Valentine

Prologue

Vimiera, Portugal - August 1808

The great copper ball of the sun hung in the metallic-blue sky where not a cloud offered a veil to the punishing heat torturing the bare plain beneath. Far in the distance, snow-capped mountains shimmered like a mirage, and behind the low hills surrounding the plain, the Atlantic Ocean crashed against the wild, rocky coastline.

But for the fifty men of His Majesty's Third Dragoons, sweltering in their scarlet tunics, gasping on the parched earth, the cold surf-tipped waves of the ocean and the icy white of mountain snow were a dream.

Again and again the thin blue line of Frenchmen came at them over the hills. They fired into the line, saw men fall, saw the line falter, retreat, only to reappear, reinforced. Their own men lay dead and dying, their bodies crushing the wild thyme that scratched a living with spindly olive trees and cactus, releasing its fragrance into the unstirring, burning air.

How many more Frenchmen were there the other side of the hill? How many more times would they pour onto the plain?

The major commanding this little company of dragoons stared into the shimmering distance behind them, across the sluggish gray river to the hills from which his reinforcements would come. His ear strained to catch the triumphant bugle call that would signal relief. It had been promised. It wasn't possible it wouldn't come.

But as the long afternoon in hell dipped toward sunset, he began to believe that there was to be no reinforcement. They were destined to die here in this blazing furnace, watering the parched ground with their blood.

A tiny breeze wafted from the sea as the sun began to sink behind the hills. It stirred the regimental colors, planted in the ground beside the dead body of the young cornet who'd been carrying them.

"Here they come again!" a private shouted from behind the insignificant earthwork that offered their only protection from the enemy guns.

The major looked out over the plain at the inexorable advance of the enemy line. An ensign came up behind him, panting, perspiration dripping from beneath his shako. His eyes were wild with panic, and the unbelievable words that spelled a fearful death tumbled from his lips.