JК
Sharpes Devil :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 105 из 209The dark red flames leaped voraciously from her oil-soaked planks to flare as high as the Espiritu Santo's topmasts.
"Mary, Mother of God," Harper said in awe, not at the incandescent whaler, but rather because the Espiritu Santos mainmast was toppling. The explosion had ripped out the frigate's chain-plates and now the great mast swayed. Some men, now recovering their wits after being stunned by the concussion of the explosion, shouted in warning, while others, from both sides of the fight, were desperately slashing at the remaining grapnels so that the roaring blaze on the whaler would not leap across to destroy the frigate. Beyond that chaos Sharpe could see a red horror on the poop- and quarterdecks where the blast of his carronade had taken a terrible toll among Ardiles's men.
A rebel officer shouted a piercing warning. The swaying mainmast splintered and cracked. Canvas billowed down onto the deck and into the sea. The collapsing mast dragged in its wake the fore topmast and a nightmarish tangle of yards, halyards, lines and sails.
"Come on, Patrick!" Sharpe cocked the pistol and jumped down from the forecastle. A Spanish sailor, groggy from the explosion, tried to stand in Sharpe's way so he thumped the man on the side of his head with the pistol's heavy barrel. A Spanish army officer lunged at Sharpe with a long, narrow sword. Sharpe turned, straightened his right arm and pulled the trigger. The officer seemed to be snatched backward with a halo of exploding blood about his face. Smoke from the burning whaler whirled thick and black and choking across the deck. Sharpe hurled the pistol away and snatched up a fallen cutlass. "Cochrane!" he shouted, "Cochrane!" A mass of Cochrane's men were swarming toward the frigate's stern. The explosion and the subsequent fall of the mast had torn the heart out of the frigate's defenders, though a stubborn rear guard, under an unwounded Ardiles, gathered for a last stand on the quarterdeck.
To Sharpe's left was a tall man with red hair who carried a long and heavy-bladed sword. "To me! To me!" The red-haired man was wearing a green naval coat with two gold epaulettes and was the man the rebels were looking to for orders and inspiration. The man had to be Lord Cochrane. Sharpe turned away as a swarm of Spanish fighters came streaming up from the gundeck below. These new attackers were the frigate's guncrews who, their target destroyed, had come to recapture their maindeck.
Sharpe fought hand to hand, without room to swing a blade, only to stab it forward in short, hard strokes.
"Mary, Mother of God," Harper said in awe, not at the incandescent whaler, but rather because the Espiritu Santos mainmast was toppling. The explosion had ripped out the frigate's chain-plates and now the great mast swayed. Some men, now recovering their wits after being stunned by the concussion of the explosion, shouted in warning, while others, from both sides of the fight, were desperately slashing at the remaining grapnels so that the roaring blaze on the whaler would not leap across to destroy the frigate. Beyond that chaos Sharpe could see a red horror on the poop- and quarterdecks where the blast of his carronade had taken a terrible toll among Ardiles's men.
A rebel officer shouted a piercing warning. The swaying mainmast splintered and cracked. Canvas billowed down onto the deck and into the sea. The collapsing mast dragged in its wake the fore topmast and a nightmarish tangle of yards, halyards, lines and sails.
"Come on, Patrick!" Sharpe cocked the pistol and jumped down from the forecastle. A Spanish sailor, groggy from the explosion, tried to stand in Sharpe's way so he thumped the man on the side of his head with the pistol's heavy barrel. A Spanish army officer lunged at Sharpe with a long, narrow sword. Sharpe turned, straightened his right arm and pulled the trigger. The officer seemed to be snatched backward with a halo of exploding blood about his face. Smoke from the burning whaler whirled thick and black and choking across the deck. Sharpe hurled the pistol away and snatched up a fallen cutlass. "Cochrane!" he shouted, "Cochrane!" A mass of Cochrane's men were swarming toward the frigate's stern. The explosion and the subsequent fall of the mast had torn the heart out of the frigate's defenders, though a stubborn rear guard, under an unwounded Ardiles, gathered for a last stand on the quarterdeck.
To Sharpe's left was a tall man with red hair who carried a long and heavy-bladed sword. "To me! To me!" The red-haired man was wearing a green naval coat with two gold epaulettes and was the man the rebels were looking to for orders and inspiration. The man had to be Lord Cochrane. Sharpe turned away as a swarm of Spanish fighters came streaming up from the gundeck below. These new attackers were the frigate's guncrews who, their target destroyed, had come to recapture their maindeck.
Sharpe fought hand to hand, without room to swing a blade, only to stab it forward in short, hard strokes.