Sharpes Sword   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

Sharpe picked up Spears’ pistol, cocked it, and crouched beside the supine cavalryman. “Are you sure?”

“It hurts. Tell her I died well.”

Sharpe had liked this man. He remembered the chicken being tossed like a howitzer shell at the ball, he remembered the great shout in the big Plaza on the morning after the first night on the mirador. This man had made Sharpe laugh, had shared wine with him, and now he was a miserable, broken man who had given his honour first to Leroux, and now to Sharpe. „I’ll tell her you died well. I’ll tell her you were a hero. I’ll make you into Sir Lancelot.“ Spears smiled. His eyes were on Sharpe. The Rifleman brought the pistol close to Spears’ neck. „I’ll tell her to build a new church big enough for the bloody plaque.” Spears smiled wider and the bullet went beneath his chin, up through the skull, and erupted at the top of his head. It was the kind of wound that a hero, on horseback, might fetch. He died instantly, smiling, and Sharpe’s greatcoat was spattered by the wound. He pulled it out, then threw it down, hating it. He turned and hurled the pistol into the trees, heard it crash through branches and twigs, and then there was silence. He looked down on Spears and cursed himself that he had ever become involved. Spears had talked ofthejoy that war could bring, theirresponsibility of unshackled youth, but there was little joy in this secret war.

He bent down and picked up his greatcoat, shook it out, and walked to the horses. He mounted his own, led Spears’ by the reins, and went down the bank. He paused at its foot, looked back, and the body was a dark shadow against the grass. He told himself that the tears in the corners of his eyes were just irritation from the smoke of battle; something any man could expect.

Revenge was at Alba de Tormes, his heels scraped the horse’s flanks, and the Cathedral clock, above the Palacio Casares, struck twelve.



CHAPTER 25



Alba de Tormes was a town on a hill to the east of the River Tormes. The hill was crowned with an ancient castle and covered with jumbled roofs that led down to the magnificent convent where the body of St. Teresa of Avila was revered by pilgrims. Beside the convent was the bridge.

The French needed the bridge to take their shattered army to the relative safety of the eastern bank and away from the pursuit that they knew would come with sabres in the dawn, but Wellington had denied them the bridge. Weeks before, when his army first came to Salamanca, he had put a Spanish garrison into the Castle and into the defence works at the bridge’s eastern end.