JК
Sharpes Escape :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 22 из 283"
"You have at last seized the essence of soldiering," Hogan said happily, "and Marshal Massena islanding in the same place."
"He is?" Sharpe asked. "I thought we were retreating and he was advancing?"
Hogan laughed. "There are three roads he could have chosen, Richard, two very good ones and one quite rotten one, and in his wisdom he chose this one, the bad one." It was indeed a bad road, merely two rutted wheel tracks either side of a strip of grass and weeds, and littered with rocks large enough to break a wagon or gun wheel. "And this bad road," Hogan went on, "leads straight to a place called Bussaco."
"Am I supposed to have heard of it?"
"A very bad place," Hogan went on, "for anyone attacking it. And the Peer is gathering troops there in hope of giving Monsieur Massena a bloody nose. Something to look forward to, Richard, something to anticipate." He raised a hand, kicked back his heels and rode ahead, nodding to Major Forrest who came the other way.
"Two ovens in the next village, Sharpe," Forrest said, "and the Colonel would like your lads to deal with them."
The ovens were great brick caves in which the villagers had baked their bread. The light company used pickaxes to reduce them to rubble so the French could not use them. They left the precious ovens destroyed and then marched on.
To a place called Bussaco.
CHAPTER 2
Robert Knowles and Richard Sharpe stood on the Bussaco ridge and stared at l'Armee de Portugal that, battalion by battalion, battery by battery and squadron by squadron, streamed from the eastern hills to fill the valley.
The British and Portuguese armies had occupied a great ridge that ran north and south and so blocked the road on which the French were advancing towards Lisbon. The ridge, Knowles guessed, was almost a thousand feet above the surrounding countryside, and its eastward flank, which faced the French, was precipitously steep. Two roads zigzagged their way up that slope, snaking between heather, gorse and rocks, the better road reaching the ridge's crest towards its northern end just above a small village perched on a ledge of the ridge. Down in the valley, beyond a glinting stream, lay a scatter of other small villages and the French were making their way along farm tracks to occupy those lower settlements.
The British and Portuguese had a bird's-eye view of the enemy who came from a wooded defile in the lower hills, then marched past a windmill before turning south to take up their positions. They, in turn, could look up the high, bare slope and see a handful of British and Portuguese officers watching them.
"You have at last seized the essence of soldiering," Hogan said happily, "and Marshal Massena islanding in the same place."
"He is?" Sharpe asked. "I thought we were retreating and he was advancing?"
Hogan laughed. "There are three roads he could have chosen, Richard, two very good ones and one quite rotten one, and in his wisdom he chose this one, the bad one." It was indeed a bad road, merely two rutted wheel tracks either side of a strip of grass and weeds, and littered with rocks large enough to break a wagon or gun wheel. "And this bad road," Hogan went on, "leads straight to a place called Bussaco."
"Am I supposed to have heard of it?"
"A very bad place," Hogan went on, "for anyone attacking it. And the Peer is gathering troops there in hope of giving Monsieur Massena a bloody nose. Something to look forward to, Richard, something to anticipate." He raised a hand, kicked back his heels and rode ahead, nodding to Major Forrest who came the other way.
"Two ovens in the next village, Sharpe," Forrest said, "and the Colonel would like your lads to deal with them."
The ovens were great brick caves in which the villagers had baked their bread. The light company used pickaxes to reduce them to rubble so the French could not use them. They left the precious ovens destroyed and then marched on.
To a place called Bussaco.
CHAPTER 2
Robert Knowles and Richard Sharpe stood on the Bussaco ridge and stared at l'Armee de Portugal that, battalion by battalion, battery by battery and squadron by squadron, streamed from the eastern hills to fill the valley.
The British and Portuguese armies had occupied a great ridge that ran north and south and so blocked the road on which the French were advancing towards Lisbon. The ridge, Knowles guessed, was almost a thousand feet above the surrounding countryside, and its eastward flank, which faced the French, was precipitously steep. Two roads zigzagged their way up that slope, snaking between heather, gorse and rocks, the better road reaching the ridge's crest towards its northern end just above a small village perched on a ledge of the ridge. Down in the valley, beyond a glinting stream, lay a scatter of other small villages and the French were making their way along farm tracks to occupy those lower settlements.
The British and Portuguese had a bird's-eye view of the enemy who came from a wooded defile in the lower hills, then marched past a windmill before turning south to take up their positions. They, in turn, could look up the high, bare slope and see a handful of British and Portuguese officers watching them.