Sharpe’s Eagle: The Talavera Campaign, July 1809

Hogan was up to his neck in a hole in the bridge. Sharpe peered down and saw, in the rubble, the curving stonework of two arches.

‘How much powder will you use?’

‘All there is!’ Hogan was happy, a man enjoying his work. ‘This isn’t easy. Those Romans built well. You see those blocks?’ He pointed to the exposed stones of the arches. ‘They’re all shaped and hammered into place. If I put a charge on top of one of those arches I’ll probably make the damn bridge stronger! I can’t put the powder underneath, more’s the pity.’

‘Why not?’

‘No time, Sharpe, no time. You have to contain an explosion. If I sling those kegs under the arch all I’ll do is frighten the fishes. No, I’m going to do this one upside down and inside out.’ He was half talking to himself, his mind full of weights of powder and lengths of fuse.

‘Upside down and inside out?’

Hogan scratched his dirty face. ‘So to speak. I’m going down into the pier and then I’ll blow the damn thing out sideways. If it works, Sharpe, it’ll bring down two arches and not just one.’

‘Will it work?’

Hogan grinned happily. ‘It should! It’ll be one hell of a bang, I promise you that.’

‘How much longer?’

‘I’ll be finished in a couple of hours. Perhaps sooner.’ Hogan heaved himself out of the hole and stood beside Sharpe. ‘Let’s get the powder up here.’ He turned towards the convent, cupped his hands to his mouth, and froze. The Spanish had arrived, their trumpeters in front, their colours flying, the blue-coated infantry straggling behind. ‘Glory be,’ Hogan said. ‘Now I can sleep safe at nights.’

The Regimienta marched to the convent, past the South Essex who were being drilled in the field, and kept on marching. Sharpe waited for the orders which would halt the Spaniards but they were never given. Instead the trumpeters paced their horses on to the bridge, the colours followed, then the gloriously uniformed officers and finally the infantry itself.

‘What the hell do they think they’re doing?’ Hogan stepped to the side of the bridge.

The Regimienta picked its way past the broken section and past the hole Hogan had dug. The Engineer waved his arms at them. ‘I’m going to blow it up! Bang! Bang!’ They ignored him. Hogan tried it in Spanish but the tide of men flowed on past. Even the priest and the three white-dressed ladies walked their mounts carefully round Hogan’s hole and on to the south bank where Captain Lennox had hastily moved the Light Company out of their path. The Regimienta was followed by an apoplectic Simmerson trying to find out what the hell was happening. Hogan shook his head wearily. ‘If it had been just you and I, Sharpe, we’d be on our way home by now.’ He waved to his men to bring the kegs of powder out to the hole. ‘I’m tempted to blow it up with that lot on the wrong side.’

‘They’re our allies, remember.’

Hogan wiped his forehead. ‘So’s Simmerson.’ He climbed back into the excavation. ‘I’ll be glad when this lot’s over.’

The kegs of powder arrived and Sharpe left Hogan to pack the gunpowder deep in the base of the arches. He walked back to the south bank where his Riflemen waited and watched as the Santa Maria paraded in a long line across the road that led to the distant skyline. Lennox grinned down from his horse.

‘What do you think of this, Sharpe?’ He waved at the Spaniards who resolutely faced an empty skyline.

‘What are they doing?’

‘They told the Colonel that it was their duty to cross the bridge! It’s something to do with Spanish pride. We got here first so they have to go further.’ He touched his hat to Simmerson who was re-crossing the bridge. ‘You know what he’s thinking of doing?’

‘What? Simmerson?’ Sharpe looked after the retreating Colonel who had pointedly ignored him.

‘Aye. He’s thinking of bringing the whole Battalion over.’

‘He’s what?’

‘If they cross, we cross.’ Lennox laughed. ‘Mad, that’s what he is.’

There were shouts from Sharpe’s Riflemen and he followed their pointing arms to look at the horizon. ‘Do you see anything?’

