Then it seemed that everything would be lost. There were shouts ahead and Sharpe looked up to see blue uniforms running down the hill towards the bridge. Voltigeurs! French Light infantry, their red epaulettes distinctive in the sunlight, and Sharpe swore for he knew that these troops had been sent out of the fortresses to see Delmas to safety. A dozen Frenchmen were coming down the hill, while others waited at its crest.

Sharpe crawled, pushing himself on, Harper’s breathing hoarse behind him. It truly did seem hopeless now. The Voltigeurs would reach Delmas long before Sharpe or Harper could, but he would not give up. A shard of stone, chipped by a canister strike, clanged on the metal scabbard of his sword while another skinned across his knuckles and drew bright blood.

The Voltigeurs were at the bridge’s end, lining it, fumbling their muskets into the firing position, and Delmas was just feet away. A rifle bullet cracked past Sharpe, he saw a French Voltigeur duck away from the passing of the bullet, and then another Frenchman pitched forward. Forward! Sharpe looked up. There was musket smoke from the houses of the city which bordered the wasteland the French had cleared about the fortresses. “Look!” He pointed up. “The Sixth must have got here!”

It was not the Sixth Division. The muskets were being fired by the citizens of Salamanca, venting their anger on the French who had occupied the city for so long. The Voltigeurs were caught between the two fires; the Riflemen firing across the long bridge and the Spaniards aiming from behind.

“Come on!” They had reached the safe part of the bridge, that part which could not be reached by the guns, but at the same moment Delmas had stumbled into the arms of his rescuers who were already retreating, taking the fugitive up towards the forts.