“I think they were lying,” Sharpe said, “and I’m not going near Bordeaux.”

Sweet William shrugged. “Perhaps the war’s over, sir?”

“Maybe.” A cold wind suddenly gusted over the scattered remnants of the French convoy. Tiny flames had been lit in the carriage lamps of the coach in which the two Frenchwomen were safely sheltered. “But we’ll still blow the goddamned bridge,” Sharpe said, “because no one’s told us not to.”

It was almost dark when the small force of Riflemen and Marines was at last assembled in the river meadow. They were weighed down with plunder, with joints of the dead oxen, with captured wine illicitly stuffed into packs and with enemy weaponry that all soldiers delighted to keep, but inevitably threw away as soon as the marching became heavy and tedious. Most of the surviving French horses had been rounded up, bridled and were being used to carry packs or wounded men, among whom was Marine Matthew Robinson whose face looked as if it had received the full recoil of a twelve-pounder field-gun. The French prisoners, their braces and belts and bootlaces cut, had been released on the river’s far bank.

Sharpe looked around for the last time. The captured quickfuse snaked from the explosives, past the toll-house, down the bank, through the rickety fence, and reached to the centre of the meadow. The townsfolk were far back, the prisoners a half mile up the road, and only the stupid oxen were close to the gunpowder. Sharpe nodded to Minver. “Light it.”

Flint struck on steel, half-charred linen kindling was blown to life, and the flame was lowered to the fuse.

“Wait! Wait!” A dozen Marines were shouting suddenly.

Minver looked to Sharpe, who nodded, and the flame was blown out. Men were staring north-east, across the river, and in the twilight Sharpe saw a small slim figure, clothed in white, running frantically towards the bridge.

It was the girl, green-eyed and slender, who had been scratched and punched when Robinson tried to rape her. Desperately, her skirts catching the sudden wind like moth-wings, she scrambled over the bridge’s parapet, past the powder, then jumped down into the meadow. She ran on, past Sharpe, past Frederickson’s Company who would form the rearguard, running to the man with the battered face who had forced her into the byre and torn at her clothes.

“Jesus Christ,” Sharpe said. The girl was holding one of Robinson’s hands, staring up at him, speaking in fast French, but the expression on her face was one of adoration.

Captain Palmer, as astonished as Sharpe, laughed. “Strange things, women.” He watched the girl pulling herself up to share Robinson’s saddle. “An unmarried girl, sir, wants nothing but a husband.”

“And once she’s got one,” Sharpe said sourly, “she wants everything. It would have been better for both of them if I’d hanged the bastard.” He looked at Minver. “Light it, Lieutenant.”

Flint struck steel again, the flame flickered to illuminate the fuse laying in the grass, then the powder caught, sparked, and fizzed its swift way towards the bridge.

“March!” Sharpe turned to his heavily-laden force and pointed the way home. “March!”

“It’s a hulk, sir.” Lieutenant Tom Martin, of the brig-sloop Cavalier, twisted his bicorne hat in both his hands.

“A hulk?” Bampfylde frowned. They were in Commandant Lassan’s old quarters where, because of a lack of firewood, Bampfylde’s steward warmed his master with volumes taken at random from the shelves. The books were in French, which made them unreadable, so both the steward and his master considered that no great harm was being done.

Martin dropped his hat and showed Captain Bampfylde where, on the chart, the Thuella had been found. The schooner was ashore at the end of the tidal creek that led to the village of Gujan. “She’s dismasted, sir, aground, and derelict.”

“You fired at her?”

“Aye, sir.” Martin, when at last the damned fog had cleared, had spotted the Thuella far across the shoals. The tide was low, and still falling, so the most he could do was fire at long range. Two or three shots had crashed into the Thuella’s timbers, but at that range, and with such small calibre guns as the Cavalier carried, the damage was slight.

“Derelict, you say?” Bampfylde asked.

“Bottomed, emptied, stripped, scorched, dismasted, and smoking.” Martin delivered the gloomy words in hope that they would be sufficient. The glass was falling ominously and all the experienced sailors wanted to be at sea before the storm struck, but if Captain Bampfylde believed that the Thuella was salvageable then he might be tempted to stay at Arcachon and God alone knew what damage a storm could wreak on a brig in these enclosed waters.

“Smoking?”

“Looked as if the Jonathons tried to fire her, sir. Must be damp wood, though, ’cos she hadn’t burned through.“

“You could,” Bampfylde said sourly, “have sent a party to burn her properly, Mr Martin. That would have made sure of her.”

“They’ve made a battery ashore, sir. Mounted all her guns to face the water.” Thomas Martin sensed that perhaps he should have informed Captain Bampfylde of that salient fact earlier. “They didn’t return fire, sir, but we saw them.”

Damn Sharpe, Bampfylde thought. The Thuella existed, her crew had made themselves a fortress on land, and it would take two days to extirpate that nest of pirates. Bampfylde might not have the two days. The weather was surly, threatening a Biscay storm. For two days fog had shrouded the Bay, and now, when at last the fog lifted, all prudent seamen were advising Bampfylde to give his squadron sea-room. “Can they refloat her?”

“No, sir. Looks to me as if they’ve ripped out what’s good and abandoned the rest.” Captain Cornelius Killick would have loved to hear that statement, for he had worked hard to give just that impression. He had careened the schooner hard over, streaked her timbers and copper with pitch to suggest scorch marks, and lit smoking fires of damp grass to suggest smouldering embers deep in an abandoned hold. “And they’ve cut away her figurehead,” Martin added hopefully.

“Ah!” That nugget of information pleased Bampfylde. No sailor would take away a figurehead if a ship still had life in her. “It sounds as if she’s done for! And doubtless the storm will finish her off.”

“Indeed, sir.” Martin, dismissed, shuffled from the room.

The storm, not the Thuella, was Bampfylde’s chief worry. The still air was being stirred now by a strangely warm wind and every look at the weatherglass confirmed that the mercury shrank inside its four-foot tube. The continued existence of the American privateer, even if grounded and abandoned, was a nuisance, but it was palliated by Bampfylde’s success in having found two splendid French brigs that were both now his prizes and already on their way to England. The chasse-marees had gone south, the fort was garrisoned by Marines and, apart from the Americans, Captain Bampfylde could count his job well done. All that was needed now was for de Maquerre to confirm that Bordeaux was ready to surrender.

But the Comte de Maquerre had not returned and Bampfylde dared not sail until the news from Bordeaux was received. If de Maquerre did not return till Thursday, then the storm would be on the flotilla and it would take seamanship of genius to claw off this shoaled coast.

But at least, if he must wait till Thursday, Bampfylde could send the remaining Marines by longboat to attack the Americans across the Gujan shoals. That thought made Bampfylde frown. Palmer should have searched the village of Gujan, so where was the damned Captain of Marines? Captured? Lost in the fog? Damn the bloody man! Damn and damn again. Bampfylde stared at the chart. If the two brigs covered Killick’s land-battery with gunfire, then the Marines could go in with powder barrels, pitch-blende, and Chinese lights to torch the Thuella down to charred ribs. If the weather held. If.