Sharpe’s Skirmish. Richard Sharpe and the defence of the Tormes, August 1812. By BERNARD CORNWELL.

Behind the wagon were redcoats. British! Not Spanish, but Pailleterie did not care. They were all enemies of France, all better dead. “Charge!” He drew the word out, using it as a war cry, and a flickering thought went through his mind that there was nothing, nothing in the world, not even a woman, who could give a joy like this. A horse at full gallop, an enemy surprised, death at your side and a sabre drawn.

More smoke, this time from the left, from a farmhouse, and Pailleterie was dimly aware of one of his troopers tumbling, of a horse screaming and a sabre skidding along the ground, but then he swerved into the lingering smoke that hung above the bridge’s roadway and swung out of the saddle even before his horse had come to a halt. A single musket banged, spewing stinging smoke into Pailleterie’s eyes. He stumbled as he dismounted, crashed into the wagon that had been slewed sideways on the bridge, then pulled himself up onto its bed. He was screaming like a madman, expecting a bullet in his belly at any second, but the redcoats were still reloading. He jumped down at them, sabre swinging, and Sergeant Coignet was beside him, and then a swarm of pigtailed hussars was jumping over the wagon with pistols flaming and sabres reflecting the dazzling sun. A redcoat was on his knees, hands at his face and blood seeping between his fingers. Another was dead, slumped on the bridge parapet, and the others were going backwards. They did not even have bayonets fixed, and Pailleterie swept a musket aside with his heavy sabre and chopped down at the redcoat, and the man span away, his cheek laid open, and then the other redcoats broke and ran.

“Into the fort!” Pailleterie shouted at his excited men, “into the fort!”

The redcoats could wait. The fort must be taken and held until Herault arrived, and he saw there were no gates in the big arch and he ran inside and saw a tall man in a green jacket disappearing though a door. “Up!” He shouted, pointing his men at the courtyard staircase, “up!” A gun banged from the sky and a bullet flattened itself on the stones beside Pailleterie who looked up and saw another green jacketed man silhouetted against the sky, then that man vanished as the hussars ran up the stairs.

Pailleterie hauled a watch from a small pocket of his dolman jacket. Six hours till Herault arrive, maybe less. He closed the watch’s lid, put it away, and bent over, hands on his knees, suddenly tired. My God, though, he had done it! The tip of his sabre was red, and he wiped it on a handful of straw, then was aware that his men were shouting angrily out on the bridge.

He hurried back. Most of his troopers had not needed to dismount and cross the barricade, and those men now milled about at the bridge’s southern end. And there they were suffering because a steady fire was coming from a white farmhouse just a couple of hundred paces down the road. Horses were whinnying in pain, men were on the ground, and the damn fire kept coming and it struck Pailleterie that he had seen green jackets, which meant riflemen, and if he did not shelter his men soon then the damned rifles would kill every last one of them.

“Sergeant! Move the wagon! Move it!”

A dozen men heaved the wagon up, thrusting one pair of its wheels onto the bridge’s parapet, and the horses at last had an escape route across the bridge. “Into the fort!” Pailleterie shouted, “into the fort!” A corporal had rescued the Captain’s own horse, and Pailleterie led the beast into the courtyard where it was safe from the rifle fire. Then he opened a saddlebag and took out a tricolour. He gave the flag to Coignet. “Hang it on the battlements, Sergeant.”

Hagman and his riflemen had gone down the ladder stairs and now bolted out of the door leading to the storeroom. The French found that entrance a moment too late, but it did not matter. They had seized San Miguel, they had secured the river crossing, and Herault was coming to spread panic along the British supply lines.

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