Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 3: Flashman at the Charge, Flashman in the Great Game, Flashman and the Angel of the Lord. George Fraser MacDonald

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ though in reply, there was the crash of the discharge and the shot went screaming overhead, and then from all along the Causeway burst out a positive salvo of firing; there was an orange flash and a huge bang a hundred paces ahead, and a fount of earth was hurled up and came pattering down before us, while behind there was the crash of exploding shells, and a new barrage opening up from the hills on the left.

      Suddenly it was, as Lord Tennyson tells us, like the very jaws of hell; I realized that, without noticing, I had started to canter, babbling gently to myself, and in front Cardigan was cantering too, but not as fast as I was (one celebrated account remarks that, “In his eagerness to be first at grips with the foe, Flashman was seen to forge ahead; ah, we can guess the fierce spirit that burned in that manly breast” – I don’t know about that, but I’m here to inform you that it was nothing to the fierce spirit that burned in my manly bowels). There was a crash-crash-crash of flaming bursts across the front, and the scream of shell splinters whistling by; Cardigan shouted “Steady!”, but his own charger was pacing away now, and behind me the clatter and jingle was being drowned by the rising drum of hooves, from a slow canter to a fast one, and then to a slow gallop, and I tried to rein in that little mare, smothering my own panic, and snarling fiercely to myself: “Wheel, wheel, for God’s sake! Why doesn’t the stupid bastard wheel?” For we were level with the first Russian redoubt; their guns were levelled straight at us, not four hundred yards away, the ground ahead was being torn up by shot, and then from behind me there was a frantic shout.

      I turned in the saddle, and there was Nolan, his sabre out, charging across behind me, shouting hoarsely, “Wheel, my lord! Not that way! Wheel – to the redoubts!” His voice was all but drowned in the tumult of explosion, and then he was streaking past Cardigan, reining his beast back on its haunches, his face livid as he turned to face the brigade. He flourished his sabre, and shouted again, and a shell seemed to explode dead in front of Cardigan’s horse; for a moment I lost Nolan in the smoke, and then I saw him, face contorted in agony, his tunic torn open and gushing blood from shoulder to waist. He shrieked horribly, and his horse came bounding back towards us, swerving past Cardigan with Lew toppling forward on to the neck of his mount. As I stared back, horrified, I saw him careering into the gap between the Lancers and the 13th Light, and then they had swallowed him, and the squadrons came surging down towards me.

      I turned to look for Cardigan; he was thirty yards ahead, tugging like damnation to hold his charger in, with the shot crashing all about him. “Stop!” I screamed. “Stop! For Christ’s sake, man, rein in!” For now I saw what Lew had seen – the fool was never going to wheel, he was taking the Light Brigade straight into the heart of the Russian army, towards those massive batteries at the valley foot, that were already belching at us, while the cannon on either side were raking us from the flanks, trapping us in a terrible enfilade that must smash the whole command to pieces.

      “Stop, damn you!” I yelled again, and was in the act of wheeling to shout at the squadrons behind when the earth seemed to open beneath me in a sheet of orange flame; I reeled in the saddle, deafened, the horse staggered, went down, and recovered, with myself clinging for dear life, and then I was grasping nothing but loose reins. The bridle was half gone, my brute had a livid gash spouting blood along her neck; she screamed and hurtled madly forward, and I seized the mane to prevent myself being thrown from the saddle.

