Chapter Three: The Arrival

Snow began to fall as the mixed British force neared Barca de Alva. The dull tramp of thousands of feet was somewhat muffled by the layer of snow on the white-lined road, the jingling of the mounted officers' curb chains sharper above the muted thunder of the redcoats' march.

They marched through friendly territory, yet many of the men glanced left and right as if they feared a sudden attack. Officers squinted into the distance, their experienced eyes seeking the clouds of dust and flashes of light that were the telltale signs of an enemy force. They found no such signs, but there was a hostility in the air and every man was alert as they marched through the countryside.

Sharpe felt the tension as well as any of the men. Every instinct told him that the French were close, but the cavalry scouts continually reported nothing as his force drew ever closer to Barca de Alva.

Finally, two of his furthest-flung scouts came galloping back with the news that the town was in sight. The cavalry Captain, a cheerful middle-aged man named Derritt, reported the sighting and requested to take his company into the town.

"That way, we'll definitely be informed when the French do arrive," he said.

Sharpe agreed and the four squadrons of Derritt's cavalry company pulled together, then trotted up the road in lines of ten. The redcoats saw them leave and the long line of companies tautened subtly, shrinking every so slightly as the ranks and files drew closer to the comrades around them. Veterans as they were, no man wanted to feel alone and the flurry of activity was an unmistakable of the battle to come.

Sharpe was trembling with apprehension. If the French had reached the town before him, or even the bridge, then he would be marching his men straight to their deaths. They would never be able to retake the town if the French had garrisoned it, let alone assault the bridge. Sharpe imagined the seven-foot twelve pounders lined wheel-to-wheel, the heavy iron cannonballs blasting across the Douro to grind his small force into bloody oblivion. Then, he thought, when his battalions had marched close enough, they would switch to canister and each shot would throw a dozen men back in an explosion of metal and slaughter. God, they must reach first! He twisted around to order the men to double their pace, but just then there was a shout from ahead and he looked back to see a single rider galloping back towards him. Now he would know, he thought. He found himself jittery with tension.

"The French are in sight, sir!" the rider pulled his horse to a flashy stop as he delivered the news.

Sharpe's heart sank.

"Where?" he managed to ask. "In the town?"

"No, sir," the cavalryman said. "On the opposite side of the river. They've just appeared on the horizon."

Sharpe's mind raced. The French had not reached the town. There was still time to stop them!

"How many?"

"A single battalion. Skirmishers, looks like."

"Guns? Cavalry?"

"Captain didn't see any."

Sharpe knew they could not be far behind. No General advanced infantry too far ahead of the main force. He turned around.

"Captain Frederickson! Captain Cross!"

Frederickson's head snapped up, his one eye gleaming in anticipation. Cross, slower but no less alert, blinked at Sharpe.

"Sir?"

"Take your companies ahead of the town. There's a battalion of Voltigeurs approaching the bridge and I want you to hold them off."

"Sir!" Frederickson barked the reply, then turned to his men. "Double time!"

The company broke into a jog.

"A battalion, sir?" Cross said, wondering if he had misheard.

"A bloody battalion! Now go! Move!" Sharpe was half-frantic with adrenaline. The French must not reach the town!

"Yes, sir." Cross saluted, then ordered his company after Frederickson.

"Tell Captain Derritt to stay out of sight," Sharpe turned back to the cavalry trooper. "And that our skirmishers are coming."

The trooper, understanding the urgency of the situation, threw a hasty salute as he wrenched his horse around and galloped after the two Rifle acompanies.

Sharpe spun around again.

"Gough!"

The Irish Colonel, whose battalion was first in the marching order and thus the most advanced of the four regiments in the brigade, spurred forward.

"Sir?" he said politely.

"My compliments," Sharpe remembered his formalities at the last moment. "And would you advance your Light Company north of the town? There's a battalion of Voltigeurs north of the bridge and I need them stopped."

Gough grinned.

"Consider it done."

He turned around to give the order.

"And send someone to tell the rest of the brigade to do the same!" Sharpe shouted after him.

"Will do!" Gough called over his shoulder, forgetting to add 'sir' in his excitement.

A Lieutenant was sent down the column to relay the order, then the four light companies broke into double time, their pouches and equipment flapping as they jogged off the road to overtake the rest of the slower companies. Sharpe went with them, clumsily mounting the horse that Nairn had insisted on lending him. He hated horses, preferring to march rather than ride, but was now grateful for the added speed it gave him. He settled awkwardly into the saddle, hooked his feet into the stirrups, and broke into a canter after the running companies.

He arrived at Barca de Alva alone, galloping ahead of Frederickson's company to ride into the town first. Derritt would make sure he would not be marching his men into a trap, but he wanted to see the enemy himself to gauge their effectiveness.

He rode straight through the town without stopping, his horse breathing heavily as houses and buildings shot past in a blur. Civilians turned and stared as he clattered through the streets, many of them barring their houses and pulling shutters over the windows. British troops had never come into Barca de Alva, and the presence of this lone Rifleman, combined with the frenetic pace at which he rode, suggested that that record was about to change.

