Sharpe’s Rifles. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ a moustached face framed by the odd pigtails of the French Dragoons. Dragons was the French and Spanish name for them, and that thought wisped by Sharpe as the face disappeared behind a puff of smoke and again he heard the distinctive smack of a rifle bullet. A rifle! A Baker! He suddenly knew these must be the same men who had split apart Dunnett’s four companies of Riflemen at the bridge; they were using captured British rifles, and the memory of that defeat gave him a new anger which drove him onwards.

      Sharpe turned abruptly towards the centre of the enemy’s weakened line. Somewhere on the hillside behind he had abandoned his unfired rifle and drawn his new sword. The weapon would make him a mark to the Dragoons, an officer to be shot, but it also made him visible to his men.

      His legs were hurting with the effort of climbing. The slope was steep and ice-slick, and every footfall slid back before it took purchase. Anger had driven him up the hill, but now fear made him frail. Sharpe was panting, too out of breath to shout any more, conscious only of the need to close the gap on the French. He had a sudden certainty that he would die. He would die here, because even a Dragon could not fail to kill him at this short range. But still he climbed. What mattered was to prise open this jaw of the trap so that Vivar’s men could escape up the hill. Sharpe’s heart pounded in his chest, his muscles burned, his bruises ached, and he wondered whether he would feel the bullet that killed him. Would it strike clean, throwing him back to slide in blood and thawing snow down the slope? At least his men would know he was no coward. He would show the bastards how a real soldier died.

      A Spanish volley sounded beneath him, but that was another battle. Further off a trumpet sounded, but it had nothing to do with Sharpe. His world was a few yards of slush with rocks beyond. He saw a shard of white struck by a bullet from a rock and knew some of his men were firing to give cover. He could hear other Riflemen following him, cursing as they slipped on the icy slope. He saw flashes of pale green in the rocks – Dragoons – and he jerked aside from a puff of smoke and the crash of the carbine rang in his ears. He wondered if he was dreaming, if he was already dead, then his left boot found a firm foothold on an outcrop of stone and he pushed desperately upwards.

      Two guns hammered at him. Sharpe was screaming incoherently now; a scream of pure fear turning into a killing rage. He hated the whole world. He saw a Dragoon scrambling backwards with a ramrod in his hand and the big sword, Murray’s gift, cleaved down to smash into the man’s ribs. There was a moment when the blade was gripped by the flesh, but he twisted the steel free and swung it left so that blood drops spewed into the face of a French officer who lunged with his own sword at Sharpe’s belly. Sharpe let the enemy blade come, twisted aside, then rammed the guard of his heavy sword into the Frenchman’s face. A bone cracked, there was more blood, then the officer was on the ground and Sharpe was smashing at the man’s face with the disc hilt of his sword. A greenjacket ran past, sword-bayonet already bloodied, then another Rifleman was among the rocks.

      Sharpe stood, reversed the sword, and stabbed down. On the long slope beneath him he could see two men who, in their green coats, lay like discarded rag dolls. A carbine fired to Sharpe’s left and up there, unprotected from the wind, the smoke was snatched clean away to show a frightened Dragoon turning to run.

      Sergeant Williams shot the man, then stabbed him with his bayonet. He was shouting like a fiend. Other Riflemen reached the summit. A knot of Frenchmen tried to form a rally square at the canyon’s edge and Sharpe shouted for his men to attack. The greenjackets scrambled over patchy snow that was flecked red. Their faces were stained with powder and their lips were drawn back in a snarl as they moved like a wolfpack towards the Dragoons, who did not wait for the charge but broke and fled.

      Bullets hissed from the Dragoons positioned on the far side of the gorge. A Rifleman spun, fell, then spat blood as he struggled to his hands and knees.

      ‘Sergeant Williams! Kill those bastards!’ Sharpe pointed across the canyon. ‘Get their bloody heads down!’

      ‘Sir!’

      The trumpet sounded again and Sharpe veered back towards the slope he had climbed. At its foot Vivar had formed his men, but the French had expected it. Their main force had been barricaded on the road and now, from the Spaniard’s left flank, a company of Dragoons was lined for the charge. ‘You!’ Sharpe grabbed a greenjacket. ‘You!’ Another. ‘Kill those buggers.’

      The rifles snapped at the horsemen. ‘Aim low!’ His voice was snatched by the wind. ‘Low!’ A horse went down. A man fell back from his saddle. Sharpe found a rifle among the rocks, loaded it, and fired downwards. Sergeant Williams had a dozen men sniping over the canyon, but the rest of the greenjackets were now pouring fire at the cavalry. They could not stop the charge, but they could unsettle it. A riderless horse stampeded in the snow, while another dragged a bleeding man across the charge’s face.

      Vivar retreated. His thin line of men would have been turned into carrion by the Dragoon’s swords, and so the Major took shelter in the gorge. The French commander must have realized that his own charge was doomed, for the horsemen were pulled back. If the cavalry had funnelled themselves into the rocks, and done so without the help of cover from above, they would have been massacred by rifle fire.

      Stalemate. Somewhere a wounded man sobbed in a terrible wailing voice. A limping horse tried to rejoin the cavalry’s ranks, but fell. Cartridge wadding smoked in the snow. Sharpe did not know whether two minutes or two hours had passed. He felt the cold seep back into his bones; a cold that had been vanquished by the sudden emergency. He grinned to himself, proud of his greenjackets’ achievement. It had been done with a ruthless speed which had unbalanced the enemy and taken away their advantage, and now there was stalemate.

      The French still barred the road, but Sharpe’s Riflemen could harass those sheltering behind the low barricade, and they did so with the grim enjoyment of men revenging themselves. Two French prisoners had been taken on the heights; two miserable Dragoons who were shoved into a hollow of the rocks and guarded by a savage-looking Rifleman. Sharpe guessed there had never been more than three dozen Dragoons on each side of the chasm, and he could see no more than sixty or seventy either behind the barricade or in the ranks of the aborted charge. This could only be a detachment of Dragoons, a handful sent into the mountains.

      ‘Lieutenant!’ Vivar shouted from beneath Sharpe. The Spaniard was hidden by the loom of the rocks.

      ‘Major?’

      ‘If I reach the barricade, can you give me fire?’

      ‘You’ll never make it!’ If Vivar attacked the barricade, then his flank would again be open to the horsemen. Sharpe had seen what Dragoons could do to scattered infantry, and he feared for Vivar’s dismounted Cazadores. The carbine was not the Dragoons’ real weapon; they relished the power of their long straight swords and they prayed for rash fools on whom to wield the killing blades.

      ‘Englishman!’ Vivar shouted again.

      ‘Major?’

      ‘I spit on your opinion! Give me fire!’

      ‘Fool,’ Sharpe muttered, then shouted at his men, ‘Keep their heads down!’

      Vivar’s men broke cover in a column of threes. The first time he had attacked, Vivar had made a line, but now he aimed his men like a human battering ram at the road’s obstruction. The Galicians did not march forward, but ran. Smoke puffed from the barricade and Sharpe’s men opened fire.

      The mounted Dragoons, just forty strong, saw the scarlet-coated enemy come into the open. The horses wheeled and were spurred into a trot. Vivar ignored them. A Spaniard fell, and his comrades swerved round his body and reformed beyond. A trumpet sounded high and shrill, then at last the Major stopped СКАЧАТЬ