Sharpe 3-Book Collection 6: Sharpe’s Honour, Sharpe’s Regiment, Sharpe’s Siege. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ his back, the fingers fidgeting. The Spanish officers fell silent, embarrassed by the cold face of their commanding officer.

      The prisoner, bare-headed so that the wind stirred his long, black hair, was being marched through the narrow corridor that had been made through the crowd. He was pushed up the makeshift steps to the wagon bed. He was taller than his red-jacketed guards.

      He wore a grubby white shirt and the baggy white trousers of the English infantry so that, to the Spaniards watching from the headquarters, he seemed to be dressed as a penitent. The Inquisitor was saying a prayer, his deep voice harsh in the room. Wellington looked in irritation at the priest, but said nothing. Some of the Spanish officers knew that Richard Sharpe had once saved the General’s life, rescued him from the bayonets of Indian troops years ago, and now the General was watching the man hanged. Yet Wellington’s face, with its hooked, eagle’s nose, showed no trace of emotion.

      The prisoner’s hands were tied. He seemed to look with disinterest at the great crowd. He was too far away for the Spanish officers to see his face clearly, yet it seemed as if he grinned at them in defiance. The watching soldiers were silent.

      A second, shorter ladder had been placed against the white-washed wall and the guards pushed the prisoner towards it. He found it difficult to climb the rungs with his hands tied, but the soldiers helped him up. The Provost Sergeant climbed the longer ladder, reached out for the noose, and pushed it over the prisoner’s black hair. He tightened the knot, then went back down to the wagon.

      Some of the Spanish officers watched the alleyways that led into the plaza. They were thinking of the rumour that Sharpe’s men might try to rescue their officer, but there were no angry men beyond the sentries. No dogs barked, there was no tramp of feet, just the sunlight on the thick, red tiles and the wisps of smoke from kitchen fires silting the air above the town.

      The condemned man was standing precariously on the ladder, the rope about his neck looping downwards. The Provost Sergeant looked at his officer.

      The Lieutenant of the Provosts disliked this task, but orders were orders. Major Sharpe was to be hanged in full view of the Spanish troops. He looked up at the man standing on the ladder, his body leaning on the wall, and he caught the dark eyes in a final glance, wondered at a man who could grin at him at this moment, then the Lieutenant gave the order.

      ‘Carry on, Sergeant.’ The words came out as a croak.

      The crowd gasped, then cheered.

      The Provosts pulled the ladder from beneath the doomed man.

      For a second the booted feet stayed on the falling rung, then they slipped off, he dropped, and the rope jerked tight. He bounced, dropped again, and then was swaying and turning from the high hook. His body seemed to arch as he dangled. His feet flailed the air, kicked the wall, and he twisted so that his unhooded face stared at the packed plaza.

      The eyes bulged, the tongue pushed at the lips, the neck was grotesquely stretched to the tilted head. The Spanish watched in fascination. He jerked again, fighting upwards as if for air, and then the English Sergeant jumped up, caught one of the man’s ankles, and jerked his weight down.

      The extra weight snapped his neck. The Sergeant let go of the man’s ankles and slowly, as the body swung, the legs drew themselves up a few inches. He was dead.

      A coffin waited on the wagon bed; pine boards, rough planed, nailed together. The body was cut down. The hair had been smeared white by the limewash as the body thrashed in death.

      They took the boots from the corpse, but nothing else was worth saving. They lifted him into the coffin, but he was too tall for the box and so the Sergeant took a musket from one of his men and smashed the butt down, sweating and grunting, smashed again, and the broken shinbones let the legs be forced inside. The lid was nailed shut.

      Wellington stared at the whole thing with distaste. When it was done, when the Spanish Battalions were being marched from the plaza and the pine box was being carried away, he turned his cold eyes on the assembled officers. ‘That’s over, gentlemen. Perhaps we can now get on with this war?’

      They filed silently from the room. The murder of the Marqués had failed to split the British and Spanish. The Generalisimo had made his blood sacrifice to keep the alliance alive and now there was a war to fight.

      By a roadside, beneath the high mountains where the wolves roamed between grey rocks, they buried the broken-legged corpse. The Provosts heaped rocks over the shallow grave to stop predators digging up the body, and then they left it without any marker. That night a peasant put a nailed cross on the spot, not out of reverence, but to frighten the protestant spirit and keep it underground. The Inquisitor and El Matarife, riding north and east, passed the grave. The Slaughterman reined in. ‘I should have watched him die.’

      ‘It was better that no one saw you, Juan.’

      The Slaughterman shrugged. ‘I’ve never seen a man hanged.’

      The Inquisitor looked incredulous. ‘Never?’

      ‘Never.’ El Matarife sounded ashamed.

      ‘Then find one and hang him.’

      ‘I will.’

      ‘But first look after our next business.’ The priest put spurs to his horse. ‘And hurry!’

      They carried papers that would pass them through the British and French lines, and they carried news that would end this war and restore Spain to its old glory. The Inquisitor gave thanks to God and hurried on.

CHAPTER 8

      The valley was a pass through the mountains. It was high. From its western rim, where it spilt down to a river far, far beneath, a man could see into Portugal. The hills of the Tras os Montes, the ‘land beyond the mountains’, looked like purple-blue ridges that became dimmer and more indistinct until the horizon was a mere blur like a smear of dark watercolour on a painter’s canvas.

      The sides of the valley were thick with thorn. The blossoms were white in the sunlight. The road, that climbed the steep pass and went through the high valley, was edged with yellow ragwort that the Spanish called St James’s grass. The pasture at the valley bottom was close cropped by sheep and rabbits. Ravens nested on stone ledges, foxes hunted the thorn’s margins, while wolves roamed the rock-strewn hills that barred the sky in a jagged barrier.

      There was a village in the high valley, but it was deserted. The doors of the cottages had been torn from their hinges and burned by one of the armies that fought in Spain.

      At the western end of the valley, where the crest showed the magnificent view of the land beyond the mountains, were two great buildings. Both were ruins.

      On the north side, low and squat, was an old convent. Its two cloisters still stood, though the upper cloister had been grievously torn by a great explosion that had destroyed the old chapel. The convent had long been deserted. Weeds grew on its patterned tiles, leaves choked the channels that had once carried water in its lower garden.

      To the south, barring the pass, was a castle. A man could still climb to the top of the keep, or stand on the gatehouse, but it had been centuries since a lord lived in the castle. Now it was a home for the ravens, and bats hung in its high dark rooms.

      Further east, and higher still, СКАЧАТЬ