JК
Sharpes Battle :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 74 из 244"Look!"
He forced the guardsmen to look at the three mutilated naked bodies, and especially at the bloody, gut-churning mess dug out of the centre of each corpse and at the rictus of horror and pain on each dead face. Then Sharpe reached past one of the cold, white, stiff shoulders to drag free a steel-grey helmet plumed with coarse grey hair. He set it on one of the uptilted cart shafts. It was the same helmet that Harris had collected as a keepsake from the high settlement where Sharpe had discovered the massacred villagers and where Perkins had met Miranda who now followed the young rifleman with a touching and pathetic devotion. It was the same helmet that Sharpe had given back to Harris in the sack earlier that morning.
"Look at the bodies!" Sharpe ordered the Real Companпa Irlandesa . "And listen! The French believe there are two kinds of people in Spain: those who are for them and those who are against them, and there ain't a man among you who can escape that judgement. Either you fight for the French or you fight against them, and that isn't my decision, that's what the French have decided." He pointed to the three bodies. "That's what the French do. They know you're here now. They're watching you, they're wondering who and what you are, and until they know the answers they'll treat you like an enemy. And that's how the Frogs treat their enemies." He pointed to the bloody holes carved into the dead men's crotches.
"Which leaves you lot with three choices," Sharpe went on. "You can run east and have your manhood sliced off by the Frogs, or you can run west and risk being arrested by my army and shot as a deserter, or else you can stay here and learn to be soldiers. And don't tell me this isn't your war. You swore an oath to serve the King of Spain, and the King of Spain is a prisoner in France and you were supposed to be his guard. By God, this is your war far more than it's my war. I never swore an oath to protect Spain, I never had a woman raped by a Frenchman or a child murdered by a dragoon or a harvest stolen and a house burned by a Crapaud forage party. Your country has suffered all those things, and your country is Spain, and if you'd rather fight for Ireland than for Spain then why in the name of Almighty God did you take the Spanish oath?" He paused. He knew that not every man in the company was a would-be deserter. Many, like Lord Kiely himself, wanted to fight, but there were enough troublemakers to sap the company's usefulness and Sharpe had decided that this shock treatment was the only way to jar the troublemakers into obedience.
"Or does the oath mean nothing to you?" Sharpe demanded.
He forced the guardsmen to look at the three mutilated naked bodies, and especially at the bloody, gut-churning mess dug out of the centre of each corpse and at the rictus of horror and pain on each dead face. Then Sharpe reached past one of the cold, white, stiff shoulders to drag free a steel-grey helmet plumed with coarse grey hair. He set it on one of the uptilted cart shafts. It was the same helmet that Harris had collected as a keepsake from the high settlement where Sharpe had discovered the massacred villagers and where Perkins had met Miranda who now followed the young rifleman with a touching and pathetic devotion. It was the same helmet that Sharpe had given back to Harris in the sack earlier that morning.
"Look at the bodies!" Sharpe ordered the Real Companпa Irlandesa . "And listen! The French believe there are two kinds of people in Spain: those who are for them and those who are against them, and there ain't a man among you who can escape that judgement. Either you fight for the French or you fight against them, and that isn't my decision, that's what the French have decided." He pointed to the three bodies. "That's what the French do. They know you're here now. They're watching you, they're wondering who and what you are, and until they know the answers they'll treat you like an enemy. And that's how the Frogs treat their enemies." He pointed to the bloody holes carved into the dead men's crotches.
"Which leaves you lot with three choices," Sharpe went on. "You can run east and have your manhood sliced off by the Frogs, or you can run west and risk being arrested by my army and shot as a deserter, or else you can stay here and learn to be soldiers. And don't tell me this isn't your war. You swore an oath to serve the King of Spain, and the King of Spain is a prisoner in France and you were supposed to be his guard. By God, this is your war far more than it's my war. I never swore an oath to protect Spain, I never had a woman raped by a Frenchman or a child murdered by a dragoon or a harvest stolen and a house burned by a Crapaud forage party. Your country has suffered all those things, and your country is Spain, and if you'd rather fight for Ireland than for Spain then why in the name of Almighty God did you take the Spanish oath?" He paused. He knew that not every man in the company was a would-be deserter. Many, like Lord Kiely himself, wanted to fight, but there were enough troublemakers to sap the company's usefulness and Sharpe had decided that this shock treatment was the only way to jar the troublemakers into obedience.
"Or does the oath mean nothing to you?" Sharpe demanded.