Sergeant Noolan looked at his five men, considered Sharpe’s statement, then nodded gravely. ‘Not quite enough of us, sir, you’re right. And what are you thinking of doing, sir, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘What I’m hoping,’ Sharpe said, ‘is that the Frogs will get tired of us and bugger off, then we can try and float one of those pontoons and get across the river. Tell your men that, Sergeant. I want to get them home, and the best way home is to be patient.’
A sudden rattle of rifle fire drew Sharpe back to Harper’s position. The French were making another attempt to free the pontoons, and this time they had made a rope by linking their musket slings together and three men were bravely fastening the line to one of the samson-posts. One man had been hit and was limping back to the shore. Sharpe began reloading his rifle, but before he had rammed the leather-wrapped ball down the barrel, the remaining Frenchmen sprinted back to their shelter, taking the line with them. Sharpe saw the rope come dripping from the river as men hauled on it. The line straightened and tightened and he guessed that nearly all the French were tugging on it, but he could do nothing about it for they were hidden by the big boulder. The line quivered and Sharpe thought he saw the pontoons shift slightly, or perhaps that was his imagination, and then the rope snapped and Sharpe’s riflemen jeered loudly.
Sharpe looked upriver. When the bridge had broken there had been seven or eight pontoons left on the British side and he was sure someone had thought to use one as a rescue craft, but no such boat appeared and by now he suspected the French cannons had either holed those pontoons or else driven the work parties away from the shore. That suggested rescue was a remote hope, leaving him with the need to salvage one of the six stranded barges.
‘Does this remind you of anything?’ Harper asked him.
‘I was trying not to think about it,’ Sharpe said.
‘What were those other rivers called?’
‘The Douro and the Tagus.’
‘And there were no bloody boats on those either, sir,’ Harper said cheerfully.
‘We found boats in the end,’ Sharpe said. Two years ago his company had been trapped on the wrong side of the Douro, then, a year later, he and Harper had been stranded on the Tagus, but both times they had found their way back to the army, and he would again now, but he wished the damned French would leave. Instead the troops hidden beneath him sent a messenger back to Fort Josephine. The man scrambled up the hill and all the riflemen turned to aim at him, hauling back the flints of their weapons, but the man kept looking back, dodging and ducking, and his fear was palpable and somehow funny so that none of them pulled their triggers.
‘He was too far away,’ Harper said. Hagman might have dropped the man, but in truth all the riflemen had felt sorry for the Frenchman who had shown bravery in risking the rifle fire.
‘He’s gone to fetch help,’ Sharpe said.
Nothing happened then for a long time. Sharpe lay on his back watching a hawk slide in the high sky. Sometimes a Frenchman would peer round the rocks below, see the riflemen were still there and duck back. After an hour or so a man waved at them, then stepped cautiously out from the boulder and mimed unbuttoning his breeches. ‘Bugger wants a pee, sir,’ Harris said.
‘Let him,’ Sharpe said and they raised the rifles so the barrels pointed at the sky and a succession of Frenchmen went to stand by the river and all politely waved their thanks when they were done. Harper waved back. Sharpe went from man to man and found they had nothing but three pieces of biscuit between them. He made one of Sergeant Noolan’s men soften the biscuit with water and divide it equally, but it was a miserable dinner.
‘We can’t go without food, Sharpe,’ Moon complained. The brigadier had watched the division of the biscuits with a glittering eye and Sharpe had been certain he was planning to claim a larger share for himself, so Sharpe had loudly announced that every man got exactly the same portion. Moon was now in a filthier mood than usual. ‘How do you propose feeding us?’ he demanded.
‘We may have to go hungry till morning, sir.’
‘Good God incarnate,’ Moon muttered.
‘Sir!’ Sergeant Noolan called and Sharpe turned to see that two companies of the French had appeared by the bluff. They were in skirmish order to make themselves a more difficult target for the rifles.
‘Pat!’ Sharpe called down the slope. ‘We’re pulling back! Up you come!’
They went south, carrying the brigadier again, struggling over the steep slopes to keep the river in sight. The French pursued for an hour, then seemed content merely to have driven the fugitives away from the stranded pontoons.
‘Now what?’ Moon demanded.
‘We wait here, sir,’ Sharpe said. They were on a hilltop, sheltered by rocks and with a fine view in every direction. The river ran empty to the west while, off to the east, Sharpe could see a road winding through the hills.
‘How long do we wait?’ Moon asked snidely.
‘Till nightfall, sir, then I’ll go and see if the pontoons are still there.’
‘Of course they won’t be,’ Moon said, implying that Sharpe was a fool to believe otherwise, ‘but I suppose you’d better look.’
Sharpe need not have bothered because, in the dusk, he saw the smoke rising above the river and when dark fell there was a glow across the side of the hill. He went north, taking Sergeant Noolan and two men of the 88th, and they saw that the French had failed to free the pontoons, so instead had ensured they were useless. The barges were burning. ‘That is a pity,’ Sharpe said.
‘The brigadier will not be happy, sir,’ Sergeant Noolan said cheerfully.
‘No, he won’t,’ Sharpe agreed.
Noolan spoke to his men in Gaelic, presumably sharing his thoughts of the brigadier’s unhappiness. ‘Don’t they speak English?’ Sharpe asked.
‘Fergal doesn’t,’ Noolan said, nodding at one of the men, ‘and Padraig will if you shout at him, sir, but if you don’t shout he won’t have a word of it.’
‘Tell them I’m glad you’re with us,’ Sharpe said.
‘You are?’ Noolan sounded surprised.
‘We were next to you on the ridge at Bussaco,’ Sharpe said.
Noolan grinned in the dark. ‘That was a fight, eh? They kept coming and we kept killing them.’
‘And now, Sergeant,’ Sharpe went on, ‘it seems that you and I are stuck with each other for a few days.’
‘So it does, sir,’ Noolan agreed.
‘So you need to know my rules.’
‘You have rules, do you, sir?’ Noolan asked cautiously.
‘You don’t steal from civilians unless you’re starving, you don’t get drunk without my permission and you fight like the devil himself was at your back.’
Noolan thought about it. ‘What happens if we break the rules?’ he asked.
‘You don’t, Sergeant,’ Sharpe said bleakly, ‘you just don’t.’
They went back to make the brigadier unhappy.
Sometime in the night the brigadier sent Harris to wake Sharpe who was half awake anyway because he was cold. Sharpe had given his greatcoat to the brigadier who, being coatless, had demanded that one of the men yield him a covering. ‘Is there trouble?’ Sharpe asked Harris.
‘Don’t know, sir. His excellency just wants you, sir.’
‘I’ve been thinking, Sharpe,’ the brigadier announced when Sharpe arrived.
‘Yes,