Sharpe watched the enemy leave. He stood with Teresa on the crest of the bridge at San Miguel de Tormes, and watched the French retreat. And it was his company that had turned them back. “I was lucky,” he said softly.
“Didn’t deserve to win.”
“Of course you deserved to win,” Teresa said.
“It was MacKeon.” Sharpe said. “He reminded me of what we did at Gawilghur. And then it was Pat Harper, disobeying orders as usual.”
“There was a battle,” Teresa said, “in Spain. We won.”
“No,” Sharpe said, putting an arm about her shoulders. “It weren’t a battle, love. Just a skirmish.” Just a skirmish, but the French had lost and their general was Sharpe’s prisoner. And too many men had died, and that was Sharpe’s fault, but the army would only remember that Captain Sharpe had stopped the frogs and so, for the moment, his career was safe and the French would abandon Madrid and Wellington could keep marching north. And all because Sharpe had fought a skirmish and he had won. It was Sharpe’s skirmish.
The End