JК
Sharpes Battle :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 221 из 244To north and south the meadows lay in spring freshness, but on the banks of Fuentes de Onoro's stream there was nothing but blasted trees, burned houses, fallen walls, dead, dying and screaming men, and on the plateau's crest above the village there was just smoke and more smoke as the cannons and rifles and muskets hammered at the menwaiting to make their huge assault.
The battle had been shrunken to this one place, to these last few feet of the slope above Fuentes de Onoro. It was midday and the sun was fierce and the shadows short as the ten new battalions broke their ranks to run through the gardens and down the eastern bank of the stream. They splashed through the water and ran up into streets choked with bloody bodies and groaning, slow-moving wounded men. The fresh attackers cheered as they ran, encouraging themselves and the waiting French infantry to one last, supreme effort. They filled the streets, then they burst in huge streams from the alley and laneway entrances at the top of the village, and there were so many attackers that the last of the newly arrived columns were still crossing the stream as the leading companies swarmed over the graveyard wall and up into the volley fire. Men fell to the allied volleys, but more men came behind to clamber over the dead and the dying and to struggle across the graves. Other men ran up the road alongside the cemetery. One whole battalion swerved to the right to fire up at the riflemen on the rocky knoll and their musket fire overwhelmed and drove the greenjackets back from the boulders. A Frenchman climbed to the knoll's summit where he waved his hat before pitching down with a rifle bullet in his lungs. More Frenchmen clambered up the slabs from where they could look down on the great victorious surge of their comrades who were fighting up the last few bloody inches of the slope. The attackers passed the Frenchmen left dead from the previous attacks, they climbed at last onto grass untouched by blood, and then they reached the ragged place where the wadding of the allied muskets had scorched and burned the turf, and still they climbed, and still their officers and sergeants shouted them on, and still the drummer boys beat their attack rhythm to drive this vast wave up and across the plateau's lip. Massйna's infantrymen were doing all that the Marshal had wanted them to do. They were climbing into the horror of the rolling volleys and climbing over their own dead, so many dead that the survivors seemed dipped in blood, and the British and Portuguese and Germans were being forced back step by step as still more men came from the village to press up behind and replace the men who fell to the awful volley fire.
A cheer arose as the leading Frenchmen gained the ridge's summit.
The battle had been shrunken to this one place, to these last few feet of the slope above Fuentes de Onoro. It was midday and the sun was fierce and the shadows short as the ten new battalions broke their ranks to run through the gardens and down the eastern bank of the stream. They splashed through the water and ran up into streets choked with bloody bodies and groaning, slow-moving wounded men. The fresh attackers cheered as they ran, encouraging themselves and the waiting French infantry to one last, supreme effort. They filled the streets, then they burst in huge streams from the alley and laneway entrances at the top of the village, and there were so many attackers that the last of the newly arrived columns were still crossing the stream as the leading companies swarmed over the graveyard wall and up into the volley fire. Men fell to the allied volleys, but more men came behind to clamber over the dead and the dying and to struggle across the graves. Other men ran up the road alongside the cemetery. One whole battalion swerved to the right to fire up at the riflemen on the rocky knoll and their musket fire overwhelmed and drove the greenjackets back from the boulders. A Frenchman climbed to the knoll's summit where he waved his hat before pitching down with a rifle bullet in his lungs. More Frenchmen clambered up the slabs from where they could look down on the great victorious surge of their comrades who were fighting up the last few bloody inches of the slope. The attackers passed the Frenchmen left dead from the previous attacks, they climbed at last onto grass untouched by blood, and then they reached the ragged place where the wadding of the allied muskets had scorched and burned the turf, and still they climbed, and still their officers and sergeants shouted them on, and still the drummer boys beat their attack rhythm to drive this vast wave up and across the plateau's lip. Massйna's infantrymen were doing all that the Marshal had wanted them to do. They were climbing into the horror of the rolling volleys and climbing over their own dead, so many dead that the survivors seemed dipped in blood, and the British and Portuguese and Germans were being forced back step by step as still more men came from the village to press up behind and replace the men who fell to the awful volley fire.
A cheer arose as the leading Frenchmen gained the ridge's summit.