Sharpe’s Battle: The Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, May 1811. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ me to name Captain Richard Sharpe of the South Essex, the man Wellington himself chose to be your tactical adviser. And Richard? I have the honour to present the Earl of Kiely, Colonel of the Real Compañía Irlandesa.’

      Kiely looked grimly at the tattered rifleman. ‘So you’re supposed to be our drillmaster?’ He sounded dubious.

      ‘I give lessons in killing too, my Lord,’ Sharpe said.

      The older Spaniard in the yellow uniform scoffed at Sharpe’s claim. ‘These men don’t need lessons in killing,’ he said in his accented English. ‘They’re soldiers of Spain and they know how to kill. They need lessons in dying.’

      Hogan interrupted. ‘Allow me to name His Excellency Don Luis Valverde,’ he said to Sharpe. ‘The General is Spain’s most valued representative to our army.’ Hogan gave Sharpe a wink that neither horseman could see.

      ‘Lessons in dying, my Lord?’ Sharpe asked the General, puzzled by the man’s statement and wondering whether it sprang from an incomplete mastery of English.

      For answer the yellow-uniformed General touched his horse’s flanks with the tips of his spurs to make the animal walk obediently along the line of the Real Compañía Irlandesa’s front rank and, superbly oblivious of whether Sharpe was following him or not, lectured the rifleman from his saddle. ‘These men are going to war, Captain Sharpe,’ General Valverde said in a voice loud enough for a good portion of the guard to hear him. ‘They are going to fight for Spain, for King Ferdinand and Saint James, and fighting means standing tall and straight in front of your enemy. Fighting means staring your enemy in the eye while he shoots at you, and the side that wins, Captain Sharpe, is the side that stands tallest, straightest and longest. So you don’t teach men how to kill or how to fight, but rather how to stand still while all hell comes at them. That’s what you teach them, Captain Sharpe. Teach them drill. Teach them obedience. Teach them to stand longer than the French. Teach them’ – the General at last twisted in his saddle to look down on the rifleman – ‘to die.’

      ‘I’d rather teach them to shoot,’ Sharpe said.

      The General scoffed at the remark. ‘Of course they can shoot,’ he said. ‘They’re soldiers!’

      ‘They can shoot with those muskets?’ Sharpe asked derisively.

      Valverde stared down at Sharpe with a look of pity on his face. ‘For the last two years, Captain Sharpe, these men have stayed at their post of duty on the sufferance of the French.’ Valverde spoke in the tone he might have used to a small and unintelligent child. ‘Do you really think they would have been allowed to stay there if they had posed a threat to Bonaparte? The more their weapons decayed, the more the French trusted them, but now they are here and you can provide them with new weapons.’

      ‘To do what with?’ Sharpe asked. ‘To stand and die like bullocks?’

      ‘So how would you like them to fight?’ Lord Kiely had followed the two men and asked the question from behind Sharpe.

      ‘Like my men, my Lord,’ Sharpe said, ‘smartly. And you begin fighting smartly by killing the enemy officers.’ Sharpe raised his voice so that the whole of the Real Compañía Irlandesa could hear him. ‘You don’t go into battle to stand and die like bullocks in a slaughteryard, you go to win, and you begin to win when you drop the enemy officers dead.’ Sharpe had walked away from Kiely and Valverde now and was using the voice he had developed as a sergeant, a voice pitched to cut across windy parade grounds and through the deadly clamour of battlefields. ‘You start by looking for the enemy officers. They’re easy to recognize because they’re the overpaid, overdressed bastards with swords and you aim for them first. Kill them any way you can. Shoot them, club them, bayonet them, strangle them if you must, but kill the bastards and after that you kill the sergeants and then you can begin murdering the rest of the poor leaderless bastards. Isn’t that right, Sergeant Harper?’

      ‘That’s the way of it, sure enough,’ Harper called back.

      ‘And how many officers have you killed in battle, Sergeant?’ Sharpe asked, without looking at the rifle Sergeant.

      ‘More than I can number, sir.’

      ‘And were they all Frog officers, Sergeant Harper?’ Sharpe asked, and Harper, surprised by the question, did not answer, so Sharpe provided the answer himself. ‘Of course they were not. We’ve killed officers in blue coats, officers in white coats and even officers in red coats, because I don’t care what army an officer fights for, or what colour coat he wears or what king he serves, a bad officer is better off dead and a good soldier had better learn how to kill him. Ain’t that right, Sergeant Harper?’

      ‘Right as rain, sir.’

      ‘My name is Captain Sharpe.’ Sharpe stood in the centre front of the Real Compañía Irlandesa. The faces watching him showed a mixture of astonishment and surprise, but he had their attention now and neither Kiely nor Valverde had dared to interfere. ‘My name is Captain Sharpe,’ he said again, ‘and I began where you are. In the ranks, and I’m going to end up where he is, in the saddle.’ He pointed at Lord Kiely. ‘But in the meantime my job is to teach you to be soldiers. I dare say there are some good killers among you and some fine fighters too, but soon you’re going to be good soldiers as well. But for tonight we’ve all got a fair step to go before dark and once we’re there you’ll get food, shelter and we’ll find out when you were last paid. Sergeant Harper! We’ll finish the inspection later. Get them moving!’

      ‘Sir!’ Harper shouted. ‘’Talion will turn to the right. Right turn! By the left! March!’

      Sharpe did not even look at Lord Kiely, let alone seek his Lordship’s permission to march the Real Compañía Irlandesa away. Instead he just watched as Harper led the guard off the waste ground towards the main road. He heard footsteps behind, but still he did not turn. ‘By God, Sharpe, but you push your luck.’ It was Major Hogan who spoke.

      ‘It’s all I’ve got to push, sir,’ Sharpe said bitterly. ‘I wasn’t born to rank, sir, I don’t have a purse to buy it and I don’t have the privileges to attract it, so I need to push what bit of luck I’ve got.’

      ‘By giving lectures on assassinating officers?’ Hogan’s voice was frigid with disapproval. ‘The Peer won’t like that, Richard. It smacks of republicanism.’

      ‘Bugger republicanism,’ Sharpe said savagely. ‘But you were the one who told me the Real Compañía Irlandesa can’t be trusted. But I tell you, sir, that if there’s any mischief there, it isn’t coming from the ranks. Those soldiers weren’t trusted with French mischief. They don’t have enough power. Those men are what soldiers always are: victims of their officers, and if you want to find where the French have sown their mischief, sir, then you look among those damned, overpaid, overdressed, overfed bloody officers,’ and Sharpe threw a scornful glance towards the Real Compañía Irlandesa’s officers who seemed unsure whether or not they were supposed to follow their men northwards. ‘That’s where your rotten apples are, sir,’ Sharpe went on, ‘not in the ranks. I’d as happily fight alongside those guardsmen as alongside any other soldier in the world, but I wouldn’t trust my life to that rabble of perfumed fools.’

      Hogan made a calming gesture with his hand, as if he feared Sharpe’s voice might reach the worried officers. ‘You make your point, Richard.’

      ‘My point, sir, is that you told me to make them miserable. So that’s what I’m doing.’

      ‘I just wasn’t sure I wanted you СКАЧАТЬ