 Sharp's battle, by Bernard Cornwell, read by Paul McGahn. Sharp's war. Then in desperation he turned the map upside down. Might as well not have a bloody map, he said, for all the bloody use it is. We could light a fire with it, Sergeant Harper suggested. It's not bloody use for anything else, Sharp said. The hand-drawn map showed a scatter of villages, a few spidery lines for roads, streams, and hills, whereas all Sharp could seep as mountains, gray, bleak mountains with peaks shrouded by mists, and valleys cooked by streams turned white and full by the spring rains. Sharp had led his company into the high ground, on the border between Spain and Portugal, and there become lost. His company, forty soldiers, seemed not to care. They were just grateful for the rest, and so sat all day beside the grassy track, while Captain Richard Sharp crumpled the map into a ball and swore, I'm bloody lost. My grandad got lost once. Harper said helpfully. He bought a bullock from a fella in Clonelli Parish, and decided to take a shortcut home across the Derivé Mountains. Then the fog rolled in, and grandad couldn't tell his left from his right, and the bullock bolted into the fog and jumped clear over a cliff into the Barra Valley. Grandad said you could hear the poor wee beast bellowing all the way down, and there was a thump like you dropped a bagpipe off a church tire only louder. Jesus bloody wept, Sharp exploded. It was a valuable beast, Harper protested. Lieutenant Price had been at the rear of the column, but now joined his commanding officer. Are we lost, sir? No hurry. I came over the hell of it, wherever the hell this is. Sharp stared glumly about the damp, bleak valley. We need a compass, he said. Or a map, Lieutenant Price suggested happily. We've got a bloody map here! Sharp thrust the balled-up map into the Lieutenant's hands. Major Hogan drew it for me, and I can't make head nor tail out of it. Sharp, on his way to Villa Famoso, where his company, the light company of the South Essex Regiment, would be attached to the town major as a guard unit, had heard a distant cannonade, and had marched toward the sound, only to discover that the noise of the skirmish, if indeed it was not thunder, had faded away, and now Sharp was lost. One thing certain, Sharp said. We haven't crossed the watershed, which means these streams must be flowing west, so we'll follow the bloody streams. I said my grandad did. Harper said. He followed. Shut up! Sharp said quietly, and gestured to make his companion's crouch. Bloody crapo! He said softly, or something. Never seen a uniform like it. A horseman had appeared out of a side valley. Harper cocked his rifle. Sharp's men were all alert now, and lying motionless in the grass. Even if the horseman had turned, he would not have noticed the infantry. The horseman had a short, grey dragoon jacket, grey trousers, and a grey horse-herd plume on his steel grey helmet. Spaniard, Sharp wondered. The don's roll was gaudy, sir, Harper said. He's got crapper weapons, Price said. The horseman was indeed armed like a French dragoon. He wore a straight sword, had a short, barrelled carbine, and abrasive pistols, but French dragoons always wore green coats. The man looked about, saw nothing to alarm him, and spurred his horse back into the side valley. He was scouting. Harper said softly. They made a bloody bad job of it, Sharp commented. We're going to see who those bastards are. He pointed uphill. You first, Harry. Take your fellas our way up. Lieutenant Price led the red coats of Sharp's company up the steep slope. Half of the company wore the red jackets of Britain's line infantry, while the other half, like Sharp himself, had the green jackets of the elite rifle regiments. It had been an accident of war that had stranded Sharp and his riflemen in a red coat battalion, but sheer bureaucratic inertia that had held them there. You think we've crossed the lines? Harper asked Sharp. Like he's not, Sharp said soundly, still angry at himself, not that anyone knows where the damn lines are. The French were retreating out of Portugal. Throughout the winter of 1810, the enemy had stayed in front of the lines of Torres Vedras, just half days march from Lisbon. And there they'd frozen and half starved to death rather than retreat to their supply depots in Spain. Marshal Massenaire had known that retreat would yield all Portugal to the British, while to attack the lines of Torres Vedras would be pure suicide. Sample complete. Ready to continue?