JК
Sharpes Sword :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 70 из 213”
Sharpe tucked the cravat into his collar, then draped the pelisse, dark red trimmed with black fur, so that the sleeve hung loose by his left side. Spears grinned at the effect, laughed as Sharpe slung the rifle over the decorative garment. “You look ravishing. Shall we go and find something to ravish?”
The hall was crowded with officers and people of the town and Spears pushed through them, shouting at friends, waving indiscriminately. He looked back at Sharpe. “Eaten?”
“No.”
“There’s a trough in there! I should get your face in it!” Sharpe found himself in a vast room, lit by a thousand candles, and on the walls were great, dark oil paintings that showed men in solemn armour. A table ran the length of the room, beside one wall, and it was covered with a white cloth spread with heaped dishes. Half the foods he did not even recognise; small birds, brown from the ovens, dripping with clear, sticky sauce, and next to them a plate of strange fruits, fantastically decorated with palm leaves, and glistening with ice that sweating servants replenished as they dashed up and down the table’s length. Sharpe took a goose-breast, bit it, and discovered he was ravenous. He took one more to eat while he watched the strange throng.
Half were officers. There were British, German, Spanish and Portuguese, and the colours of their uniforms spanned the whole of a painter’s tray. The rest were civilians, richly and sombrely dressed, and the men, Sharpe guessed, outnumbered the women five to one. They outnumbered the pretty women a hundred to one. A group of British Dragoon officers had invented their own game at the far end of the room, lobbing bread rolls like howitzer shells high over the crowd so they fell indiscriminately amongst a sober group of Spaniards who were pretending that the bread cannonade. was merely a figment of their imaginations. Spears whooped at them as they fired, correcting their aim, calling the fall of iro shot and then, delighted with the game, tossed a whole roasted chicken to one of the group. They chanted the fire orders. “Sponge out! Load! Prime! Stand back! Fire!” The chicken sailed into the air, turning and dripping, then splatted down and scored a glancing blow on the high mantilla and carefully constructed hair of a Spanish matron. She rocked forward slightly, oblivious, apparently, of the Dragoons’ cheers, and her companions looked silently at the ruined, gaping, wire-threaded interior of her piled hair. It seemed to leak a little dust from its remains. One of the men stooped down and tore off a chicken wing and began to munch at it.
Spears waved at Sharpe.
Sharpe tucked the cravat into his collar, then draped the pelisse, dark red trimmed with black fur, so that the sleeve hung loose by his left side. Spears grinned at the effect, laughed as Sharpe slung the rifle over the decorative garment. “You look ravishing. Shall we go and find something to ravish?”
The hall was crowded with officers and people of the town and Spears pushed through them, shouting at friends, waving indiscriminately. He looked back at Sharpe. “Eaten?”
“No.”
“There’s a trough in there! I should get your face in it!” Sharpe found himself in a vast room, lit by a thousand candles, and on the walls were great, dark oil paintings that showed men in solemn armour. A table ran the length of the room, beside one wall, and it was covered with a white cloth spread with heaped dishes. Half the foods he did not even recognise; small birds, brown from the ovens, dripping with clear, sticky sauce, and next to them a plate of strange fruits, fantastically decorated with palm leaves, and glistening with ice that sweating servants replenished as they dashed up and down the table’s length. Sharpe took a goose-breast, bit it, and discovered he was ravenous. He took one more to eat while he watched the strange throng.
Half were officers. There were British, German, Spanish and Portuguese, and the colours of their uniforms spanned the whole of a painter’s tray. The rest were civilians, richly and sombrely dressed, and the men, Sharpe guessed, outnumbered the women five to one. They outnumbered the pretty women a hundred to one. A group of British Dragoon officers had invented their own game at the far end of the room, lobbing bread rolls like howitzer shells high over the crowd so they fell indiscriminately amongst a sober group of Spaniards who were pretending that the bread cannonade. was merely a figment of their imaginations. Spears whooped at them as they fired, correcting their aim, calling the fall of iro shot and then, delighted with the game, tossed a whole roasted chicken to one of the group. They chanted the fire orders. “Sponge out! Load! Prime! Stand back! Fire!” The chicken sailed into the air, turning and dripping, then splatted down and scored a glancing blow on the high mantilla and carefully constructed hair of a Spanish matron. She rocked forward slightly, oblivious, apparently, of the Dragoons’ cheers, and her companions looked silently at the ruined, gaping, wire-threaded interior of her piled hair. It seemed to leak a little dust from its remains. One of the men stooped down and tore off a chicken wing and began to munch at it.
Spears waved at Sharpe.