Christopher stared at his green-jacketed enemy. He did not believe what he saw. He tried to speak, because words had always been Christopher’s best weapon, but now he found he was struck dumb and Sharpe walked toward him and then a surge of Frenchmen came up behind the Colonel and they were going to force him onto Sharpe’s sword and Christopher did not have the courage to draw his own and so, in sheer desperation, he followed Williamson into the rainy dark of the Misarella’s ravine. He jumped.
Vicente, Harper and Sergeant Macedo had followed Sharpe down the hill and now encountered Kate. „Look after her, sir!” Harper called to Vicente and then, with Sergeant Macedo, he hurried toward the bridge just in time to see Sharpe leap off the roadway. „Sir!” Harper shouted. „Oh, Jesus bloody God,” he swore, „the daft bloody bastard!” He led Macedo across the road just as a flood of blue-coated infantrymen spilled off the bridge, but if any of the Frenchmen thought it strange that enemy soldiers were on the Misarella’s bank they showed no sign of it. They just wanted to escape and so they hurried north toward Spain as Harper prowled the bank and stared into the ravine for a sight of Sharpe. He could see dead horses among the rocks and half submerged in the white water and he could see the sprawling bodies of a dozen Frenchmen who had fallen from the Saltador’s high span, but of Christopher’s dark coat and Sharpe’s green jacket he could see nothing.
Williamson had fallen straight into the deepest part of the ravine and by chance had landed in a swirling pool of the river that was deep enough to break his fall and he had pitched forward onto the corpse of a horse that had further cushioned him. Christopher was less fortunate. He fell close to Williamson, but his left leg struck rock and his ankle was suddenly a mass of pain and the river water was cold as ice. He clung to Williamson and looked about desperately and saw no sign of any pursuit and he reasoned that Sharpe could not stay long on the bridge in the face of the retreating French. „Get me to the bank,” he told Williamson. „I think my ankle’s broken.”
„You’ll be all right, sir,” Williamson said. „I’m here, sir,” and he put an arm round the Colonel’s waist and helped him toward the neatest bank.
„Where’s Kate?” Christopher asked.
„She ran, sir, she ran, but we’ll find her, sir. We’ll find her. Here we are, sir, we can climb here.” Williamson hauled Christopher onto rocks beside the water and looked for an easy way to climb the ravine’s side and instead saw Sharpe. He swore.
„What is it?” Christopher was in too much pain to notice much.
„That bloody jacked-up jack pudding,” Williamson said and drew the saber that he had taken from a dead French officer on the road near the seminary. „Bloody Sharpe,” he explained.
Sharpe had escaped the rush of oncoming Frenchmen by jumping for the side of the ravine where a gorse sapling clung to a ledge. Its stem bent under his weight, but it held and he had managed to find a foothold on the wet rock beneath and then jump down to another boulder where his feet had shot out from beneath him so that he slid down the big stone’s rounded side to crash into the river, but the sword was still in his hand and in front of him was Williamson and beside the deserter was a wet and terrified Christopher. Rain hissed about them as the dark ravine was garishly lit by a stab of lightning.
„My telescope,” Sharpe said to Christopher.
„Of course, Sharpe, of course.” Christopher pulled his sopping wet coat-tails up, groped in one of his pockets and took out the glass. „Not damaged!” he said brightly. „I only borrowed it.”
„Put it on that boulder,” Sharpe ordered.
„Not damaged at all!” Christopher said, putting the precious glass on the boulder. „And well done, Lieutenant!” Christopher nudged Williamson, who was just watching Sharpe.
Sharpe took a step nearer the two men, who both backed away. Christopher pushed Williamson again, trying to make him attack Sharpe, but the deserter was wary. The longest blade he had ever used in a fight was a sword bayonet, but that experience had not trained him to fight with a saber and especially not against a butcher’s blade like the heavy cavalry sword that Sharpe held. He stepped back, waiting for an opportunity.