were a paved highway in the centre of London. The ford was a mile ahead, trees on both banks, and the Company knew that once they crossed they could rest, let the tiredness flow, and shut their eyes against the grey horror of the day and its journey.
‘Sir.’ Harper spoke quietly, with a desperate resignation. ‘Sir. Behind.’
Horsemen. Bloody horsemen. Partisans who had ridden not over the plateau but up the direct road from Casatejada and who now appeared on the track behind them. Teresa smiled, gave Sharpe a look of victory, and he ignored it. He called wearily to the Company to halt.
‘How many, Sergeant?’
There was a pause. ‘Reckon it’s just a small party.’
Sharpe could see no more than twenty or thirty horsemen, standing in the rain just three hundred yards behind the Company. He took a deep breath.
‘They can’t hurt us, lads. Bayonets. They won’t charge bayonets!’
There was something strangely comforting about the sound of the blades scraping from the scabbards, the sight of the men crouching with bent knees as they fixed on the long blades, to be doing something that was aimed at their enemy instead of the muscle-racking tramp through the rain. The band of horsemen came forward, spurred into a trot, and Sharpe stood with his men in the front rank.