However, he is unable to convince his superior, nor his fellow officer, Captain Jack Spears (James Purefoy); the Frenchman is allowed to give his parole and is not imprisoned.
The young woman (referred to simply as "the Lass"), having lost her faith and being rendered mute by the horror she has witnessed, attaches herself to Sharpe.
Back at camp, Wellington's spymaster, Major Mungo Munro (Hugh Ross), has received word that Napoleon himself has sent Colonel Leroux (Patrick Fierry) of the elite Imperial Guard to capture El Mirador.
When the men near the town, a surprise artillery barrage (rendered extra-surprising by the use of exploding roundshot) from the fort causes enough confusion to allow the prisoner, who is in fact Leroux, to break his parole and escape to its safety.
Sharpe meets two people, his old enemy Sir Henry Simmerson (Michael Cochrane), now the British representative to the town, and Father Curtis, an Irish priest (John Kavanagh), who runs the hospital.
Taking advantage of Sharpe's absence, Simmerson attempts to rape the novice (who had humiliated him earlier when he had made a crude advance), but is stopped by Father Curtis.