Sharpe touched the bag with its few gold coins looted from old battlefields then the Lieutenant was worried. And if Sharpe was worried? Harper turned to the Riflemen. “Come on, you bastards! This isn’t a funeral! Faster!”

CHAPTER 6

Valdelacasa did not exist as a place where human beings lived, loved, or traded, it was simply a ruined building and a great stone bridge that had been built to span the river at a time when the Tagus was wider than the flow which now slid darkly between the three central arches of the Roman stonework. And from the bridge, with its attendant building, the land spread outwards in a vast, shallow bowl bisected by the river in one direction and the road which led to and from the bridge in the other. The Battalion had marched down the almost imperceptible incline as the shadows of dusk began to creep across the pale grasslands. There was no farming, no cattle, no signs of life: just the ancient ruin, the bridge, and the water slipping silently towards the far-off sea.

“I don’t like it, sir.” Harper’s face had been genuinely worried.

“Why not?”

“No birds, sir. Not even a vulture.”

Sharpe had to admit it was true, there was not a bird to be seen or heard. It was like a place forgotten, and as they marched towards the building the men in green jackets were unnaturally quiet as if infected by some ancient gloom.

“There’s no sign of the French.” Sharpe could see no movement in the darkening landscape.

“It’s not the French that worry me.” Harper was really concerned. “It’s this place, sir. It’s not good.”

“You’re being Irish, Sergeant.”

“That may be, sir. But tell me why there’s no village here. The soil is better than the stuff we’ve marched past, there’s a bridge, so why no village?”

Why not? It seemed an obvious place for a village, but on the other hand they had passed only one small hamlet in the last ten miles so it was possible that there were simply not enough people in the vast remoteness of the Estremaduran plain to inhabit every likely spot. Sharpe tried to ignore Harper’s concern but, coming as it did on top of his own gloomy presentiments, he had begun to feel that Valdelacasa really did have a sinister air about it. Hogan did not help.

“That’s the Puente de los Malditos, the Bridge of the Accursed.” Hogan walked his horse beside them and nodded at the building. “That must have been the convent. The Moors beheaded every single nun. The story goes that they were killed on the bridge, that their heads were thrown into the water but the bodies left to rot. They say no-one lives here because the spirits walk the bridge at night looking for their heads.”

The Riflemen heard him in silence. When Hogan had finished Sharpe was surprised to see his huge Sergeant surreptitiously cross himself, and he guessed that they would spend a restless night. He was right. The darkness was total, there was no wood on the plain so the men could build no fires, and in the small hours a wind brought clouds that covered the moon. The Riflemen were guarding the southern end of the bridge, the bank on which the French were loose, and it was a nervous night as shadows played tricks and the chill sentries were not certain whether they imagined the noises that could either be headless nuns or patrolling Frenchmen. Just before dawn Sharpe heard the sound of a bird’s wings, followed by the call of an owl, and he wondered whether to tell Harper that there were birds after all. He decided not; he remembered that owls were supposed to be harbingers of death, and the news might worry the Irishman even more.

But the new day, even if it did not bring the Regimienta who were presumably still at the inn, brought a brilliant blue sky with only a scattering of high, passing clouds that followed the night’s belt of light rain. Harsh ringing blows came from the bridge where Hogan’s artificers hammered down the parapet at the spot chosen for the explosion and the apprehensions of the night seemed, for the moment, to be like a bad dream. The Riflemen were relieved by Lennox’s Light Company and, with nothing else to do, Harper stripped naked and waded into the river.

“That’s better. I haven’t washed in a month.” He looked up at Sharpe. “Is anything happening, sir?”

“No sign of them.” Sharpe must have stared at the horizon, a mile to the south, fifty times since dawn but there had been no sign of the French. He watched as Harper came dripping wet out of the river and shook himself like a wolfhound. “Perhaps they’re not here, sir.”

Sharpe shook his head. “I don’t know, Sergeant. I’ve a feeling they’re not far away.” He turned and looked across the river, at the road they had marched the day before. “Still no sight of the Spanish.”

Harper was drying himself with his shirt. “Perhaps they’ll not turn up, sir.”

It had occurred to Sharpe that possibly the whole job would be done before the Regimienta reached Valdelacasa, and he wondered why he still felt the stirrings of concern about the mission. Simmerson had behaved with restraint, the artificers were hard at work, and there were no French in sight. What could go wrong? He walked to the entrance of the bridge and nodded to Lennox. “Anything?”

The Scotsman shook his head. “All’s quiet. I reckon Sir Henry won’t get his battle today. ”

“He wanted one?”

Lennox laughed. “Keen as mustard. I suspect he thinks Napoleon himself is coming.”

Sharpe turned and stared down the road. Nothing moved. “They’re not far away. I can feel it.”

Lennox looked at him seriously. “You think so? I thought it was us Scots who had the second sight.” He turned and looked with Sharpe at the empty horizon. “Maybe you’re right, Sharpe. But they’re too late.”

Sharpe agreed and walked onto the bridge. He chatted with Knowles and Denny and, as he left them to join Hogan, he reflected gloomily on the atmosphere in the officers’ mess of the South Essex. Most of the officers were supporters of Simmerson, men who had first earned their commissions with the Militia, and there was bad feeling between them and the men from the regular army. Sharpe liked Lennox, enjoyed his company, but most of the other officers thought the Scotsman was too easy with his company, too much like the Riflemen. Leroy was a decent man, a loyalist American, but he kept his thoughts to himself as did the few others who had little trust in their Colonel’s ability. He pitied the younger officers, learning their trade in such a school, and was glad that as soon as this bridge was destroyed his Riflemen would get away from the South Essex into more congenial company.

Hogan was up to his neck in a hole in the bridge. Sharpe peered down and saw, in the rubble, the curving stonework of two arches.

“How much powder will you use?”

“All there is!” Hogan was happy, a man enjoying his work. “This isn’t easy. Those Romans built well. You see those blocks?” He pointed to the exposed stones of the arches. “They’re all shaped and hammered into place. If I put a charge on top of one of those arches I’ll probably make the damn bridge stronger! I can’t put the powder underneath, more’s the pity.”

“Why not?”

“No time, Sharpe, no time. You have to contain an explosion. If I sling those kegs under the arch all I’ll do is frighten the fishes. No, I’m going to do this one upside down and inside out.” He was half talking to himself, his mind full of weights of powder and lengths of fuse.

“Upside down and inside out?”

Hogan scratched his dirty face. “So to speak. I’m going down into the pier, and then I’ll blow the damn thing out sideways. If it works, Sharpe, it’ll bring down two arches and not just one.”

“Will it work?”

Hogan grinned happily. “It should! It’ll be one hell of a bang, I promise you that.”

“How much longer?”

„I’ll be finished in a couple of hours. Perhaps sooner.“ Hogan heaved himself out of the hole and stood beside Sharpe. “Let’s get the powder up here.” He turned towards the convent, cupped his hands to his mouth, and froze. The Spanish had arrived, their trumpeters in front, their colours flying, the blue-coated infantry straggling behind. “Glory be,” Hogan said. “Now I can sleep safe at nights.”