Sharpes Devil   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

Sharpe turned away from the embarrassed Lieutenant to stare morosely across the sun-glinting sea at the far ships that guarded this lonely, godforsaken coast. Sharpe's scar gave him a sardonic and mocking look. His companion, on the other hand, had a cheerful and genial face. He was a very tall man, even taller than Sharpe himself, and was the only man among the sixteen travelers not wearing a uniform. Instead the man was dressed in a brown wool coat and black breeches that were far too thick for this tropical heat and, in consequence, the tall man, who was also hugely fat, was sweating profusely. The discomfort had evidently not affected his cheerfulness, for he gazed happily about at the dark cliffs, at the banyan trees, at the slave huts, at the rain clouds swelling above the black volcanic peaks, at the sea, at the small town, and at last delivered himself of his considered verdict. "A rare old shitheap of a place, wouldn't you say?" The fat man, who was called Mister Patrick Harper and was Sharpe's companion on this voyage, had expressed the exact same sentiment at dawn when, as their ship crept on a small wind to the island's anchorage, the first light had revealed the unappealing landscape.

"It's more than the bastard deserves," Sharpe replied, but without much conviction, merely in the tone of a man making conversation to pass the time.

"It's still a shitheap. How in Christ's name did they ever find the place? That's what I want to know. God's in his heaven, but we're a million miles from anywhere on earth, so we are!"

"I suppose a ship was off course and bumped into the bloody place."

Harper fanned his face with the brim of his broad hat. "I wish they'd bring the bloody mules. I'm dying of the bloody heat, so I am. It must be a fair bit cooler up in them hills."

"If you weren't so fat," Sharpe said mildly, "we could walk."

"Fat! I'm just well made, so I am." The response, immediate and indignant, was well practiced, so that if any man had been listening he would have instantly realized that this was an old and oft-repeated altercation between the two men. "And what's wrong with being properly made?" Harper continued. "Mother of Christ, just because a man lives well there's no need to make remarks about the evidence of his health! And look at yourself! The Holy Ghost has more beef on its bones than you do. If I boiled you down I wouldn't get so much as a pound of lard for my trouble. You should eat like I do!" Patrick Harper proudly thumped his chest, thus setting off a seismic quiver of his belly.

"It isn't the eating," Sharpe said. "It's the beer.