The strip of bridge that remained was just wide enough to let a farm cart cross the river’s ravine. It meant that once the French were gone the valley’s commerce could resume while the roadway and parapets were rebuilt. But to the French that narrow strip would mean only one thing: safety.
Hogan was the first to see that the bridge was not fully destroyed. He climbed off the mule and swore viciously, then handed Sharpe his telescope and Sharpe stared down at the bridge’s remnants. Musket smoke already shrouded both banks as the dragoons of the French vanguard fired across the ravine and the ordenanga in their makeshift redoubts shot back. The sound of the muskets was faint.
„They’ll get across,” Hogan said sadly, „they’ll lose a lot of men, but they’ll clear that bridge.”
Sharpe did not answer. Hogan was right, he thought. The French were making no effort to take the bridge now, but doubtless they were assembling an assault party and that meant he would have to find a place from where his riflemen could shoot at Christopher as he crossed the narrow stone arch. There was nowhere on this side of the river, but on the Misarella’s opposite bank there was a high stone bluff where a hundred or more ordenanqa were stationed. The bluff had to be less than two hundred paces from the bridge, too far for the Portuguese muskets, but it would provide a perfect vantage for his rifles, and if Christopher reached the center of the bridge he would be greeted by a dozen rifle bullets.
The problem was reaching the bluff. It was not far away, perhaps a half-mile, but between Sharpe and that enticing high ground was the Misarella. „We have to cross that river,” Sharpe said.
„How long will that take?” Hogan asked.
„As long as it takes,” Sharpe said. „We don’t have a choice.”
The musketry grew in intensity, crackling like burning thorn, then fading before bursting back into life. The dragoons were crowding the southern bank to swamp the defenders with fire, but Sharpe could do nothing to help.
So, for the moment, he walked away.
In the valley of the Cavado, just twelve miles from the advance guard that fought the ordenanqa across the ravine of the Misarella, the first British troops caught up with Soult’s rearguard which protected the men and women still crossing the Ponte Nova. The British troops were light dragoons and they could do little more than exchange carbine fire with the French troops who were drawn across the road to fill the valley between the river and the southern cliffs. But not far behind the dragoons the Brigade of Guards was marching, and behind them was a pair of three-pounder cannons, guns that fired shot so light that they were derided as toys, but on this day, when no one else could deploy artillery, the two toys were worth their weight in gold.
The French rearguard waited while, a dozen miles away, the vanguard readied to attack the Saltador. Two battalions of infantry would assault the bridge, but it was plain that they would become mincemeat if the thick barrier of thorn were not removed from the bridge’s far end. The abattis was four feet high and just as thick and made from two dozen thorn bushes that had been tied together and weighted down with logs, and it made a formidable obstacle and so a Forlorn Hope was proposed. A Forlorn Hope was a company of men who were expected to die, but in doing so they would clear a path for their comrades, and usually such suicidal bands were deployed against the heavily defended breaches of enemy fortresses, but today’s band must cross the narrow remnant of a bridge and die under the flail of musket fire, and as they died they were to clear away the thorn abattis. Major Dulong of the 31st Leger, the new Legion d’Honneur medal still bright on his chest, volunteered to lead the Forlorn Hope. This time he could not use darkness, and the enemy was far more numerous, but his hard face showed no apprehension as he pulled on a pair of gloves and then twisted the loops of his saber cords about his wrist so that he would not lose the weapon in the chaos he anticipated as the thorns were wrenched aside. General Loison, who commanded the French vanguard, ordered every available man to the river bank to swamp the ordenanga with musket, carbine and even pistol fire and when the noise had swelled to a deafening intensity Dulong raised his saber then swung it forward as a signal to advance.