JК
Sharpes Havoc :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 169 из 242„Sir Arthur wants to get across,” Waters went on, „and your fellows have conveniently provided those three barges, and you say there’s a fourth?”
„Three miles upriver, sir.”
„You ain’t done a bad morning’s work, Sharpe,” Waters said with a friendly grin. „We only have to pray for one thing.”
„That the French don’t discover us here?”
„Exactly. So best remove my red coat from the window, eh?” Waters laughed and crossed the room. „Pray they go on sleeping with their sweet froggy dreams because once they do wake up then the day’s going to be damned hot, don’t you think? And those three barges can take how many men apiece? Thirty? And God alone knows how long each crossing will take. We could be shoving our damned heads into the tiger’s mouth, Sharpe.”
Sharpe forbore to comment that he had spent the last few weeks with his head inside the tiger’s mouth. Instead he stared across the valley, trying to imagine how the French would approach when they did attack. He guessed they would come straight from the city, across the valley and up the slope that was virtually bare of any cover. The northern flank of the seminary looked toward the road in the valley and that slope was just as bare, all except for one solitary tree with pale leaves that grew right in the middle of the climb. Anyone attacking the seminary would presumably try to get to the garden gate or the big front door and that would mean crossing a wide paved terrace where carriages bringing visitors to the seminary could turn around and where attacking infantry would be cut down by musket and rifle fire from the seminary’s windows and its balus-traded roof. „A deathtrap!” Colonel Waters was sharing the view and evidently thinking the same thoughts.
„I wouldn’t want to be attacking up that slope,” Sharpe agreed.
„And I’ve no doubt we’ll put some cannon on the other bank to make it all a bit less healthy,” Waters said cheerfully.
Sharpe hoped that was true. He kept wondering why there were no British guns on the wide terrace of the convent that overlooked the river, the terrace where the Portuguese had placed their batteries in March. It seemed an obvious position, but Sir Arthur Wellesley appeared to have chosen to put his artillery down among the port lodges which were out of sight of the seminary.
„What’s the time?” Waters asked, then answered his own question by taking out a turnip watch. „Nearly eleven!”
„Are you with the staff, sir?” Sharpe asked because Waters’s red coat, though decorated with some tarnished gold braid, had no regimental facings.
„Three miles upriver, sir.”
„You ain’t done a bad morning’s work, Sharpe,” Waters said with a friendly grin. „We only have to pray for one thing.”
„That the French don’t discover us here?”
„Exactly. So best remove my red coat from the window, eh?” Waters laughed and crossed the room. „Pray they go on sleeping with their sweet froggy dreams because once they do wake up then the day’s going to be damned hot, don’t you think? And those three barges can take how many men apiece? Thirty? And God alone knows how long each crossing will take. We could be shoving our damned heads into the tiger’s mouth, Sharpe.”
Sharpe forbore to comment that he had spent the last few weeks with his head inside the tiger’s mouth. Instead he stared across the valley, trying to imagine how the French would approach when they did attack. He guessed they would come straight from the city, across the valley and up the slope that was virtually bare of any cover. The northern flank of the seminary looked toward the road in the valley and that slope was just as bare, all except for one solitary tree with pale leaves that grew right in the middle of the climb. Anyone attacking the seminary would presumably try to get to the garden gate or the big front door and that would mean crossing a wide paved terrace where carriages bringing visitors to the seminary could turn around and where attacking infantry would be cut down by musket and rifle fire from the seminary’s windows and its balus-traded roof. „A deathtrap!” Colonel Waters was sharing the view and evidently thinking the same thoughts.
„I wouldn’t want to be attacking up that slope,” Sharpe agreed.
„And I’ve no doubt we’ll put some cannon on the other bank to make it all a bit less healthy,” Waters said cheerfully.
Sharpe hoped that was true. He kept wondering why there were no British guns on the wide terrace of the convent that overlooked the river, the terrace where the Portuguese had placed their batteries in March. It seemed an obvious position, but Sir Arthur Wellesley appeared to have chosen to put his artillery down among the port lodges which were out of sight of the seminary.
„What’s the time?” Waters asked, then answered his own question by taking out a turnip watch. „Nearly eleven!”
„Are you with the staff, sir?” Sharpe asked because Waters’s red coat, though decorated with some tarnished gold braid, had no regimental facings.