JК
Sharpes Devil :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 36 из 209Ardiles laughed at the weather's malevolence, then looked again at Sharpe. "Take my advice, Englishman. Go home! I'll be sailing back to Spain in a week's time, which gives you just long enough to visit the chingana behind the church in Valdivia, after which you should sail home to your wife."
"The chingana?" Sharpe asked.
"A chingana is where you go for a chingada," Ardiles said unhelpfully. "A chingana is either a tavern that sells whores, or a whorehouse that sells liquor, and the chingana behind the church in Valdivia has half-breed girls who give chingadas that leave men gasping for life. It's the best whorehouse for miles. You know how you can tell which is the best whorehouse in a Spanish town?"
"Tell me."
"It's the one where all the priests go, and this one is where the Bishop goes! So visit the mestizo whores, then go home and tell Vivar's wife that her husband's body was eaten by wild pigs!"
But Sharpe had not been paid to go home and tell stories. He had taken Dona Louisa's money, and he was far from home, and he would not go back defeated. He would find Don Bias, no matter how deep the forest or high the hill. If Don Bias still had form, then Sharpe would find it.
He had sworn as much, and he would keep his promise. He would find Don Bias.
Albatrosses ghosted alongside the Espiritu Santa's, rigging. The frigate, Cape Horn left far behind her, was sailing before a friendly wind on a swirling current of icy water. Dolphins followed her, while whales surfaced and rolled on either flank.
"Christ, but there's some meat on those bloody fish!" Harper said in admiration as a great whale plunged past the Espiritu Santo. The ship was sailing north along the Chilean coast, out of sight of land, though the proximity of the shore was marked by the towering white clouds that heaped above the Andes. Inshore, the sailors said, were yet stranger creatures—penguins and sea lions, mermaids and turtles—but the frigate was staving well clear of the uncharted Chilean coastline so that Harper, to his regret, was denied a chance of glimpsing such monsters. Ardiles, still hoping to capture his own monster, Lord Cochrane, continued to exercise his guns even though his men were already as well trained as any gunners Sharpe had ever seen.
Yet it seemed there was to be no victory over the devil Cochrane on this voyage, for the Espiritu Santos lookouts saw no other ships till the frigate at last closed on the land. Then the lookouts glimpsed a harmless fleet of small fishing vessels that dragged their nets through the cold offshore rollers.
"The chingana?" Sharpe asked.
"A chingana is where you go for a chingada," Ardiles said unhelpfully. "A chingana is either a tavern that sells whores, or a whorehouse that sells liquor, and the chingana behind the church in Valdivia has half-breed girls who give chingadas that leave men gasping for life. It's the best whorehouse for miles. You know how you can tell which is the best whorehouse in a Spanish town?"
"Tell me."
"It's the one where all the priests go, and this one is where the Bishop goes! So visit the mestizo whores, then go home and tell Vivar's wife that her husband's body was eaten by wild pigs!"
But Sharpe had not been paid to go home and tell stories. He had taken Dona Louisa's money, and he was far from home, and he would not go back defeated. He would find Don Bias, no matter how deep the forest or high the hill. If Don Bias still had form, then Sharpe would find it.
He had sworn as much, and he would keep his promise. He would find Don Bias.
Albatrosses ghosted alongside the Espiritu Santa's, rigging. The frigate, Cape Horn left far behind her, was sailing before a friendly wind on a swirling current of icy water. Dolphins followed her, while whales surfaced and rolled on either flank.
"Christ, but there's some meat on those bloody fish!" Harper said in admiration as a great whale plunged past the Espiritu Santo. The ship was sailing north along the Chilean coast, out of sight of land, though the proximity of the shore was marked by the towering white clouds that heaped above the Andes. Inshore, the sailors said, were yet stranger creatures—penguins and sea lions, mermaids and turtles—but the frigate was staving well clear of the uncharted Chilean coastline so that Harper, to his regret, was denied a chance of glimpsing such monsters. Ardiles, still hoping to capture his own monster, Lord Cochrane, continued to exercise his guns even though his men were already as well trained as any gunners Sharpe had ever seen.
Yet it seemed there was to be no victory over the devil Cochrane on this voyage, for the Espiritu Santos lookouts saw no other ships till the frigate at last closed on the land. Then the lookouts glimpsed a harmless fleet of small fishing vessels that dragged their nets through the cold offshore rollers.