Lennox stared up the track. ‘Not a thing.’

A flash of light. ‘There!’ Sharpe climbed on to the parapet and dug into his pack for his only possession of value, a telescope made by Matthew Berge of London. He had no idea of its real worth but he suspected it had cost at least thirty guineas. There was a brass plate curved and inset into the walnut tube and engraved on the plate was an inscription. ‘In gratitude. AW. September 23rd, 1803.’ He recalled the piercing blue eyes looking at him when the telescope had been presented. ‘Remember, Mr Sharpe, an officer’s eyes are more valuable than his sword!’

He snapped the tube open and slid the brass shutters that protected the lens apart. The image danced in the glass, he held his breath to steady his arms, and panned the tube sideways. There! Damn the tube! It would not stay still.

‘Pendleton!’

The young Rifleman came running to the bridge and, on Sharpe’s instructions, jumped on to the parapet and crouched so that Sharpe could rest the telescope on his shoulder. The skyline leapt towards him, he moved the glass gently to the right. Nothing but grass and stunted bushes. The heat shimmered the air above the gentle slope as the telescope moved past the innocent horizon.

‘Do you see anything, sir?’

‘Keep still, damn you!’ He moved the glass back, concentrating on the spot where the white, dusty road merged with the sky. Then, with the suddenness of an actor coming through a stage trapdoor, the crest was lined with horsemen. Pendleton gasped, the image wavered, but Sharpe steadied it. Green uniforms, a single white crossbelt. He closed the glass and straightened up.

‘Chasseurs.’

There was a murmur from the Regimienta, the men nudged each other and pointed up the hill. Sharpe mentally split the line in half, then in half again, and counted the distant silhouettes in groups of five. Lennox had ridden across.

‘Two hundred, Sharpe?’

‘That’s what I make it.’

Lennox fiddled with his sword hilt. ‘They won’t bother us.’ He sounded resentful.

A second line of horsemen appeared. Sharpe opened the tube again and rested it on Pendleton’s shoulder. The French were making a dramatic appearance; two lines of cavalry, two hundred men in each, walking slowly towards the bridge. Through the lens Sharpe could see the carbines slung on their shoulders and on each horse there was an obscene lump behind the stirrup where the rider had strapped a netful of forage for his mount. He straightened up again and told Pendleton he could jump down.

‘Are they going to fight, sir?’ Like Lennox the young boy was eager for a brush with the French. Sharpe shook his head.

‘They won’t come near. They’re just having a look at us. They’ve nothing to gain by attacking.’

When Sharpe had been locked in the Tippoo’s dungeon with Lawford the Lieutenant had tried to teach him to play chess. It had been a hopeless task. They could never remember which chip of stone was supposed to represent which piece and their jailers had thought the scratched grid on the floor was an attempt at magic. They had been beaten and the chessboard scratched out. But Sharpe remembered the word ‘stalemate’. That was the position now. The French could not harm the infantry and the infantry could not harm the French. Simmerson was bringing the rest of the Battalion across the bridge, threading them past an exasperated Hogan and his excavation, but it made no difference how many men the allies had. The cavalry were simply too quick, the foot-soldiers would never get anywhere near them. And if the cavalry chose to attack they would be annihilated by the dreadful close-range volleys and any horse that survived the bullets would swerve away or pull up rather than gallop into the close-packed, steel-tipped ranks. There would be no fight today.

Simmerson thought otherwise. He waved his drawn sword cheerfully at Lennox. ‘We’ve got them, Lennox! We’ve got them!’

‘Aye, sir.’ Lennox sounded gloomy, he would have liked a fight. ‘Doesn’t the fool realise they won’t attack us? Does he think we’re going to lumber round this field like a cow chasing a fox? Damn it! We’ve done the job, Sharpe. We’ve mined the bridge and it’ll take an hour to get this lot back over.’

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