Sharpes Havoc   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

Hundreds of French prisoners were under guard in a warehouse anda long row of captured French guns was parked on the river’s quay where the British merchant ships that had been captured when the city fell now flew their own flags again. Marshal Soult and his army had marched away east toward the bridge at Amarante that the French had captured so recently and they were blissfully unaware that General Beresford, the new commander of the Portuguese army, had recaptured the bridge and was waiting for them.

„If they can’t cross at Amarante,” Wellesley demanded that evening, „then where will they go?” The question was asked in the blue reception room of the Palacio das Carrancas where Wellesley and his staff had eaten a meal that had evidently been cooked for Marshal Soult and which had been found still hot in the palace’s ovens. The meal had been lamb, which Sir Arthur liked, but so tricked out with onions, scraps of ham and mushrooms that its taste had been quite spoiled for him. „I thought the French appreciated cooking,” he had grumbled, then demanded that an orderly bring him a bottle of vinegar from the kitchens. He had doused the lamb, scraped away the offending mushrooms and onions, and decided the meal was much improved.

Now, with the remnants of the meal cleared away, the officers crowded about a hand-drawn map that Captain Hogan had spread on the table. Sir Arthur traced a finger across the map. „They’ll want to get back to Spain, of course,” he said, „but how?”

He had expected Colonel Waters, the most senior of the exploring officers, to answer the question, but Waters had not ridden the north country and so the Colonel nodded to Captain Hogan, the most junior officer in the room. Hogan had spent the weeks before Soult’s invasion mapping the Tras os Montes, the wild northern mountains where the roads twisted and the rivers ran fast and the bridges were few and narrow. Portuguese troops were even now marching to cut off those bridges and so deny the French the roads which would lead them back to their fortresses in Spain, and Hogan now tapped the vacant space on the map north of the road from Oporto to Amarante. „If Amarante’s taken, sir, and our fellows capture Braga tomorrow,” Hogan paused and glanced at Sir Arthur who gave an irritable nod, „then Soult is in a pickle, a real pickle. He’ll have to cross the Serra de Santa Catalina and there are no carriage roads in those hills.”

„What is there?” Wellesley asked, staring at the forbidding vacancy of the map.

„Goat tracks,” Hogan said, „wolves, footpaths, ravines and very angry peasants.