A door opened in a house, a man stabbed with a bayonet and Sharpe lunged, twisted, and he could feel the warm blood on his hand as his sword found the enemy’s neck. He dragged the blade clear of the falling body. ‘Kill the bastards!’ The alley was thick with men, pushing, shouting, swearing, stabbing, screaming. Men were trampled when they were wounded. The front rank clawed at the enemy. The close alley walls seemed to magnify every shout and shot.

There was a volley of muskets from the alley’s far end and a French counter-attack, readied against just such a breakthrough, came towards them.

‘Fire!’

The few men still loaded fired. Two Frenchmen fell, the rest came on, and Sharpe took his sword forward and swept it like a scythe at the leading bayonets. He was shouting the war shout, letting the anger frighten the enemy, and he felt a blade sear his thigh, but the sword flicked up into the man’s face; there was a scream, and it was British bayonets that went forward; twisted, stabbed, tore the enemy counter-attack into shreds.

Sharpe was treading on bodies now. He did not notice. He watched the rooftops, the windows, and always shouted at his men to follow him, to keep moving forward.

The bayonets went forward, the British were shouting like madmen, like men who know that the best way to get rid of terror is to get the damned job done. They were clawing at their enemy, trampling them, screaming and lunging, cutting, slashing, driving them back.

‘Into the houses! Into the houses!’

There was no point in piercing the village’s centre, there to be surrounded by the enemy. This first alley had to be cleared, the houses emptied of the French and Sharpe kicked a door open and ducked under the lintel.

He was in an empty room. Men crammed in behind him, bayonets red. Opposite them was a closed door.

Sharpe looked round. ‘Who’s loaded?’

Three men nodded at him. Their eyes were bright in the darkness, their faces, stained by powder burns, were drawn back in permanent scowls. Sharpe dared not let these men catch their breath or feel safe here. He had to keep them moving.

‘Fire through that door. On my order!’

They lined up, they levelled their muskets.

‘Fire! Go! Go! Go!’

He was still shouting as he kicked the door and led the way through the musket smoke. He had to stop himself from flinching as he went through the door, so strong was his certainty that a volley waited for him on the far side.

He found a French soldier sprawled, twitching and bleeding, in a small yard that was strewn with straw. Other Frenchmen were backing into the yard, defending an alley at the far side that must have been penetrated by other men of the South Essex. Sharpe bellowed a triumphant shout, the sword struck again while, either side of him, his men went forward with bayonets and the Frenchmen were shouting for quarter, dropping their muskets and Sharpe was yelling at his men to hold their fire and to take prisoners.

A thatched roof had caught fire across the alley. Beneath it men were running, driving the French back, and Sharpe joined them, all control of the Battalion gone. They were hunting the defenders out of the houses, blasting closed doors with musket fire, kicking the shattered doors open and searching the small rooms. They did it savagely and quickly, avenging the dead American who had wanted this victory.

A trumpet sounded and Sharpe, turning, saw through the smoke in the village street the flag of another Battalion. The rest of the Division was coming through and he shouted at his own men to take cover, to clear the alleys. Let other men carry on.

He picked up some straw in a farmyard and scoured at the blood on his sword blade. Two prisoners watched him. All about him the village echoed to muskets and screams. The French garrison, prised from the houses, ran back over the bridge. A Sergeant watched Sharpe. ‘It is you, sir?’

Sharpe tried to remember the man’s name and Company. ‘Sergeant Barrett, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir.’ The man smiled, pleased at being remembered. Men of his Company gaped at Sharpe.

‘It is me.’ Sharpe grinned.

‘They bloody hung you, sir.’

‘This army can’t do anything right, Sergeant.’ The men laughed, as he had meant them to. Barrett offered him some water that Sharpe took gratefully. Burning wisps of straw, blown from the thatch, threatened to start more fires. Sharpe ordered them to find rakes and get the prisoners to pull the burning thatch down. Then he set off to look at the village he had captured.

Marshal Jourdan could only fear and wait. The news from Gamarra Mayor said that the British had taken the village, but had failed to cross the river. He sent a messenger to say that the bridge had to be held at whatever cost. He felt the frustration of being outmanoeuvred, of trying to double-guess the hook-nosed, blue eyed General who opposed him.

Jourdan had glimpsed Wellington once, glimpsed him through a ragged hole in the smoke curtain and he had watched his opponent calmly dressing the line of a British Battalion. A General had no business doing that, Jourdan thought, and what made it worse was that the Battalion had then thrown the French from the southern flank of the Arinez Hill.

Marshal Jourdan, his great guns outflanked and his infantry defeated, had been thrown back on his second line. If the new line, and if the troops across the river from Gamarra Mayor both held, then all was not lost. Indeed a victory could still be his, but he had the horrid sensation of control slipping from his hands. He shouted for information, demanding to know where General Gazan’s troops were, and no one could tell him. He sent aides galloping into the smoke and they did not come back, or if they did they had no news, and Jourdan felt a shrinking horror that the second line was not complete, and what there was of it was suffering terribly from the enemy guns.

Suffering because Wellington had done what Wellington was reputed never to do. He had taken a leaf from the Emperor’s book and concentrated his artillery and now the British, Portuguese and Spanish guns were pounding from Arinez Hill, pounding and pounding, stopping a man thinking, and carving great furrows of blood through the waiting French infantry.

King Joseph, his horse nervous, came close to Jourdan. ‘Jean-Baptiste?’

Jourdan frowned. He hated his Christian names, he hated the familiarity that he knew was being used to disguise fear. ‘Sir?’

‘Should we advance?’

Christ on his bloody cross! Jourdan almost snarled at his monarch, but bit the blasphemy back. He forced himself to look calm, knowing that the eyes of the staff were on him. ‘We shall let our guns gnaw at him a bit, sir.’ Jesus wept! Advance? Jourdan spurred his horse away from the King, noting wryly that the royal coach was ready for flight, coachman aloft and postilions mounted on horses. The truth was that Wellington conducted the music of battle now, god-damned Wellington, and Jourdan was praying that his men would hold on long enough to let him dream up a response. Troops! He needed fresh troops. ‘Moreau! Moreau!’ He called for an aide. There must be reserves somewhere! There must be!

The afternoon had come, and it had brought an artillery duel on the plain. Jourdan shouted for more troops, but he knew his enemy, behind the curtain of smoke, was regrouping for a new attack. He demanded news, always news, and he asked for reassurance from staff officers who could not give it. Panic was beginning to infect the French command, while behind their guns the British prepared a new attack. The infantry were in their ranks, fresh cartridges issued, an army readying itself for victory.

On the walls of the city the ladies watched. They frowned when the carts brought the bloodied wounded back from the battle, but they believed the handsome cavalry officers who came to give them news. Jourdan, the cavalry officers said, had merely pulled his line back to give the guns more room. There was nothing to be worried about, nothing. One woman asked what happened to the north, and an officer reassured her that it was merely a few enemy who had come to the river and were learning the power of French guns. The officers caught the flowers tossed to them by the women, gallantly fixed the blooms to shining, plumed helmets, and trotted away through Vitoria’s suburbs leaving the womens’ hearts fluttering.