"I'm on administrative duties, sir," Sharpe said. He had known Craufurd ever since India and, like every other skirmisher in Britain's army, Sharpe had a mixed regard for 'Black Bob', sometimes resenting the man's hard, unforgiving discipline, but also recognizing that in Craufurd the army had a soldier almost as talented as Wellington himself.

"They're going to sacrifice you, Sharpe," Craufurd said with unholy relish. He was not looking at Sharpe, but instead watched the great horde of French cavalry that was preparing for a concerted charge against his newly arrived battalions. "You shot a pair of Frogs, ain't that right?"

"Yes, sir."

"No wonder you're in disgrace," Craufurd said, then gave a bark of laughter. His aides sat their horses in a tight group behind the General. "Come alone, Sharpe, did you?" Craufurd asked.

"I've got my greenjackets here, sir."

"And the buggers can remember how to fight?"

"I think they can, sir."

"Then skirmish for me. Those are your new administrative duties, Mister Sharpe. I have to keep the division a safe distance in front of the Frog infantry which means we'll all have to endure the attentions of their gunners and horse, but I'm expecting my rifles to plague the horses and kill the damn guns, and you can help them." Craufurd twisted in his saddle. "Barratt? Distribute the ammunition and send the wagon back with the wounded. Go to it, Sharpe! And keep a good lookout, we don't want to abandon you out here on your own."

Sharpe hesitated. It was a risky business asking questions of Black Bob, a man who expected instant obedience, but the General's words had intrigued him. "So we're not staying here, sir?" he asked. "We're going back to the ridge?"

"Of course we're bloody going back! Why the hell do you think we marched out here? Just to commit suicide? You think I came back from leave just to give the bloody Frogs some target practice? Get the hell on with it, Sharpe!"

"Yes, sir." Sharpe ran back to fetch his men and felt a sudden mingled surge of fear and hope.

For Wellington had abandoned the roads back to Portugal. There could be no safe withdrawal now, no steady retreat across the Coa's fords, for Wellington had yielded those roads to the enemy. The British and Portuguese must stand and fight now, and if they lost they would die and with them would die all hopes of victory in Spain. Defeat now did not just mean that Almeida would be relieved, but that the British and Portuguese army would be annihilated. Fuentes de Onoro had become a battle to the death.

Sunday's first attack on Fuentes de Onoro was made by the same French infantrymen who had attacked two days before and who had since been occupying the gardens and houses on the stream's eastern bank. They assembled silently, using the stone walls of the orchards and gardens to disguise their intentions and then, without an opening volley or even bothering to throw out a skirmish line, the blue-coated infantry swarmed across the tumbled walls and plunged down to the stream. The Scottish defenders had time for one volley, then the French were in the village, clawing at the barricades or clambering over the walls thrown down by the howitzer shells that had fallen among the houses in the two hours since dawn. The French drove the Scots deep into the village where one surge trapped two companies of Highlanders in a cul de sac. The attackers turned on the cornered men in a frenzy, filling the alley's narrow confines with a storm of musketry. Some of the Scots tried to escape by pushing down a house wall, but the French were waiting on the far side and met the wall's collapse with more volleys of musket fire. The surviving Highlanders barricaded themselves in houses bordering the stream, but the French poured fire at windows, loopholes and doors, then brought up galloper guns to fire across the stream until at last, with all their officers killed or wounded, the dazed Highlanders surrendered.

The attack on the cornered Highlanders had drained men from the main uphill assault which stalled in the village's centre. The Warwicks, again in reserve, came down from the plateau to help the remaining Scots and together they first stopped the French, then drove them back towards the stream. The fight was fought at murderously close range. Muskets flamed just feet from their targets, and when these were empty men used their guns as clubs or else stabbed forward with bayonets. They were hoarse from shouting and from breathing the smoky dust that filled the air in the narrow, twisting streets where gutters ran with blood and bodies piled to block each door and entryway. The Scots and Warwicks fought their way downhill, but each time they tried to push the French out of the last few houses the newly emplaced guns in the orchards would open fire with canister to fill the village's lower streets and alleys with a rattling sleet of death. Blood trickled to the stream. The village's defenders were deafened by the echo of muskets and the crash of artillery in the streets, but they were not so deaf that they did not hear the ominous tattoo of approaching drummers. New French columns were crossing the plain. The British guns on the ridge were slashing roundshot into the advancing ranks and blasting case shot that exploded above their heads, but the columns were vast and the defenders' cannons few, and so the great mass of men marched on into the eastern gardens from where, with a vast shout, a horde of men in shaggy black bearskin hats swept over the stream and up into the village.

These new attackers were the massed grenadiers: the biggest men and bravest fighters that the attacking divisions could muster. They wore moustaches, epaulettes and plumed bearskins as marks of their special status and they stormed into the village with a roar of triumph that lasted as they swept up the streets with bayonets and musket fire. The tired Warwicks went back and the Scots went with them. More Frenchmen crossed the stream, a seemingly never-ending flood of blue coats that followed the elite grenadiers into the alleys and up through the houses. The fight in the lower half of the village was the hardest for the attackers, for although sheer impetus carried the assault far into the village heart they were constantly obstructed by dead or wounded. Grenadiers slipped on stones made treacherous by blood, yet sheer numbers forced the attackers on and the defenders were now too few to stop them. Some redcoats tried to clear streets with volley fire, but the grenadiers swarmed through back alleys or over garden walls to outflank the redcoat companies which could only go back uphill through the dust and tiles and burning thatch of the upper village. Wounded men called out pathetically, beseeching their comrades to carry them to safety, but the attack was coming too fast now and the Scots and Englishmen were retreating too quickly. They abandoned the village altogether, fleeing from the upper houses to find a refuge in the graveyard.

The leading French grenadiers charged from the village towards the church above and were met by a volley of muskets fired by men waiting behind the graveyard wall.

The front men fell, but those behind leaped over their dying comrades to assault the graveyard wall. Bayonets and musket stocks slashed over the stone, then the big French soldiers surged over the wall, even pushing it down in some places to begin hunting the survivors up through the heaped graves and fallen stones and shattered wooden crosses. More Frenchmen came from the village to bolster the attack, then a splintering deluge of rifle and musket fire flashed from the stony outcrops just above the blood-greased slope. Grenadiers fell and rolled downhill. A second British volley whipped over the gun-churned graves as still more redcoats arrived to line the ridge's crest and fire their rolling volleys from beside the church and from the saddle of grassland where Wellington had watched aghast as this spring French tide had risen almost to his horse's hooves.