JК
Sharpes Battle :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 31 из 244For a second Loup had thought the figure in cavalry uniform was an especially effeminate young man, one of the dandified Parisians who spent more money on their tailor than on their horse and weapons, but then he realized that the dandy was a woman and that the cascading black plume was her hair and not a helmet's embellishment. "Is she yours, Ducos?" Loup asked nastily.
"Monsieur," Ducos said very formally, "allow me to name the Dona Juanita de Elia. Madame? This is Brigadier General Guy Loup."
Brigadier Loup stared at the woman by the fire and what he saw, he liked, and the Dona Juanita de Elia returned the Dragoon General's stare and what she saw, she also liked. She saw a compact, one-eyed man with a brutal, weather-beaten face who wore his grey hair and beard short, and his grey, fur-trimmed uniform like an executioner's costume. The fur glinted with rainwater that had brought out the smell of the pelts, a smell that mingled with the heady aromas of saddles, tobacco, sweat, gun oil, powder and horses. "Brigadier," she said politely.
"Madame," Loup acknowledged her, then shamelessly looked up and down her skin-tight uniform, "or should it be Colonel?"
"Brigadier at least," Juanita answered, "if not Marйchal ."
"Two men?" Ducos interrupted the flirtation. "How did you lose two men?"
Loup told the story of his day. He paced up and down the room as he spoke, biting into an apple he took from Ducos's desk. He told how he had taken a small group of men into the hills to find the fugitives from the village of Fuentes de Onoro, and how, having taken his revenge on the Spaniards, he had been surprised by the arrival of the greenjackets. "They were led by a captain called Sharpe," he said.
"Sharpe," Ducos repeated, then leafed through an immense ledger in which he recorded every scrap of information about the Emperor's enemies. It was Ducos's job to know about those enemies and to recommend how they could be destroyed, and his intelligence was as copious as his power. "Sharpe," he said again as he found the entry he sought. "A rifleman, you say? I suspect he may be the same man who captured an eagle at Talavera. Was he with greenjackets only? Or did he have redcoats with him?"
"He had redcoats."
"Then it is the same man. For a reason we have never discovered he serves in a red-jacketed battalion." Ducos was adding to his notes in the book that contained similar entries on over five hundred enemy officers. Some of the entries were scored through with a single black line denoting that the men were dead and Ducos sometimes imagined a glorious day when all these enemy heroes, British, Portuguese and Spanish alike, would be black-lined by a rampaging French army. "Captain Sharpe," Ducos now said, "is reckoned a famous man in Wellington's forces. He came up from the ranks, Brigadier, a rare feat in Britain.
"Monsieur," Ducos said very formally, "allow me to name the Dona Juanita de Elia. Madame? This is Brigadier General Guy Loup."
Brigadier Loup stared at the woman by the fire and what he saw, he liked, and the Dona Juanita de Elia returned the Dragoon General's stare and what she saw, she also liked. She saw a compact, one-eyed man with a brutal, weather-beaten face who wore his grey hair and beard short, and his grey, fur-trimmed uniform like an executioner's costume. The fur glinted with rainwater that had brought out the smell of the pelts, a smell that mingled with the heady aromas of saddles, tobacco, sweat, gun oil, powder and horses. "Brigadier," she said politely.
"Madame," Loup acknowledged her, then shamelessly looked up and down her skin-tight uniform, "or should it be Colonel?"
"Brigadier at least," Juanita answered, "if not Marйchal ."
"Two men?" Ducos interrupted the flirtation. "How did you lose two men?"
Loup told the story of his day. He paced up and down the room as he spoke, biting into an apple he took from Ducos's desk. He told how he had taken a small group of men into the hills to find the fugitives from the village of Fuentes de Onoro, and how, having taken his revenge on the Spaniards, he had been surprised by the arrival of the greenjackets. "They were led by a captain called Sharpe," he said.
"Sharpe," Ducos repeated, then leafed through an immense ledger in which he recorded every scrap of information about the Emperor's enemies. It was Ducos's job to know about those enemies and to recommend how they could be destroyed, and his intelligence was as copious as his power. "Sharpe," he said again as he found the entry he sought. "A rifleman, you say? I suspect he may be the same man who captured an eagle at Talavera. Was he with greenjackets only? Or did he have redcoats with him?"
"He had redcoats."
"Then it is the same man. For a reason we have never discovered he serves in a red-jacketed battalion." Ducos was adding to his notes in the book that contained similar entries on over five hundred enemy officers. Some of the entries were scored through with a single black line denoting that the men were dead and Ducos sometimes imagined a glorious day when all these enemy heroes, British, Portuguese and Spanish alike, would be black-lined by a rampaging French army. "Captain Sharpe," Ducos now said, "is reckoned a famous man in Wellington's forces. He came up from the ranks, Brigadier, a rare feat in Britain.