Sharpes Havoc   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

„They had Lopes,” Sharpe said, „and he didn’t know how to fight, and if he had then he wouldn’t have stayed. And if we’d fought for them we’d be dead now and these folk would be just as dead.”

„We should have stayed,” Vicente insisted.

Sharpe ignored him. „Cooper? Sims?” The two men cocked their rifles. Cooper shot first, Sharpe counted to ten and then Sims pulled his trigger, Sharpe counted to ten again and then he fired into the air. It was a signal that Harper could lead the others down from the hilltop. „Look for spades,” Sharpe said to Vicente.

„Spades?”

„We’re going to bury them.”

The graveyard was a walled enclosure just north of the village and there was a small hut with sextons’ shovels that Sharpe gave to his men. „Deep enough so the animals don’t scratch them up,” he ordered, „but not too deep.”

„Why not too deep?” Vicente bridled, thinking that a shallow grave was a callous insult to the dead.

„Because when the villagers come back,” Sharpe said, „they’ll dig them up to find their relatives.” He found a large piece of sacking in the shed and he used it to collect the charred bodies from the church, dragging them one by one to the graveyard. The left arm came off Father Josefa’s body when Sharpe tried to pull the priest free of the charred cross, but Sims saw what was happening and came to help roll the shrunken, blackened corpse onto the sacking.

„I’ll take it, sir,” Sims said, seizing hold of the sacking.

„You don’t have to.”

Sims looked embarrassed. „We’re not going to run, sir,” he blurted out, then looked fearful as if he expected to get the rough edge of Sharpe’s tongue.

Sharpe looked at him and saw another thief, another drunk, another failure, another rifleman. Then Sharpe smiled. „Thank you, Sims. Tell Pat Harper to give you some of his holy water.”

„Holy water?” Sims asked.

„The brandy he keeps in his second canteen. The one he thinks I don’t know about.”

Afterward, when the men who had come down from the hilltop were helping to bury the dead, Sharpe went back to the church where Harper found him. „Picquets are set, sir.”

„Good.”

„And Sims says I was to give him some brandy.”

„I hope you did.”

„I did, sir, I did. And Mister Vicente, sir, he’s wanting to say a prayer or two.”

„I hope God’s listening.”

„You want to be there?”

„No, Pat.”

„Didn’t think you would.” The big Irishman picked his way through the ashes.