JК
Sharpes Battle :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 239 из 244He belched a fetid brandy-flavoured breath over Sharpe, thenshook his head wearily. "The wound will probably turn septic. They usually do. You'll stink like a leper's latrine, your arm will drop off and in ten days' time you'll be dead. Lots of fever before then, you'll gibber like a lunatic and sweat like a horse, but you'll be a hero back home. Of course it hurts, man. Stop whining like a damned child, for Christ's sake! I never could stand whining bloody children. And sit still, man!"
Sharpe sat still. The pain of the probe was excruciating, like having a white-hot flesh-hook jammed and twisted into his shoulder joint. He closed his eyes and tried not to listen to the grating sound caused by the surgeon's probe scraping against the bone as he searched for the carbine ball. "Got the little bastard. Hold still." The surgeon found a narrow-nosed set of forceps and eased them into the wound after the probe. "You say a woman did it?"
"A woman did it," Sharpe said, keeping his eyes closed. A prisoner from Loup's brigade had confirmed that Juanita had indeed advanced with the dragoons. No one in Loup's brigade had thought the French would be dislodged from the village and thrown back over the stream and so no one had told Juanita the danger. Not that she would have listened. She had been an adventuress who loved the smell of fighting and now she was dead.
So was Loup, and with their death had died General Valverde's last chance of finding a witness to Sharpe's confession to having killed the French prisoners and so precipitating the fiasco at San Isidro. There was only one witness left alive and he had come at dusk to the church where Sharpe had been waiting for the surgeon. "They asked me," Runciman had told Sharpe excitedly. The Colonel had been in the village throughout the fight, and though no one was claiming that the erstwhile Wagon Master General had taken a leading role in the battle, nor was anyone denying that Colonel Runciman had been in the place of greatest danger where he had neither flinched nor shrunk from the fight.
"Who asked you what, General?" Sharpe had responded.
"Wellington and that wretched Spanish General." Runciman gabbled in his excitement. "Asked me directly, straight to my face. Had you admitted to shooting two Frenchies? That's what they asked me."
Sharpe flinched as a man screamed under the surgeon's knife. The amputated arms and feet made a grisly pile beside the altar that served as an operating table. "They asked you," Sharpe said, "and you don't tell lies."
"So I didn't!" Runciman said. "I said it was a preposterous question.
Sharpe sat still. The pain of the probe was excruciating, like having a white-hot flesh-hook jammed and twisted into his shoulder joint. He closed his eyes and tried not to listen to the grating sound caused by the surgeon's probe scraping against the bone as he searched for the carbine ball. "Got the little bastard. Hold still." The surgeon found a narrow-nosed set of forceps and eased them into the wound after the probe. "You say a woman did it?"
"A woman did it," Sharpe said, keeping his eyes closed. A prisoner from Loup's brigade had confirmed that Juanita had indeed advanced with the dragoons. No one in Loup's brigade had thought the French would be dislodged from the village and thrown back over the stream and so no one had told Juanita the danger. Not that she would have listened. She had been an adventuress who loved the smell of fighting and now she was dead.
So was Loup, and with their death had died General Valverde's last chance of finding a witness to Sharpe's confession to having killed the French prisoners and so precipitating the fiasco at San Isidro. There was only one witness left alive and he had come at dusk to the church where Sharpe had been waiting for the surgeon. "They asked me," Runciman had told Sharpe excitedly. The Colonel had been in the village throughout the fight, and though no one was claiming that the erstwhile Wagon Master General had taken a leading role in the battle, nor was anyone denying that Colonel Runciman had been in the place of greatest danger where he had neither flinched nor shrunk from the fight.
"Who asked you what, General?" Sharpe had responded.
"Wellington and that wretched Spanish General." Runciman gabbled in his excitement. "Asked me directly, straight to my face. Had you admitted to shooting two Frenchies? That's what they asked me."
Sharpe flinched as a man screamed under the surgeon's knife. The amputated arms and feet made a grisly pile beside the altar that served as an operating table. "They asked you," Sharpe said, "and you don't tell lies."
"So I didn't!" Runciman said. "I said it was a preposterous question.