The cart lurched from side to side, for one of the horses was a big plough horse while the other, much smaller had been an offside leader on a French gun team and Sharpe had deliberately harnessed it on the wrong side. The horse would hate being on the nearside, and Sharpe knew it would pull like a pig. "You have to rein in the big horse, " Sharpe told the driver. "I know how to drive, " the man said, and the cart lurched again, almost throwing Lebecque clear across the cart. "Rein it in, " Sharpe said, "and let the little one set the pace." "Shut your face, " the man said, then cracked the whip again and the big horse jerked forward, the small one swerved, and Lebecque and the other guard held on tight as the cart jolted up over the road's central ridge.

«Bastards!» The driver swore at the horses and lashed down with the whip, and the old gun horse shoved at the plough horse and the cart pitched again like a storm-tossed boat. "I" m telling you! " Sharpe shouted, "let the little horse lead! " Lebecque swore as the cart bumped down again into the ruts. «Stop!» he shouted, and the driver obediently hauled on the curb reins «You,» Lebecque pointed at Sharpe, "you drive. And I'll be beside you with this." He lifted his coat to show Sharpe the big pistol again. Sharpe obediently climbed onto the box. Lebecque joined him there, while the two other men settled in the back. Those two men were also armed with pistols, but Sharpe had them where he wanted them, just as he was where he wanted to be. He had escaped the farm, he was ready to fight back. He clicked his tongue, curbed the plough horse's speed, and let the cart climb the steady slope to the village. The snow was fitful and light, whirling in the black branches, but the sky was ominously dark and Sharpe reckoned blizzard was coming. He knew that a heavy fall of snow would never let him reach Caen and back in a day, but nor did he have any intention of going to Caen, for Monsieur Plaquet did not exist, nor was there any great iron-bound chest in a stone vault on the Rue Deauville. There was just a woman and a child to rescue. Shawled women were hurrying along the village street to the Christmas Eve mass in the little church. Sharpe nodded to one or two, then saw Jacques Malan standing in the doorway of the tavern.