JК
Sharpes Battle :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 234 из 244Sharpe was so weary from the killing that he was holding the big sword two-handed, his right hand on the hilt and his left gripping the lowest part of the blade so that he could shove it hard into the press of men. The crush of bodies was so great that there were times when he could hardly move and so he would claw at the faces nearest him, kick and bite and butt with his head until the damned French moved or fell or died and he could climb over another body and snarl forward with the bloody sword dripping.
Harper caught up with him. The spontoon's foot-long sharpened steel spearhead had a small cross-bar at its base to prevent the weapon being driven too deep into an enemy horse or man and Harper was repeatedly burying the blade clear to the cross-piece, then kicking and twisting to loosen the weapon before thrusting forward again. Once, when a French sergeant tried to rally a group of men, Harper lifted a dying man on the end of the truncated spear and used his thrashing body as a bleeding and screaming battering ram that he slammed into the enemy ranks. A pair of bloody-faced Connaught Rangers had attached themselves to Harper and the three were chanting their war cries in Irish.
A rush of Highlanders came out of a lane on Sharpe's right. He sensed that the battle was turning. They were attacking downhill now, not defending uphill, and the grey infantry of Loup's brigade was going back with the rest. He unclenched his left hand from the lower blade of the sword and saw he had cut his palm open. A musket flamed from a window to his left and a guardsman went spinning down, gasping. Captain Donaju led a charge into the roofless house that echoed with shouts as French fugitives were hunted through the tiny rooms and back into the pig shed. A terrible roar of triumph sounded to Sharpe's right as a company of Connaught Rangers trapped two companies of Frenchmen in a blind alley. The Irish began working their bloody way to the alley's end and no officer dared try to stop their slaughter. Down on the grassland north of Poco Velha this battle had seen the most delicate of drill manoeuvres save the Light Division, now it was witnessing a primitive wild fighting out of the most gruesome nightmare that might yet save the whole army.
"Left!" Harper called and Sharpe turned to see a rush of grey-uniformed Frenchmen coming through an alley. The guardsmen no longer needed orders to counterattack, they just swarmed into the alley and screamed a wild, keening noise as they laid into the enemy. The Real Companпa Irlandesa had been caught up by the sublime joy of a victorious and killing fight.
Harper caught up with him. The spontoon's foot-long sharpened steel spearhead had a small cross-bar at its base to prevent the weapon being driven too deep into an enemy horse or man and Harper was repeatedly burying the blade clear to the cross-piece, then kicking and twisting to loosen the weapon before thrusting forward again. Once, when a French sergeant tried to rally a group of men, Harper lifted a dying man on the end of the truncated spear and used his thrashing body as a bleeding and screaming battering ram that he slammed into the enemy ranks. A pair of bloody-faced Connaught Rangers had attached themselves to Harper and the three were chanting their war cries in Irish.
A rush of Highlanders came out of a lane on Sharpe's right. He sensed that the battle was turning. They were attacking downhill now, not defending uphill, and the grey infantry of Loup's brigade was going back with the rest. He unclenched his left hand from the lower blade of the sword and saw he had cut his palm open. A musket flamed from a window to his left and a guardsman went spinning down, gasping. Captain Donaju led a charge into the roofless house that echoed with shouts as French fugitives were hunted through the tiny rooms and back into the pig shed. A terrible roar of triumph sounded to Sharpe's right as a company of Connaught Rangers trapped two companies of Frenchmen in a blind alley. The Irish began working their bloody way to the alley's end and no officer dared try to stop their slaughter. Down on the grassland north of Poco Velha this battle had seen the most delicate of drill manoeuvres save the Light Division, now it was witnessing a primitive wild fighting out of the most gruesome nightmare that might yet save the whole army.
"Left!" Harper called and Sharpe turned to see a rush of grey-uniformed Frenchmen coming through an alley. The guardsmen no longer needed orders to counterattack, they just swarmed into the alley and screamed a wild, keening noise as they laid into the enemy. The Real Companпa Irlandesa had been caught up by the sublime joy of a victorious and killing fight.