“Yes, sir.”

Sharpe looked at his Marines and Riflemen, at Harper and Minver and Rossner and Palmer and all the men who had fought as no men should be asked to fight. “I’ll come back for you,” he said lamely.

Sharpe left them. He walked against the tide of the invading Division, edging his way across the plank bridge that rose and fell with the small waves of the estuary. It was for this bridge that his men had taken the Teste de Buch. They had drawn the enemy to the wrong place so that the bridge could be built undisturbed.

The bridge was nearly a quarter-mile in length and had to resist the massive rise and fall of ocean tides. Seamen, under naval officers, manned windlasses that governed the anchors of the moored boats. The windlasses balanced the long bridge against the currents of river and ocean and against the vast, surging tide that swept into the Adour.

The bridge, guarded by a fleet of brigs, was a miracle of engineering.

And the man who had built it waited on the southern sea-wall where a vast capstan, built into a cage of wooden beams, could compensate the roadway’s cables against the estuary’s tidefall. Colonel Elphinstone, standing on the capstan’s platform, watched the dirty, blood- and powder-stained Rifleman approach. The expression on Elphinstone’s face was one of sheer disbelief that slowly turned to pleasure. “He said you were captured!”

The small rain stung Sharpe’s face as he looked up to the colonel. “Who, sir?”

“Bampfylde.” Elphinstone’s eyes took in the blood on Sharpe’s thigh and head. “You escaped!”

“We all did, sir. Every last goddamn man that Bampfylde abandoned. Except for the dead, of course. There were twenty-seven dead, sir.” Sharpe paused, remembering that more had died since his last count. Two of the wounded had died on the Thuella and had been slid into a grey sea. And Sharpe supposed that the American Rifleman, Taylor, must be numbered with the dead, even though he lived and was even now sailing westwards.

“Maybe thirty, sir. But the French sent a brigade against us, and we fought the bastards to a standstill, sir.” Sharpe heard the anger in his own voice and knew that this honest man did not deserve it. “I’m sorry, sir. I need a horse.”

“You need a rest.” Elphinstone, with surprising agility for a heavy, middle-aged man, swung himself down the cage of beams. “A brigade, you say?”

“A demi-brigade,” Sharpe said. “But with artillery.”

“Good God Almighty.”

Sharpe turned to watch a Battalion of Portuguese infantry scramble down the sea-wall towards the rope-held planks. “I see Bampfylde brought you the chasse-marees. The bastard did something right.”

“He says he took the fort!” Elphinstone said. “He said you went inland and were defeated.”

“Then he’s a poxed, lying bastard. We took the fort. Then we went inland, beat the Frogs by the river, and came back to find the fort abandoned. We beat them there, too.”

“Not too loud, Sharpe,” Elphinstone said, “ware right flank.”

Sharpe twisted round. Yards down the river bank was a party of some two dozen officers, both Army and Navy, who had come to see this prodigy; a floating bridge that crossed an estuary. With them were ladies who had been invited to witness the far smoke of battle. Gleaming carriages were parked on a marshy road two hundred yards to the rear. “Is that Bampfylde?”

“Gently now, Sharpe!” Elphinstone said.

“Bugger Bampfylde.” Sharpe was streaked with mud, spattered with dried blood, salt-stained, and scorched with powder burns. He walked along the sea-wall’s narrow path towards the spectators who clustered about two tripod-mounted telescopes. A spatter of applause and admiration sounded as another rocket arched towards the grey clouds.

Two naval lieutenants blocked Sharpe’s progress. One of them, seeing the soldier’s tattered, dirty state, suggested that Sharpe make a detour. “Go down there.” The naval officer pointed to the swampy mud inland of the wall.

“Get out of my way. Move!” The sudden command startled all of the spectators. A woman dropped her umbrella and gave a small scream at Sharpe’s bloody, dirty appearance, but Captain Horace Bampfylde, explaining at length how he had captured a fortress and brought these cfiasse-marees south to help out the Army, fell into a terrified silence.

“You poxed bastard,” Sharpe said. “You coward!”

“Sir!” An Army officer touched Sharpe’s arm in remonstrance, but Sharpe rounded on the man, who stepped back in sudden fear from the savage face.

Sharpe looked back to Bampfylde. “You ran away.”

“That is not…”

“Just as you did not take the fortress, you bastard, I did. And then I held it, you bastard, I held it against a goddamned brigade of crapaud troops. We beat them, Bampfylde. We fought them and beat them. I lost some of your Marines, Bampfylde, because you don’t fight a demi-brigade without losing men, but we won!“ There was an embarrassed silence among the elegantly dressed party. A cold wind stirred the water to Sharpe’s right, then a dull cough of artillery thumped its noise across the, river. ”Do you hear me, Bampfylde?“

The naval officer said nothing, and there was nothing but terror on his fleshy young face. The other officers, appalled by Sharpe’s face and by the anger in his voice, stood as if frozen.

“Over two thousand men, you bastard, and less than two hundred of us. We fought them till we had no bullets left, then we fought with steel, Bampfylde. And we won!” Sharpe took another step towards the naval captain who, terrified, stepped backwards.

“He told me…” Bampfylde began, but could not go on.

“Who told you what?”

Bampfylde’s eyes went past Sharpe and the Rifleman turned to see the Comte de Maquerre, a girl on his arm, standing with Colonel Wigram. The Comte looked at Sharpe as though he saw a revenant come from the tomb. Sharpe, who had not expected to find the Comte, stared with equal disbelief.

Then, to both minds, came the shared knowledge of treachery and the Comte de Maquerre panicked. He ran.

The Comte ran towards the bridge that led to the north bank of the Adour-where a handful of French troops retreated from the First Division. There should have been more French troops there, Calvet’s troops, enough troops to turn the river into blood, but de Maquerre had been fooled by the story of a landing and so Calvet’s troops had been frittered away at Arcachon. The Comte de Maquerre had unwittingly served Wellington well, but he was a traitor and so he ran.

Sharpe ran after him.

Colonel Wigram raised a hand as if to call for prudent decorum in front of ladies, but Sharpe pushed the man down the sea-wall and into the mud.

De Maquerre leaped down the sloping wall, miraculously kept his footing on the slippery river’s edge, and climbed on to the bridge.

“Stop him!” Sharpe bellowed it.

Portuguese infantrymen crossing the bridge saw a tall, distinguished officer in British uniform being chased by a dirty, tattered wretch. They made way for the Comte.

Sharpe banged his wounded thigh as he clambered on to the roadway. Blood ran warm on his thigh as he snarled at men to make way. “Stop him!”

A jittery horse, made nervous by the strange road across which it was being led blindfolded, checked de Maquerre’s panicked flight. It swerved its rump into the Frenchman’s path and the Comte was forced to leap for the safety of one of the moored chasse-marees. He turned as he landed on the deck, saw he could run no further, and drew his sword.

Sharpe jumped forward from the planks on to the boat’s deck and drew his own sword.

The Comte de Maquerre, seeing the filth and blood of battle on Sharpe, sensed that the fight was lost before it began. He lowered his slim blade. “I surrender, Major.”

“They hang spies,” Sharpe said, “you bastard.”

De Maquerre glanced towards the water and Sharpe knew the man was contemplating a leap into the cold grey tide, but then a voice drew the Frenchman’s attention back to the bridge.