Then, from behind the ruined chapel, came a single squadron of King’s German Legion hussars. They rode in two ranks, wore gray overalls, blue coats, and polished helmets, and carried sabers. They rode tight, boot to boot, and as they passed the corner of Browne’s square the front rank spurred into the gallop. They were outnumbered by the dragoons, but they charged home and Browne heard the clangor of saber against sword. The dragoons, who had not started their advance, were pushed back. A horse fell, a dragoon spurred out of the fight with a face cut to the skull, and a hussar rode back toward the square with a sword piercing his belly. He fell from his saddle fifty yards from Browne’s front rank and his horse immediately turned back to the fight that was a confusion of men, horses, and dust. The hussars, having hurled the first line of dragoons back, turned away and the French came after them, but then the trumpet threw the second line of Germans against the French and the dragoons were pounded back a second time. The first troop re-formed, the riderless horse taking its place in the rank. A sergeant and two men of the Holy Boys had fetched the wounded hussar into the square. The man was plainly dying. He stared up at Browne, muttering in German. “Pull the damned sword out!” Browne snapped to the battalion’s surgeon.

“It will kill him, sir.”

“What if it stays in?”

“He’ll die.”

“Then pray for the poor bugger’s soul, man!” Browne said.

The hussars had come back now. The dragoons had retreated, leaving six bodies on the hill. They might have outnumbered the single squadron of Germans, but so long as the Germans stayed near the redcoated infantry, the dragoons were vulnerable to volley fire and so their commander took them down the hill’s slope to wait for reinforcements.

Browne waited. He could hear musketry far to the north. It was volley fire, but it was someone else’s fight so he ignored the sound. He was commanded to hold the hill and he was a stubborn man, so he stayed under the pale sky in which the wind brought the smell of the sea. The leader of the hussar squadron, a captain, politely requested to enter the square and touched the brim of his helmet to Browne. “The dragoons, I think, will not bother you now,” he said.

“Obliged to you, Captain, obliged I’m sure.”

“I am Captain Dettmer,” the captain said.

“Sorry about this fellow,” Browne said as he nodded at the dying hussar.

Dettmer stared at the hussar. “I know his mother,” he said sadly, then looked back to Browne. “There is infantry coming to the hill,” he went on. “I saw it when we were fighting.”

“Infantry?”

“Too many,” Dettmer said.

“Let’s look,” Browne said, and he ordered two files to leave the square, then led Captain Dettmer through the gap. The two men trotted to the hill’s eastern edge and Browne stared down at approaching disaster. “Dear God,” he said, “that’s not pretty.”

When he had last looked the heath was a wilderness of sand, grass, pines, and thickets. He had seen infantry in the distance, but now the whole heath was covered in blue. The whole wide world was a mass of blue coats and white crossbelts. He could see battalion after battalion of Frenchmen, their eagles shining in the morning sun as their army advanced on the sea. “Dear God,” Browne said again.

Because only half the French army was marching on the pinewood that hid them from the sea. The other half was coming for Browne and his five hundred and thirty-six muskets.

Coming straight for him. Thousands.

SHARPE CLIMBED the tallest sand dune in sight and leveled his telescope across the Rio Sancti Petri. He could see the backs of the Frenchmen on the beach and the musket smoke dark around their heads, but the image wavered because the glass was unsteady. “Perkins!”

“Sir?”

“Bring your shoulder here. Be useful.”

Perkins served as a telescope rest. Sharpe stooped to the eyepiece. Even with the telescope held steady it was hard to tell what was happening because the French were in a line of three ranks and their powder smoke concealed everything beyond them. They were firing continually. He could not see all the French line, for dunes hid their left flank, but he was watching at least a thousand men. He could see two eagles and suspected there were at least two more battalions hidden by the dunes.

“They’re slow, sir.” Harper had come to stand behind him.

“They’re slow,” Sharpe agreed. The French were firing as battalions, which meant that the slowest men dictated the rate of fire. He guessed they were not even managing three shots a minute, but that seemed sufficient because the French were taking very few casualties. He edged the telescope very slowly along their line and saw that only six bodies had been dragged behind the ranks to where the officers rode up and down. He could hear, but not see, the Spanish muskets and once or twice, as the smoke thinned, he had a glimpse of the Spanish in their lighter blue, and he reckoned their line was a good three hundred paces from the French. Might as well spit at that distance. “They’re not close enough,” Sharpe muttered.

“Can I look, sir?” Harper asked.

Sharpe bit back a sour comment to the effect that this was not Harper’s fight, and instead yielded his place at Perkins’s shoulder. He turned and looked out to sea where the waves fretted about a small island crowned by the ancient ruins of a fort. A dozen fishing boats were just beyond the line of surf that ran toward the beach. The fishermen were watching the fight, and more spectators, attracted by the crackle of musketry, were riding from San Fernando. No doubt there would soon be curious folk arriving from Cádiz.

Sharpe took the telescope back from Harper. He collapsed it, his fingers running over the small brass plate let into the largest barrel that was sheathed in walnut. IN GRATITUDE, AW, SEPTEMBER 23RD, 1803, the plate said, and Sharpe remembered Henry Wellesley’s flippant line that the telescope, which was a fine instrument made by Matthew Berge of London, was not the generous gift Sharpe had always supposed it to be, but instead a spare glass that Lord Wellington had not wanted. Not that it mattered. 1803, he thought. That long ago! He tried to remember that day when Lord Wellington, Sir Arthur Wellesley back then, had been dazed and Sharpe had protected him. He thought he had killed five men in the fight, but he was not sure.

The Spanish engineers were laying the chesses over the last thirty feet of the pontoon bridge. Those planks, which formed the roadway, were kept on the Cádiz bank to stop any unauthorized crossing of the bridge, but evidently General Zayas now wanted the bridge open and Sharpe saw, with approval, that three Spanish battalions were being readied to cross the bridge. Zayas had evidently decided to attack the French from their rear. “We’ll be going soon,” he said to Harper.

“Perkins,” Harper growled, “join the others.”

“Can’t I look through the telescope, Sergeant?” Perkins pleaded.

“You’re not old enough. Move.”

It took a long time for the three battalions to cross. The bridge, constructed from longboats rather than pontoons, was narrow and it rocked alarmingly. By the time Sharpe and his men had joined Captain Galiana, there were almost a hundred curious onlookers arrived from San Fernando or Cádiz and some were trying to persuade the sentries to let them cross the bridge. Others climbed the dunes and trained telescopes on the distant French. “They’re stopping everyone crossing the bridge,” Galiana said nervously.

“They’re not going to let civilians across, are they?” Sharpe said. “But tell me something, what are you going to do on the other side?”

“Do?” Galiana said, and plainly did not know the answer. “Make myself useful,” he suggested. “It’s better than doing nothing, isn’t it?” The last Spanish battalion had crossed now and Galiana spurred forward. He dismounted well short of the bridge, preparing to lead his horse over the uncertain footing of the chesses, but before he reached the roadway a squad of Spanish soldiers pulled a makeshift barricade across the approach. A lieutenant held a warning hand toward Galiana.