„Keep shooting the horses!” Sharpe shouted. It was not a pleasant job. The screams of the wounded beasts tore at men’s souls and the sight of an injured gelding trying to drag itself along by its front legs was heartbreaking, but Sharpe kept his men firing. The dragoons, spared the rifle fire now, ran toward the vineyard in the confident belief that they were dealing with a mere handful of partisans. Dragoons were supposed to be mounted infantry and so they were issued with carbines, short-barrelled muskets, with which they could fight on foot, and some carried the carbines while others preferred to attack with their long straight swords, but all of them instinctively ran toward the track which climbed among the vines. Sharpe had guessed they would follow the track rather than clamber over the entangling vines and that was why he had put Vicente and his men close by the path. The dragoons were bunching together as they entered the vines and Sharpe had an urge to run across to the Portuguese and take command of them, but just then Vicente ordered his men to stand.
The Portuguese soldiers appeared as if by magic in front of the disorganized dragoons. Sharpe watched, approvingly, as Vicente let his men settle, then ordered them to fire. The French had tried to check their desperate charge and swerve aside, but the vines obstructed them and Vicente’s volley hammered into the thickest press of cavalrymen bunched on the narrow track. Harper, off on the right flank, had the riflemen add their own volley so that the dragoons were assailed from both sides. Powder smoke drifted over the vines. „Fix swords!” Sharpe shouted. A dozen dragoons were dead and the ones at the back were already running away. They had been convinced they fought against a few undisciplined peasants and instead they were outnumbered by real soldiers and the center of their makeshift line had been gutted, half their horses were dead and now the infantry was coming from the smoke with fixed bayonets. The Portuguese stepped over the dead and injured dragoons. One of the Frenchmen, shot in the thigh, rolled over with a pistol in his hand and Vicente knocked it away with his sword and then kicked the gun into the stream. The unwounded dragoons were running toward the horses and Sharpe ordered his riflemen to drive them off with bullets rather than blades. „Just keep them running!” he shouted. „Panic them! Lieutenant!” He looked for Vicente, „Take your men into the village! Cooper! Tongue! Slattery! Make these bastards safe!” He knew he had to keep the Frenchmen in front moving, but he dared not leave any lightly wounded dragoons in his rear and so he ordered the three riflemen to disarm the cavalrymen injured by Vicente’s volley. The Portuguese were in the village now, banging open doors and converging on a church that stood next to the bridge that crossed the small stream.
Sharpe ran toward the field where the horses were dead, dying or terrified. A few dragoons had tried to untie their mounts, but the rifle fire had chased them off. So now Sharpe was the possessor of a score of horses. „Dan!” he called to Hagman. „Put the wounded ones out of their misery. Pendleton! Harris! Cresacre! Over there!” He pointed the three men toward the wall on the paddock’s western side. The dragoons had fled that way and Sharpe guessed they had taken refuge in some trees that stood thick just a hundred paces away. Three picquets were not enough to cope with even a half-hearted counterattack by the French so Sharpe knew he would have to strengthen those picquets soon, but first he wanted to make sure there were no dragoons skulking in the houses, gardens and orchards of the village.
Barca d’Avintas was a small place, a straggle of houses built about the road that ran down to the river where a short jetty should have accommodated the ferry, but some of the smoke Sharpe had seen earlier was coming from a barge-like vessel with a blunt bow and a dozen rowlocks.
Now it was smoking in the water, its upper works burned almost to the waterline and its lower hull holed and sunken. Sharpe stared at the useless boat, looked across the river that was over a hundred yards broad and then swore.