‘Yes, my lord.’ Philippon nodded as he stared at the Portuguese soldiers in their camp. ‘But I would rather surrender to English soldiers than the Portugese. In view of the . . . barbarity with which they have treated French prisoners before.’

‘I recall little difference between the barbarity of the Portuguese and that of the French under whom they were forced to suffer. In any case, I cannot afford to despatch one of my battalions to escort your men to Lisbon. I think you will find that the Portuguese, thanks to our training and example, will treat you with greater mercy than you have shown to many of their compatriots,’ Arthur concluded coldly. He lifted his hat. ‘I bid you good day, General. We shall not meet again. Make sure that the last of your men leaves the fort within the hour.’

Arthur turned his horse away and spurred it into a trot, a sour taste in his mouth.

It took four days for the soldiers to recover their senses and start drifting out of the city, nursing hangovers and clutching their spoils in loose bundles. The army’s provost general was all for disciplining them for being absent without leave, but Arthur ordered that no action be taken. Instead, fresh toops were sent into the town to fish out the last of the looters and eject them. Then the work of repairing the damage began. The sick and injured of Arthur’s army were carried into the castle’s barracks to be looked after by the surgeons of the units assigned to garrison the town.

A steady trickle of those who died from their wounds was added to the corpses laid out in a series of long graves a short distance from the walls. When each grave was filled, men wearing gin-soaked cloths about their faces to overcome the stench of the corpses shovelled earth over the bodies and then piled heavy stones on top to discourage wild dogs, carrion and human scavengers.

With Badajoz in English hands Arthur began to plan his next course of action as he waited for the latest reinforcements to reach the army. Despite the losses, his strength, when the fresh regiments and replacement drafts arrived, rose to over sixty thousand men. Enough to take his campaign into the heart of Spain, but - frustratingly - not enough to contemplate facing a combination of French armies. Therein lay the irony of his situation. The more successful the allied army became the more likely it was to provoke the French into concentrating their forces to march on Arthur and destroy him and his army once and for all.

There was another, constant, cause for concern. Having reinforced the Peninsular army the government back in England would expect him to take the war to the French. It was evident that only a small number of wiser heads in the government appreciated the game of cat and mouse that Arthur was obliged to play with his more numerous opponents.