Lord William Russell held a pistol, ready to shoot the first grenadier to come through the smoke, but the grenadiers had been stopped by the rifle and musket fire. Their front ranks were dead and the men behind were now trying to reload and fire back, but once a column stopped moving it became a giant target, and Sir Thomas’s men were firing into its heart. Even though the grenadiers were elite troops, they could not fire as fast as the redcoats.

General Dilkes, his horse bleeding in the rump and shoulder, came to Sir Thomas’s side. He said nothing, just stared, then glanced up the hill to where Marshal Victor sat on his horse with his white-plumed hat held low. Marshal Victor was watching three thousand men held by musket fire. He said nothing. It was up to his men now.

On the left of the British line, beyond the First Foot Guards, Major Browne fought his remnant of flankers. Fewer than half the men who had climbed the hill were still able to fire a musket, but they poured their volleys at the nearest French column and, in their eagerness, went higher up the hill to assail the column’s flank.

“Don’t you love the rogues?” Sir Thomas shouted at General Dilkes, and Dilkes was so surprised by the question that he gave a bark of laughter. “Time to give them the bayonet,” Sir Thomas said.

Dilkes nodded. He was watching the redcoats fire their murderous volleys and he reckoned he had just watched his men perform a miracle.

“They’ll run, I vouch,” Sir Thomas said, and hoped he was right.

“Fix bayonets!” Dilkes found his voice.

“On to them, boys!” Sir Thomas waved his hat and galloped back behind the line. “On to them! Push them off my hill! Off my hill!”

And the redcoats, like hounds released, went uphill with bayonets. Marshal Victor, at the crest, heard the screams as the blades began their work. “For God’s sake, fight!” he said to no one in particular, but his six battalions were recoiling. Panic had infected their ranks. The rearmost men, those least in danger, were edging back and the foremost ranks were being savaged by redcoats. The band, well behind the line and still playing the forbidden “Marseillaise,” sensed the disaster coming and the music faltered. The bandmaster tried to rally his musicians, but the loudest noise now was the hoarse war cries of the British. Instead of playing, the band broke and ran. The infantry followed. “The guns,” Victor said to an aide, “get the guns off the hill.” It was one thing to lose a fight, but another to have the emperor’s beloved guns captured, so the gunners brought up their teams and dragged four of the cannons eastward, off the hill. Two could not be saved because the redcoats were too close, so those guns were lost. Marshal Victor and his aides followed the four guns, and the remnants of his six battalions ran for their lives, ran across the hilltop and down its eastern face, and behind them the redcoats and greenjackets came with bayonets and victory.

General Rousseau, who had led the grenadiers, and General Ruffin, who had commanded the beaten division, were both wounded and left behind. Sir Thomas was told of their capture, but he said nothing; he just rode to the hill’s inland crest from where he could see his beaten enemy running. He remembered that long-ago moment in Toulouse when the soldiers of France had insulted his dead wife and had spat in his face when he protested. Back then Sir Thomas had sympathized with the French. He had thought that their ideals of liberty, fraternity, and equality were beacons for Britain. He had loved France.

But that had been nineteen years ago. Nineteen years in which Sir Thomas had never forgotten the mockery given by the French to his dead wife, so now he stood in his stirrups and cupped his hands. “Remember me!” he shouted. He shouted in English, but that did not matter because the French were running too fast and were too far away to hear him. “Remember me!” he shouted again, then touched his wedding ring.

And south of him, beyond the pinewood, a cannon fired.

Sir Thomas turned and put spurs to his tired horse, because the battle was not yet won.

“OH, BLOODY hell,” Sharpe said. The curricle had bounced past him, wheels spinning as they left the ground, and it had dashed across the corner of the French column, then capsized twenty paces from the column’s edge. The woman, black-veiled, was evidently uninjured for she was trying to help the brigadier to his feet, but a dozen Frenchmen from the column’s rear ranks had seen the accident and also seen a profit there. A man festooned with lace could also be festooned with money, and so they darted from the column so that they could rifle the fallen man’s pockets. Sharpe drew his sword and ran.

“We’ve got work, boys. Come on,” Harper said.

The riflemen had been moving toward the column’s flank. There was a foul battle going on between redcoats and Frenchmen, a battle of bayonet and musket butts, but Sharpe had seen Colonel Vandal on his horse. Vandal was in the press of Frenchmen, close to his regiment’s eagle, and he was beating with his saber, not at redcoats, but at his own men. He was shouting at them to fight, to kill, and his passion was holding the men so that the French left flank alone was not retreating, but fighting stubbornly against the Irishmen who attacked from their front. Sharpe thought that by going to the column’s side he might have a clear shot for his rifle, but now he had to rescue Brigadier Moon who was trying to protect the veiled woman. Moon hauled her down beside him and tried to find his pistol, but in his tumble from the curricle the weapon had fallen from his tail pocket. He drew his new saber, a cheap thing purchased in Cádiz, and found the blade was broken, and just then the widowed Marquesa screamed because the French were coming with bayonets.

Then a green-jacketed man came from Moon’s left. The man carried a heavy cavalry sword, a weapon as brutal as it was clumsy, and his first stroke took a Frenchman in the throat. The blood sprayed higher than the eagle on its pole. The man’s head flopped back as his body kept running. Sharpe turned, impaled a second man in the belly with the sword, twisted it fast to stop the flesh gripping the blade, then put his right boot on the man’s belly to give him the leverage to rip the sword free. A bayonet went through his coat, but Captain Galiana was there and his slim sword pierced the Frenchman’s side.

Brigadier Moon, his hand clutching the Marquesa’s hand, just watched. Sharpe had killed one man and put another on the ground in the time it would take to swat a fly. Now two other Frenchmen came at Sharpe, and Moon expected the rifleman to step away from their frenzied attack, but instead he went to meet them and beat a bayonet aside with his sword before driving the blade up into the man’s face. A boot into the crotch crumpled the man. The second lunged with his bayonet, and Moon thought Sharpe must be killed, but the rifleman had sidestepped the lunge with sudden speed and now turned on his attacker. Moon saw the ferocity on the rifleman’s face and felt an unexpected pang of pity for the Frenchman who faced him. “Bastard,” Sharpe snarled, and the sword lunged, hard and fast, and the Frenchman dropped his musket and clung to the blade impaling his belly. Sharpe ripped it out just as Perkins arrived to bayonet the man. Harper was beside Sharpe now and pulled the trigger of the volley gun, with the sound of a cannon firing. Two Frenchmen went backward, blood thick on their white crossbelts. The others had taken enough and were running back to the column.

“Sharpe!” Moon called.

Sharpe ignored the brigadier. He sheathed his sword and took the rifle from his shoulder. He knelt and aimed at Vandal. “You bastard,” he said and pulled the trigger. The rifle’s muzzle was lost in smoke, and when the smoke cleared Vandal was still alive, still on his horse, and still using the flat of his saber to drive his men onto Gough’s Irish. Sharpe swore. “Dan,” he called to Hagman, “shoot that bastard!”