“He’s with me,” Sharpe said before Galiana could speak. The lieutenant, a tall man with a burly, unshaven chin, looked at him pugnaciously. It was plain he did not understand English, but he was not going to back down. “I said he’s with me,” Sharpe said.

Galiana spoke in rapid Spanish, gesturing at Sharpe. “You have your orders?” he switched to English, looking at Sharpe.

Sharpe had no orders. Galiana spoke again, explaining that Sharpe was charged with delivering a message to Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Graham, and the orders were in English, which, of course, the lieutenant spoke? Galiana himself, the Spanish captain explained, was Sharpe’s liaison officer. By now Sharpe had produced his ration authorization, permitting him to draw beef, bread, and rum for five riflemen from the headquarters stores at San Fernando. He thrust the paper at the lieutenant who, faced with hostile riflemen and the emollient Galiana, decided to yield. He ordered the hurdles pulled aside.

“I did need you after all,” Galiana said. He held the reins very close to the mare’s head and continually patted her neck as she made her cautious way across the plank roadway. The bridge, much less robust than the one Sharpe had destroyed on the Guadiana, quivered underfoot and bowed upstream under the pressure of the flooding tide. Once safe on the far bank, Galiana mounted and led Sharpe southward past the sandy ramparts of the temporary fort made to protect the pontoons.

General Zayas had formed his three battalions in a line across the beach where they were now marching slowly forward. The right-hand files were having their boots sporadically washed by the incoming surf. Sergeants bellowed at men to keep their dressing. The Spanish colors were bright against the pale sky. From far off came the report of a cannon, a deeper sound than musketry, a pounding in the air. It died away, but over the constant snap of the nearer muskets Sharpe thought he could hear other muskets firing, but much farther off. “You can go back now,” he told Harper.

“Let’s just see what these lads do first,” Harper said, nodding at the three Spanish battalions.

The lads needed to do nothing except appear. General Villatte, seeing that his men were about to be assailed from the rear, ordered them to withdraw east across the Almanza Creek. They carried their wounded away. The Spaniards, seeing them go, gave a cheer of victory, then wheeled up the dunes to harry the retreating French who were now outnumbered almost two to one. Galiana, standing in his stirrups, was exultant. Surely the combined Spanish forces, joining from north and south, could now pursue the French across the creek and drive them far back along the tracks to Chiclana, but just then artillery opened fire from the Almanza’s far bank. A battery of twelve-pounders had been placed on the firm ground to the east and their first salvo was of common shell that exploded in gouts of sand and smoke. The Spanish advance checked as men took cover behind dunes. The guns fired a second time and round shot slashed through files slow to find shelter. The last of the French infantry had waded the creek now and were making a new line to face the Spaniards across the incoming tide. The guns went silent as their smoke drifted across the slowly rising water. The French were content to wait now. Their force that had blocked the allied army’s retreat had been thrust aside, but their guns could still hurl shell and round shot at any force marching toward the bridge. They brought up a second battery and waited for the rout to begin from the south while the Spanish battalions, content to have cleared the enemy off the beach, settled among the dunes.

Galiana, disappointed that the pursuit had not been pressed across the Almanza, had ridden to a group of Spanish officers and now came back to Sharpe. “General Graham is to the south,” he said, “with orders to bring the rear guard here.”

Sharpe could see a mist of musket smoke drifting away from a hill two or more miles southward. “He’s not coming yet,” he said, “so I might go and meet him. You can go back now, Pat.”

Harper thought about it. “So what are you doing, sir?”

“I’m just taking a walk on the beach.”

Harper looked at the other riflemen. “Does anyone here want to take a walk on a beach with me and Mister Sharpe? Or do they want to go back and talk their way past that nasty lieutenant on the bridge?”

The riflemen said nothing until another cannon sounded far to the south. Then Harris frowned. “What’s happening down there?” he asked.

“Nothing to do with us,” Sharpe said.

Harris could be a barrack room lawyer at times, and he was about to protest that the fight was none of their business. Then he caught Harper’s eye and decided to say nothing. “We’re just taking a walk on the beach,” Harper said, “and it’s a nice day for a walk.” He saw Sharpe’s quizzical look. “I was thinking of the Faughs, sir. They’re up there, they are, all those poor wee boys from Dublin, and I thought they might like to see a proper Irishman.”

“But we’re not going to fight?” Harris demanded.

“What do you think you are, Harris? A bloody soldier?” Harper asked caustically. He took care not to catch Sharpe’s eye. “Of course we’re not going to fight. You heard Mister Sharpe. We’re going for a walk on the beach, that’s all we’re bloody doing.”

So they did. They went for a walk on the beach.

SIR THOMAS, certain that his rear was well protected by the brigade posted on the Cerro del Puerco, was encouraging his troops along the road that led through the long pinewood edging the beach. “Not far, boys!” Sir Thomas called as he rode down the line. “We’ve not far to go! Cheer up now!” He glanced to his right every few seconds, half expecting the appearance of a cavalryman bringing news of an enemy advance. Whittingham had undertaken to post vedettes on the inland edge of the wood, but none of those men appeared and Sir Thomas supposed the French were content to let the allied army retreat ignominiously into Cádiz. The firing ahead had stopped. A French force had evidently blocked the beach, but had now been chased away, while the firing from the south had also died. Sir Thomas reckoned that had been mere bickering, probably a cavalry patrol coming too close to the big Spanish brigade on the summit of the Cerro del Puerco.

He paused to watch the redcoats march past and he noted how the tired men straightened their backs when they saw him. “Not far, boys,” he told them. He thought how much he loved these men. “God bless you, boys,” he called, “and it’s not far now.” Not far to what, he wondered sourly. These bone-weary soldiers had been marching all night, laden with packs and haversacks and weapons and rations, and it was all for nothing, all for a scuttling retreat back to the Isla de León.

There was a flurry of shouts to the north. A man called a challenge and Sir Thomas stared down the track, but saw nothing and heard no shots. A moment later a mounted officer of the Silver Tails came pounding back down the track with two horsemen close behind. They were civilians armed with muskets, sabers, pistols, and knives. Partisans, Sir Thomas thought, two of the men who made life such hell for the French armies occupying Spain. “They want to talk to you, sir,” the Silver Tail officer said.

The two partisans spoke at once. They spoke fast, excitedly, and Sir Thomas calmed them. “My Spanish is slow,” he told them, “so speak to me slowly.”

“The French,” one of them said and pointed eastward.

“Where have you come from?” Sir Thomas asked. One of the men explained that they had been part of a larger group that had shadowed the French for the last three days. Six men had ridden from Medina Sidonia and these two were the only ones left alive because some dragoons had caught them soon after dawn. The two had been chased toward the sea and they had just ridden across the heath. “Which is full of Frenchmen,” the second man said earnestly.