JК
Sharpes Battle :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 66 из 244His tired horse struggled to rise as the dragoon parried again and again, then suddenly the Frenchman abandoned his defence and lunged hard at Kiely. His sword tip caught in the hilt of Kiely's sword and drove it clear out of Kiely's grip. Kiely had looped the silk-tasselled sword strap around his wrist so the sword just hung loose, but it would take his Lordship a few seconds to retrieve the snakeskin-wrapped hilt and to give himself that time he wheeled his horse desperately away. The Frenchman scented victory and spurred his tired horse after his opponent.
Then the carbine cracked. The report was startling and it echoed back from the steep hill slope before anyone reacted.
The dragoon gave a gasp as the bullet struck him. The shot had taken him in the ribs and knocked him back in his saddle. The dying man recovered his balance then shook his head in disbelief that someone had interfered in the duel. His own sword fell to dangle from its strap as his companions shouted in protest that anyone should have dared break the convention that such duellists should be left alone on the battlefield, then the dragoon's mouth fell open and a wash of dark blood soaked the front of his grey jacket as he collapsed backwards off his tired horse.
An astonished Lord Kiely took one look at the vengeful dragoons spurring towards their fallen companion, then fled across the stream. "I don't understand," Colonel Runciman said.
"Someone broke the rules, General," Sharpe said, "and they saved Kiely's bacon by doing it. He was a dead man till that shot was fired." The French were still shouting protests, and one of them rode to the stream bank and dared any of the allied officers to face him in a second duel. No one accepted his offer so he began to call taunts and insults, all of which Sharpe reckoned were deserved because whoever had fired the carbine had killed the Frenchman unfairly. "So who did fire?" Sharpe asked aloud.
It had been the single officer who had been pursued by the dragoons and whose arrival in the valley had prompted the duel who had ended it so unsportingly. Sharpe could see the carbine in the fugitive's hands, but what surprised him was that no one was chiding the officer for his interference in the duel. Instead the other officers of the Real Companпa Irlandesa clustered about the newcomer in evident welcome. Sharpe urged his horse closer to see that the fugitive was a slim young officer with what Sharpe took to be a plume of shining black horsehair reaching down his back, but then Sharpe saw that it was not horsehair at all, but real hair, and that the officer was not an officer either, but a woman.
Then the carbine cracked. The report was startling and it echoed back from the steep hill slope before anyone reacted.
The dragoon gave a gasp as the bullet struck him. The shot had taken him in the ribs and knocked him back in his saddle. The dying man recovered his balance then shook his head in disbelief that someone had interfered in the duel. His own sword fell to dangle from its strap as his companions shouted in protest that anyone should have dared break the convention that such duellists should be left alone on the battlefield, then the dragoon's mouth fell open and a wash of dark blood soaked the front of his grey jacket as he collapsed backwards off his tired horse.
An astonished Lord Kiely took one look at the vengeful dragoons spurring towards their fallen companion, then fled across the stream. "I don't understand," Colonel Runciman said.
"Someone broke the rules, General," Sharpe said, "and they saved Kiely's bacon by doing it. He was a dead man till that shot was fired." The French were still shouting protests, and one of them rode to the stream bank and dared any of the allied officers to face him in a second duel. No one accepted his offer so he began to call taunts and insults, all of which Sharpe reckoned were deserved because whoever had fired the carbine had killed the Frenchman unfairly. "So who did fire?" Sharpe asked aloud.
It had been the single officer who had been pursued by the dragoons and whose arrival in the valley had prompted the duel who had ended it so unsportingly. Sharpe could see the carbine in the fugitive's hands, but what surprised him was that no one was chiding the officer for his interference in the duel. Instead the other officers of the Real Companпa Irlandesa clustered about the newcomer in evident welcome. Sharpe urged his horse closer to see that the fugitive was a slim young officer with what Sharpe took to be a plume of shining black horsehair reaching down his back, but then Sharpe saw that it was not horsehair at all, but real hair, and that the officer was not an officer either, but a woman.