Sharpes Eagle   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

There were no bugles to wake them inthe morning, nothing that might alert the French to the dawn attack instead of the more civilised hour of mid-morning, when most men could be expected to fight. Sergeants and corporals shook the men awake; soldiers cursed the dew and the cold air that rasped in their throats. Every man glanced towards the river, but the far bank was shrouded in mist and darkness; there was nothing to be seen, no sound to be heard. They had been forbidden to relight the fires in case the sudden lights should warn the French, but somehow they managed to heat water and threw in the loose tea-leaves, and Sharpe gratefully accepted a tin mug of the scalding liquid from his Sergeant. Harper was kicking dirt onto the fire; the men had risked a small blaze rather than go without tea, and he looked up at Sharpe and grinned. “Permission to go to church, sir?”

Sharpe grinned back. It was Sunday. He tried to work out the date. They had left Plasencia on the seventeenth and that had been a Monday, and he counted the days forward on his fingers. Sunday 23 July, 1809. There was still no light in the eastern sky, the stars shone brightly, the dawn still two hours away. Behind them, on a track that ran between the cork grove and the fields, there was a rumbling and clanking and cursing as a battery of artillery unlimbered. Sharpe turned, the tea cradled in his hands, and watched the dim shapes as the horses were led away and the field guns pointed across the river. They would herald the attack, hurling their round shot at the French lines, tearing holes in the French Battalions as Sharpe led his skirmishers into the river. It was cold, too cold to feel any excitement; that would come later. Now were the hours to feel apprehensive, to tighten belts and buckles, to feel hungry. Sharpe shivered slightly in his greatcoat, nodded his thanks to Harper, and made his way down the grove between the lines of his men who stamped their feet and swung their arms and resurrected the more successful jokes of the previous evening. Somehow they were not as funny in the small hours before dawn.

He left the trees and walked onto the patch of grass that lay beside the river. His boots swished through the dew and warned the sentries of his coming. He was challenged, gave the password, and greeted as he jumped down onto the shingle at the water’s edge.

“Anything happening?”

“No, sir.”

The water slid blackly beneath the tendrils of mist. There was an occasional slap and swirl from the river as a fish twisted and disturbed the surface.