«No,» Ducos said, "the Emperor wants you to send men to defeat Wellington."

Soult looked at the map. The mention of Napoleon had stilled his protests, and in truth the idea that Major Ducos had suggested was not unappealing.

It was daring, very daring. By itself it might not destroy Wellington, but it would unbalance him and bring him hurrying back to the Portuguese border. Such a retreat would save Madrid, it would give Marmont time to reform his army and it would damage Wellington's reputation.

Take a few thousand men, Ducos had suggested, and march them eastwards until they could cross the headwaters of the Guadiana. There they must strike north, through Madridejos to Toledo, where the bridge over the Tagus was still in French hands. The British would find nothing odd in such a manouevre, indeed they would assume that Soult was merely retreating northwards like the rest of the French armies. But from Toledo, Ducos urged, the force should strike north west towards the roads on which Wellington's supply convoys travelled. To reach those vulnerable roads they must cross the Sierra de Gredos, then bridge the deep, fast-flowing River Tormes. That was the problem, crossing the river, but Ducos had identified a little-used bridge guarded by a mediaeval fortress called San Miguel. At best, Ducos told Soult, San Miguel would be garrisoned by a company of Spaniards, maybe two, and once across the bridge the French would be in the flat country across which the British supply line ran from Portugal. "The British believe they are safe, " Ducos urged Soult. "They believe there is not a Frenchman within a hundred miles of those roads!

They are sleeping."

And if Soult's picked force could come down from the Sierra de Gredos like a pack of wolves then for a week, no more, they could destroy, capture and kill, before they would need to march away. A ring of retreating British troops would otherwise tighten about them, but that week could save the French in Spain. And it would also make the Emperor very grateful to Nicolas Jean-de Dieu Soult, Duke of Dalmatia.