JК
Sharpes Havoc :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 178 из 242” Harris had not meant to speak so loudly.
„But you’re a rifleman so you’re forgiven. And a very scruffy rifleman too, I must say! What is the army coming to when we don’t dress for battle, eh?” He beamed at Harris, then fished in his pocket and brought out a handful of almonds. „Something to occupy your tongue, young man.”
„Thank you, sir.”
There were now two generals on the seminary roof. General Hill, commander of the 1st Brigade, whose forces were crossing the river and whose kindly nature had earned him the nickname of „Daddy,” had joined Sir Edward Paget just in time to see three French battalions come from the city’s eastern suburbs and form into two columns that would assault the seminary hill. The three battalions were in the valley, being pushed and harried into their ranks by sergeants and corporals. One column would come straight up at the seminary’s facade while the other was forming near the Amarante road to assault the northern flank. But the French were also aware that British reinforcements were constantly arriving at the seminary and so they had sent a battery of guns to the river bank with orders to sink the three barges. The columns waited for the gunners to open fire, probably hoping that once the barges were sunk the gunners would turn their weapons onto the seminary.
And Sharpe, who had been wondering why Sir Arthur Wellesley had not put guns at the convent across the river, saw that he had worried about nothing, for no sooner did the French batteries appear than a dozen British guns, which had been parked out of sight at the back of the convent terrace, were wheeled forward. „That’s the medicine for Frenchmen!” General Hill exclaimed when the great row of guns appeared.
The first to fire was a five-and-a-half-inch howitzer, the British equivalent of the cannon that had bombarded Sharpe on the watchtower hill. It was loaded with a spherical case shot, a weapon that only Britain deployed, which had been invented by Lieutenant Colonel Shrapnel and the manner of its working was kept a closely guarded secret. The shell, which was packed with musket balls about a central charge of powder, was designed to shower those balls and the scraps of its casing down onto enemy troops, yet to work properly it had to explode well short of its target so that the shot’s forward momentum carried the lethal missiles on to the enemy, and that precision demanded that the gunners cut their fuses with exquisite skill. The howitzer’s gunner had that skill.
„But you’re a rifleman so you’re forgiven. And a very scruffy rifleman too, I must say! What is the army coming to when we don’t dress for battle, eh?” He beamed at Harris, then fished in his pocket and brought out a handful of almonds. „Something to occupy your tongue, young man.”
„Thank you, sir.”
There were now two generals on the seminary roof. General Hill, commander of the 1st Brigade, whose forces were crossing the river and whose kindly nature had earned him the nickname of „Daddy,” had joined Sir Edward Paget just in time to see three French battalions come from the city’s eastern suburbs and form into two columns that would assault the seminary hill. The three battalions were in the valley, being pushed and harried into their ranks by sergeants and corporals. One column would come straight up at the seminary’s facade while the other was forming near the Amarante road to assault the northern flank. But the French were also aware that British reinforcements were constantly arriving at the seminary and so they had sent a battery of guns to the river bank with orders to sink the three barges. The columns waited for the gunners to open fire, probably hoping that once the barges were sunk the gunners would turn their weapons onto the seminary.
And Sharpe, who had been wondering why Sir Arthur Wellesley had not put guns at the convent across the river, saw that he had worried about nothing, for no sooner did the French batteries appear than a dozen British guns, which had been parked out of sight at the back of the convent terrace, were wheeled forward. „That’s the medicine for Frenchmen!” General Hill exclaimed when the great row of guns appeared.
The first to fire was a five-and-a-half-inch howitzer, the British equivalent of the cannon that had bombarded Sharpe on the watchtower hill. It was loaded with a spherical case shot, a weapon that only Britain deployed, which had been invented by Lieutenant Colonel Shrapnel and the manner of its working was kept a closely guarded secret. The shell, which was packed with musket balls about a central charge of powder, was designed to shower those balls and the scraps of its casing down onto enemy troops, yet to work properly it had to explode well short of its target so that the shot’s forward momentum carried the lethal missiles on to the enemy, and that precision demanded that the gunners cut their fuses with exquisite skill. The howitzer’s gunner had that skill.