JК
Sharpes Battle :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 216 из 244Eventually the press of horse became so thick that the columns marched into squares. "Buggers are everywhere," Harper said, firing his rifle at a chasseur officer. The two British guns had switched their aim to fire canister at the cavalry in an attempt to drive them away from the two infantry squares. The guns crashed back on their trails to jar the wheels up in the air. The gunners swabbed out the barrel, rammed down a new charge and canister, pricked the powder bag through the touch-hole, then ducked aside after putting the smoking linstock to the powder fuse. The guns cracked deafeningly, smoke punched sixty feet out from the muzzles and the grass lay momentarily flat as the blast whipped overhead. A horse screamed as the musket balls spread out and thumped home.
A surge and eddy in the mass of horse presaged another move, but instead of riding back across the fields to harry a marching column the cavalry suddenly turned on the two guns. Blood dripped from horses' flanks as riders spurred frantically towards the desperate gunners who now picked up their guns' trails, turned the weapons and dropped the trail-hooks over the limbers' pintles. The team horses were run into place, the harnesses attached and the gunners scrambled up onto the guns or horses, but the French cavalry had timed their charge well and the gunners were still whipping their tired animals into motion as the leading cuirassiers swept down on the battery.
A charge of British light dragoons saved the guns. The blue-coated horsemen slashed in from the north, sabres cutting down at plumed helmets and parrying swords. More British cavalry arrived to flank the guns that were now galloping frantically northwards. The heavy cannons bounced over the rough ground, the gunners clung to the limbers' handles, the whips cracked, and all about the galloping horses and blurring wheels the cavalry hacked at each other in a running fight. A British dragoon reeled out of the fight with a face turned into a mask of blood while a cuirassier fell from his saddle to be mangled by the hooves of the gun teams then crushed by the iron-rimmed wheels of limber and cannon. Then a rippling crash of musketry announced that the rolling chaos of guns, horses, swordsmen and lancers had come into range of the Portuguese square's face and the cheated French cavalry swerved away as the two guns galloped on to safety. A cheer for the gunners' escape went up from the two allied squares, then the guns slewed about in an eruption of grass and dust to open fire again on their erstwhile pursuers.
Sharpe's men had slipped away from the rocks to join another battalion of redcoats.
A surge and eddy in the mass of horse presaged another move, but instead of riding back across the fields to harry a marching column the cavalry suddenly turned on the two guns. Blood dripped from horses' flanks as riders spurred frantically towards the desperate gunners who now picked up their guns' trails, turned the weapons and dropped the trail-hooks over the limbers' pintles. The team horses were run into place, the harnesses attached and the gunners scrambled up onto the guns or horses, but the French cavalry had timed their charge well and the gunners were still whipping their tired animals into motion as the leading cuirassiers swept down on the battery.
A charge of British light dragoons saved the guns. The blue-coated horsemen slashed in from the north, sabres cutting down at plumed helmets and parrying swords. More British cavalry arrived to flank the guns that were now galloping frantically northwards. The heavy cannons bounced over the rough ground, the gunners clung to the limbers' handles, the whips cracked, and all about the galloping horses and blurring wheels the cavalry hacked at each other in a running fight. A British dragoon reeled out of the fight with a face turned into a mask of blood while a cuirassier fell from his saddle to be mangled by the hooves of the gun teams then crushed by the iron-rimmed wheels of limber and cannon. Then a rippling crash of musketry announced that the rolling chaos of guns, horses, swordsmen and lancers had come into range of the Portuguese square's face and the cheated French cavalry swerved away as the two guns galloped on to safety. A cheer for the gunners' escape went up from the two allied squares, then the guns slewed about in an eruption of grass and dust to open fire again on their erstwhile pursuers.
Sharpe's men had slipped away from the rocks to join another battalion of redcoats.