Sharpe’s Eagle: The Talavera Campaign, July 1809. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ that could pick and choose its recruits, rejecting all but the best, but even so it suffered from the besetting sin of the whole army; drunkenness. Sharpe guessed there were at least half a dozen bottles of wine within a few paces and Harper was going to find them. He heard the Sergeant get to his feet. ‘Right! Inspection.’

      ‘Sergeant!’ That was Gataker, too fly for his own good. ‘You inspected the water bottles this morning! You know we haven’t got any.’

      ‘I know you haven’t any in your water bottles but that’s not the same thing, is it?’ There was still no response. ‘Lay your ammunition out! Now!’

      There were groans. Both the Portuguese and the Spanish would gladly sell wine to a man in exchange for a handful of cartridges made with British gunpowder, the finest in the world, and it was a fair bet that if any man had less than his eighty rounds then Harper would find a bottle hid deep in that man’s pack. Sharpe heard the sound of rummaging and scuffling. He opened his eyes to see seven bottles had magically appeared. Harper stood over them triumphantly. ‘We share these out tonight. Well done, lads, I knew you wouldn’t let me down.’ He turned to Sharpe. ‘Do you want a cartridge count, sir?’

      ‘No, we’ll get on.’ He knew the men could be trusted not to sell more than a handful of cartridges. He looked at the huge Irishman. ‘How many cartridges would you have, Sergeant?’

      Harper’s face was sublimely honest. ‘Eighty, sir.’

      ‘Show me your powder horn.’

      Harper smiled. ‘I thought you might like a drop of something tonight, sir?’

      ‘Let’s get on, then.’ Sharpe grinned at Harper’s discomfiture. In addition to the eighty rounds, twenty more than the rest of the army carried, Riflemen also carried a horn of fine powder that made for better shooting when there was time to use it. ‘All right, Sergeant. Ten minutes fast, then we’ll march easy.’

      At midday they found Major Forrest with his small, mounted advance party waving to them from a stand of trees that grew between the road and the stream Harper had been hoping for. The Major led the Riflemen to the spot he had chosen for them. ‘I thought, Sharpe, that it might be best if you were some way from the Colonel?’

      ‘Don’t worry, sir.’ Sharpe grinned at the nervous Major. ‘I think that’s an excellent idea.’

      Forrest was still worried. He looked at Sharpe’s men who were already hacking at the branches. ‘Sir Henry insists on fires being built in straight lines, Sharpe.’

      Sharpe held up his hands. ‘Not a flame out of place, sir, I promise you.’

      An hour later the Battalion arrived and the men threw themselves on to the ground and rested their heads on their packs. Some went to the stream and sat with blistered, swollen feet in the cool water. Sentries were posted, weapons stacked, the smell of tobacco drifted through the trees, and a desultory game of football started far away from the pile of baggage that marked the temporary officers’ mess. Last to arrive were the wives and children mixed with the Portuguese muleteers and their animals, Hogan and his mules, and the herd of cattle, driven by hired labour, that would provide the evening meals until the last beast was killed.

      In the somnolent afternoon Sharpe felt restless. He had no family to write to and no desire to join Harper vainly tempting non-existent fish with his maggots. Hogan was sleeping, snoring gently in a patch of shade, so Sharpe got up from the grass, took his rifle, and strolled towards the picquet line and beyond. It was a beautiful day. No cloud disturbed the sky, the water in the stream flowed clear, a whisper of a breeze stirred the grass and flickered the pale leaves of the olive trees. He walked between the stream and a field of growing corn, jumped a crude, wicker dam that stopped an irrigation channel, and into a rock-strewn field of stunted olives. Nothing moved. Insects buzzed and clicked, a horse whinnied from the camp site, the sound of the water faded behind him. Someone had told him it was July. Perhaps it was his birthday. He did not know on which day he had been born but before his mother died he remembered her calling him a July-baby, or was it June? He remembered little else of her. Dark hair and a voice in the darkness. She had died when he was an infant and there was no other family.

      The landscape crouched beneath the heat, still and silent, the Battalion swallowed up in the countryside as though it did not exist. He looked back down the road the Battalion had marched and far away, too far to see properly, there was a dust cloud where the main army was still on the road. He sat beside a gnarled tree trunk, rifle across his knees, and stared into the heat haze. A lizard darted across the ground, paused, looked at him, then ran up a tree trunk and froze as if he would lose sight of it because of its stillness. A speck of movement in the sky made him look up and high in the blue a hawk slid silently, its wings motionless, its head searching the ground for prey. Patrick would have known instantly what it was but to Sharpe the bird was just another hunter and today, he thought, there is nothing for us hunters and, as if in agreement, the bird stirred its wings and in a moment had gone out of view. He felt comfortable and lazy, at peace with the world, glad to be a Rifleman in Spain. He looked at the stunted olives with their promise of a thin harvest and wondered what family would shake the branches in the autumn, whose lives were bounded by the stream, the shallow fields, and the high, climbing road he would probably never see again.

      Then there was a noise. Too hesitant and far off to sound an alarm in his head, but strange and persistent enough to make him alert and send his right hand to curl unconsciously round the narrow part of the rifle’s stock. There were horses on the road, only two from the sound of their hooves, but they were moving slowly and uncertainly and the sound suggested that something was wrong. He doubted that the French would have cavalry patrols in this part of Spain but he still got to his feet and moved silently through the grove, instinctively choosing a path that kept his green uniform hidden and shadowed until he stood in the bright sunlight and surprised the traveller.

      It was the girl. She was still dressed like a man, in the black trousers and boots, with the same wide-brimmed hat that shadowed her beauty. She was walking, or rather limping like her horse, and at the sight of Sharpe she stopped and looked at him angrily as if she was annoyed at being seen unexpectedly. The servant, a slight, dark man leading the heavily loaded mule, stopped ten paces behind and stared mutely at the tall, scarred Rifleman. The mare also looked at Sharpe, swished its tail at the flies, and stood patiently with one hind leg lifted off the ground. The shoe was hanging loose, held by a single nail, and the animal must have suffered agonies on the heat of the stony road. Sharpe nodded at the hind foot. ‘Why didn’t you take the shoe off?’

      Her voice was surprisingly soft. ‘Can you do it?’ She smiled at him, the anger going from her face, and for a second Sharpe said nothing. He guessed she was in her early twenties but she carried her looks with the assurance of someone who knew that beauty could be a better inheritance than money or land. She seemed amused at his hesitation, as though she was accustomed to her effect on men, and she raised a mocking eyebrow. ‘Can you?’

      Sharpe nodded and moved to the horse’s rear. He pulled the hoof towards him, holding the pastern firmly, and the mare trembled but stayed still. The shoe would have fallen off within a few paces and he pulled it clear with the slightest tug and let the leg go. He held the shoe out to the girl. ‘You’re lucky.’

      Her eyes were huge and dark. ‘Why?’

      ‘It can probably be put back on, I don’t know.’ He felt clumsy and awkward in her presence, aware of her beauty, suddenly tongue-tied because he wanted her very much. She made no move to take the shoe so he pushed it under the strap of a bulging saddlebag. ‘Someone will know how to shoe a horse up there.’ He nodded up the road. ‘There’s a Battalion camped up there.’

      ‘The СКАЧАТЬ