"You go too far, " Gudin said. He outranked Caillou, but only by virtue of having been a colonel longer than the infantryman.

"I go too far?" Caillou spat in derision. "But at least I care more for France than for a pack of sniveling women. If you lose my Eagle, Gudin, " he pointed to the tricolor beneath its statuette of the Eagle, "I'll see you face a firing squad."

Gudin did not bother to reply, but just walked his horse towards the gate. He felt an immense sadness. Caillou was right, he thought, he was a failure.

It had all begun in India, 13 years before, when Seringapatam had fallen, and since then, nothing had gone right. He had not received one promotion in all those years, but had gone from one misfortune to the next until now he was the commander of a useless fort in a bleak landscape. And if he could escape? That would be a victory, especially if he could take Caillou's precious Eagle safe across the Pyrenees, but was even an Eagle worth the life of so many women and children?

He smiled down at his Sergeant. "You can open the gate. And once we've left, sergeant, light the fuses."

"The women, sir?" the sergeant asked anxiously. "They are coming?"

"They're coming, Pierre."

The Dragoons left first. It was dusk. Gudin planned to march all night in the hope that by dawn he would have left any partisans far behind. Until then, he had hardly been worried by the fearsome Spanish guerilleros, but those savage men had few French enemies left in Spain and were closing on the remaining enemy fortresses like vultures scenting death.

Gudin had spread a rumor that he intended to march his garrison to join the beleaguered French troops in Pamplona, and he hoped that might keep the partisans away from the road that led northwards, but he doubted the rumor would work.