Sharpe 3-Book Collection 2: Sharpe’s Havoc, Sharpe’s Eagle, Sharpe’s Gold. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ depend on the missile to bounce and keep on bouncing, and even after the fourth or fifth graze, as the gunners called each bounce, the round shot could still maim or kill, but a round shot tossed into the air was likely to bury itself in the turf and do no subsequent damage. So the howitzers fired shells that were fused to explode when the missile landed.

      ‘Forty-nine times two, sir, seeing as how we have the caisson for the other howitzer as well,’ Pelletieu said when Vuillard asked him how many shells his gun possessed. ‘Ninety-eight shells, sir, and twenty-two canister. Twice the usual rations!’

      ‘Forget the canister,’ Vuillard ordered. Canister, which spread from a gun’s barrel like duck shot, was for use against troops in the open, not for infantry concealed amongst rocks. ‘Drop the shells on the bastards and we’ll send for more ammunition if you need it. Which you won’t,’ he added malevolently, ‘because you’re going to kill the bastards, aren’t you?’

      ‘That’s what we’re here for,’ Pelletieu said happily, ‘and with respect, sir, we won’t make widows by standing here talking. I’d best find a place to deploy her, sir. Sergeant! Shovels!’

      ‘Shovels?’ Vuillard asked.

      ‘We have to level the ground, sir,’ Pelletieu said, ‘because God didn’t think of gunners when He made the world. He made too many lumps and not enough smooth spots. But we’re very good at improving His handiwork, sir.’ He led his men towards the hill in search of a place that could be levelled.

      Colonel Christopher had been inspecting the howitzer, but now nodded at Pelletieu’s receding back. ‘Sending schoolboys to fight our wars?’

      ‘He seems to know his business,’ Vuillard admitted grudgingly. ‘Did your servant turn up?’

      ‘Bloody man’s gone missing. Had to shave myself!’

      ‘Shave yourself, eh?’ Vuillard observed with amusement. ‘Life is hard, Colonel, life is sometimes so very hard.’

      And soon, he thought, it would be murderous for the fugitives on the hill.

      At dawn, a wet dawn with clouds scudding away southeast and a wind still gusting about the ragged summit, Dodd had spotted the fugitives halfway down the hill’s northern slope. They were crouching in the rocks, evidently hiding from the French picquets who lined the edge of the wood. There were seven, all men. Six had been survivors from Manuel Lopes’s band and the seventh was Luis, Christopher’s servant.

      ‘It is the Colonel,’ he had told Sharpe.

      ‘What is?’

      ‘Colonel Christopher. He is down there. He brought them here, he told them you were here!’

      Sharpe stared down towards the village where a black smear showed where the church had stood. ‘He’s a bastard,’ he said quietly, but he was not surprised. Not now. He only blamed himself for being so slow to see that Christopher was a traitor. He questioned Luis further and the servant told him about the journey south to meet General Cradock, about the dinner party in Oporto where a French general had been the guest of honour, and how Christopher sometimes wore an enemy uniform, but Luis honestly admitted he did not know what webs the Colonel spun. He did know that Christopher possessed Sharpe’s good telescope and Luis had managed to steal the Colonel’s old telescope, which he presented to Sharpe with a triumphant flourish. ‘I am sorry it is not your own, senhor, but the Colonel keeps that one in his tail pocket. I fight for you now,’ Luis said proudly.

      ‘Have you ever fought?’ Sharpe asked.

      ‘A man can learn,’ Luis said, ‘and there is no one better than a barber for slitting throats. I used to think about that when I shaved my customers. How easy it would be to cut. I never did, of course,’ he added hastily in case Sharpe thought he was a murderer.

      ‘I think I’ll go on shaving myself,’ Sharpe said with a smile.

      So Vicente gave Luis one of the captured French muskets and a cartridge box of ammunition and the barber joined the other soldiers among the redoubts that barricaded the hilltop. Lopes’s men were sworn in as loyal Portuguese soldiers and when one said he would rather take his chances on escape and join the partisan groups to the north Sergeant Macedo used his fists to force the oath on him. ‘He’s a good lad, that Sergeant,’ Harper said approvingly.

      The damp lifted. The sodden flanks of the hill steamed in the morning sun, but that haze vanished as the morning became hotter. There were dragoons all about the hog-backed hill now. They patrolled the valleys on either side, had another strong picquet to the south and dismounted men watching from the wood’s edge. Sharpe, seeing the dragoons tighten their noose, knew that if he and his men tried to escape they would become meat for the horsemen. Harper, his broad face glistening with sweat, gazed down at the cavalry. ‘There’s something I’ve noticed, sir,’ he said, ‘ever since we joined up with you in Spain.’

      ‘What’s that?’

      ‘That we’re always outnumbered and surrounded.’

      Sharpe had been listening, not to Harper, but to the day itself. ‘Notice anything?’ he asked.

      ‘That we’re surrounded and outnumbered, sir?’

      ‘No.’ Sharpe paused to listen again, then frowned. ‘Wind’s in the east, isn’t it?’

      ‘More or less.’

      ‘No sound of gunfire, Pat.’

      Harper listened. ‘Good God and you’re right, sir.’

      Vicente had noticed the same thing and came to the watchtower where Sharpe had set up his command post. ‘There’s no noise from Amarante,’ the Portuguese Lieutenant said unhappily.

      ‘So they’ve finished fighting there,’ Harper commented.

      Vicente made the sign of the cross which was admission enough that he suspected the Portuguese army that had been holding the bridge over the Tamega had been defeated.

      ‘We don’t know what’s happening,’ Sharpe said, trying to cheer Vicente up, but in truth that admission was almost as depressing as the thought that Amarante had fallen. So long as the distant thunder of the guns had sounded from the east then so long had they known there were still forces fighting the French, had known that the war itself was continuing and that there was hope that one day they could rejoin some friendly forces, but the morning’s silence was ominous. And if the Portuguese were gone from Amarante, then what of the British in Coimbra and Lisbon? Were they boarding ships in the broad mouth of the Tagus, ready to be convoyed home? Sir John Moore’s army had been chased out of Spain, so was the smaller British force in Lisbon now scuttling away? Sharpe felt a sudden and horrid fear that he was the last British officer in northern Portugal and the last morsel to be devoured by an insatiable enemy. ‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ he lied, seeing the same fear of being stranded on his companions’ faces. ‘Sir Arthur Wellesley’s coming.’

      ‘We hope,’ Harper said.

      ‘Is he good?’ Vicente asked.

      ‘The very bloody best,’ Sharpe said fervently and then, seeing that his words had not really encouraged hope, he made Harper busy. All the food that had been brought up to the watchtower had been stored in one corner of the ruin where Sharpe could keep an eye on it, but the men had taken no СКАЧАТЬ