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Sharpes Sword :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 177 из 213The guns jumped backwards, smoke belching, and Sharpe saw the French fall sideways like wheat hit by buckshot. Still they fought. Fires had started in the grass, adding to the smoke, and their flames were lurid on the underside of the battle smoke that hung in skeins over the spitting muskets. The French held their place, the dead fell on the slope, the wounded struggled to keep firing. They must have been terrified, Sharpe thought as he watched them, because they knew that the battle was lost, that instead of marching to the gates of Portugal they would have a long harried retreat into Spain’s centre, yet still they fought and their discipline under the onslaught of musket and canister was awesome. They were buying time with their lives, time for their shattered companions to make their way eastwards towards the bridge at Alba de Tormes. And there, the British knew, a Spanish garrison waited to complete the destruction.
The fight could not last, whatever the bravery of the French, and the end was signalled as the Fifth Division, which had attacked the French left beside the cavalry earlier in the day, were marched onto the French rearguard’s flank. Two British Divisions fought a single French Division. More guns came in a slew of dust and chains and their canister split apart in the heart of the guns’ great flames. More fires caught in the grass, their flames throwing wavering black shadows as the twilight turned to night, and the end had to come. There was a pause in the musket fire of the Sixth, an order was repeated from Company to Company, and there was the great noise of the scraping bayonets coming from scabbards. The line flickered with reflections from the seventeen inch blades.
“Forward!” The last light was draining in the west over Portugal, there was a cheer from the British, the line surged forward towards the battered French, but the battle had one surprise left.
Sharpe heard the hooves behind him, and took no notice, and then the urgency of the sound, the speed of the single horse, made him turn. A lone cavalry officer, resplendent in blue and silver, his sabre drawn, was galloping at the French line. He was shouting like a maniac. “Wait! Wait!”
The Company nearest Sharpe heard the sound, checked, and a Sergeant forced a gap in the files. Officers shouted at the cavalryman, but he took no notice, just urged on his horse that was labouring with the effort, raked by spurs, and the turf flew in clods behind the hooves. “Wait! Wait!” The officer went for the gap and the French; on the ridge, were just shadows as they turned and ran for the safety of the dark woods.
The fight could not last, whatever the bravery of the French, and the end was signalled as the Fifth Division, which had attacked the French left beside the cavalry earlier in the day, were marched onto the French rearguard’s flank. Two British Divisions fought a single French Division. More guns came in a slew of dust and chains and their canister split apart in the heart of the guns’ great flames. More fires caught in the grass, their flames throwing wavering black shadows as the twilight turned to night, and the end had to come. There was a pause in the musket fire of the Sixth, an order was repeated from Company to Company, and there was the great noise of the scraping bayonets coming from scabbards. The line flickered with reflections from the seventeen inch blades.
“Forward!” The last light was draining in the west over Portugal, there was a cheer from the British, the line surged forward towards the battered French, but the battle had one surprise left.
Sharpe heard the hooves behind him, and took no notice, and then the urgency of the sound, the speed of the single horse, made him turn. A lone cavalry officer, resplendent in blue and silver, his sabre drawn, was galloping at the French line. He was shouting like a maniac. “Wait! Wait!”
The Company nearest Sharpe heard the sound, checked, and a Sergeant forced a gap in the files. Officers shouted at the cavalryman, but he took no notice, just urged on his horse that was labouring with the effort, raked by spurs, and the turf flew in clods behind the hooves. “Wait! Wait!” The officer went for the gap and the French; on the ridge, were just shadows as they turned and ran for the safety of the dark woods.