Sharpes Battle   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

Sharpe had been thigh-deep in scummy water,fighting in the shadows, digging out the bodyguard one by one to reach that fat, glittering-eyed, buttery-skinned bastard who had tortured some of Sharpe's companions to death. He remembered the echoing shouts, the musket flashes reflecting from the broken water and the glint of the gems draped over the Tippoo's silk clothes. He remembered the Tippoo's death too, one of the few killings that had ever lodged in Sharpe's memory as a thing of comfort. "He was a right royal bastard," Sharpe said feelingly, "but he died like a man."

"Captain Sharpe," Hogan put in hastily, "has something of a reputation in our army. Indeed, you may have heard of him yourself, my Lord? It was Captain Sharpe who took the Talavera eagle."

"With Sergeant Harper," Sharpe put in, and Kiely's officers stared at Sharpe with a new curiosity. Any soldier who had taken an enemy standard was a man of renown and the faces of most of the guards' officers showed that respect, but it was the chaplain, Father Sarsfield, who reacted most fulsomely.

"My God and don't I remember it!" he said enthusiastically. "And didn't it just excite all the Spanish patriots in Madrid?" He climbed clumsily down from his horse and held a plump hand out to Sharpe. "It's an honour, Captain, an honour! Even though you are a heathen Protestant!" This last was said with a broad and friendly grin. "Are you a heathen, Sharpe?" the priest asked more earnestly.

"I'm nothing, Father."

"We're all something in God's eyes, my son, and loved for it. You and I shall talk, Sharpe. I shall tell you of God and you shall tell me how to strip the damned French of their eagles." The chaplain turned a smiling face on Hogan. "By God, Major, but you do us proud by giving us a man like Sharpe!" The priest's approval of the rifleman had made the other officers of the Real Companпa Irlandesa relax, though Kiely's face was still dark with distaste.

"Have you finished, Father?" Kiely asked sarcastically.

"I shall be on my way with Captain Sharpe, my Lord, and we shall see you in the morning?"

Kiely nodded, then turned his horse away. His other officers followed, leaving Sharpe, the priest and Captain Donaju to follow the straggling column formed by the Real Companпa Irlandesa's baggage, wives and servants.

By nightfall the Real Companпa Irlandesa was safe inside the remote San Isidro Fort that Wellington had chosen to be their new barracks.