JК
Sharpes Devil :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 160 из 209Three hundred men against two thousand were not good odds, and the odds worsened appreciably when the two thousand defenderswere safely ensconced behind ditches, palisades, walls, embrasures and the wickedest array of cannonfire assembled in all South America. But it was no use expressing such defeatism to Lord Cochrane, and so Sharpe tried to find some other weakness in the Spanish defenses. "I seem to remember there was a beach here when I sailed into Valdivia." He leaned over the map and pointed to the very tip of the headland around which the attackers would have to sail.
"The Aguada del Ingles," offered Fraser, Cochrane's elderly sailing master. "Aguada means a watering place," and the old Scotsman explained that Bartholomew Sharp, a seventeenth-century English pirate, had landed on that same beach, right under the Spanish defenses, to fill his barrels from a freshwater spring.
"There's an omen, eh, Sharpe?" Miller said happily. "Your namesake, eh?"
"It rather depends on whether he got away with it," Sharpe said.
"Aye, he did," Fraser said. 'They called him a devil in his time, too."
"Why don't we land there ourselves," Sharpe suggested, "and attack the forts one by one? These forts aren't designed to defend themselves against a landward attack, and if we take Fort Ingles, then the very sight of the defeat may demoralize the other garrisons."
There was a few seconds' silence as the men about the table stared at the map. Part of Sharpe's solution made sense. Most of the westernmost forts had not been built to defend against a landward attack, but merely to threaten any ship foolish enough to sail unwanted into Valdivia's harbor, but Corral Castle and Fort Niebla were both proper fortresses, built to resist ships, artillery and infantry, and even if Cochrane's men could tumble the defenders out of Fort Ingles, Fort San Carlos and Fort Amar-gos, they would still need to capture the far more formidable Corral Castle before they marched around the southern side of the harbor to lay siege to Fort Niebla.
Cochrane rejected Sharpe's halfhearted ideas. "Good God, man, but think of the time you're taking! An hour to land our men, that's if we can land them at all, which we can't if the surfs high, then another half hour to form up, and what are the Spaniards going to be doing? You think they'll sit waiting for us? Christ, no! They'll meet us on the beach with a Hail Mary of musket balls. We'll be lucky if ten men survive! No. We'll risk the gunfire, hoist the ensigns, and run straight for the defense's heart!"
"If we make a land attack at night," Sharpe persisted in his less risky plan, "then the Spanish will be confused.
"The Aguada del Ingles," offered Fraser, Cochrane's elderly sailing master. "Aguada means a watering place," and the old Scotsman explained that Bartholomew Sharp, a seventeenth-century English pirate, had landed on that same beach, right under the Spanish defenses, to fill his barrels from a freshwater spring.
"There's an omen, eh, Sharpe?" Miller said happily. "Your namesake, eh?"
"It rather depends on whether he got away with it," Sharpe said.
"Aye, he did," Fraser said. 'They called him a devil in his time, too."
"Why don't we land there ourselves," Sharpe suggested, "and attack the forts one by one? These forts aren't designed to defend themselves against a landward attack, and if we take Fort Ingles, then the very sight of the defeat may demoralize the other garrisons."
There was a few seconds' silence as the men about the table stared at the map. Part of Sharpe's solution made sense. Most of the westernmost forts had not been built to defend against a landward attack, but merely to threaten any ship foolish enough to sail unwanted into Valdivia's harbor, but Corral Castle and Fort Niebla were both proper fortresses, built to resist ships, artillery and infantry, and even if Cochrane's men could tumble the defenders out of Fort Ingles, Fort San Carlos and Fort Amar-gos, they would still need to capture the far more formidable Corral Castle before they marched around the southern side of the harbor to lay siege to Fort Niebla.
Cochrane rejected Sharpe's halfhearted ideas. "Good God, man, but think of the time you're taking! An hour to land our men, that's if we can land them at all, which we can't if the surfs high, then another half hour to form up, and what are the Spaniards going to be doing? You think they'll sit waiting for us? Christ, no! They'll meet us on the beach with a Hail Mary of musket balls. We'll be lucky if ten men survive! No. We'll risk the gunfire, hoist the ensigns, and run straight for the defense's heart!"
"If we make a land attack at night," Sharpe persisted in his less risky plan, "then the Spanish will be confused.