JК
Sharpes Havoc :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 228 из 242The Portuguese, whose muskets were useless in the heavy rain, had been reduced to throwing rocks that bounded down the bluff’s eastern face and were nothing but a minor nuisance to the stream of French who crossed the thin lifeline across the Misarella.
Sharpe shrugged off the ordenanqa who wanted to welcome him and threw himself down on the bluff’s lip. Rain thrashed the rocks, poured down the cliff’s face and drummed on his shako. A crash of thunder sounded overhead to be echoed by another from the southwest, and Sharpe recognized the second peal as the sound of guns. It was cannon fire, and the noise meant that Sir Arthur Wellesley’s army must have caught up with the French and that his artillery had opened fire, but that fight was miles away, back beyond the Ponte Nova, and here, at the final obstacle, the French were escaping.
Hogan, panting from the exertion of climbing the bluff, dronned beside Sharpe. They were so close to the bridge they could see the mustaches on the faces of the French infantry, see the striped brown-and-black pattern of a woman’s long skirt. She walked beside her man, carrying his musket and his child, and had a dog tied to her belt by a length of string. Behind them an officer led a limping horse. „Is that cannon I’m hearing?” Hogan asked.
„Yes, sir.“
„Must be the three-pounders,” Hogan guessed. „We could do with a couple of those toys here.”
But they had none. Only Sharpe, Vicente and their men. And an army that was escaping.
Back at the Ponte Nova the gunners had manhandled their two toy cannon to the crest of a knoll that overlooked the French rearguard. It was not raining here. An occasional flurry whipped down from the mountains, but the muskets could still fire and the Brigade of Guards loaded their weapons, fixed bayonets and then formed to advance in column of companies.
And the guns, the despised three-pounders, opened on the French and the small balls, scarcely bigger than an orange each, whipped through the tight ranks and bounced on rock to kill more Frenchmen, and the band of Coldstream Guards struck up „Rule Britannia” and the great colors were unfurled to the damp air, and the three-pound balls struck again, each shot leaving a long spray of blood in the air as though a giant unseen knife were slashing through the French ranks. The two light companies of the Guards and a company of the green-jacketed 60th, the Royal American Rifles, were advancing among a jumble of rocks and low stone walls on the French left flank and the muskets and Baker rifles began taking their toll of French officers and sergeants.
Sharpe shrugged off the ordenanqa who wanted to welcome him and threw himself down on the bluff’s lip. Rain thrashed the rocks, poured down the cliff’s face and drummed on his shako. A crash of thunder sounded overhead to be echoed by another from the southwest, and Sharpe recognized the second peal as the sound of guns. It was cannon fire, and the noise meant that Sir Arthur Wellesley’s army must have caught up with the French and that his artillery had opened fire, but that fight was miles away, back beyond the Ponte Nova, and here, at the final obstacle, the French were escaping.
Hogan, panting from the exertion of climbing the bluff, dronned beside Sharpe. They were so close to the bridge they could see the mustaches on the faces of the French infantry, see the striped brown-and-black pattern of a woman’s long skirt. She walked beside her man, carrying his musket and his child, and had a dog tied to her belt by a length of string. Behind them an officer led a limping horse. „Is that cannon I’m hearing?” Hogan asked.
„Yes, sir.“
„Must be the three-pounders,” Hogan guessed. „We could do with a couple of those toys here.”
But they had none. Only Sharpe, Vicente and their men. And an army that was escaping.
Back at the Ponte Nova the gunners had manhandled their two toy cannon to the crest of a knoll that overlooked the French rearguard. It was not raining here. An occasional flurry whipped down from the mountains, but the muskets could still fire and the Brigade of Guards loaded their weapons, fixed bayonets and then formed to advance in column of companies.
And the guns, the despised three-pounders, opened on the French and the small balls, scarcely bigger than an orange each, whipped through the tight ranks and bounced on rock to kill more Frenchmen, and the band of Coldstream Guards struck up „Rule Britannia” and the great colors were unfurled to the damp air, and the three-pound balls struck again, each shot leaving a long spray of blood in the air as though a giant unseen knife were slashing through the French ranks. The two light companies of the Guards and a company of the green-jacketed 60th, the Royal American Rifles, were advancing among a jumble of rocks and low stone walls on the French left flank and the muskets and Baker rifles began taking their toll of French officers and sergeants.