"Then why don't we warn Salamanca?" Tubbs asked.

It was a good question, a damn good question, but Sharpe did not want to articulate his answer. He knew he should warn Salamanca, but he was scared of raising a false alarm. It was only his instinct that contradicted the peaceful appearance of the landscape, and what if he was wrong? Suppose that the garrison at Salamanca marched out half a battalion of redcoats and a battery of field guns, and with them a supply convoy and a squadron of dragoons, and all of it proved a waste? What would they say? That Captain Sharpe, up from the ranks, was an alarmist. He couldn't be trusted. He might be useful enough in a tight corner when there were frogs to be killed, but he was skittery as a virgin in a barrack's town when left to himself. "We don't warn Salamanca, " he told Tubbs firmly, "because we can deal with the bastards ourselves."

"You can?" Tubbs asked dubiously.

"Have you ever fought a battle, Major?" Sharpe whipped angrily at Tubbs.

"My dear fellow, I wasn't doubting you! " Tubbs held up both hands as though to ward Sharpe off. "My own nerves giving tongue, nothing more.

Tremulous, they are. I ain't a soldier like you. Of course you're right!»

Sharpe hoped to God he was, but he knew he was not. He knew he should summon reinforcements, but he would still stay and fight alone because he was too proud to lose face by looking nervous. "We'll beat the bastards, " he said, "if they come."

"I'm sure they won't, " Tubbs said.

And Sharpe prayed that Tubbs was right.

Three hundred French infantrymen were sacrificed in the defiles of the road that led up to Avila, and from all across the Sierra de Gredos partisans flooded to the fight, hurrying over the hills for this chance to slaughter the hated enemy. The three hundred men seemed to have marched too far ahead of the rest of their column, and they were doomed, for the other Frenchmen did not hurry to their assistance, but made camp in the plain. And there were too many Frenchmen camped on that southern plain, so the partisans concentrated on the doomed three hundred infantrymen who had ventured too far into the hills.