CHAPTER 25
Alba de Tormes was a town on a hill to the east of the River Tormes. The hill was crowned with an ancient castle and covered with jumbled roofs that led down to the magnificent convent where the body of St. Teresa of Avila was revered by pilgrims. Beside the convent was the bridge.
The French needed the bridge to take their shattered army to the relative safety of the eastern bank and away from the pursuit that they knew would come with sabres in the dawn, but Wellington had denied them the bridge. Weeks before, when his army first came to Salamanca, he had put a Spanish garrison into the Castle and into the defence works at the bridge’s eastern end. The Spanish guns could rake the length of the bridge, rattle its stones with canister, and so the French were trapped in the great river bend.
From Alba de Tormes the river flowed nine miles north and then, in a great curve, it turned westwards and flowed for ten miles before its waters passed beneath the arches of Salamanca’s Roman bridge. Within that great bend the French fled eastward through the night. Hundreds crossed by the ford, but most went towards the town that had the only bridge they could use. The French guns, baggage, pay-chest, wounded, all went to Alba de Tormes and to the bridge that was guarded by the guns of the Spanish.
Except the Spanish were not there. They had fled three days before; fled without sight of an enemy. They knew the French were coming south, feared a British defeat, and so the Spanish garrison packed its baggage and marched south.
They deserted their post. The bridge was left open to the French and, all night, Marmont’s men went eastward. A great victory had been devalued. The stragglers of the defeated army were collected on the eastern bank, formed into ranks, and marched away. A rearguard, that had not fought the previous day, barred the eastward road a little beyond the town and its empty bridge.
The news reached Wellington’s Headquarters at the same time that Sharpe was persuading Hogan that Britain’s spy-ring had been betrayed. One notebook, just that, and a hundred doors would be beaten down from Madrid to Stettin, El Mirador’s correspondents would be dragged away and the French firing squads would be busy. Hogan shook his head. “But how do you know?”
“Lord Spears found it missing, sir.” Sharpe had already described a hero’s death for Jack Spears.
Hogan stared suspiciously. “Just that? Nothing else?”
“Isn’t it enough, sir? He died before he could say anything else.”
Hogan nodded slowly. “We must tell the Peer.” Then there was the explosion of anger, of cursing, because Wellington in the next room was hearing from a cavalry patrol that the French were crossing the bridge at Alba de Tormes. The defeated army were escaping, not trapped as he had thought, because the Spanish had fled. The door between the two rooms was flung open.
Sharpe had seen Wellington’s anger before. It was a cold anger, hidden by stillness, expressed in bitter politeness. Not this night. The Peer hit the table with his fist. “God damn them! God damn their bloody souls! Their bloody, rotten, filthy souls!” He looked at Hogan. “They deserted Alba de Tormes. Why didn’t we know?”
Hogan shrugged. “Because they didn’t see fit to tell us, sir.”
“Alava!” Wellington bellowed the name of the Spanish General who was the liaison officer with the British. The staff officers were very still in the face of the General’s anger. He hit the table again. “They think we fight for their bloody country because we love it? They deserve to bloody lose it!” He stalked from the room, slammed the door, and Hogan let out a long, slow breath.
“I don’t think the Peer’s in any mood for your news, Richard.”
“So what do we do, sir?”
Hogan turned to a staff officer. “What’s the nearest cavalry?”
“KGL Light, sir.”
Hogan turned for his hat. “Get them.” He looked at Sharpe. “Not you, Richard. You’re not well.”
Sharpe rode, despite Hogan, and Harper rode beside him on Spears’ horse. Captain Lossow, with his troop, were their escort, and the German officer greeted Sharpe with undisguised pleasure. The pleasure was dissipated by the long, chafing ride. Hogan was at home on a horse, he rode straight backed and long stirruped, while Harper had been bred in a valley of the Donegal Moors, had ridden the ponies bareback as a child, and he sat easily on Spears’ horse. Sharpe was in a nightmare: He ached in every bone, the wound throbbed, and three times he nearly fell as sleep tried to claim him. Now, at dawn, he sat in agony above the Tormes and stared at a grey landscape through which the river twisted, sinewy and silver, past the silent town with its castle, convent, and empty bridge. The French had gone.
And Leroux? Sharpe did not know. Perhaps the French Colonel had lied to Lord Spears. Perhaps Leroux planned to stay in Salamanca until the British moved on again, this time eastwards, but somehow Sharpe doubted it. Leroux wanted to take his treasure back to Paris, decode it, and then loose the cruel men against the names inside. Leroux had ridden, Sharpe was sure, but where? Alba de Tormes? Or had he gone directly east from Salamanca towards Madrid? Hogan doubted it. Leroux, Hogan was certain, would try to find the security of the French army, surround himself with muskets and sabres, and the great doubt in Hogan’s mind was simply whether Leroux had been given too great a start. They spurred down the hill towards the river that slid chill beneath the mockingly empty bridge.
Sharpe had been given his last chance. He had ridden for it through the night and in this dawn his hopes were at their lowest. He wanted to take his sword, his unblooded sword, against the Kligenthal. He wanted Leroux because Leroux had beaten him, and if a man thought that was a bad reason, then a man had no pride. Yet how could they discover a lone rider in this immense countryside, skeined with early mist? Sharpe wanted revenge for the deaths of the crucified Spaniards, for the deaths of Windham and McDonald, for the pistol shot on the upper cloister, and for Spears whom Sharpe had liked, whom Sharpe had killed, and whose honour he protected.
Hogan twisted in his saddle. He looked tired and irritable. “Do you think we’ve overtaken him?”
“I don’t know, sir.” In the dawn there was no certainty.
They clattered over the bridge, the sabres of Lossow’s Germans drawn in case the French had left a rearguard in the town, and then the iron of the horses’ hooves filled the narrow streets with echoing din. As they breasted the hill at the town’s head they saw the horizon, that till now had been grey touched with spreading pink, suddenly blaze with the top edge of the rising sun. It was scarlet gold, dazzling, and the western wall of the castle keep was coloured rose. The new day.
“Sir!” Harper was pointing, exultant. “Sir!”
In the sunrise, in the glory of the new day, the doubts were put to rest. A rider, alone, going eastwards, and in the telescope, through the flare of the light, Sharpe saw green and black overalls, boots, a red jacket, and an unmistakeable black fur hat. A Chasseur of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, alone, trotting eastwards. It had to be Leroux! The lone figure turned dark and blurred against the dawn, then dropped into a dip of the road. He had not looked back.
They followed, urging the horses into a fast trot for their strength had to be conserved even though the riders all wanted to sound the pursuit, go into a gallop, and bring their sabres against the fugitive. Twice more they saw the Chasseur, each time closer, and on the second glimpse Leroux turned round, saw his pursuers, and the chase was on. Lossow’s trumpeter let go with the challenge, the spurs went back, and Sharpe tried to tug the huge sword from its clumsy scabbard.
He was easily outstripped by the Germans, good riders all, and he cursed as his scabbard flapped and banged against his thigh. He lurched, unbalanced by the sudden gallop, then the blade came free, was shining in the dawn, and he saw Leroux once more. The Frenchman was less than half a mile ahead, his horse jaded, and Sharpe forgot his aching thighs, his sore seat, and clapped his heels to persuade more speed from his horse.