Captain Smith commanded that picquet and he would give Sharpe warning if the escaping French garrison came into sight. But what would Sharpe do then? If he marched his men south the French brigade would climb the slope and take him in the rear, while if he stayed on this high crest the garrison troops would appear in the valley behind him. He just had to hope that the garrison did not come today.

There was still no sign of the French who had camped in the deep valley beyond the frontier. They would be bitterly cold by now, cold and scared and damp and unhappy, while Sharpe's men were as comfortable as they could be in this miserable place. Except for the sentries, they had spent the night inside Irati's fire-warmed houses where they had made a decent breakfast from twice-baked bread and sour salt beef.

Sharpe stamped his feet and blew on his cold hands. When would the French come? He was not really in any hurry, for the longer they delayed, the more hope he had of keeping them out of the village all day, but he had a soldier's impatience to get the grim business done. Grim, at least, for the French, for Sharpe had set them a trap on the road.

The road twisted down from the frontier into a small hanging combe that overlooked the deeper valley where the French had spent their uncomfortable night. In that smaller valley which the dawn now touched with a grey, damp light, there were twenty-one big wine barrels. The barrels were arranged in several groups of three and each group blocked the narrow track up which the French must come.

Above the barrels, hidden among the rocks, were fifteen riflemen. The French hated riflemen. They did not use the rifle, reckoning that it took too long to load, but Sharpe had learned to love the weapon. It might be slow in battle, but it could kill at give times the range of a smoothbore musket and he had more than once seen a handful of riflemen turn a battle's fate.