The night blossomed red and a moment later the sound of the explosions punched through the damp darkness. Flames and smoke boiled above the fort's remains as the heavy guns were tumbled from their emplacements. Another failure, Gudin thought, watching the great fire rage.

"If my Eagle is lost, " Colonel Caillou said, "I shall blame you, Gudin."

"So pray that the British have no blocked the road, " Gudin answered. The fort was a dark mass of stone in which streaks of fire glowed bloody red.

"It's partisans I worry about, not the British, " Caillou sneered. "If the British are on the road, then General Picard will come from behind and they will be squeezed to death."

For that was the plan. General Picard was marching south from St. Jean Pied-de-Port. He would climb the French side of the Pyrenees to make sure the frontier pass was open for Gudin's men, and all Gudin needed to do was survive the forty kilometres of tortuous winter road that twisted up from Ochagavia to the pass where General Picard waited.

At a place of misery in the mountains, at a place called Irati.

SHARPE said, "It's not such a bad place." And it was true that in the fading evening light Irati was picturesque. It was a village of small stone houses, little more than huts, that lay in a sheltered valley at the junction of two high streams and clustered about a big tavern, the Casa Alta, that provided shelter for folks traveling the high pass. "Can't see why anyone would want to live here, though, " he added.

"They're mostly shepherds, " said Captain Peter d'Alembord.

"Shepherds! That's fitting for Christmas, " Sharpe said. "I seem to remember something about shepherds. Shepherds and wise men, isn't that right?"

"Quite right, sir, " d'Alembord said. He could never quite get used to the idea that Sharpe had received no education at all other than being taught to read while he was a prisoner in India.

"A fellow used to read the Christmas story to us in the foundling home,»

Sharpe remembered. "A big, fat parson, he was, with funny whiskers. Looked a bit like that sergeant who caught a bellyful of cannister at Salamanca. We had to sit and listen, and if we yawned, the bugger used to jump off the platform and clout us round the face with the Holy Book. One minute it was all peace on earth, the next you were flying across the floor with a thick ear."

"But at least you learned your Bible stories."

"Not there, I didn't. I learned those in India. I worked with a Scottish colonel who was a Bible-thumper." Sharpe smiled at the memory.

He was walking north, climbing the road that led from Irati towards the nearby French frontier. He had already found a place south of the village where the battalion could stop the escaping garrison and he wanted to be certain that no Frogs were lurking at his rear.

"You liked India?" d'Alembord asked.

"It was a bit hot, " Sharpe said, "and the food was funny, but yes, I liked it.

In India I served under the best colonel I ever had."

"Wellesley?" d'Alembord asked.

"Not Nosey, no, " Sharpe laughed. "He was good, Nosey, but just as cold then as he is now. No, this man was a Frog. Long story, Dally, and I don't want to bore you, but I served with the enemy for a bit in India. On purpose, it was, all official. Colonel Gudin, he was called." Sharpe smiled, remembering. "He was very good to me, Colonel Gudin. He even wanted me to go back to France with him, and I can't say I wasn't tempted."

D'Alembord smiled. He wished Sharpe would tell the story of Colonel Gudin, but he knew it was hopeless trying to get reminiscences out of Major Sharpe. He had seen other men try to learn how Sharpe had taken the French Eagle at Salamanca, but Sharpe would just shrug and say anyone could have done it. It was just luck, really, he happened to be there and the thing was looking for a new owner.

Like hell, d'Alembord thought. Sharpe was quite simply the best soldier he had ever known or would know.

Sharpe stopped at the head of the pass and pulled a telescope from a pocked of his green jacket. The telescope's outer barrel had an ivory cover and an inscribed gold plate that read in French, "To Joseph, King of Spain and the Indies, from his brother, Napoleon, Emperor of France." Sharpe trained the expensive glass northwards to search the misted slopes across the border. He saw rocks, stunted trees and the glint of a cold stream tumbling from a high place, and beyond a fading succession of mountain peaks.

A chill, damp, hard land, he thought, and no place to send soldiers at Christmas time. "Not a Frog to be seen, " Sharpe said happily, and was about to lower the glass when he saw something move in a cleft of rock on a distant slope. The road ran through the cleft and he held his breath as he stared at the narrow gap.

"What is it?" d'Alembord asked.

Sharpe did not answer. He just gazed at the split in the grey stone from which an army was suddenly appearing. At least it looked like an army. Rank after rank of infantry trudging northwards in dun grey coats. And they were coming from France. He handed the telescope to d'Alembord. "Tell me what you see, Dally."

D'Alembord aimed the glass, then swore quietly. "A whole brigade, sir." "Coming from the wrong direction, too, " Sharpe said. Without the telescope he could not see the distant enemy, but he could guess what they were about. The garrison would be escaping on this road and the French brigade had been sent to make sure the frontier was open for them.

"They'll not make it this far tonight, " Sharpe said. The sun had already sunk beneath the western peaks and the night shadows were stretching fast.

"But they'll be here tomorrow, " d'Alembord said nervously.

"Aye, tomorrow. Christmas Eve, " Sharpe said.

"An awful lot of them, " d'Alembord said.

«Barrels,» Sharpe answered.

"Barrels, sir?" d'Alembord gazed at Sharpe as though the major had gone mad.

"That tavern in Irati, Dally, has to be full of barrels. I want them here tonight, all of them."

Because tomorrow there would be an enemy behind and an enemy in front, and a road to hold and a battle to win. At Christmas time.

GENERAL Maximillien Picard was an unhappy man. His brigade was late. He had expected to be at Irati by midday, but his men had marched like a herd of lame goats. By nightfall, they still had one steep-sided valley to cross and a precipitous hill to climb, and so he punished them by making them bivouac in the valley.

He knew they would hate him for that, but let them. Most were conscripts who needed to be toughened, and a night among the cold rocks would help scour the mother's milk from their gullets.

The only fuel for fires was a few stunted trees in the hollows where the winter's first snow had drifted, but most of the conscripts had no idea how to light a fire from damp, tough wood, and so they suffered. Their only food was rings of hard bread they carried on strings about their necks, but at least the stream offered plenty of clean, cold water.

"Another fortnight and it'll be frozen, " said Picard.

"As bad as Russia, " consented Major Santon, his chief of staff.

"Nothing was as bad as Russia, " Picard said, though in truth he had rather enjoyed the Russian campaign. He was among the few men who had done well, but he was accustomed to success. Not like Colonel Gudin, whose garrison he now marched to rescue. "Gudin's a useless piece of gristle, " Picard said.

"I never met him."

'Let's hope you meet him tomorrow, but knowing Gudin he'll mess things up."

Picard leaned to his fire and lit a pipe. "I knew him way back. He promised well then, but ever since India." Picard shrugged. "He's unlucky, that's what Gudin is, unlucky, and you knew what the Emperor says about luck, it's the only thing a soldier needs."