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at the same time as the Dagoes, sir?’
    â€˜We were.’
    God only knew what had gone wrong, but gone wrong it had. The Spaniards, instead of waiting until Beresford’s diversionary attack was in position to the south, had precipitately charged up the ridge’s northern slopes. Their bright uniforms and gaudy colours made a brave show, but it was a gallant display being eviscerated by the concentrated fire of the deadly twelve-pounders.
    â€˜Halt! Halt!’ Divisional officers were galloping back down Beresford’s column. ‘Face right! Face right!’
    Battalion officers and sergeants took up the cry and the great column halted and clumsily turned to face the bleak, steep slope at the ridge’s centre.
    Nairn, who had been riding at the head of his brigade, spurred back. ‘Column of half companies!’ he ordered. It seemed that Marshal Beresford must be contemplating an immediate assault on the ridge. Certainly, if Beresford was to divert attention from the Spanish attack then he could not wait till he reached the gentler slopes at the ridge’s southern end, but would be forced to launch his eleven thousand men on a desperate uphill scramble against the French entrenchments.
    The French batteries, seeing the British and Portuguese battalions shake into their attack columns, kept firing. ‘Lie down!’ Nairn shouted. ‘Lie down!’
    The battalions dropped, making themselves a smaller and lower target for the enemy gunners, but leaving the officers on horseback feeling horribly exposed. Sharpe stared at the ridge and feared its muscle-sapping steepness. The sun, just rising above the summit, was suddenly dazzling.
    â€˜Wait here, Sharpe!’ Nairn was excited. ‘I’ll discover what’s happening. You wait here!’
    Sharpe waited. After breakfast he had pushed some bread and beef into a saddle bag and now, suddenly hungry, he gnawed at a lump of the meat.
    â€˜They’ve cocked it up!’ Colonel Taplow, his red face as bad-tempered as ever, rode to Sharpe’s side. ‘The Spanish have cocked it up, Sharpe!’
    â€˜So it seems, sir.’ A cannonball thumped the earth to Sharpe’s left. Sycorax skittered sideways until Sharpe soothed her.
    â€˜Seems?’ Taplow was incensed by the mild word. ‘They’ve cocked it up, that’s what they’ve done. Cocked it up!’ He gestured to the north where a new sound erupted as French musketry began flaying the Spaniards. The crackle of musketry was a thick, splintering sound that gave witness to just how many defenders had been waiting for the Spanish. ‘They went too early.’ Taplow seemed to revel in the Spanish mistake. ‘They couldn’t keep their breeches up, could they? Too much damned eagerness, Sharpe. No whippers-in, that’s their problem. No bottom. Not like the English. It’ll be up to us now, Sharpe, you mark my words. It’ll be up to us!’
    â€˜Indeed it will, sir.’
    The musketry was unending; a sustained terror of sound just like a million snapping rails of wood. And every snap meant another lead bullet flicking down the slope to strike home in the bunched Spanish ranks.
    â€˜Ah ha! Told you so! No bottom!’ Taplow crowed triumphantly for the Spanish had begun to retreat. The movement was slow at first, merely a slight edging backwards, but it swiftly turned into a quick scramble to escape the flailing bullets. Sharpe was astonished that the Spaniards had climbed as far as they had, and he doubted whether any troops in the world could have gone further, but Colonel Taplow was not so generous. ‘All priming and no charge, that’s the Dago’s problem. No bottom, Sharpe, no bottom. Have a boiled egg.’
    Sharpe accepted a hard-boiled egg which he ate as Beresford’s column patiently waited. The sun’s warmth was detectable now, and the small mist that had cloaked the western marshes was quite gone.