JК
Sharpes Havoc :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 221 из 242„Help you onto the horse, ma’am?”
„I can manage,” Kate said coldly, but she was forced to drop the damp blanket to climb into the saddle and she knew that both Christopher and Williamson were staring at her legs in their tight hussar breeches.
A cheer came from the bridge as the first cavalrymen led their horses over the precarious roadway. The sound prompted the infantry to stand, pick up their muskets and packs, and shuffle toward the makeshift crossing.
„One more bridge,” Christopher assured Kate, „and we’re safe.”
Just one more bridge. The Leaper.
And above them, high in the hills, Richard Sharpe was already marching toward it. Toward the last bridge in Portugal. The Saltador.
CHAPTER 11
It had been at dawn that Sharpe and Hogan saw their fears were realized. Several hundred French infantry were across the Ponte Nova, the ordenanqa were nothing but bodies in a plundered village, and energetic work parties were remaking the roadway across the Cavado’s white water. The long and winding defile echoed with sporadic musket shots as Portuguese peasants, attracted to the beleaguered army like ravens to meat, took long-range shots. Sharpe saw a hundred voltigeurs in open order climb a hill to drive off one brave band that had dared to approach within two hundred paces of the stalled column. There was a flurry of shots, the French skirmishers scoured the hill and then trudged back to the crowded road. There was no sign of any British pursuit, but Hogan guessed that Wellesley’s army was still a half-day’s march behind the French. „He won’t have followed the French directly,” he explained, „he won’t have crossed the Serra de Santa Catalina like they did. He’ll have stayed on the roads, so he went to Braga first and now he’s marching eastward. As for us… „He stared down at the captured bridge. „We’d best shift ourselves to the Saltador,” he said grimly, „because it’s our last chance.”
To Sharpe it seemed there was no chance at all. More than twenty thousand French fugitives darkened the valley beneath him and Christopher was lost somewhere in that mass and how Sharpe was ever to find the renegade he did not know. But he pulled on his threadbare coat and picked up his rifle and followed Hogan who, Sharpe saw, was similarly pessimistic while Harper, perversely, was oddly cheerful, even when they had to wade through a tributary of the Cavado which ran waist deep through a steep defile which fell toward the larger river.
„I can manage,” Kate said coldly, but she was forced to drop the damp blanket to climb into the saddle and she knew that both Christopher and Williamson were staring at her legs in their tight hussar breeches.
A cheer came from the bridge as the first cavalrymen led their horses over the precarious roadway. The sound prompted the infantry to stand, pick up their muskets and packs, and shuffle toward the makeshift crossing.
„One more bridge,” Christopher assured Kate, „and we’re safe.”
Just one more bridge. The Leaper.
And above them, high in the hills, Richard Sharpe was already marching toward it. Toward the last bridge in Portugal. The Saltador.
CHAPTER 11
It had been at dawn that Sharpe and Hogan saw their fears were realized. Several hundred French infantry were across the Ponte Nova, the ordenanqa were nothing but bodies in a plundered village, and energetic work parties were remaking the roadway across the Cavado’s white water. The long and winding defile echoed with sporadic musket shots as Portuguese peasants, attracted to the beleaguered army like ravens to meat, took long-range shots. Sharpe saw a hundred voltigeurs in open order climb a hill to drive off one brave band that had dared to approach within two hundred paces of the stalled column. There was a flurry of shots, the French skirmishers scoured the hill and then trudged back to the crowded road. There was no sign of any British pursuit, but Hogan guessed that Wellesley’s army was still a half-day’s march behind the French. „He won’t have followed the French directly,” he explained, „he won’t have crossed the Serra de Santa Catalina like they did. He’ll have stayed on the roads, so he went to Braga first and now he’s marching eastward. As for us… „He stared down at the captured bridge. „We’d best shift ourselves to the Saltador,” he said grimly, „because it’s our last chance.”
To Sharpe it seemed there was no chance at all. More than twenty thousand French fugitives darkened the valley beneath him and Christopher was lost somewhere in that mass and how Sharpe was ever to find the renegade he did not know. But he pulled on his threadbare coat and picked up his rifle and followed Hogan who, Sharpe saw, was similarly pessimistic while Harper, perversely, was oddly cheerful, even when they had to wade through a tributary of the Cavado which ran waist deep through a steep defile which fell toward the larger river.