And then Sharpe saw him. Saw Christopher. Or rather he saw Kate first, recognized the oval of her face, the contrast of her pale skin and jet-black hair, her beauty apparent even in this dark, wet horror of an early dusk, and he saw, surprised, that she was wearing a French uniform which was strange, he thought, but then he saw Christopher and Williamson beside her horse. The Colonel was dressed in civilian clothes and was trying to edge and bully and force his way through the crowd so that he could get across the bridge and so know himself to be safe from his pursuers. Sharpe snatched up Hogan’s telescope, wiped its lens and stared. Christopher, he thought, looked older, almost aged with something gray about his face. Then he edged the lens to the right and saw Williamson’s sullen face and felt a surge of pure anger.
„Have you seen him?” Hogan asked.
„He’s there,” Sharpe said, and he put the glass down, slid his rifle from its new leather case and eased the barrel forward across a lip of rock.
„That’s him, so it is.” Harper had seen Christopher now.
„Where?” Hogan wanted to know.
„Twenty yards back from the bridge, sir,” Harper said, „beside the horse. And that’s Miss Kate on the horse’s back. And, Jesus!” Harper had seen Williamson. „Is that -”
„Yes,” Sharpe said curtly, and he was tempted to aim the rifle at the deserter rather than at Christopher.
Hogan was gazing through the telescope. „A good-looking girl,” he said.
„She makes the heart beat faster, right enough,” Harper said.
Sharpe kept the rifle’s lock covered, hoping to keep the powder dry, and now he took off the scrap of cloth, pulled back the flint and aimed the gun at Christopher, and just then the heavens bellowed with thunder, and the rain, which was already heavy, increased in malevolence. It crashed in torrents to make Sharpe curse. He could not even see Christopher now! He jerked the rifle up and stared down into the blurred air which was filled with silver streaks, a cloud-bursting rain, a deluge fit to make a man build an ark. Jesus! And he could see nothing! And just then a slash of lightning sliced the sky in two and the rain drummed like the devil’s hoofbeats and Sharpe pointed the barrel toward the heavens and pulled the trigger. He knew what would happen, and it did. The spark died, the rifle was useless and so he threw the weapon down, stood up and drew his sword.
„What the hell are you doing?” Hogan asked.
„Going to fetch my damn telescope,” Sharpe said.
And went toward the French.
The 4th Leger, counted as one of the best infantry units in Soult’s army, broke and the two cavalry regiments broke with them. The three regiments had been well posted, dominating a slight ridge that ran athwart the road as it approached the Ponte Nova, but the sight of the Brigade of Guards and the constant smack of rifle bullets and the stinging blows of the twin three-pounders had finished the French rearguard.
Their task had been to halt the British pursuit, then withdraw slowly and destroy the repaired Ponte Nova behind them, but instead they ran.
Two thousand men and fourteen hundred horses were converging on the makeshift roadway across the Cavado. None tried to fight. They turned their backs and they fled, and the whole dark panicked mass of them was crushed against the river’s bank as the Guards came up behind.
„Move the guns!” Sir Arthur spurred his horse toward the gunners whose weapons had scorched two wide fans of grass in front of the barrels. „Move them up!” he shouted. „Move them up! Keep at them!” It was beginning to rain harder, the sky was darkening and forked lightning slithered above the northern hills.
The guns were moved a hundred yards nearer the bridge and then rolled up the southern slope of the valley to a small terrace from where they could slam their round shot into the crowded French. Rain hissed and steamed on the barrels as the first rounds crashed out and the blood flickered its red haze above the broken rearguard. A dragoon’s horse screamed, reared and killed a man with its flailing hooves. More round shots slammed home. A few Frenchmen, those at the back who knew they would never reach the bridge alive, turned back, threw down their muskets and held up their hands. The Guards opened ranks to let the prisoners through, closed ranks and loosed a volley that punched into the rear of the French rabble. The fugitives were jostling, pushing and fighting their way onto the bridge and the congestion on the unbalustraded roadway was so great that men and horses were forced off the edge to fall screaming into the Cavado, and still the two guns kept at them, slamming shots onto the Ponte Nova itself now, bloodying the rafters and the felled trunks that were the rearguard’s only escape. The round shots drove more men and horses off the span’s unprotected edges, so many that the dead and dying made a dam beneath the bridge. The high point of the French invasion of Portugal had been a bridge at Oporto where hundreds of folk had drowned in panic, and now the French were on another broken bridge and the dead of the Douro were being avenged. And still the guns hammered the French, and now and then a musket or rifle would fire despite the rain and the British were a vengeful line converging on the horror that was the Ponte Nova. More French surrendered. Some were weeping with shame, misery, hunger and cold as they staggered back. A captain of the 4th Leger threw down his sword and then, in disgust, picked it up and snapped the thin blade across his knee before letting himself be taken captive.