JК
Sharpes Battle :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 198 из 244They had suffered in the village's streets and on the spring grass of the meadows outside the village, yet their colours still flew: four bright flags amidst a division flying eighteen such flags, while around them circled the Empire's cavalry and to their north there marched two whole divisions of the Empire's foot soldiers. The two beleaguered battalions had reached safety, but it looked as though it would be short-lived for they had survived only to join a division that was surely doomed. Sixteen thousand Frenchmen now threatened four and a half thousand Portuguese and Britons.
The French horsemen wheeled away from the musket fire to re-form ranks made ragged by the morning's charge. The French infantry stopped to form for their new attack, while from the east, from across the stream, there came new French artillery fire that aimed to batter the nine waiting squares into carnage.
It was two hours after dawn. And in the meadows south of Fuentes de Onoro and far from any help an army seemed to be dying. While the French marched on.
"He has a choice," Marshal Massйna remarked to Major Ducos. The Marshal did not really want to be talking to a mere major on this morning of his triumph, but Ducos was a prickly fellow who had an inexplicable sway with the Emperor and so Andrй Massйna, Marshal of France, Duke of Rivoli and Prince of Essling, found time after breakfast to make certain Ducos understood the day's opportunities and, more important, to whom this day's laurels would belong.
Ducos had ridden out of Ciudad Rodrigo to witness the battle.
Officially Massйna's attack was merely an effort to move supplies into Almeida, but every Frenchman knew the stakes were much higher than the relief of one small garrison stranded behind the British lines. The real prize was the opportunity to cut Wellington off from his base and then destroy his army in one glorious day of bloodletting. Such a victory would end British defiance in Spain and Portugal for ever and would bring in its wake a roll call of new titles for the wharf rat who had joined the French royal army as a private. Maybe Massйna would earn a throne? The Emperor had redistributed half the chairs in Europe by making his brothers into kings, so why should not Marshal Massйna, Prince of Essling, become the king of somewhere or other? The throne in Lisbon needed a pair of buttocks to keep it warm, and Massйna reckoned his bum was as good for the task as any of Napoleon's brothers. And all that was needed for that glorious vision to come true was victory here at Fuentes de Onoro and that victory was now very close. The battle had opened as Massйna had intended and now it would close as he intended.
The French horsemen wheeled away from the musket fire to re-form ranks made ragged by the morning's charge. The French infantry stopped to form for their new attack, while from the east, from across the stream, there came new French artillery fire that aimed to batter the nine waiting squares into carnage.
It was two hours after dawn. And in the meadows south of Fuentes de Onoro and far from any help an army seemed to be dying. While the French marched on.
"He has a choice," Marshal Massйna remarked to Major Ducos. The Marshal did not really want to be talking to a mere major on this morning of his triumph, but Ducos was a prickly fellow who had an inexplicable sway with the Emperor and so Andrй Massйna, Marshal of France, Duke of Rivoli and Prince of Essling, found time after breakfast to make certain Ducos understood the day's opportunities and, more important, to whom this day's laurels would belong.
Ducos had ridden out of Ciudad Rodrigo to witness the battle.
Officially Massйna's attack was merely an effort to move supplies into Almeida, but every Frenchman knew the stakes were much higher than the relief of one small garrison stranded behind the British lines. The real prize was the opportunity to cut Wellington off from his base and then destroy his army in one glorious day of bloodletting. Such a victory would end British defiance in Spain and Portugal for ever and would bring in its wake a roll call of new titles for the wharf rat who had joined the French royal army as a private. Maybe Massйna would earn a throne? The Emperor had redistributed half the chairs in Europe by making his brothers into kings, so why should not Marshal Massйna, Prince of Essling, become the king of somewhere or other? The throne in Lisbon needed a pair of buttocks to keep it warm, and Massйna reckoned his bum was as good for the task as any of Napoleon's brothers. And all that was needed for that glorious vision to come true was victory here at Fuentes de Onoro and that victory was now very close. The battle had opened as Massйna had intended and now it would close as he intended.