Between the town and the bridge was a bare, grassy space the length and width of two football fields. That space was now dusted in a fine layer of snow, beyond which the leading companies of the French battalion were stepping onto the bridge. Sharpe, seeing his chance to defend the bridge gone, swore.

The French marched in four, tight ranks with bayonets fixed. Sharpe wondered if their muskets were loaded, then supposed they were as the battalion began to spread into skirmish order once they had crossed the bridge. Sharpe guessed that the French commander was expecting a garrison force in the town and was taking no chances.

The two companies of Riflemen emerged out of the northern road from the town, breathing heavily after their long run. Frederickson and Cross took one look at the advancing French battalion and ordered their men into a skirmish line.

Sharpe himself had been a skirmisher for much of his life and watched the deploying forces with a professional eye. The job of the Riflemen was simple enough. Their Baker Rifles could kill at three hundred yards, when the French muskets were hopelessly inaccurate at anything beyond fifty. As long as they could maintain their distance from the Voltigeurs they held the advantage, but to retreat was to yield the town to the French, while if they held their position they would be easy meat for the long French bayonets.

The Voltigeurs instinctively checked as they saw the Riflemen come out of the town they had been told was undefended. They had been expecting barrels of wine and a warm house, and instead were faced with a line of enemy that could kill at three hundred yards.

"En avant! En avant!" The French Colonel, seeing how hugely his force outnumbered the Riflemen, shouted at his men to advance.

"Fire!" the Captains called as the Voltigeurs marched into range.

A crackling sound echoed through the air as the Greenjackets opened fire. The first of the French were flung backwards by the force of the spinning bullets, others diving to the ground in an attempt to evade the enemys' fire. The French Colonel, miraculously untouched by the Riflemen's volley, roared at his men to run forward and overwhelm the British with the threat of their bayonets.

The four companies of light infantry arrived and immediately deployed into skirmish order to support the outnumbered Riflemen. Sharpe, having dismounted from his horse, saw the French run into musket range and shouted for the redcoats to make ready.

"Fire!"

The muskets crashed flame and smoke. More Voltigeurs went down, the wounded filling the air with their screams. The rifles fired again and more Frenchmen collapsed to water the field with their dark blood.

The surviving Frenchmen knelt on the snow and dragged back their flints, but before they could fire a trumpet filled the air and Derritt's cavalry appeared around the far edge of the town, galloping towards the enemy with their long swords drawn.

"Cavalry!"

"Form square!"

It was much too late. The dragoons swept across the field, yelling and whooping like fox hunters chasing a quarry. The Voltigeurs, seeing death in the two lines of drawn swords, broke and fled towards the bridge.

Derritt had timed the charge to perfection. He had let the enemy come within a musket shot of the town, then unleashed his men just before the French could fire their killing volley. As a result the enemy were too close to avoid the charge and were now butchered as they had come so close to slaughtering the skirmishers.

Men screamed as they were ridden down. Swords slashed and came back red. A Frenchman lunged with his bayonet, missed, and a dragoon sliced his face into bloody ruin, shouting incoherently as the man fell backwards.

Some Frenchmen managed to reach the bridge where they sprinted across as if the devil himself was on their heels. Others stripped off their weapons and pouches and threw themselves into the river, risking the freezing current to escape the threat of the long bloodied swords.

The skirmishers cheered as the Voltigeurs were driven away. Captain Derritt, his sword and breeches splattered with blood, reined in beside Sharpe and gave a perfunctory salute.

"Got them, sir! Got them!" The middle-aged man was grinning happily.

"Good work, Derritt," Sharpe said. "Bloody well done."

The French battalion was destroyed. A few men had managed to run across the bridge where they stopped at the far end and barred the way with muskets and bayonets. A few more had survived the raging current and freezing waters of the Douro, shivering like dogs as they pulled themselves onto the opposite bank, but the vast majority of the Frenchmen lay dead or wounded on the snow-dusted field, slashed and stabbed into ruin by the dragoons' long straight swords. Some of them screamed foully, but most of them were silent, the field slowly turning dark below them as their bodies cooled on the snow.

Sharpe filled his voice to order his men forward, but before he could give the command a series of flashes on the far bank caught his eye. There were shouts as Derritt's troopers spotted the movement, then Derritt swore as he sheathed his sword.

More French infantry had appeared over the horizon. An entire brigade, judging from the sheer size of the approaching force. These Frenchmen were in four long lines that seemed to stretch the length of the horizon, and the sun reflected off their thousands of bayonets as they marched forward. Interspersed among the ranks of Frenchmen were horses, riderless horses, and Sharpe knew all too well what they meant.

"Field guns." Derritt spat onto the ground.

Twelve pounders. The seven-foot artillery, the kings of the battlefield that could cover the length of the bridge and smash any assault across the river into bloody oblivion. Sharpe swore.

There would be no easy rout now, no guarding the bridge against the French. Now Sharpe would have to defend the town against an onslaught of Frenchmen, and he knew with a terrible certainity that many men in his brigade would be seeing their last winter. The battle for Barca de Alva was about to begin.