‘Berthier, call your men back, and whatever is left of the supply column down there. We’ll have to try something else, or try it again tomorrow night.’

Berthier gestured towards the fort.‘We’ll never take that place by force, sir. Perhaps we should have chosen a different route.’

Napoleon’s eyes narrowed as he replied, ‘What help is that observation to me now, eh? We are here, Berthier, and we concentrate our minds on what is before us. Nothing else matters. So, pull your men back, rest them, treat their wounds, and send them back against the fort tomorrow. As for the artillery, we’ll have to try again tonight. This time with just two guns. We’ll set off at midnight.’

‘We?’ Berthier looked at him sharply, his face dimly visible by the loom of the snow.

‘Yes. I’ll be going with the guns. I have to reach the vanguard as soon as possible.’

Berthier was silent for a moment, while he considered protesting that Napoleon should not take such a risk. But he knew his commander well enough to realise any such protests were pointless. They always had been since that suicidally brave charge at Arcola. Berthier nodded wearily. ‘Yes, sir.’

Napoleon turned away and softly crunched through the snow as he made his way down to the village of Bard where a room awaited him in the modest inn by the small square in the heart of the village. He sat and warmed himself by a fire as he drank some soup and then, leaving orders that he should be called at eleven thirty, he closed his eyes and eased himself back in a chair. He did not sleep. His mind was filled with a torrent of thoughts: anxiety about the stability of the government he had left in Paris; the threat presented by General Moreau’s popularity throughout the army; Josephine, naked, with arms outstretched towards him, then a fleeting image of her in another man’s arms; he banished the image from his mind and hurriedly concentrated on the current campaign.

Napoleon pictured the map of the Alps and northern Italy, superimposing his forces on the landscape, and those of the enemy gleaned from the latest intelligence reports. He shook his head as he saw that the delay at Bard would give the enemy plenty of warning that the French army was attempting to cut across their communications with Austria. If they moved as slowly as they had done in the past, then there would still be time for Napoleon to concentrate his army and face the enemy on favourable terms. If, however, General Melas seized his chance, he could defeat the French forces piecemeal. The spectre of defeat haunted his thoughts and made rest, let alone sleep, impossible over the following hours.

Napoleon took a last look at the dark mass of the fortress looming above the ravine. The roar of cannon fire from the French lines rumbled across the valley, echoing back from the sides of the surrounding mountains. More than enough noise to help conceal the sound that the gun carriages and their limbers would make in the next few minutes.

‘Time to go,’ he muttered to Junot. ‘Ready?’

Junot nodded.

Around them were the men of the hussar squadron Napoleon had chosen to act as his bodyguard while he rode to join Lannes at Ivrea. Behind the mounted men, two four-pounder horse-guns were ready to move off, harnessed to the best horses that could be found in the artillery train. This time Napoleon had decided to gamble on speed, rather than subtlety. His heart beat against his breast like a caged eagle as he lifted his chin from the fur collar of his coat and called out, ‘Advance!’

He spurred his horse forward. Junot and the hussars followed him, and behind them the tackle and timber of the guns jingled as they slowly gathered speed and caught up with the trotting cavalry just as they emerged from the village on to the track running into the gorge. Napoleon glanced up at the fortress, and could just make out the line of the battlements against the sky. They rode on, into the gorge, and the rocky spur jutting out from the cliff opposite the fortress forced them towards the enemy. Just as they came to the point closest to the walls there was a faint shout, audible even above the boom and echo of the French guns.

Napoleon steered his mount to the side and reined in.

‘Go! Go!’ he shouted to the hussars and then again to the artillery riders as they came up. Above them, flames flared up and once more a wicker bundle roared down the cliff. This time Napoleon was almost beneath it, and the sight was terrifying. He kicked his heels in and raced after the others, and there was a crackling thud and explosion of sparks as the bundle landed close behind him. Shots cracked from the wall above and he heard them whip down into the snow on either side as he leaned forward and rode on, urging his horse to gallop as fast as it could until he had passed beyond the loom of the burning wood and caught up with the others. More blazing bundles roared down towards them like fiery comets as they passed through the ravine, but they stayed just ahead of where the enemy guessed they must be and only one of the shots fired wildly into the darkness from the fortress struck home, into the haunch of one of the hussars’ horses. It reared up with a shrill whinny before its rider regained control and urged it on with whispered curses.

Once clear of the gorge they rode on for another half-mile, the cannon jolting across the rough track, and then Napoleon gave the order to slow down and continue at a walk. He paused, with Junot, to look back towards the fortress.

‘We did it!’ Junot shook his head in wonder. ‘We did it, sir.’

Napoleon grinned. ‘Did you ever really doubt that we would?’

‘The thought crossed my mind.’

‘Ha!’ Napoleon reached over and slapped his friend on the shoulder. ‘Come on then. We must find Lannes and get these guns to him.’

As June began, over fifty thousand of Napoleon’s men had crossed the Alps and were massing north of the River Po.The fort at Bard was still holding up his artillery train and the army had only a handful of cannon that had survived the hazardous passage of the gorge.A few more cannon had been taken from the enemy garrisons following the capture of Ivrea, Pavia and Milan. As Napoleon entered the city the Milanese turned out in their thousands to cheer the arrival of the French army.

Napoleon turned to Junot with a smile. ‘Seems that any grievances they might have nursed from the last time I was here have been forgotten.’

Junot nodded as he gazed warily round at the crowd. ‘Let’s hope they remain friendly long enough for us to defeat the Austrians.’

‘Of course. Now smile and wave at your adoring public, as any good liberator should.’

The following night, as Napoleon and his staff settled into the mansion formerly occupied by the Austrian governor of the city, a messenger arrived from Murat, scouting ahead of the main army with his light cavalry. The hussar was exhausted and mudstained, and as he took the dispatch from the man Napoleon ordered that he be fed and given good accommodation for the night. Once the messenger had gone, he returned to the dining table where the staff officers were noisily celebrating the capture of Milan: the latest prize to fall to the French army in this campaign that seemed to be succeeding so gloriously once they had left the Alps behind them.Their spirits were even higher now that Desaix had joined them, and was entertaining his comrades with tales of his adventures in Egypt.

Napoleon broke the seal and quickly scanned the contents.

He read it again, more slowly, before folding it and setting it down on the table. Picking up his fork he rapped the side of the tureen in front of him. The conversation died away instantly and the gold-braided officers turned towards him, some still smiling.

‘Gentlemen, Murat has captured some dispatches sent from General Melas to Vienna. It seems that General Masséna has been obliged to surrender Genoa.’