JК
Sharpes Devil :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 29 из 209"He has the devil's own luck," Lieutenant Otero, the Espiritu Santos First Lieutenant, solemnly told Sharpe, "and when Cochrane is lucky, the rebellion thrives." Otero explained that it was Cochrane's naval victories that had made most of the rebellion's successes possible. "Chile is not a country in which armies can easily march, so the Generals need ships to transport their troops. That's what that devil Cochrane has given them—mobility!" Otero stared gloomily at the wild seas ahead, then shook his head sadly. "But in truth he is nothing but a pirate."
"A lucky pirate, it seems," Sharpe observed drily.
"I sometimes wonder if what we call luck is merely the will of God," Otero observed sadly, "and that therefore Cochrane has been sent to scourge Spain for a reason. But God will surely relent." Otero piously crossed himself and Sharpe reflected that if God did indeed want to punish Spain, then in Lord Cochrane He had found Himself a most lethal instrument. Cochrane, when master of a small Royal Naval sloop, and at the very beginnings of the French wars when Spain had still been allied with France, had captured a Spanish frigate that outgunned and outmanned him six to one. From that moment he had become a scourge of the seas, defying every Spanish or French attempt to thwart him. In the end his defeat had not come at the hands of Britain's enemies, but of its courts, which had imprisoned him for fraud. He had fled the country in disgrace, to become the Admiral of the Chilean Republic's Navy and such was Cochrane's reputation that, as even the Espiritu Santa's dofficers were forced to admit, no Spanish ship dared sail alone north of Valdivia, and those ships that sailed the waters south of Valdivia, like the Espiritu Santo herself, had better be well armed.
"And we are well armed!" the frigate's officers liked to boast. Captain Ardiles exercised the Espiritu Sanfo's gun crews incessantly so that the passengers became sick of the heavy guns' concussion that shook the very frame of the big ship. Ardiles, perhaps enjoying the passengers' discomfort, demanded ever faster service of the guns, and was willing to expend powder barrel after powder barrel and roundshot after roundshot in his search for the perfection that would let him destroy Cochrane in battle. The frigate's officers, enthused by their reclusive Captain's quest for efficiency, boasted that they would beat Cochrane's ships to pulp, capture Cochrane himself, then parade the devil through Madrid to expose him to the jeers of the citizens before he was garotted in slow agony.
"A lucky pirate, it seems," Sharpe observed drily.
"I sometimes wonder if what we call luck is merely the will of God," Otero observed sadly, "and that therefore Cochrane has been sent to scourge Spain for a reason. But God will surely relent." Otero piously crossed himself and Sharpe reflected that if God did indeed want to punish Spain, then in Lord Cochrane He had found Himself a most lethal instrument. Cochrane, when master of a small Royal Naval sloop, and at the very beginnings of the French wars when Spain had still been allied with France, had captured a Spanish frigate that outgunned and outmanned him six to one. From that moment he had become a scourge of the seas, defying every Spanish or French attempt to thwart him. In the end his defeat had not come at the hands of Britain's enemies, but of its courts, which had imprisoned him for fraud. He had fled the country in disgrace, to become the Admiral of the Chilean Republic's Navy and such was Cochrane's reputation that, as even the Espiritu Santa's dofficers were forced to admit, no Spanish ship dared sail alone north of Valdivia, and those ships that sailed the waters south of Valdivia, like the Espiritu Santo herself, had better be well armed.
"And we are well armed!" the frigate's officers liked to boast. Captain Ardiles exercised the Espiritu Sanfo's gun crews incessantly so that the passengers became sick of the heavy guns' concussion that shook the very frame of the big ship. Ardiles, perhaps enjoying the passengers' discomfort, demanded ever faster service of the guns, and was willing to expend powder barrel after powder barrel and roundshot after roundshot in his search for the perfection that would let him destroy Cochrane in battle. The frigate's officers, enthused by their reclusive Captain's quest for efficiency, boasted that they would beat Cochrane's ships to pulp, capture Cochrane himself, then parade the devil through Madrid to expose him to the jeers of the citizens before he was garotted in slow agony.