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Sharpes Sword :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 210 из 213“New?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to the old one?”
“It wore out.” Not that it mattered. From now on this old sword, with its dull scabbard, would be his sword and Fate’s weapon; Sharpe’s sword.
HISTORICAL NOTE
It may seem wilful, even perverse of me to introduce yet more Irish characters into Sharpe’s adventures, yet Patrick Curtis and Michael Connelley existed and, in Sharpe’s Sword, play the roles they played in 1812. The Reverend Doctor Patrick Curtis, known as Don Patricio Cortes to the Spanish, was Rector of the Irish College and Professor of Natural History and Astronomy at the University of Salamanca. He was also, at the age of 72, the spy chief of his own network that extended throughout French-held Spain and well north of the Pyrenees. The French did suspect his existence, did want to destroy him, but they discovered his identity only after the Battle of Salamanca. As modern spy novels would say, Curtis’ cover was ‘blown’, and when the French did make a brief reappearance in the city he was forced to flee for British protection. In 1819, when the wars were over, he received a British Government pension. He finally left Spain to become the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, and he died in Drogheda at the good age of 92.
Archbishop Curtis died of the cholera, Sergeant Michael Connelley of the soldiers’ hospital in Salamanca died of alcoholic poisoning not long after the battle. I have no evidence that Connelley was in the hospital (which was situated in the Irish College) before the battle, in fact I would rather doubt it, but he was certainly there after the events of July 22nd, 1812.1 have traduced his memory by putting him in charge of the death room when in fact he was appointed to be Sergeant of the whole hospital. Rifleman Costello, who was wounded at Salamanca, wrote about Connelley in his memoirs and I have shamelessly stolen my description from his book. He was, indeed, attentive to the sick. He did, as Costello says, “drink like a whale‘, but his chief distinction was his anxiety that the British would die well in the face of the French wounded. Costello quotes him. ”Merciful God! What more do you want? You’ll be buried in a shroud and coffin won’t you? For God’s sake, die like a man before these ’ere Frenchers.“ Sergeant Connelley was immensely popular. The funeral of the Duke himself, Costello says, would not have attracted more mourners than did Connelley. One of the pallbearers, a cockney ventriloquist, rapped on the coffin and imitated Connelley’s voice.
“Yes.”
“What happened to the old one?”
“It wore out.” Not that it mattered. From now on this old sword, with its dull scabbard, would be his sword and Fate’s weapon; Sharpe’s sword.
HISTORICAL NOTE
It may seem wilful, even perverse of me to introduce yet more Irish characters into Sharpe’s adventures, yet Patrick Curtis and Michael Connelley existed and, in Sharpe’s Sword, play the roles they played in 1812. The Reverend Doctor Patrick Curtis, known as Don Patricio Cortes to the Spanish, was Rector of the Irish College and Professor of Natural History and Astronomy at the University of Salamanca. He was also, at the age of 72, the spy chief of his own network that extended throughout French-held Spain and well north of the Pyrenees. The French did suspect his existence, did want to destroy him, but they discovered his identity only after the Battle of Salamanca. As modern spy novels would say, Curtis’ cover was ‘blown’, and when the French did make a brief reappearance in the city he was forced to flee for British protection. In 1819, when the wars were over, he received a British Government pension. He finally left Spain to become the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, and he died in Drogheda at the good age of 92.
Archbishop Curtis died of the cholera, Sergeant Michael Connelley of the soldiers’ hospital in Salamanca died of alcoholic poisoning not long after the battle. I have no evidence that Connelley was in the hospital (which was situated in the Irish College) before the battle, in fact I would rather doubt it, but he was certainly there after the events of July 22nd, 1812.1 have traduced his memory by putting him in charge of the death room when in fact he was appointed to be Sergeant of the whole hospital. Rifleman Costello, who was wounded at Salamanca, wrote about Connelley in his memoirs and I have shamelessly stolen my description from his book. He was, indeed, attentive to the sick. He did, as Costello says, “drink like a whale‘, but his chief distinction was his anxiety that the British would die well in the face of the French wounded. Costello quotes him. ”Merciful God! What more do you want? You’ll be buried in a shroud and coffin won’t you? For God’s sake, die like a man before these ’ere Frenchers.“ Sergeant Connelley was immensely popular. The funeral of the Duke himself, Costello says, would not have attracted more mourners than did Connelley. One of the pallbearers, a cockney ventriloquist, rapped on the coffin and imitated Connelley’s voice.