Sharpe 3-Book Collection 3. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ and the thin wood splintered and Sharpe tore his way through, bellowing as though he went into battle.

      Which he did, for Lieutenant Bursay was on the bed where he was holding down Lady Grace. The tall lieutenant had torn her dress open at the neck and was now trying to rip it further while, at the same time, keeping one hand over her mouth. He turned to see Sharpe, but he was much too slow, for Sharpe was already on the lieutenant’s broad back with his left hand tangled in Bursay’s greasy hair. He hauled the Frenchman’s head back and chopped the side of his right hand onto the lieutenant’s neck. He hit him once, twice, then Bursay heaved Sharpe off and twisted to swing a huge fist. Someone hammered on the cabin door, but Bursay had locked it.

      Bursay had taken off his coat and sword belt, but he seized the cutlass handle, dragged the blade free and slashed at Sharpe. Lady Grace was hunched at the head of the bed, clutching the remnants of her dress to her neck. There were pearls scattered on the bed. Bursay had evidently come to plunder Lord William’s possessions and found Grace the most delectable.

      Sharpe threw himself back through the ruins of the bulkhead. His own sabre was on the bed and he dragged it from the scabbard and swung the blade as the big Frenchman clambered through the splintered panels. Bursay parried the stroke, then, as the sound of the blades still echoed in the cabin, he charged at Sharpe.

      Sharpe tried to spear the sabre into Bursay’s belly, but the lieutenant contemptuously swatted the steel away and punched the hilt of the cutlass into Sharpe’s head. The blow made Sharpe reel, scattering his vision with sparks and darkness as he fell backwards. He rolled desperately to his right as the cutlass chopped down into the deck, then he swung the sabre in a wild, backhanded and clumsy stroke that did no damage, but served to make Bursay step back. Sharpe scrambled to his feet, his head still ringing, and heard the locked door between Lord William’s two cabins being broken down. Bursay grinned. He was so tall that he had to stoop beneath the deck beams, but he was confident, for he had hurt Sharpe, who was staggering slightly. The cutlass hilt had drawn blood which trickled from Sharpe’s forehead down his cheek. He shook his head, trying to clear his vision, knowing that this brute of a man was just as savage and quick as he was himself. The lieutenant ducked under a beam and lunged at Sharpe, who parried, then Bursay snarled and charged, the cutlass sweeping like a reaping hook, and Sharpe threw himself back against the cabin’s forward bulkhead and the Frenchman knew he had won, except that Sharpe bounced back from the wall, his sabre held like a spear, and stretched forward so that the curved tip ripped into Bursay’s throat. Sharpe swerved to his left to avoid the cutlass’s heavy riposte and it seemed to him that his thrust had not done any real damage, for he had felt no resistance to the blade, but Bursay was wavering and blood was pouring down his coat. The Frenchman’s right arm fell so that the cutlass tip struck the deck. He stared at Sharpe with an expression of puzzlement and put his left hand to his neck where the blood was pulsing dark and then, with a lurch, he fell to his knees and made a gurgling sound. A marine kicked through the shattered bulkhead and stared wide-eyed at the big lieutenant, who was looking up at Sharpe in faint surprise. Then, as if pole-axed, Bursay fell hard forward and a wash of blood spilt across the deck and vanished between the cracks.

      The marine raised his musket, but just then an authoritative voice snapped in French and the man lowered the gun. Major Dalton thrust the marine aside and saw Bursay’s body which was still twitching. ‘You did this?’ the major asked, kneeling and lifting the lieutenant’s head, then dropping it swiftly as more blood welled from the wound in the neck.

      ‘What else was I to do with him?’ Sharpe asked belligerently. He wiped the sabre’s tip on the hem of his coat, then pushed past the marine and peered through the broken bulkhead to see that Lady Grace was still crouched on the bed, her hands at her throat, shaking. ‘It’s all right, my lady,’ he said, ‘it’s over.’

      She stared at him. Dalton spoke in French to the marine, evidently ordering the man to report to the quarterdeck, then Lord William peered round the shattered partition, saw the corpse and looked up at Sharpe’s bloodied face. ‘What …’ he began, but then was bereft of words. There was a graze on Lord William’s cheek where he had been struck by Bursay. The Frenchman was unmoving now. Lady Grace was still sobbing, gasping huge breaths, then whimpering.

      Sharpe tossed his sabre onto Pohlmann’s bed, and stepped past Lord William. ‘It’s all right, my lady,’ he said again, ‘he’s dead.’

      ‘Dead?’

      ‘He’s dead.’

      A silk embroidered dressing gown, presumably Lord William’s, was hung over the foot of the bed and Sharpe tossed it to Lady Grace. She draped it about her shoulders, then began shaking again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sobbed, ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘Nothing for you to be sorry about, my lady,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘You will leave this cabin, Sharpe,’ Lord William said coldly. He was shaking slightly and a trickle of blood traced his jawbone.

      Lady Grace turned on her husband. ‘You did nothing!’ she spat at him. ‘You did nothing!’

      ‘You’re hysterical, Grace, hysterical. The man hit me!’ he protested to anyone who would listen. ‘I tried to stop him, he hit me!’

      ‘You did nothing!’ Lady Grace said again.

      Lord William summoned Lady Grace’s maid who, like him, had been under the marine’s guard in the day cabin. ‘Calm her down, for Christ’s sake,’ he told the girl, then jerked his head to indicate that Sharpe should leave the bedroom.

      Sharpe stepped back through the ruined bulkhead to discover that most of the great cabin’s passengers had come upstairs and were now staring at Bursay’s corpse. Ebenezer Fairley shook his head in wonder. ‘When you do a job, lad,’ the merchant said, ‘you do it proper. Can’t be a drop of blood left in him! Most of it’s dripped down onto our bed.’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘Not the first blood I’ve seen, lad. And worse things happen at sea, they tell me.’

      ‘You should all leave!’ Lord William had come into Pohlmann’s quarters. ‘Just leave!’ he snapped pettishly.

      ‘This ain’t your room,’ Fairley growled, ‘and if you were a half a man, my lord, neither Sharpe nor this corpse would be here.’

      Lord William gaped at Fairley, but just then Lady Grace, her hair ragged, stepped over the splinters of the partition. Her husband tried to push her back, but she shook him off and stared down at the corpse, then up at Sharpe. ‘Thank you, Mister Sharpe,’ she said.

      ‘Glad I could be of service, my lady,’ Sharpe replied, then turned and braced himself as Major Dalton led a Frenchman into the crowded cabin. ‘This is the new captain of the ship,’ Dalton said. ‘He’s an officier marinier, which I think is the equivalent of our petty officer.’

      The Frenchman was an older man, balding, with a face weathered and browned by long service at sea. He had no uniform, for he was not a wardroom officer, but evidently a senior seaman who seemed quite unmoved by Bursay’s death. It was plain that the marine had already explained the circumstance for he asked no questions, but simply made a clumsy and embarrassed bow to Lady Grace and muttered an apology.

      Lady Grace acknowledged the apology in a voice still shaking from fear. ‘Merci, monsieur.’

      The officier marinier spoke to Dalton who translated for Sharpe’s benefit. ‘He regrets Bursay’s actions, Sharpe. He says the man was an animal. He was a petty СКАЧАТЬ