that the Saltador was suddenly empty. A riderless horse was being led across the narrow span and the beast had held back the men behind, and then Sharpe saw a hussar leading the horse and Christopher, Williamson and Kate were just behind the saddled beast. A group of infantrymen were walking away from the bridge as Sharpe came from the rain with his drawn sword and they stared at him, astonished, and one man moved to intercept him, but Sharpe told him in two short words what to do and the man, even if he did not speak English, had the good sense to obey.
Then Sharpe was on the Saltador and the hussar leading the horse just gaped at him. Christopher saw him and turned to escape, but more men were already climbing the roadway and so there was no way off the bridge’s other side. „Kill him!” Christopher shouted at both Williamson and the hussar, and it was the Frenchman who obediently began to draw his saber, but Sharpe’s sword hissed in the rain and the man’s sword hand was almost cut off at the wrist and then Sharpe rammed the blade at the hussar’s chest and there was a scream as the cavalryman fell into the Misarella. The horse, terrified by the lightning and by the uncertain footing on the bridge, gave a great whinny and then bolted past Sharpe, almost knocking him off the roadway. Its horseshoes made sparks from the stones, then it was gone and Sharpe faced Christopher and Williamson on the Saltador’s thin crest.
Kate screamed at the sight of the long sword. „Get up the hill!” Sharpe shouted at her. „Move, Kate, move! And you, you bastard, give me my telescope!”
Christopher reached out to stop Kate, but Williamson darted past the Colonel and obstructed his hand, and Kate, seeing safety a few feet away, had the sense to run past Sharpe. Williamson tried to grab her, then saw Sharpe’s sword swinging toward him and he managed to parry the cut with his French musket. The clash of sword and gun drove Williamson back a pace and Sharpe was already following, snarling, the sword flickering out like a snake’s tongue to force Williamson another pace backward and then Christopher shoved the deserter forward again. „Kill him!” he screamed at Williamson and the deserter did his best, swinging the musket like a great club, but Sharpe stepped back from the wild blow, then came forward and the sword seared through the rain to catch Williamson on the side of his head, half severing his ear. Williamson staggered. The wide-brimmed leather hat had taken some of the blade’s sting, but the sheer force of the blow still sent Williamson lurching sideways toward the roadway’s ragged edge and Sharpe was still attacking, this time lunging, and the point of the blade pierced the deserter’s green jacket, jarred on a rib and sent Williamson over the edge. He screamed, then Christopher was alone with Sharpe on the high arched summit of the Saltador.
Christopher stared at his green-jacketed enemy. He did not believe what he saw. He tried to speak, because words had always been Christopher’s best weapon, but now he found he was struck dumb and Sharpe walked toward him and then a surge of Frenchmen came up behind the Colonel and they were going to force him onto Sharpe’s sword and Christopher did not have the courage to draw his own and so, in sheer desperation, he followed Williamson into the rainy dark of the Misarella’s ravine. He jumped.
Vicente, Harper and Sergeant Macedo had followed Sharpe down the hill and now encountered Kate. „Look after her, sir!” Harper called to Vicente and then, with Sergeant Macedo, he hurried toward the bridge just in time to see Sharpe leap off the roadway. „Sir!” Harper shouted. „Oh, Jesus bloody God,” he swore, „the daft bloody bastard!” He led Macedo across the road just as a flood of blue-coated infantrymen spilled off the bridge, but if any of the Frenchmen thought it strange that enemy soldiers were on the Misarella’s bank they showed no sign of it. They just wanted to escape and so they hurried north toward Spain as Harper prowled the bank and stared into the ravine for a sight of Sharpe. He could see dead horses among the rocks and half submerged in the white water and he could see the sprawling bodies of a dozen Frenchmen who had fallen from the Saltador’s high span, but of Christopher’s dark coat and Sharpe’s green jacket he could see nothing.
Williamson had fallen straight into the deepest part of the ravine and by chance had landed in a swirling pool of the river that was deep enough to break his fall and he had pitched forward onto the corpse of a horse that had further cushioned him. Christopher was less fortunate. He fell close to Williamson, but his left leg struck rock and his ankle was suddenly a mass of pain and the river water was cold as ice. He clung to Williamson and looked about desperately and saw no sign of any pursuit and he reasoned that Sharpe could not stay long on the bridge in the face of the retreating French. „Get me to the bank,” he told Williamson. „I think my ankle’s broken.”
