The two Riflemen ran forward. They were safe for a moment, hidden from the gunners by the houses, but Sharpe knew that as soon as they emerged onto the bridge the canisters would begin to rattle the ancient stones. He led Harper left, into what little protection the crenellated, low parapet might give, but the very instant that they stepped onto the bridge was the moment they both instinctively dropped to the roadway, heads covered, appalled by the sudden storm of canister that tangled the air above the bridge.

“God save Ireland.” Harper muttered.

“God kill that bastard. Come on!”

They crawled, keeping below the parapet, and their pace was pitifully slow so that Sharpe could see Delmas opening the gap between them. In his path the Frenchman seemed to leave a maelstrom of striking shot, screaming stone shards chipped from the road, the noise of metal on stone, yet the Frenchman was untouched, kept safe by the gunner’s accuracy, and Sharpe could sense that Delmas was escaping.

“Down, sir!” Harper unceremoniously pushed Sharpe with a huge hand, and Sharpe knew that the horrid seven-barrelled gun was being aimed over his head. He clapped his hands to his ears, abandoning the sword for a second, and waited for the explosion above his head.

It was a horrid weapon, a gift from Sharpe to his Sergeant, and a gun that only a huge man could handle. It had been made for the Royal Navy, intended as a weapon to be fired from the topworks down onto the packed decks of enemy ships, but the vicious recoil of the seven half-inch barrels had thrown the sailors clear out of the rigging, sending them falling with fractured shoulders onto their own decks. Patrick Harper, the huge Irishman, was one of the few men who had the brute strength to use one, and now he aimed the stubby, bunched barrels at the pantalooned figure that was limping beneath the arch of the small fortress.