Sharpe stared down into the defile, then looked back westward. He could see the dark snake of the French army coming along the road, but further back there was no sign yet of any British pursuit. „Wait till dark,” he said, „then attack across the beams.” The ordenanqa was enthusiastic, but it was little more than a rabble, ill armed and with scarce any training, and such troops might easily be panicked. Worse, there were not many ordenanqa at the Ponte Nova. There would have been more than enough if the bridge had been fully broken, but the twin beams were an invitation to the French. Sharpe trained the telescope on the bridge again. „Those beams are wide enough to walk on,” he said. „They’ll attack in the night. Hope to catch the defenders sleeping.”
„Let’s just hope the ordenanga stay awake,” Hogan said. He slid off the mule. „And what we do,” he said, „is wait.”
„Wait?”
„If they are stopped here,” Hogan explained, „then this is as good a place as any to watch out for Mister Christopher. And if they get across … ?„ He shrugged.
„I should go down there,” Sharpe said, „and tell them to get rid of those beams.”
„And how will they accomplish it?” Hogan wanted to know. „With dragoons firing at them from the other bank?” The dragoons had dismounted and spread along the western bank and Hogan could see the white puffs of their carbine smoke. „It’s too late to help, Richard,” he said, „too late. You stay here.”
They made a rough camp in the boulders. Night fell swiftly because the rain had come again and the clouds shrouded the setting sun. Sharpe let his men light fires so they could brew tea. The French would see the fires, but that did not matter for as the darkness shrouded the hills a myriad flames showed in the high grounds. The partisans were gathering, they were coming from all across northern Portugal to help destroy the French army.
An army that was cold, wet, hungry, bone-weary, and trapped.
Major Dulong still smarted from his defeat at Vila Real de Zedes. The bruise on his face had faded, but the memory of the repulse hurt. He sometimes thought of the rifleman who had beaten him and wished the man was in the 31st Leger. He also wished that the 31st Leger could be armed with rifles, but that was like wishing for the moon because the Emperor would not hear of rifles. Too fiddly, too slow, a woman’s weapon, he said. Vive le fusil. Now, at the old bridge called Ponte Nova, where the French retreat was blocked, Dulong had been summoned to Marshal Soult because the Marshal had been told that this was the best and bravest soldier in all his army. Dulong looked it, the Marshal thought, with his ragged uniform and scarred face. Dulong had taken the bright feather plume from his shako, wrapped it in oilcloth and tied it to his saber scabbard. He had hoped to wear that plume when his regiment marched into Lisbon, but it seemed that was not to be. Not this spring, anyway.
Soult walked with Dulong up a small knoll from where they could see the bridge with its two beams, and see and hear the jeering ordenanga beyond. „There are not many of them,” Soult remarked, „three hundred?”
„More,” Dulong grunted.
„So how do you get rid of them?”
Dulong gazed at the bridge through a telescope. The beams were both about a meter wide, more than enough, though the rain would doubtless make them slippery. He raised the glass to see that the Portuguese had dug trenches from which they could fire directly along the beams. But the night would be dark, he thought, and the moon clouded. „I would take a hundred volunteers,” he said, „fifty for each beam, and go at midnight.” The rain was getting worse and the dusk was cold. The Portuguese muskets, Dulong knew, would be soaked and the men behind them chilled to the bone. „A hundred men,” he promised the Marshal, „and the bridge is yours.”
Soult nodded. „If you succeed, Major,” he said, „then send me word. But if you fail? I do not want to hear.” He turned and walked away.