„You’ll be all right, sir,” Williamson said. „I’m here, sir,” and he put an arm round the Colonel’s waist and helped him toward the neatest bank.
„Where’s Kate?” Christopher asked.
„She ran, sir, she ran, but we’ll find her, sir. We’ll find her. Here we are, sir, we can climb here.” Williamson hauled Christopher onto rocks beside the water and looked for an easy way to climb the ravine’s side and instead saw Sharpe. He swore.
„What is it?” Christopher was in too much pain to notice much.
„That bloody jacked-up jack pudding,” Williamson said and drew the saber that he had taken from a dead French officer on the road near the seminary. „Bloody Sharpe,” he explained.
Sharpe had escaped the rush of oncoming Frenchmen by jumping for the side of the ravine where a gorse sapling clung to a ledge. Its stem bent under his weight, but it held and he had managed to find a foothold on the wet rock beneath and then jump down to another boulder where his feet had shot out from beneath him so that he slid down the big stone’s rounded side to crash into the river, but the sword was still in his hand and in front of him was Williamson and beside the deserter was a wet and terrified Christopher. Rain hissed about them as the dark ravine was garishly lit by a stab of lightning.
„My telescope,” Sharpe said to Christopher.
„Of course, Sharpe, of course.” Christopher pulled his sopping wet coat-tails up, groped in one of his pockets and took out the glass. „Not damaged!” he said brightly. „I only borrowed it.”
„Put it on that boulder,” Sharpe ordered.
„Not damaged at all!” Christopher said, putting the precious glass on the boulder. „And well done, Lieutenant!” Christopher nudged Williamson, who was just watching Sharpe.
Sharpe took a step nearer the two men, who both backed away. Christopher pushed Williamson again, trying to make him attack Sharpe, but the deserter was wary. The longest blade he had ever used in a fight was a sword bayonet, but that experience had not trained him to fight with a saber and especially not against a butcher’s blade like the heavy cavalry sword that Sharpe held. He stepped back, waiting for an opportunity.
„I’m glad you’re here, Sharpe,” Christopher said. „I was wondering how to get away from the French. They were keeping a pretty close eye on me, as you can imagine. I have lots to tell Sir Arthur. He’s done well, hasn’t he?”
„He’s done well,” Sharpe agreed, „and he wants you dead.”
„Don’t be ridiculous, Sharpe! We’re English!” Christopher had lost his hat when he jumped and the rain was flattening his hair. „We don’t assassinate people.”
„I do,” Sharpe said, and he took a step nearer again, and Christopher and Williamson edged away.
Christopher watched Sharpe pick up the glass. „Not damaged, you see? I took good care of it.” He had to shout to make himself heard over the seething rain and the crash of the river thrusting through the rocks. He pushed Williamson forward again, but the man obstinately refused to attack and Christopher now found himself trapped on a slippery ledge between cliff and river, and the Colonel, in this last extremity, finally abandoned trying to talk himself out of trouble and simply shoved the deserter toward Sharpe. „Kill him!” he shouted at Williamson. „Kill him!”
The hard shove in his back seemed to startle Williamson, who nevertheless raised the saber and slashed it at Sharpe’s head. There was a great clang as the two blades met, then Sharpe kicked the deserter’s left knee, a kick that made Williamson’s leg buckle, and Sharpe, who looked as though he was not making any particular effort, sliced the sword across Williamson’s neck so that the deserter was knocked back to the right and then the sword lunged through the rifleman’s green jacket and into his belly. Sharpe twisted the blade to stop it being trapped by the suction of flesh, ripped it free and watched the dying Williamson topple into the river. „I hate deserters,” Sharpe said, „I do so hate bloody deserters.”
Christopher had watched his man defeated and seen that Sharpe had not had to fight hard at all to do it. „No, Sharpe,” he said, „you don’t understand!” He tried to think of the words that would make Sharpe think, make him step back, but the Colonel’s mind was in panic and the words would not come.
Sharpe watched Williamson. For a moment the dying man tried to struggle out of the river, but the blood ran red from his neck and his belly and he suddenly flopped back and his ugly face sank under the water. „I do so
