JК
Sharpes Eagle :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 160 из 203The Battalion was in line and firing in controlled platoon volleys. It was superb. No infantry could stand against Britain’s best, and the Battalion was shredding the column with musketry that rolled up and down the Battalion’s line, the ramrods flashing in unison, the platoons firing in sequence, an irresistible hammering of close range musket fire that poured into the tight French ranks. The enemy wavered. Each volley decimated the column’s leading ranks. Their commander tried to deploy into line but he was too late. The men at the back of the column would not go forward into that hail of lead that rippled methodically and murderously from the British muskets. Groups of blue-coated French began to melt into the dark; a mounted British officer saw it and raised his sword, the red ranks cheered and went forward with levelled bayonets and, as suddenly as it had begun, the battle was done. The French went backwards, stepping over the dead, retreating ever faster from the reaching blades. The enemy had done well. A single column had so nearly captured the hill, even without another two columns that had never arrived, but now the French Colonel had to go back, had to take his men from the musket fire that overwhelmed them. As they drew level with the skirmish line some of Sharpe’s Riflemen lifted their weapons, but Sharpe shouted to let them go. There would be killing enough tomorrow.
Sharpe crouched by a fire and wiped the blade free of the sticky blood with a dead Frenchman’s jacket. It was the time for collecting the dead and counting the living. He wanted Gibbons to worry about Berry, to feel fear in the night, and he felt the elation again of the killing stroke. From the town came the bells of midnight, and he thought briefly of the girl lying in the candlelight and he wondered if she thought of him. Harper squatted beside him, his face black with powder smoke, and held out a bottle of spirits.
“Get some sleep, sir. You need it.” Harper grinned briefly. “We have a promise to keep tomorrow.”
Sharpe lifted the bottle towards the Sergeant as if in a toast. “A promise and a half, Sergeant. A promise and a half.”
CHAPTER 20
It was a short, bad night. After the repulse of the French the army rescued the wounded and, in the thin firelight, searched and piled the dead that could be found. Battalions that had thought themselves safe in an imaginary second line now posted sentries, and the brief night was broken by frequent rattles of musketry as the nervous picquets imagined fresh enemy columns in the dark.
Sharpe crouched by a fire and wiped the blade free of the sticky blood with a dead Frenchman’s jacket. It was the time for collecting the dead and counting the living. He wanted Gibbons to worry about Berry, to feel fear in the night, and he felt the elation again of the killing stroke. From the town came the bells of midnight, and he thought briefly of the girl lying in the candlelight and he wondered if she thought of him. Harper squatted beside him, his face black with powder smoke, and held out a bottle of spirits.
“Get some sleep, sir. You need it.” Harper grinned briefly. “We have a promise to keep tomorrow.”
Sharpe lifted the bottle towards the Sergeant as if in a toast. “A promise and a half, Sergeant. A promise and a half.”
CHAPTER 20
It was a short, bad night. After the repulse of the French the army rescued the wounded and, in the thin firelight, searched and piled the dead that could be found. Battalions that had thought themselves safe in an imaginary second line now posted sentries, and the brief night was broken by frequent rattles of musketry as the nervous picquets imagined fresh enemy columns in the dark.