Sharpe’s Rifles. Bernard Cornwell

fur hat was in the gorge. Next to him rode the tall man in a black riding coat and white boots.

      ‘Fire!’ Sharpe shouted.

      A dozen rifles flamed. Bullets whined in ricochet, and two more horsemen fell. The man in red and the man in black were safe. They seemed to stare directly into Sharpe’s eyes for an instant, then a fusillade from above made them turn their horses and spur away to safety. The Riflemen jeered, and Sharpe snapped them into silence. ‘And reload!’

      The French had gone. Water dripped from thawing icicles that hung from rocks. A wounded horse whinnied. The filthy smoke of gunfire drifted in the gorge. A Rifleman vomited blood, then sighed. Another man wept. The wounded horse was silenced by a rifle shot, and the sound slammed in brutal echoes from the rock walls.

      Footsteps sounded behind Sharpe. It was Blas Vivar who walked past him, past the greenjackets, and knelt by the mule. He carefully unstrapped the strongbox from the dead beast’s harness. Then, standing, he looked up at Harper. ‘You saved it, my friend.’

      ‘I did, sir?’ It was clear the Irishman had no idea what value Vivar placed on the chest.

      The Spaniard reached up to the huge man and kissed both his cheeks. One of Sharpe’s Riflemen sniggered, then was shamed to silence by the moment’s solemnity.

      ‘You saved it,’ Vivar said again, and there were tears in his eyes. Then he lifted the strongbox and carried it back up the canyon.

      Sharpe followed. His men, silent and cold, came down to the roadway. There was no exultation in victory for, unnoticed until this moment, and far beyond the abandoned French barricade, a smear of grey smoke rose into the winter air. It rose from the village, and the smoke was grey as a pauper’s shroud and carried the stench of death and fire.

      And from it, like dark snow, ashes fell on a bloodied land.