Bernard Cornwell · 2003 · overland
Bernard Cornwell's novel of the northern Portugal campaign, spring 1809. Marshal Soult holds Oporto and has broken every bridge on the Douro, and Wellesley intends to cross anyway. Sharpe, cut off north of the river with a handful of riflemen and an English girl he has been ordered to escort, has to survive behind French lines until the army arrives.
- 1Oporto
The French take Oporto and the pontoon bridge collapses under the fleeing population, drowning hundreds in the Douro - and Sharpe is left on the wrong bank with twenty riflemen and orders he cannot carry out.
- 2Barca d'Avintas
Upstream at Avintas the wine barges have been scuttled rather than burned, and raising them gives Wellesley what Soult believed impossible: a way over the Douro in daylight, straight into the seminary on the far bank.
- 3Amarante
With his line of retreat threatened at Amarante, Soult abandons Oporto, his guns and his baggage and runs for the mountains - and the pursuit turns into the kind of running fight the riflemen were made for.
- 4The Serra do Marao
The French escape over the Serra do Marao by a goat track in the rain, destroying what they cannot carry - and Sharpe, hunting a British traitor as much as the enemy, follows them into the hills.