Sharpe shook his head. He had seen so many bridges and mountain roads with Hogan that he could no longer remember which was which.

„The Ponte Nova,” Hogan said, „means the new bridge and naturally it’s as old as the hills and one tub of powder will send it crashing down into the gorge and then, Richard, Monsieur Soult is properly buggered. But he’s only buggered if the Portuguese can get there.” He looked gloomy, for the weather was not propitious for a swift march into the mountains. „And if they can’t stop Soult at the Ponte Nova then there’s a half-chance they’ll catch him at the Saltador. You remember that, of course?”

„I do remember that, sir,” Sharpe said.

The Saltador was a bridge high in the mountains, a stone span that leaped across a deep and narrow gorge, and the spectacular arch had been nicknamed the Leaper, the Saltador. Sharpe remembered Hogan mapping it, remembered a small village of low stone houses, but chiefly remembered the river tumbling in a seething torrent beneath the soaring bridge.

„If they get to the Saltador and cross it,“ Hogan said, „then we can kiss them goodbye and wish them luck. They’ll have escaped.” He flinched as a crash of thunder reminded him of the weather. „Ah, well,” he sighed, „we can only do our best.”

„And just what are we doing?” Sharpe wanted to know.

„Now that, Richard, is a very good question,” Hogan said. He helped himself to a pinch of snuff, paused, then sneezed violently. „God help me, but the doctors say it clears the bronchial tubes, whatever the hell they are. Now, as I see it, one of two things can happen.” He tapped the charcoal streak marking the Ponte Nova. „If the French are stopped at that bridge then most will surrender, they’ll have no choice. Some will take to the hills, of course, but they’ll find armed peasants all over the place looking for throats and other parts to cut. So we’ll either find Mister Christopher with the army when it surrenders or more likely he’ll run away and claim to be an escaped English prisoner. In which case we go into the mountains, find him and put him up against a wall.”

„Truly?”

„That worries you?”

„I’d rather hang him.”

„Ah, well, we can discuss the method when the time comes. Now the second thing that might happen, Richard, is that the French are not stopped at the Ponte Nova, in which case we need to reach the Saltador.”

„Why?”

„Think what it was like, Richard,” Hogan said. „A deep ravine, steep slopes everywhere, the kind of place where a few riflemen could be very vicious. And if the French are crossing the bridge then we’ll see him and your Baker rifles will have to do the necessary.”

„We can get close enough?” Sharpe asked, trying to remember the terrain about the leaping bridge.

„There are cliffs, high bluffs. I’m sure you can get within two hundred paces.”

„That’ll do,” Sharpe said grimly.

„So one way or another we have to finish him,” Hogan said, leaning back. „He’s a traitor, Richard. He’s probably not as dangerous as he thinks he is, but if he gets to Paris then no doubt the monsewers will suck his brain dry and so learn a few things we’d rather they didn’t know. And if he got back to London he’s slippery enough to convince those fools that he was always working for their interests. So all things considered, Richard, I’d say he was better off dead.”

„And Kate?”

„We’re not going to shoot her,” Hogan said reprovingly.

„Back in March, sir,” Sharpe said, „you ordered me to rescue her. Does that order still stand?”

Hogan stared at the ceiling which was smoke-blackened and pierced with lethal-looking hooks. „In the short time I’ve known you, Richard,” he said, „I’ve noticed you possess a lamentable tendency to put on shining armor and look for ladies to rescue. King Arthur, God rest his soul, would have loved you. He’d have had you fighting every evil knight in the forest. Is rescuing Kate Savage important? Not really. The main thing is to punish Mister Christopher and I fear that Miss Kate will have to take her chances.”

Sharpe looked down at the charcoal map. „How do we get to the Ponte Nova?”

„We walk, Richard, we walk. We cross the mountains and those tracks aren’t fit for horses. You’d spend half the time leading them, worrying about their feed, looking after their hooves and wishing you didn’t have them. Mules now, I’d saddle some mules and take them, but where will we find mules tonight? It’s either mules or shanks’s pony, but either way we can only take a few men, your best and your fittest, and we have to leave before dawn.”

„What do I do with the rest of my men?”

Hogan thought about it. „Major Potter could use them,” he suggested, „to help guard the prisoners here?”

„I don’t want to lose them back to Shorncliffe,” Sharpe said. He feared that the second battalion would be making inquiries about their lost riflemen. They might not care that Lieutenant Sharpe was missing, but the absence of several prime marksmen would definitely be regretted.

„My dear Richard,” Hogan said, „if you think Sir Arthur’s going to lose even a few good riflemen then you don’t know him half as well as you think. He’ll move hell and high water to keep you here. And you and I have to move like hell to get to Ponte Nova before anyone else.”

Sharpe grimaced. „The French have a day’s start on us.”

„No, they don’t. Like fools they went toward Amarante which means they didn’t know that the Portuguese had recaptured it. By now they’ll have discovered their predicament, but I doubt they’ll start north till dawn. If we hurry, we beat them.” He frowned, looking down at the map. „There’s only one real problem I can see, other than finding Mister Christopher when we get there.”

„A problem?”

„I can find my way to Ponte Nova from Braga,” Hogan said, „but what if the French are already on the Braga road? We’ll have to take to the hills and it’s wild country, Richard, an easy place to get lost. We need a guide and we need to find him fast.”

Sharpe grinned. „If you don’t mind traveling with a Portuguese officer who thinks he’s a philosopher and a poet then I think I know just the man.”

„I’m Irish,” Hogan said, „there’s nothing we love more than philosophy and poetry.”

„He’s a lawyer too.”

„If he gets us to Ponte Nova,” Hogan said, „then God will doubtless forgive him for that.”

The women’s laughter was loud, but it was time to end the party. It was time for a dozen of Sharpe’s best men to mend their boots and fill their cartridge boxes.

It was time for revenge.

Kate sat in a corner of the carriage and wept. The carriage was going nowhere. It was not even a proper carriage, not half as comfortable as the Quinta’s fragile gig that had been abandoned in Oporto and nothing like as substantial as the one her mother had taken south across the river in March, and how Kate now wished she had gone with her mother, but instead she had been stricken by romance and certain that love’s fulfillment would bring her golden skies, clear horizons and endless joy.

Instead she was in a two-wheeled Oporto hackney with a leaking leather roof, cracked springs and a broken-down gelding between its shafts, and the carriage was going nowhere because the fleeing French army was stuck on the road to Amarante. Rain seethed on the roof, streaked the windows and dripped onto Kate’s lap and she did not care, she just hunched in the corner and wept.

The door was tugged open and Christopher put his head in. „There are going to be some bangs,” he told her, „but there’s no need to be alarmed.” He paused, decided he could not cope with her sobbing, so just closed the door. Then he jerked it open again. „They’re disabling the guns,” he explained, „that’s what the noise will be.”

Kate could not have cared less. She wondered what would become of her, and the awfulness of her prospects was so frightening that she burst into fresh tears just as the first guns were fired muzzle to muzzle.