Sir Thomas had done what he could. The coastline between the villages of Barrosa and Bermeja was two miles of confusion into which two French attacks were developing, one against the pinewood while the other had already captured the crucial hill. Sir Thomas, knowing that the enemy was on the brink of victory, must gamble everything on his men’s ability to fight. Both his brigades would be outnumbered, and one must attack uphill. If either failed, the whole army would be lost.

Behind him, in the open heath beyond the pinewood, the first rifles and muskets fired.

And Browne marched his men back up the hill.

SHARPE AND HIS RIFLEMEN, still accompanied by Captain Galiana, walked through the Spanish army that mostly seemed to be resting on the beach. Galiana dismounted when they reached the village of Bermeja and led his horse through the hovels. General Lapeña and his aides were there, sheltering from the sun under a framework on which fishing nets hung to dry. There was a watchtower in the village, and its summit was crowded with Spanish officers staring south with telescopes. The sound of musketry came from that direction, but it was very muffled, and no one in the Spanish army seemed particularly interested. Galiana remounted when they left the village. “Was that General Lapeña?” Sharpe asked.

“It was,” Galiana said sourly. He had walked the horse to avoid being noticed by the general.

“Why doesn’t he like you?” Sharpe asked.

“Because of my father.”

“What did your father do?”

“He was in the army, like me. He challenged Lapeña to a duel.”

“And?”

“Lapeña wouldn’t fight. He is a coward.”

“What was the argument about?”

“My mother,” Galiana said curtly.

South of Bermeja the beach was empty except for some fishing boats drawn up on the sand. The boats were painted blue, yellow, and red and had large black eyes on their bows. The musketry was still muffled, but Sharpe could see smoke rising beyond the pine trees that ran thick behind the dunes. They walked in silence until, perhaps half a mile beyond the village, Perkins claimed to have seen a whale.

“What you saw,” Slattery said, “was your bloody rum ration. You saw it and drank it.”

“I saw it, I did sir!” He appealed to Sharpe, but Sharpe did not care what Perkins had or had not seen and ignored him.

“I saw a whale once,” Hagman put in. “It were dead. Stinking.”

Perkins was gazing out to sea again, hoping to see whatever it was he had taken to be a whale. “Maybe,” Harris suggested, “it was backed like a weasel?” They all stared at him.

“He’s being clever again,” Harper said loftily. “Just ignore him.”

“It’s Shakespeare, Sergeant.”

“I don’t care if it’s the Archangel bloody Gabriel, you’re just showing off.”

“There was a Sergeant Shakespeare in the 48th,” Slattery said, “and a proper bastard he was. He choked to death on a walnut.”

“You can’t die from a walnut!” Perkins said.

“He did. His face turned blue. Good thing too. He was a bastard.”

“God save Ireland,” Harper said. His words were not prompted by Sergeant Shakespeare’s demise, but by a cavalcade storming down the beach toward them. The baggage mules, which had been retreating down the beach rather than on the track in the pinewood, had bolted.

“Stand still!” Sharpe said. They stood in a tight group as the mules split to pass on either side. Captain Galiana shouted at passing muleteers, demanding to know what had happened, but the men kept going.

“I didn’t know you were in the 48th, Fergus,” Hagman said.

“Three years, Dan. Then they went to Gibraltar, only I was sick so I stayed at the barracks. Almost died, I did.”

Harris snatched at a passing mule that evaded his grip. “So how did you join the Rifles?” he asked.

“I was Captain Murray’s servant,” Slattery said, “and when he joined the Rifles, he took me with him.”

“What’s an Irishman doing in the 48th?” Harris wanted to know. “They’re from Northamptonshire.”

“They recruited in Wicklow,” Slattery said.

Captain Galiana had succeeded in stopping a muleteer and got from the fugitive a confused tale of an overwhelming French attack. “He says the enemy has taken that hill,” Galiana said, pointing to the Cerro del Puerco.

Sharpe took out his telescope and, again using Perkins as a rest, he stared at the hilltop. He could see a French battery at the crest and at least four blue-coated battalions. “They’re up there,” he confirmed. He turned the glass toward the village between the hill and the sea and saw Spanish cavalry there. There were also Spanish infantry, two or three thousand of them, but they had marched a small way north and were now resting among the dunes at the top of the beach. Neither the cavalry nor the infantry seemed concerned by the French possession of the hill and the sound of the fighting did not come from its slopes, but from beyond the pinewood on Sharpe’s left.

Sharpe offered the glass to Galiana who shook his head. “I have my own,” he said, “so what are they doing?”

“Who? The French?”

“Why don’t they attack down the hill?”

“What are those Spanish troops doing?” Sharpe asked.

“Nothing.”

“Which means they’re not needed. Which probably means there’s a lot of men waiting for the Crapauds to come down the hill, and meanwhile the fighting’s over there”—he nodded toward the pinewood—“so that’s where I’m going.” The panicked mass of mules had gone by. The muleteers were still hurrying north, scooping up the loaves of hard bread jolted out of the animals’ panniers. Sharpe picked one up and broke it in half.

“Are we looking for the 8th, sir?” Harper asked him as they walked toward the pines.

“I am, but I don’t suppose I’ll find them,” Sharpe said. It was one thing to declare an ambition to find Colonel Vandal, but in the chaos he doubted he would be successful. He did not even know if the French 8th were here, and if they were they might be anywhere. He knew some Frenchmen were behind the creek where they threatened the army’s route to Cádiz. There were plenty more on the distant hill, and plainly others were beyond the pinewood. That was where the guns sounded so Sharpe would go that way. He walked to the top of the beach, scrambled up a sandy bluff, then plunged into the shade of the pines. Galiana, who seemed to have no plan except to stay with Sharpe, dismounted again because the pine branches hung so low.

“You don’t have to come, Pat,” Sharpe said.

“I know that, sir.”

“I mean we’ve got no business here,” Sharpe said.

“There’s Colonel Vandal, sir.”

“If we find him,” Sharpe said dubiously. “Truth is, Pat, I’m here because I like Sir Thomas.”

“Everyone speaks well of him, sir.”

“And this is our job, Pat,” Sharpe said more harshly. “There’s fighting and we’re soldiers.”

“So we do have business here?”

“Of course we bloody do.”

Harper walked in silence for a few paces. “So you never were going to let us go back, were you?”

“Would you have gone?”

“I’m here, sir,” Harper said as if that answered Sharpe. The musketry from their front was heavier. Till now it had sounded like skirmish fire, the thorn-splintering snap of light infantry firing independently, but the heavier noise of volley fire was punching through the trees now. Behind it Sharpe could hear the fine flurry of trumpets and the rhythm of drums, but he did not recognize the tune, so knew it must be a French band playing. Then a series of louder crashes announced that cannons were firing. Balls whipped through the trees, bringing down needles and twigs. The French were firing canister and the air smelled of resin and powder smoke.

They came to a track rutted by the wheels of gun carriages. A few mules were picketed to the trees, guarded by three redcoats with yellow facings. “Are you the Hampshires?” Sharpe asked.