IN ONE way, Colonel Jean Gudin had been untypically lucky, for not one partisan had troubled his column on its dark road north, but in every other way his usual ill fortune had prevailed.

First, one of the dragoon horses had stumbled on a frozen rut in the road and broken its leg. By itself, it was no great accident, and the poor beast was put out of its misery swiftly enough, but in the dark the commotion caused a long delay. The carcass was finally hauled from the road and the column had trudged on, only to have the dragoon vanguard take a wrong turning a few kilometres further on.

That, at least, was not Gudin's fault, any more than an injured horse was his fault, but it was typical of his luck. It was almost dawn by the time the column had turned itself about and found the right track winding up towards the high pass. By then, Gudin had surrendered his horse to one of his lieutenants who had a fever and could hardly walk.

Colonel Caillou was fuming at the delay. He had never, he claimed, in all his service as a soldier, seen such ineptitude. A halfwit could do better than Colonel Gudin. "We are supposed to be at the pass by midday, " he insisted. "We shall be lucky to be there by nightfall."

Gudin ignored the colonel's ranting. There was nothing to be done, except press on and be thankful that the guerilleros were all asleep in their beds.

In three days' time, Gudin reflected, he could be back at a depot in France.

He would be safe. And so long as no British troops waited at the frontier he should save Caillou's Eagle and so spare himself the firing squad.

It was just after dawn that the next accident occurred. The column was dragging two wagons, one carrying the heavily pregnant Maria and the second loaded with what small baggage the garrison had managed to rescue from the fort. The axle of that second wagon broke and suddenly the horses were dragging stumps of splintering wood across the rutted road. Gudin sighed.