      Suddenly I was level with Cardigan; we bawled at each other, he waving his sabre, and now there were blue tunics level with me, either side, and the lance points of the 17th were thrusting forward, with the men crouched low in the saddles. It was an inferno of bursting shell and whistling fragments, of orange flame and choking smoke; a trooper alongside me was plucked from his saddle as though by an invisible hand, and I found myself drenched in a shower of blood. My little mare went surging ahead, crazy with pain; we were outdistancing Cardigan now – and even in that hell of death and gunfire, I remember, my stomach was asserting itself again, and I rode yelling with panic and farting furiously at the same time. I couldn’t hold my horse at all; it was all I could do to stay aboard as we raced onwards, and as I stared wildly ahead I saw that we were a bare few hundred yards from the Russian batteries. The great black muzzles were staring me in the face, smoke wreathing up around them, but even as I saw the flame belching from them I couldn’t hear the crash of their discharge – it was all lost in the fearful continuous reverberating cannonade that surrounded us. There was no stopping my mad career, and I found myself roaring pleas for mercy to the distant Russian gunners, crying stop, stop, for God’s sake, cease fire, damn you, and let me alone. I could see them plainly, crouching at their breeches, working furiously to reload and pour another torrent of death at us through the smoke; I raged and swore mindlessly at them, and dragged out my sabre, thinking, by heaven, if you finish me I’ll do my damndest to take one of you with me, you filthy Russian scum. (“And then,” wrote that fatuous ass of a correspondent, “was seen with what nobility and power the gallant Flashman rode. Charging ahead even of his valiant chief, the death cry of the illustrious Nolan in his ears, his eye flashing terribly as he swung the sabre that had stemmed the horde at Jallalabad, he hurtled against the foe.”) Well, yes, you might put it that way, but my nobility and power was concentrated, in a moment of inspiration, in trying to swerve that maddened beast out of the fixed lines of the guns; I had just sense enough left for that. I tugged at the mane with my free hand, she swerved and stumbled, recovered, reared, and had me half out of the saddle; my innards were seized with a fresh spasm, and if I were a fanciful man I’d swear I blew myself back astride of her. The ground shook beneath us with another exploding shell, knocking us sideways; I clung on, sobbing, and as the smoke cleared Cardigan came thundering by, sabre thrust out ahead of his charger’s ears, and I heard him hoarsely shouting:

      “Steady them! Hold them in! Cwose up and hold in!”

      I tried to yell to him to halt, that he was going the wrong way, but my voice seemed to have gone. I turned in the saddle to shout or signal the men behind, and my God, what a sight it was! Half a dozen riderless horses at my very tail, crazy with fear, and behind them a score – God knows there didn’t seem to be any more – of the 17th Lancers, some with hats gone, some streaked with blood, strung out any old how, glaring like madmen and tearing along. Empty saddles, shattered squadrons, all order gone, men and beasts going down by the second, the ground furrowing and spouting earth even as you watched – and still they came on, the lances of the 17th, and behind the sabres of the 11th – just a fleeting instant’s thought I had, even in that inferno, remembering the brilliant Cherrypickers in splendid review, and there they were tearing forward like a horde of hell-bound spectres.

      I had only a moment to look back – my mare was galloping like a thing demented, and as I steadied, there was Cardigan, waving his sabre and standing in his stirrups; the guns were only a hundred yards away, almost hidden in a great billowing bank of smoke, a bank which kept glaring red as though some Lucifer were opening furnace doors deep inside it. There was no turning, no holding back, and even in that deafening thunder I could hear the sudden chorus of yells behind me as the torn remnant of the Light Brigade gathered itself for the final mad charge into the battery. I dug in my heels, yelling nonsense and brandishing my sabre, shot into the smoke with one final rip from my bowels and a prayer that my gallant little mare wouldn’t career headlong into a gun-muzzle, staggered at the fearful concussion of a gun exploding within a yard of me – and then we were through, into the open space behind the guns, leaping the limbers and ammunition boxes with the Russians scattering to let us through, and Cardigan a bare two yards away, reining his beast back almost on its haunches.

      And then for a moment everything seemed to happen very slowly. I can see it all so distinctly: immediately to my left, and close enough to toss a biscuit, there was a squadron of Cossacks, with their lances couched, but all immobile, staring as though in amazement. Almost under my mare’s hooves there was a Russian gunner, clutching a rammer, sprawling to get out of the way – he was stripped to the waist, I remember, and had a medal round his neck on a string – ahead of me, perhaps fifty yards off, was a brilliant little group of mounted men who could only be staff officers, and right beside me, still stiff and upright as a lance at rest, was Cardigan – by God, I thought, you’re through СКАЧАТЬ