"Sir?" The lanky Price had been resting in the shade of a wayside chapel built at the bridge's northern end and now jerked up as though he had been woken.

"I saw some strange uniforms among those vines, " Sharpe pointed south down the long white road which stretched towards the hills of the Sierra de Gredos. "The vineyard beside that white farmhouse, see it?"

Price peered. "The far vineyard, sir?" He asked in disbelief.

"The very far vineyard, " Sharpe confirmed. "Take the whole company and search for the bastards. Looked like a dozen of them."

Price frowned. "But if they see us coming, sir, they'll. ."

"Run away?" Sharpe asked. "I wouldn't run away from you, Harry, why should they? On your feet, all of you! You've got work! " He strode across the bridge, stirring the company who were dust-stained, sweat soaked and exhausted. They had been marched back from Wellington's advancing army for this duty and they had been on the roads for two long days and all they wanted now was to sleep, drink and sleep again. "Sergeant Huckfield!»

Sharpe called. "Form the company! Sharply, now! Don't want those rascals escaping!»

Lieutenant Price was standing on the bridge parapet to stare at the vines that lay at least two miles away across a dry landscape shimmering in the summer heat. "I don't see anyone there, sir. Maybe they were there, sir, but not now."

«Go!» Sharpe shouted. "Don't let the bastards get away! Hurry! At the double! " He watched the company leave, then turned to Harper. "Is that the fastest you can break those bottles, Sergeant?" Harper and his three men were fetching the bottles from the store room, then stacking them beside the wayside shrine which was a small stone building about ten foot square with a plaster Madonna inside, and only then carrying them one at a time to the bridge parapet. "A spavined cripple could break them faster than you, " Sharpe snapped.