JК
Sharpes Battle :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 109 из 244The two carts of ammunition had blown themselves to smithereens and blasted the victorious French into chaos. Blood was smeared on the roof and a tangle of dead lay on the ground near the barracks where the explosion's survivors wandered in a daze. A naked man, blackened and bleeding, reeled among those shocked Frenchmen. One of the confused infantrymen saw Sharpe on the roof but did not have the strength or maybe lacked the sense to raise his musket. There appeared to be some thirty or forty dead, and maybe as many again badly injured; not many casualties out of the thousand men that Loup had brought to the San Isidro Fort, but the disaster had whipped the confidence clean out of the wolf's brigade.
And, Sharpe saw, there was better news still. For through the swirling smoke and dust, through the grey-dark of night and the sullen glow of fire, a silver line showed in the east. The dawn light was shining and with the rising sun would come an allied cavalry picquet to discover why so much smoke plumed up from the San Isidro Fort.
"We've won, boys," Sharpe said as he jumped back down to the barracks floor. That was not quite true. They had not won, they had merely survived, but survival felt uncommonly like victory and never more so than when, a half-hour later, Loup's men left the fort. They had made two more attacks on the barracks, but the assaults were feeble, mere gestures, for the explosion had ripped the enthusiasm out of Loup's brigade. So, in the first light, the Frenchmen went and they carried their wounded with them. Sharpe helped dismantle the barrier inside the nearest barracks door, then stepped cautiously into a chill and smoky morning that stank of blood and fire. He carried his loaded rifle in case Loup had left some marksmen behind, but no one shot at him in the pearly light. Behind Sharpe, like men released from nightmare, the guardsmen stepped cautiously into the dawn. Donaju emerged from the second barracks and insisted on shaking Sharpe's hand, almost as though the rifleman had won some kind of victory. He had not. Indeed Sharpe had come within a hand's breadth of ignominious defeat.
But now, instead, he was alive and the enemy was gone.
Which meant, Sharpe knew, that the real trouble was about to begin.
CHAPTER V
Caзadores trailed into the fort all morning. A few had escaped by hiding in ruined parts of the northern ramparts, but most of the survivors had fled across the ramparts and found a refuge among the thorns or in the dead, stony ground at the foot of the ridge dominated by the San Isidro Fort. Those lucky ones had watched aghast from their hiding places as other fugitives were hunted and slaughtered by the grey dragoons.
And, Sharpe saw, there was better news still. For through the swirling smoke and dust, through the grey-dark of night and the sullen glow of fire, a silver line showed in the east. The dawn light was shining and with the rising sun would come an allied cavalry picquet to discover why so much smoke plumed up from the San Isidro Fort.
"We've won, boys," Sharpe said as he jumped back down to the barracks floor. That was not quite true. They had not won, they had merely survived, but survival felt uncommonly like victory and never more so than when, a half-hour later, Loup's men left the fort. They had made two more attacks on the barracks, but the assaults were feeble, mere gestures, for the explosion had ripped the enthusiasm out of Loup's brigade. So, in the first light, the Frenchmen went and they carried their wounded with them. Sharpe helped dismantle the barrier inside the nearest barracks door, then stepped cautiously into a chill and smoky morning that stank of blood and fire. He carried his loaded rifle in case Loup had left some marksmen behind, but no one shot at him in the pearly light. Behind Sharpe, like men released from nightmare, the guardsmen stepped cautiously into the dawn. Donaju emerged from the second barracks and insisted on shaking Sharpe's hand, almost as though the rifleman had won some kind of victory. He had not. Indeed Sharpe had come within a hand's breadth of ignominious defeat.
But now, instead, he was alive and the enemy was gone.
Which meant, Sharpe knew, that the real trouble was about to begin.
CHAPTER V
Caзadores trailed into the fort all morning. A few had escaped by hiding in ruined parts of the northern ramparts, but most of the survivors had fled across the ramparts and found a refuge among the thorns or in the dead, stony ground at the foot of the ridge dominated by the San Isidro Fort. Those lucky ones had watched aghast from their hiding places as other fugitives were hunted and slaughtered by the grey dragoons.