JК
Sharpes Battle :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 182 из 244"
"And you'll sacrifice me for that?"
"Of course! Every soldier knows you must lose some valuable men if you want to win a great prize. Besides, what does it matter if you do lose your commission? You'll just go off and join Teresa and become a famous partisan: El Fusilero!" Hogan smiled cheerfully, then turned to Harper. "Sergeant? Would you do me a great service and give me a moment's privacy with Captain Sharpe?"
Harper obligingly walked on ahead where he tried to overhear the conversation between the two officers, but Hogan kept his voice low and Sharpe's exclamations of surprise offered Harper no clue. Nor did he have any chance to question Sharpe before the three British officers turned a corner to see Lord Kiely's servants and Captain Donaju's twenty men standing awkwardly beside a grave that had been recently dug in an orchard next to a graveyard. Father Sarsfield had paid the village gravediggers to dig the hole just feet away from consecrated ground for, though the laws of the church insisted that Lord Kiely's sins must keep him from burial in holy ground, Sarsfield would nevertheless place the body as near as he could to consecrated soil so that on Judgment Day the exiled Irishman's soul would not be utterly bereft of Christian company. The body had been stitched into a dirty white canvas shroud. Four men of the Real Companпa Irlandesa lowered the corpse into the deep grave, then Hogan, Sharpe and Harper took off their hats as Father Sarsfield said the prayers in Latin and afterwards spoke in English to the twenty guardsmen. Lord Kiely, the priest said, had suffered from the sin of pride and that pride had not let him endure disappointment. Yet all Irishmen, Sarsfield said, must learn to live with disappointment for it was given to their heritage as surely as the sparks flew upwards. Yet, he went on, the proper response to disappointment was not to abandon hope and reject God's gift of life, but to keep the hope glowing bright. "We have no homes, you and I," he said to the sombre guardsmen, "but one day we shall all inherit our earthly home, and if it is not given to us then it will come to our children or to our children's children." The priest fell silent and stared down into the grave. "Nor must you worry that his Lordship committed suicide," he finally continued. "Suicide is a sin, but sometimes life is so unbearable that we must risk the sin rather than face the horror. Wolfe Tone made that choice thirteen years ago.
"And you'll sacrifice me for that?"
"Of course! Every soldier knows you must lose some valuable men if you want to win a great prize. Besides, what does it matter if you do lose your commission? You'll just go off and join Teresa and become a famous partisan: El Fusilero!" Hogan smiled cheerfully, then turned to Harper. "Sergeant? Would you do me a great service and give me a moment's privacy with Captain Sharpe?"
Harper obligingly walked on ahead where he tried to overhear the conversation between the two officers, but Hogan kept his voice low and Sharpe's exclamations of surprise offered Harper no clue. Nor did he have any chance to question Sharpe before the three British officers turned a corner to see Lord Kiely's servants and Captain Donaju's twenty men standing awkwardly beside a grave that had been recently dug in an orchard next to a graveyard. Father Sarsfield had paid the village gravediggers to dig the hole just feet away from consecrated ground for, though the laws of the church insisted that Lord Kiely's sins must keep him from burial in holy ground, Sarsfield would nevertheless place the body as near as he could to consecrated soil so that on Judgment Day the exiled Irishman's soul would not be utterly bereft of Christian company. The body had been stitched into a dirty white canvas shroud. Four men of the Real Companпa Irlandesa lowered the corpse into the deep grave, then Hogan, Sharpe and Harper took off their hats as Father Sarsfield said the prayers in Latin and afterwards spoke in English to the twenty guardsmen. Lord Kiely, the priest said, had suffered from the sin of pride and that pride had not let him endure disappointment. Yet all Irishmen, Sarsfield said, must learn to live with disappointment for it was given to their heritage as surely as the sparks flew upwards. Yet, he went on, the proper response to disappointment was not to abandon hope and reject God's gift of life, but to keep the hope glowing bright. "We have no homes, you and I," he said to the sombre guardsmen, "but one day we shall all inherit our earthly home, and if it is not given to us then it will come to our children or to our children's children." The priest fell silent and stared down into the grave. "Nor must you worry that his Lordship committed suicide," he finally continued. "Suicide is a sin, but sometimes life is so unbearable that we must risk the sin rather than face the horror. Wolfe Tone made that choice thirteen years ago.