Sharpes Battle   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

" Monsieur !" a voice shouted as theBrigadier closed his watch and slid out of his saddle. "Monsieur !"

Loup turned to see a thin-faced and angry Portuguese officer in the firm grip of a tall French corporal. " Monsieur ?" Loup responded politely.

"My name is Colonel Oliveira, and I must protest, monsieur. My men are surrendering and your men are killing still! We are your prisoners! "

Loup fished a cigar from his sabretache and stooped to a dying fire to find an ember that would serve to light the tobacco. "Good soldiers don't surrender," he said to Oliveira, "they just die."

"But we are surrendering," Oliveira insisted bitterly. "Take my sword."

Loup straightened, sucked on the cigar and nodded to the Corporal. "Let him go, Jean."

Oliveira shook himself free of the Corporal's grip. "I must protest, monsieur ," he said angrily. "Your soldiers are killing men who have their hands raised."

Loup shrugged. "Terrible things happen in war, Colonel. Now give me your sword."

Oliveira drew his sabre, reversed the blade and held the hilt towards the hard-faced dragoon. "I am your prisoner, monsieur ," he said in a voice thickened by shame and anger.

"You hear that!" Loup shouted so that all his men could hear. "They have surrendered! They are our prisoners! See? I have their Colonel's sabre!" He took the sabre from Oliveira and flourished it in the smoky air. Gallantry insisted he should now give the weapon back to his defeated enemy on a promise of parole, but instead Loup hefted the blade as though judging its effectiveness. "A passable weapon," he said grudgingly, then looked into Oliveira's eyes. "Where are your colours, Colonel?"

"We destroyed them," Oliveira said defiantly. "We burned them."

The sabre slashed silver in the moonlight and blood seeped black from the slash on Oliveira's face where the steel had sliced across his left eye and his nose. "I don't believe you," Loup said, then waited until the shocked and bleeding Colonel had recovered his wits. "Where are your colours, Colonel?" Loup asked again.

"Go to hell," Oliveira said. "You and your filthy country." He had one hand pressed over his wounded eye.

Loup tossed the sabre to the Corporal. "Find out where the colours are, Jean, then kill the fool. Cut him if he won't tell you. A man usually loosens his tongue to keep his balls screwed on tight. And the rest of you," he shouted at his men who had paused to watch the confrontation between the two commanding officers, "this isn't a damned harvest festival, it's a battle.