Sharpe 3-Book Collection 7: Sharpe’s Revenge, Sharpe’s Waterloo, Sharpe’s Devil. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ in three ranks in front of the shattered palisade and blood-drenched ditch. It was an officer of that battalion who first saw Nairn’s threat and shouted a warning up to the fort’s parapet.

      No one had thought to spike the guns, and now the French artillerymen charged them with canister and crashed death out at Nairn’s attack. Sharpe, hurrying to keep up with the mounted Scotsman, saw Nairn fall, but it was only Nairn’s horse that had been wounded. The old Scotsman, his hat gone and his white hair disarrayed, picked himself up and brandished his sword. ‘Forward!’

      The fort had been captured twice, and twice recaptured. The crude earthen square, with its battered palisades, seemed to be sucking men into its horror, almost as if by mutual consent the two armies had agreed that whoever won the fort would gain the day. Sharpe could see open ground to his right, ground that would outflank the smoking redoubt, but cool sense, which might have suggested occupying the ground, had been replaced by a savage pride that would not permit General Calvet the satisfaction of holding the redoubt. Nairn, so long denied the chance to show his skills, would now prove himself the master of this battle’s heart. He had more than the redoubt’s guns to contend with, for the battalion of French infantry were loading their muskets in readiness for Nairn’s assault.

      ‘Steady, lads, steady!’ Nairn had launched his attack on an impulse, now he had to slow it down so that his men did not become ragged with fear or eagerness. ‘Watch your dressing! Steady, lads!’ He smiled as Sharpe joined him. ‘One last effort, Sharpe, just one last effort!’

      One of the Highlander’s Colours fell, was retrieved, and hoisted again. A Sergeant’s leg was sliced off at the knee by a cannonball. The pipes whipped fervour into flagging hearts.

      The French infantry was loaded and their muskets were raised. There was no sign of Calvet who must have stayed inside the redoubt. Sharpe watched the Frenchmen cock their muskets. ‘We’ll break the bastards!’ Nairn shouted. ‘We’ll break them!’

      The French infantry fired and the air was filled with the splintering volley and the whiplash hiss of its bullets. Smoke gouted thick as blood from the cannon embrasures and Sharpe saw the ground ahead of him churn with the strike of canister. Nairn staggered backwards and Sharpe turned to him in alarm.

      ‘It’s only my leg, man! It’s nothing! Go on! Go on!’ Nairn was wounded, but still exultant. He limped, but would not let Sharpe stay with him. ‘Give them a volley, Richard, now’s your moment!’

      ‘Brigade!’ Sharpe’s voice was huge. ‘Brigade will halt! Present!’

      The redcoats stopped. They raised their heavy muskets. The French battalion knew what was coming and frantically tried to reload. Sharpe raised his sword, paused a heartbeat, then swept it down. ‘Fire!’

      A crashing thunderous volley, a spew of acrid smoke, and no time to wonder what damage the bullets had done. ‘Charge!’

      ‘Take the boys home, Richard!’ Nairn called. ‘Take them home!’

      ‘Charge!’ Sharpe felt the rage rising, the unreasonable rage of battle, the anger that would only be slaked by victory. It was this same pride and rage that had made Taplow spur ahead of his men to certain death, and which had made Nairn lead his men into the cauldron that was the redoubt’s killing ground. ‘Charge!’ A musket ball slapped past his face. Sharpe could see the faces of the French infantry now, and they looked desperately young and desperately frightened.

      ‘Charge!’ That was Nairn, behind Sharpe now, and the word seemed to hurl the remnants of the brigade into the stench of bodies and blood among which the enemy stood. The Highlanders ran at the French infantry who had nowhere to retreat. The enemy hesitated, and were lost. Nairn’s English battalion was coming at their flank.

      Scottish bayonets went forward and came back bloody. The clansmen were old in war, fighting conscripts. Sharpe, on their flank, watched the enemy run, but, in their panic, the French ran towards the closing English. One youngster ran straight towards Sharpe, then, seeing the English officer, the boy raised his bayonet to strike. Sharpe disdainfully stepped to one side and tripped the boy. He left him on the ground for one of Frederickson’s men to disarm or kill.

      A cannon crashed canister into the mass of struggling men, killing both Scot and Frenchmen alike.

      ‘Give them fire!’ Frederickson shouted, and his skirmishers fired up at the French embrasures. A gunner was flung backwards. A voice bellowed in French from the palisade. Nairn’s Highlanders were already clawing at the sloping earth wall of the fort’s southern face.

      ‘Come right! Come right!’ Sharpe shouted at the makeshift English battalion to angle their advance and follow him to the redoubt’s western wall.

      Sharpe jumped the ditch and reached for the palisade. A musket flamed at him. His foot slipped on the wet earth and he fell back to the ditch’s foot as Frederickson’s men leaped past him. Sergeant Harper had his seven-barrelled gun unslung. He fired it blindly upwards and three Frenchmen were thrown back to make a space where the Riflemen could reach the top. Sharpe went after them. A man’s blood soaked his face, a body fell on him, but he pushed it aside and helped another man tug at the palisade. A splinter of wood ripped his palm open as he tugged, but then the parapet cracked outwards to make a space through which a man could pass. A French bayonet reached for them, but Sharpe stabbed with his sword and raked the man’s forearm so that the musket and blade dropped.

      A Greenjacket went into the gap, was shot, then another man pulled him aside. Harper was wrenching at another part of the barricade, pulling out an earth-filled wicker basket that collapsed a whole section of the defences on to a wounded redcoat. Harper was screaming his own Gaelic challenge. Redcoats were mixed with the Greenjackets, the whole mass of men scrabbling and tearing at the mud bank and timber palisade. They trampled over the wounded and fought their way up to where French muskets hammered and bayonets stabbed down. One Frenchman stabbed too far, his arm was seized, and the man screamed as he was tugged down to the waiting blades. Sharpe was wedged in a gap of the palisade now, desperately trying to fend off a bayonet, when suddenly a whole section of the wall behind him collapsed inwards under the weight of attackers. There were shouts of victory, and the British were suddenly spilling on to the narrow firestep, then leaping down into the courtyard where General Calvet tried to line his men into a solid mass, but Nairn’s Highlanders had already pierced the southern wall, and the first of those Scots now carried their bayonets towards Calvet’s frightened men. The courtyard had been left like a slaughterhouse from the two previous attacks.

      ‘Close on them! Close!’ Sharpe shouted, then jumped down to the courtyard.

      Now it was blood and stench and blades in a very small place. A French officer tried to duel with Sharpe, but the Rifleman had no time for such heroics and simply threw himself forward, past the man’s lunge, and punched the heavy sword’s guard into the man’s face. The Frenchman fell backwards and Sharpe kicked him in the ribs. Sharpe would have left the man there, but the French officer fumbled at his belt to draw a pistol and Sharpe forgot his superstition about killing, reversed his sword, and thrust the blade down once. A man came at Sharpe with a bayonet, but two Rifle sword-bayonets caught the Frenchman first. A Highland officer disembowelled a gunner with a sweep of the claymore, then hacked at the dead man’s head to make certain of his death.

      Calvet was swearing at his men; tugging them into line, cursing them for chicken-livered bastards. A Scots officer came close enough to the General to threaten him with a claymore, but Calvet almost casually parried the blow then lunged his own sword into the Scotsman’s belly before turning back to shout at his men to stand fast and fight the God-damn bastards off.

      Calvet’s men were mostly young conscripts СКАЧАТЬ