Sharpe’s Eagle: The Talavera Campaign, July 1809. Bernard Cornwell

Epaulettes of twisted golden strands were encrusted with semi-precious stones; their coats were piped with silver threads, frogged and plumed, sashed and shining. It was a dazzling display.

      The men came next, a shambling mess, rattled on to the field by energetic but erratic drummers. Sharpe was appalled. All he had heard of the Spanish army seemed to be true in the Regimienta; their weapons looked dull and uncared for, there was no spirit in their bearing, and Madrid seemed suddenly a long way off if this was the quality of the allies who would help clear the road. There was a renewed energy from the Spanish drummers as the two trumpeters challenged the sky with a resounding fanfare. Then silence.

      ‘Now what?’ Hogan muttered.

      Speeches. Wellesley, wise in the ways of diplomacy, escaped as the Spanish Colonel came forward to harangue the South Essex. There was no official translator but Hogan, who spoke passable Spanish, told Sharpe the Colonel was offering the British a chance, a small chance, to share in the glorious triumph of the Spanish warriors over their enemy. The glorious Spanish warriors, prompted by their non-commissioned officers, cheered the speech while the South Essex, prompted by Simmerson, did the same. Salutes were exchanged, arms presented, there were more fanfares, more drums, all climaxing in the appearance of a priest who, riding a small grey donkey, blessed the Santa Maria with the help of small, white-surpliced boys. Pointedly the pagan British were not included in the pleas to the Almighty.

      Hogan took out his snuff box. ‘Do you think they’ll fight?’

      ‘God knows.’ The year before, Sharpe knew, a Spanish army had forced the surrender of twenty thousand Frenchmen so there was no doubting that the Spaniards could fight if their leadership and organisation were equal to their ambitions. But, to Sharpe, the evidence of the Regimienta suggested that their immediate allies had neither the organisation nor the leaders to do anything except, perhaps, make bombastic speeches.

      At half past ten, five hours late, the Battalion finally shrugged on its packs and followed the Santa Maria across the old bridge. Sharpe and Hogan travelled ahead of the South Essex and immediately behind a far from warlike Spanish rearguard. A bunch of mules was being coaxed along, loaded high with luxuries to keep the Spanish officers comfortable in the field, while, in the middle of the beasts, rode the priest who continually turned and smiled nervously with blackened teeth at the heathens on his tail. Strangest of all were three white-dressed young women who rode thoroughbred horses and carried fringed parasols. They giggled constantly, turned and peeped at the Riflemen, and looked incongruously like three brides on horseback. What a way, Sharpe thought, to go to war.

      By midday the column had covered a mere five miles and had come to a complete stop. Trumpets sounded at the head of the Regimienta, officers galloped in urgent clouds of dust up and down the ranks, and the soldiers simply dropped their weapons and packs and sat down in the road. Anyone with any kind of rank started to argue, the priest, stuck among the mules, screamed hysterically at a mounted officer, while the three women wilted visibly and fanned themselves with their white-gloved hands. Christian Gibbons walked his horse to the head of the British column and sat staring at the three women. Sharpe looked up at him.

      ‘The middle one is the prettiest.’

      ‘Thank you.’ Gibbons spoke with a heavy irony. ‘That’s civil of you, Sharpe.’ He was about to urge his horse forward when Sharpe put a hand on the bridle.

      ‘Spanish officers, I hear, are very fond of duelling.’

      ‘Ah.’ Gibbons stared icily down on Sharpe. ‘You may have a point.’ He wheeled his horse back down the road.

      Hogan was shouting at the priest, in Spanish, trying to discover why they had stopped. The priest smiled his blackened smile and raised his eyes to heaven as if to say it was all God’s will and there was nothing to be done about it.

      ‘Damn this!’ Hogan looked round urgently. ‘Damn! Don’t they know how much time we’ve lost? Where’s the Colonel?’

      Simmerson was not far behind. He and Forrest arrived with a clatter of hooves. ‘What the devil’s happening?’

      ‘I don’t know, sir. Spanish have sat down.’

      Simmerson licked his lips. ‘Don’t they know we’re in a hurry?’ No one spoke. The Colonel looked round the officers as though one of them might suggest an answer. ‘Come on, then. We’ll see what it’s about. Hogan, will you translate?’

      Sharpe fell his men out as the mounted officers rode up the column and the Riflemen sat beside the road with their packs beside them. The Spanish appeared to be asleep. The sun was high and the road surface reflected a searing heat. Sharpe touched the muzzle of his rifle by mistake and flinched from the hot metal. Sweat trickled down his neck and the glare of the sun, reflected from the metal ornaments of the Spanish infantry, was dazzling. There were still fifteen miles to go. The three women rode their horses slowly towards the head of the Regimienta, one of them turned and waved coquettishly to the Riflemen and Harper blew her a kiss, and when they had gone the dust drifted gently on to the thin grass of the verge.

      Fifteen minutes of silence passed before Simmerson, Forrest and Hogan pounded back from their meeting with the Spanish Colonel. Sir Henry was not pleased. ‘Damn them! They’ve stopped for the day!’

      Sharpe looked questioningly at Hogan. The Engineer nodded. ‘It’s true. There’s an inn up there and the officers have settled in.’

      ‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’ Simmerson was pounding the pommel of his saddle. ‘What are we to do?’

      The mounted officers glanced at each other. Simmerson was the man who had to make the decision and none of them answered his question, but there was only one thing to do. Sharpe looked at Harper.

      ‘Form up, Sergeant.’

      Harper bellowed orders. The Spanish muleteers, their rest disturbed, looked curiously as the Riflemen pulled on their packs and formed ranks.

      ‘Bayonets, Sergeant.’

      The order was given and the long, brass-handled sword-bayonets rasped from the scabbards. Each blade was twenty-three inches long, each sharp and brilliant in the sun. Simmerson looked nervously at the weapons. ‘What the devil are you doing, Sharpe?’

      ‘Only one thing to do, sir.’

      Simmerson looked left and right at Forrest and Hogan, but they offered him no help. ‘Are you proposing we should simply carry on, Sharpe?’

      It’s what you should have proposed, thought Sharpe, but instead he nodded. ‘Isn’t that what you intended, sir?’

      Simmerson was not sure. Wellesley had impressed on him the need for speed but there was also the duty not to offend a touchy ally. But what if the bridge should already be occupied by the French? He looked at the Riflemen, grim in their dark uniforms, and then at the Spanish who lolled in the roadway smoking cigarettes. ‘Very well.’

      ‘Sir.’ Sharpe turned to Harper. ‘Four ranks, Sergeant.’

      Harper took a deep breath. ‘Company! Double files to the right!’

      There were times when Sharpe’s men, for all their tattered uniforms, knew how to startle a Militia Colonel. With a snap and a precision that would have done credit to the Guards the even numbered files stepped backwards; the whole company, without another word of command, turned to the right and instead of two ranks there were now four facing towards the Spanish. Harper had paused for a second while the movement was carried out. ‘Quick march!’

      They marched. Their boots crashed on to the road scattering mules and muleteers before them. The priest took one look, kicked his heels, and the donkey bolted into the field.

      ‘Come on, you bastards!’ Harper shouted. ‘March as if you mean it!’

      They did. They pushed their tempo up to the Light Infantry quick march and stamped with their boots so that the dust flew up. Behind them the South Essex were formed and following, before them the Regimienta split apart into the fields, the officers running from the white-walled inn and screaming at the