Napoleon swallowed at the pitiful sight.They had died at his order. His temper had snapped and their lives had been thrown away. His headache was worse than ever and he reached up and rubbed his brow. Then he gestured to one of his remaining orderlies. ‘Ride back to headquarters. I want a regiment of Guard cavalry brought forward.They are to wait below the pass until they are ordered to charge.’

As he waited for reinforcements Napoleon watched as Ruffin’s men steadily fought their way forward again and began to take on the Spanish infantry in an unequal musket duel. Better training and discipline on the part of the French meant that enemy soldiers soon melted away. A dense column of chasseurs pounded up the road past Napoleon’s hillock, formed into lines just below the crest and stood waiting with drawn sabres. Up ahead the smoke from the musket duel wreathed the pass, swirling away here and there as the wind carried it off. Through such a gap Napoleon saw that the Spanish line was wavering and immediately sent forward the order to charge.

The strident notes of cavalry trumpets echoed down the slope and then the horsemen swept forward in a rumbling wave, sweeping round the end of Ruffin’s infantry and rolling up the enemy line before splitting in two and charging each of the enemy batteries. It was a brave sight. Too brave for the defenders, who threw down their weapons and their equipment and ran for their lives. Napoleon watched for a while longer until he could be sure that the pass was in French hands. Then, wincing at the pounding agony in his head, he turned his horse away from the battle and rode back down to the village of Sepúlveda. Berthier sent for his camp bed from the army wagon train and had it set up in a small cell built on one side of the church for the local priest. Napoleon gratefully collapsed on to his bed, fully dressed, and fell into a deep sleep.

Chapter 49

Chapter 49

As soon as the last of the enemy was cleared from the pass the army advanced over the Guadarrama range and on to the plain beyond. The first French cavalry patrols rode warily into the suburbs of the Spanish capital the day after the Battle of Somosierra. They reported back to imperial headquarters that the Madrid junta had ordered the arming of thousands of the common people, and the construction of makeshift defences and artillery positions to cover the approaches to the capital’s gates. In the first days of December the French army made camp outside the city and constructed their own batteries of siege guns ready to pound the hastily erected defences surrounding the entrance to Madrid.