JК
Sharpes Havoc :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 128 из 242They sat hunched, counting down the shots that came at a regular pace, one a minute, and the seconds stretched between each one and no one spoke and each shot was a boom from the base of the hill, a crash or thump as the shell struck, the ragged explosion of the powder charge and the shriek of its fragmented casing. One shell failed to explode and they all waited breathless as the seconds passed and then realized that its fuse must have been faulty.
„How many bloody shells do they have?” Harper asked after a quarter-hour.
No one could answer. Sharpe had a vague recollection that a British six-pounder carried more than a hundred rounds of ammunition in its limber, caisson and axle boxes, but he was not sure of that and French practice was probably different, so he said nothing. Instead he prowled round the hilltop, going from the tower to the men in the redoubts and then watching anxiously down the other flanks of the hill, and still there was no sign that the French contemplated an assault.
He went back to the tower. Hagman had produced a small wooden flute, something he had whittled himself during his convalescence, and now he played trills and snatches of old familiar melodies. The scraps of music sounded like birdsong, then the hilltop would reverberate to the next explosion, the shell fragments would batter against the tower and as the brutal sound faded so the flute’s breathy sound would re-emerge. „I always wanted to play the flute,” Sharpe said to no one in particular.
„The fiddle,” Harris said, „I’ve always wanted to play the fiddle.”
„Hard that,” Harper said, „because it’s fiddly.”
They groaned and Harper grinned proudly. Sharpe was mentally counting the seconds, imagining the gun being pushed back into place and then being sponged out, the gunner’s thumb over the touchhole to stop the rush of air forced by the incoming sponge from setting fire to any unexploded powder in the breech. When every lingering scrap of fire had been extinguished inside the barrel they would thrust home the powder bags, then the six-inch shell with its carefully cut fuse protruding from the wooden bung, and the gunner would ram a spike down the touchhole to pierce a canvas powder bag and afterward push a reed filled with more powder down into the punctured bag.
„How many bloody shells do they have?” Harper asked after a quarter-hour.
No one could answer. Sharpe had a vague recollection that a British six-pounder carried more than a hundred rounds of ammunition in its limber, caisson and axle boxes, but he was not sure of that and French practice was probably different, so he said nothing. Instead he prowled round the hilltop, going from the tower to the men in the redoubts and then watching anxiously down the other flanks of the hill, and still there was no sign that the French contemplated an assault.
He went back to the tower. Hagman had produced a small wooden flute, something he had whittled himself during his convalescence, and now he played trills and snatches of old familiar melodies. The scraps of music sounded like birdsong, then the hilltop would reverberate to the next explosion, the shell fragments would batter against the tower and as the brutal sound faded so the flute’s breathy sound would re-emerge. „I always wanted to play the flute,” Sharpe said to no one in particular.
„The fiddle,” Harris said, „I’ve always wanted to play the fiddle.”
„Hard that,” Harper said, „because it’s fiddly.”
They groaned and Harper grinned proudly. Sharpe was mentally counting the seconds, imagining the gun being pushed back into place and then being sponged out, the gunner’s thumb over the touchhole to stop the rush of air forced by the incoming sponge from setting fire to any unexploded powder in the breech. When every lingering scrap of fire had been extinguished inside the barrel they would thrust home the powder bags, then the six-inch shell with its carefully cut fuse protruding from the wooden bung, and the gunner would ram a spike down the touchhole to pierce a canvas powder bag and afterward push a reed filled with more powder down into the punctured bag.