Sharpes Havoc   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

There were over a thousand of them, half trainedand ill armed, but an English major from the Portuguese staff had ridden ahead to give them advice. His strongest recommendation was to destroy the bridge, but many of the ordenanga came from the hard frontier hills and the soaring arch across the Misarella was the lifeline of their commerce and so they refused to heed Major Warre’s advice. Instead they compromised by knocking off the bridge’s parapets and narrowing its roadway by breaking the roadway’s stones with great sledgehammers, but they insisted on leaving a slim strip of stone to leap the deep ravine, and to defend the ribbon-like arch they barricaded the northern side of the bridge with an abattis made from thorn bushes, and behind that formidable obstacle, and on either side of it, they scraped earthworks behind which they could shelter as they fired at the French with ancient muskets and fowling guns. There was no artillery.

The strip of bridge that remained was just wide enough to let a farm cart cross the river’s ravine. It meant that once the French were gone the valley’s commerce could resume while the roadway and parapets were rebuilt. But to the French that narrow strip would mean only one thing: safety.

Hogan was the first to see that the bridge was not fully destroyed. He climbed off the mule and swore viciously, then handed Sharpe his telescope and Sharpe stared down at the bridge’s remnants. Musket smoke already shrouded both banks as the dragoons of the French vanguard fired across the ravine and the ordenanga in their makeshift redoubts shot back. The sound of the muskets was faint.

„They’ll get across,” Hogan said sadly, „they’ll lose a lot of men, but they’ll clear that bridge.”

Sharpe did not answer. Hogan was right, he thought. The French were making no effort to take the bridge now, but doubtless they were assembling an assault party and that meant he would have to find a place from where his riflemen could shoot at Christopher as he crossed the narrow stone arch. There was nowhere on this side of the river, but on the Misarella’s opposite bank there was a high stone bluff where a hundred or more ordenanqa were stationed. The bluff had to be less than two hundred paces from the bridge, too far for the Portuguese muskets, but it would provide a perfect vantage for his rifles, and if Christopher reached the center of the bridge he would be greeted by a dozen rifle bullets.

The problem was reaching the bluff. It was not far away, perhaps a half-mile, but between Sharpe and that enticing high ground was the Misarella. „We have to cross that river,” Sharpe said.