JК
Sharpes Havoc :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 25 из 242It had been good fortune that took him to the tunnel where the Tippoo Sultan was trapped, and even better fortune that had decapitated an orderly at Assaye so that Richard Sharpe was riding behind Sir Arthur Wellesley when that General’s horse was killed by a pike thrust and Sir Arthur was thrown down among the enemy. All luck, outrageous luck sometimes, but even Sharpe doubted his good fortune when he saw the dragoons twisting away from the barricade. Was he dead? Dreaming? Concussed and imagining things? But then he heard the roar of triumph from his men and he knew he was not dreaming. The enemy really had turned away and Sharpe was going to live and his men would not have to march as prisoners to France.
He heard the firing then, the stuttering chatter of muskets and realized that the dragoons had been attacked from their rear. There was powder smoke hanging thick between the houses that edged the road, and more coming from an orchard halfway up the hill on which the great white flat-topped block of a building stood, and then Sharpe was at the barricade and he leaped up onto the first skiff, his foot half sticking in some new tar that had been smeared on its lower hull. The dragoons were facing away from him, shooting up at the windows, but then a green-coated man turned and saw Sharpe and shouted a warning. An officer came from the door of the house beside the river and Sharpe, jumping down from the boat, skewered the man’s shoulder with his big sword, then shoved him hard against the limewashed wall as the dragoon who had shouted the warning fired at him. The ball plucked at Sharpe’s heavy pack, then Sharpe kneed the officer in the groin and turned on the man who had fired at him. That man was going backward mouthing „non, non,” and Sharpe slammed the sword against his head, drawing blood but doing more damage with the blade’s sheer weight so that the dazed dragoon fell and was trampled by riflemen swarming over the low barricade. They were screaming slaughter, deaf to Harper’s shout to give the dragoons a volley.
Maybe three rifles fired, but the rest of the men kept charging to take their sword bayonets to an enemy that could not stand against an attack from front and back. The dragoons had been ambushed by troops coming from a building some fifty yards down the road, troops who had been hidden in the building and in the garden behind, and the French were now being attacked from both sides. The small space between the houses was veiled in powder smoke, loud with screams and the echo of shots, stinking of blood, and Sharpe’s men were fighting with a ferocity that both astonished and appalled the French.
He heard the firing then, the stuttering chatter of muskets and realized that the dragoons had been attacked from their rear. There was powder smoke hanging thick between the houses that edged the road, and more coming from an orchard halfway up the hill on which the great white flat-topped block of a building stood, and then Sharpe was at the barricade and he leaped up onto the first skiff, his foot half sticking in some new tar that had been smeared on its lower hull. The dragoons were facing away from him, shooting up at the windows, but then a green-coated man turned and saw Sharpe and shouted a warning. An officer came from the door of the house beside the river and Sharpe, jumping down from the boat, skewered the man’s shoulder with his big sword, then shoved him hard against the limewashed wall as the dragoon who had shouted the warning fired at him. The ball plucked at Sharpe’s heavy pack, then Sharpe kneed the officer in the groin and turned on the man who had fired at him. That man was going backward mouthing „non, non,” and Sharpe slammed the sword against his head, drawing blood but doing more damage with the blade’s sheer weight so that the dazed dragoon fell and was trampled by riflemen swarming over the low barricade. They were screaming slaughter, deaf to Harper’s shout to give the dragoons a volley.
Maybe three rifles fired, but the rest of the men kept charging to take their sword bayonets to an enemy that could not stand against an attack from front and back. The dragoons had been ambushed by troops coming from a building some fifty yards down the road, troops who had been hidden in the building and in the garden behind, and the French were now being attacked from both sides. The small space between the houses was veiled in powder smoke, loud with screams and the echo of shots, stinking of blood, and Sharpe’s men were fighting with a ferocity that both astonished and appalled the French.