“I know we lost the other one, sir, but that wasn’t our fault, was it, sir?”

“No. If it hadn’t been for us they’d have lost both flags. Well done!”

The boy beamed. “And you and Sergeant Harper, sir.” The boy’s words tumbled out in his urgent need to share the excitement. “They was terrified of you, sir!”

Sharpe took his rifle and laughed. “I don’t know about Sergeant Harper, but I was fairly frightened, too.”

Pendleton laughed. “You’re just saying that, sir!”

Sharpe smiled and walked away among the bodies. There was so much to do, the dead to be buried, the wounded to be patched up. He looked towards the bridge. It was empty now, the fugitives had crossed, and Sharpe could see them being organised into companies on the far bank. The French were half a mile away, in ordered ranks, and watching a lone horseman who was trotting his horse towards Sharpe. He supposed it was a French officer coming to discuss a truce while they sorted out their wounded. Sharpe felt a great weariness. He looked back at the bridge and wondered why Simmerson was not sending any men across to start the grave-digging, the bandaging, the stripping of the dead. It would take a whole day to clear up this mess. Sharpe slung his rifle and started walking towards the Chasseur officer, whose horse was picking a delicate course through the bodies. He raised a hand in salute. And at that moment the bridge exploded.

The bridge was reluctant to be destroyed. It had stood through two millennia over the waters of the Tagus, and the old stonework yielded slowly to the modern explosives. The central pier gave a deep shudder that was felt as far away as Sharpe and his company; they wheeled round to see what had caused it, and dust flew from the crevices of the masonry. For a second it seemed as if the bridge might hold; the stones bulged and then tore themselves apart with an agonising slowness, until the black powder finally won and the masonry was blasted outwards in an obscene gout of smoke and flame. The road on the bridge rose into the air, hung suspended for a fraction, and then collapsed into the water. The pier, two arches, the purpose of the bridge, all were destroyed by the thunderous explosion that rolled interminably across the flat grasslands, frightening the horses of the French, making the loose horses whose owners had been unseated in battle whinny and gallop fitfully on the grass, as though looking for human reassurance. A huge, dirty plume of smoke, boiling with ancient dust, rose over the ruined spans, the water seethed, far up and down stream the stones fell into the green depths; only slowly did silence follow the thunder, the river rearrange itself to the new pattern of stones on its bed, the black smoke drift slowly westwards like a small, low, malevolent storm cloud. Hogan need not have worried. Forty feet had been ripped from the bridge, Wellesley was safe from marauding cavalry to his south, and Sharpe and his men were now marooned on the wrong side of the Tagus.

Captain Leroy collapsed on the grass. Sharpe wondered if he had been hit by some stray and freakishly driven stone chip from the bridge but the Captain shook his head.

“It’s my leg. Don’t worry, Sharpe, I’ll manage.” Leroy nodded towards the smoking ruin of the bridge. “Why the hell did they do that?”

Sharpe wished he knew. Had it been a mistake? Hogan surely would have waited for Sharpe and his swollen company of two hundred men to reach the safety of the other bank before lighting the fuses that ran into the base of the pier? He stared across the river but there was no sense to be made of the activity he could see, the men parading in companies; he thought he could see Simmerson on his grey horse surrounded by officers, staring at the destruction wrought to the bridge.

“Sir, sir.” Gataker, the Rifleman, was calling him. The French Chasseur officer had arrived, a Captain, with a suntanned face split by a large black moustache. Sharpe walked to him and saluted. The Frenchman returned the salute and looked round at the carnage.

“Congratulations on your fight, Monsieur.” He spoke perfect English; courteously, gravely, with respect. Sharpe acknowledged the compliment.

“You have our congratulations, too. You have won a notable victory, sir.” The words felt stilted and inept. It was extraordinary how men could claw savagely at each other, fight like demented fiends, yet in a few moments become polite, generous even about the damage an enemy had inflicted. The French Captain smiled briefly.

“Thank you, M’sieu.” He paused a moment, looked at the bodies lying near the bridge, and when he turned back to Sharpe his expression had changed; it had become less formal and more curious. “Why did you come across the river?”

Sharpe shrugged. “I don’t know.”

The Frenchman dismounted and looped his reins on his wrist. “You were unlucky.” He smiled at Sharpe. “But you and your men fought well and now this?” He nodded at the bridge.

Sharpe shrugged again. The Chasseur Captain with the big moustache looked at him for a moment. “I think perhaps you are most unlucky in your Colonel, yes?” He spoke quietly so that the men who were staring curiously at their erstwhile enemy should not hear. Sharpe did not react, but the Frenchman spread his hands. “We have them, too. My regrets, M’sieu.”

It was all getting too polite, too cosy. Sharpe looked at the bodies lying untended in the field. “You wish to discuss the wounded?”

“I did, M’sieu, I did. Not that I think we have too many, but we need your permission to search this piece of the field. As for the rest,” he bowed slightly to Sharpe. “We are the masters of it.”

It was true. Chasseurs were now riding around the field corralling the stray horses. They were gaining a bonus, for there were half a dozen English thoroughbreds, lost by officers of the South Essex, and Sharpe knew they would be better remounts than anything the French could hope to buy in Spain. But there was something curious about the wording the Captain had used.

“You did, sir? Did?” Sharpe looked into the sympathetic brown eyes of the Frenchman, who shrugged slightly.

“The situation, M’sieu, has changed.” He waved a hand at the destroyed bridge. “I think you will have problems reaching the other side? Yes?” Sharpe nodded, it was undeniable. “I think, M’sieu, my Colonel will want to renew the fight after a suitable period.”

Sharpe laughed. He pointed at the muskets, the rifles, the long bayonets. “When you are ready, sir, when you are ready.”

Trie Frenchman laughed too. “I will enquire, M’sieu, and inform you in ample time.” He pulled out a watch. “Shall we say that we have one hour in which to look after our wounded? After that we shall talk again.”

He was giving Sharpe no choice. An hour was not nearly enough for his two hundred men to collect the wounded, carry them despite their agony, bring them to the entrance of the bridge and devise a way of getting them to safety. On the other hand an hour was far more than the French needed, and he knew there was no point in asking for more time. The Captain unlooped his reins and prepared to mount.

“My congratulations again. Lieutenant?” Sharpe nodded. “And my sincere regrets. Bonne chancel‘ He mounted and cantered back towards the skyline.

Sharpe took stock of his new company. The survivors from the square had added some seventy men to his small command. Leroy was the senior officer, of course, but his wound forced him to leave the decisions to Sharpe. There were two more Lieutenants, Knowles from the Light Company and a man called John Berry. Berry was overweight with fleshy lips, a young man who petulantly demanded the date of Sharpe’s commission, and, on finding Sharpe was his senior, complained sulkily that his horse had been shot. Sharpe suspected that it was the only reason Berry had stayed with the colours.