Free Sharpe's Eagle by Bernard Cornwell

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 Rifle-men and Harper blew her a kiss, and when

they had gone the dust drifted gently onto 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