JК
Sharpes Devil :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 79 из 209"
Sharpe expected to find a vault under the gravestone, but they levered up the heavy slab to find instead a patch of flattened yellow shingle.
"Christ only knows how deep he is," Harper said, then drove the crowbar hard into the gravel. Sharpe went to the side chapel and came back with a trowel that he used to scrape aside the stones and sand that Harper had loosened with the crowbar. "We'll probably have to go down six feet," Harper grumbled, "and it'll take us bloody hours."
"I reckon Major Suarez will give us a work party tomorrow," Sharpe said, then moved aside to let Harper thrust down with the bar again.
Harper slammed the crowbar down. It crashed through the shingle, thumped on something hollow, then abruptly burst through into a space beneath.
"Jesus!" Harper could not resist the imprecation.
Sharpe twisted aside, a hand to his mouth. The crowbar had pierced a coffin that had been buried scarcely a foot beneath the floor, and now the shallow grave was giving off a stink so noxious that Sharpe could not help gagging. He stepped backward, out of range of the effluvia. Harper was gasping for clean air. "God save Ireland, but you'd think they'd bury the poor man a few feet farther down. Jesus!"
It was the smell of death—a sickly, clogging, strangely sweet and never-to-be-forgotten stench of rotting flesh. Sharpe had smelled such decay innumerable times, yet not lately, not in these last happy years in Normandy. Now the first slight hint of the smell brought back a tidal wave of memories. There had been a time in his life, and in Harper's life, when a man slept and woke and ate and lived with that reek of mortality. Sharpe had known places, like Waterloo, where even after the dead had all been buried the stench persisted, souring every tree and blade of grass and breath of air with its insinuating foulness. It was the smell that traced a soldier's passing, the grave smell, and now it pervaded the church where a friend was buried.
"Christ, but you're right about needing an airtight box to hold him." Harper had retreated to the edge of the choir. "We'll drink the brandy, and he can have the box."
Sharpe crept closer to the grave. The stench was appalling, much worse than he remembered it from the wars. He held his breath and scraped with his trowel at the hole Harper had made, but all he could see was a splinter of yellow wood in the gravel.
"I think we should wait and let a work party do this," Harper said fervently.
Sharpe scuttled back a few feet before taking a deep breath. "I think you're right.
Sharpe expected to find a vault under the gravestone, but they levered up the heavy slab to find instead a patch of flattened yellow shingle.
"Christ only knows how deep he is," Harper said, then drove the crowbar hard into the gravel. Sharpe went to the side chapel and came back with a trowel that he used to scrape aside the stones and sand that Harper had loosened with the crowbar. "We'll probably have to go down six feet," Harper grumbled, "and it'll take us bloody hours."
"I reckon Major Suarez will give us a work party tomorrow," Sharpe said, then moved aside to let Harper thrust down with the bar again.
Harper slammed the crowbar down. It crashed through the shingle, thumped on something hollow, then abruptly burst through into a space beneath.
"Jesus!" Harper could not resist the imprecation.
Sharpe twisted aside, a hand to his mouth. The crowbar had pierced a coffin that had been buried scarcely a foot beneath the floor, and now the shallow grave was giving off a stink so noxious that Sharpe could not help gagging. He stepped backward, out of range of the effluvia. Harper was gasping for clean air. "God save Ireland, but you'd think they'd bury the poor man a few feet farther down. Jesus!"
It was the smell of death—a sickly, clogging, strangely sweet and never-to-be-forgotten stench of rotting flesh. Sharpe had smelled such decay innumerable times, yet not lately, not in these last happy years in Normandy. Now the first slight hint of the smell brought back a tidal wave of memories. There had been a time in his life, and in Harper's life, when a man slept and woke and ate and lived with that reek of mortality. Sharpe had known places, like Waterloo, where even after the dead had all been buried the stench persisted, souring every tree and blade of grass and breath of air with its insinuating foulness. It was the smell that traced a soldier's passing, the grave smell, and now it pervaded the church where a friend was buried.
"Christ, but you're right about needing an airtight box to hold him." Harper had retreated to the edge of the choir. "We'll drink the brandy, and he can have the box."
Sharpe crept closer to the grave. The stench was appalling, much worse than he remembered it from the wars. He held his breath and scraped with his trowel at the hole Harper had made, but all he could see was a splinter of yellow wood in the gravel.
"I think we should wait and let a work party do this," Harper said fervently.
Sharpe scuttled back a few feet before taking a deep breath. "I think you're right.