Sharpes Eagle   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

He could hardly move his right arm, the whole of it seemed paralysed by the blow from the hoof, buthe lunged up with the Eagle as if it was a quarterstaff, trying to force the hooves away from his body. Damn that magpie! Couldn’t Harper hear the fight? Then the sabre was over his stomach and Gibbons’ smiling face was above him, and the Lieutenant paused. “She felt good, Sharpe. And I’ll take that Eagle as well.”

Gibbons seemed to laugh at him, the Lieutenant’s mouth stretching and stretching, and still he did not stab downwards. His eyes widened and Sharpe began to move, away from the sabre, climbing to his feet, and he saw the blood coming from Gibbons’ throat and falling, slowly and thickly, on the sabre. Sharpe was still moving, the Eagle swinging, and the wing of the French trophy smashed into Gibbons’ mouth, breaking the teeth, forcing back the head, but the Lieutenant was dead. The Eagle had forced him back, but the body toppled towards Sharpe and in its back, through the ribs, was a bayonet on a French musket. Sergeant Harper stood on the far side of the horse and grinned at Sharpe.

Gibbons’ body slumped beside the horse and Sharpe stared at it, at the bayonet and strange French musket that had been driven clean into the lungs and was stuck there, swaying above the body. He looked at Harper.

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” The Sergeant was grinning broadly, as if he had been pleased to see Sharpe scrambling for his life. “It was worth being in this army just to do that.”

Sharpe leaned on the Eagle’s staff, catching his breath, appalled at the closeness of death. He shook his head at Harper. “The bastard nearly got me!” He sounded astonished, as if it had been unthinkable for Gibbons to prove the better fighter.

“He would have had to finish me off first, sir.” It was said lightly enough, but Sharpe knew the Sergeant had spoken the truth, and he smiled in acknowledgement and then went to pick up his rifle. He turned again. “Patrick?”

“Sir?”

“Thank you.”

Harper brushed it off. “Just make sure they give us more than a hundred guineas. It’s not every day we capture a bloody Eagle.”

Gibbons was not carrying much: a handful of guineas, a watch broken by his fall, and the expensive sabre that they would be forced to leave behind. Sharpe joined Harper and, kneeling by the crumpled body, he thrust his hand into Gibbons’ collar and found what he had half expected: a gold chain. Most soldiers carried something valuable round their necks and Sharpe knew that, should he die, some enemy would find the bag of coins round his own neck. Harper glanced up. “I missed that.