Sharpe’s Revenge: The Peace of 1814. Bernard Cornwell
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Название: Sharpe’s Revenge: The Peace of 1814
Автор: Bernard Cornwell
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Приключения: прочее
isbn: 9780007338726
isbn:
Sharpe kept his sword sheathed as he rode Sycorax towards Nairn. Above him, incongruous on this day of struggle, two larks climbed high above the smoke. Sycorax shied away from a dead Scottish Sergeant. The battle had become quiet, or at least it seemed so to Sharpe. Men fought and died not two hundred paces northwards, and all around the guns still thundered their gut-thumping menace into the smoke-cloud, but it seemed unthreatening to Sharpe. He remembered the remains of the salt beef in his pouch, and was astonished to find that a French musket bullet had lodged in the tough, gristly meat. He prised the ball free, then bit hungrily into the food.
‘There’s another brigade a quarter mile behind us,’ Nairn said. ‘They’ll go on to the end of the ridge if the fort falls.’
‘Good.’
‘Thank you for all you did,’ Nairn said.
Sharpe, embarrassed by the praise, shook his head. ‘I didn’t even get my sword wet, sir.’
‘Nor me.’ Nairn stared up into the sky.
A French cannonball, fired blind from the left flank, and aimed at the Scotsmen who had captured the redoubt, flew wide. It took off the head of Sharpe’s horse in an eruption of warm blood. For a second Sharpe sat on the headless mare, then the body tipped forward and he frantically kicked his feet out of the stirrups and threw himself sideways as the animal’s corpse threatened to roll on to him. ‘God damn it!’ Sharpe sprawled in a puddle of warm horse blood, then clambered to his feet. ‘God damn it!’
Nairn governed his impulse to laugh at Sharpe’s undignified fall. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said instead.
‘She was a present from Jane.’ Sharpe stared at the charnel mess that had been Sycorax. The headless body was still twitching.
‘She was a good horse,’ Nairn said. ‘Save the saddle.’ He turned in his own saddle to see if one of his spare horses was in sight, but a sudden volley of musketry turned him back.
Another French counter-attack was sweeping forward, this one outflanking and assaulting the redoubt, and again the Scots were being forced backwards by a superior number of men. Blue-coated infantry swarmed at the redoubt’s walls, muskets crashed, and for the second time the French retook the fort. Screams sounded as Highlanders were hunted down inside the courtyard. ‘The bloody French are fighting well today.’ Nairn sounded puzzled.
The enemy scrambled along the palisade, bayoneting wounded Scotsmen. These Frenchmen were, indeed, fighting with a verve that the earlier attack, in column, had not displayed. An eagle standard shone among the smoke and, beneath its brightness, Sharpe saw a French General. The man was standing with legs straddled wide on the fort’s southern parapet. It was an arrogant pose, suggesting that the Frenchman was lord of this battlefield and more than equal to anything the British could throw against him. Frederickson’s Riflemen must have seen the enemy General, for a dozen of them fired, but the Frenchman had a charmed life this day.
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