Sharpes Escape   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

Sharpe had feared that the Ferreira brothers would set up an ambush in the bushes at the top of theriver bank and so he had asked Braithwaite to take the jolly boat downstream of the brothers' abandoned boat to a place where the river's edge was bare of trees. He had told Sarah and Joana to stay in the boat, but they had ignored him, scrambling ashore behind the three men. Vicente was worried by their presence. "They shouldn't be here."

"We shouldn't be here, Jorge," Sharpe said. He was gazing across the marshland, then saw the Ferreira brothers and their three companions in the mist. The five men were walking inland, looking as though they did not have a care in the world. "We shouldn't be here," Sharpe went on, "but we are, and so are they. So let's finish this." He unslung the rifle and made sure the priming was still in the pan. "Should have fired and reloaded on board the Squirrel ," he told Harper.

"You think the powder's damp?"

"Could be." He feared the mist might have moistened the charge, but there was nothing he could do about it now. They began walking, but, by landing farther south Sharpe had unwittingly put them deeper in the marshes and the going was hard. The ground, at best, was squelchy, at worst it was a glutinous mess and, because the tide was ebbing, the land was newly waterlogged. Sharpe cut north, reckoning that the land there was firmer, but the five fugitives were increasing their lead with every step. "Take your boots off," Harper recommended. "I grew up in Donegal," he went on, "and there's nothing we don't know about bog-land."

Sharpe kept his boots on. His came up to his knees and were not such an impediment, but the others pulled off their shoes and they made faster progress. "All we need to do," Sharpe said, "is get close enough to shoot the bastards."

"Why don't they look around?" Sarah wondered.

"Because they're dozy," Sharpe said, "because they reckon they're safe." They had reached the firmer ground, a very slight rise between the marsh and the northern hills, and they hurried now, closing the gap on the five men who still looked as carefree as if they were out for a day's rough shooting. They were strolling, guns slung, chatting. Ferragus towered over his companions and Sharpe had an urge to kneel, aim and shoot the bastard in the back, but he did not trust the rifle's charge and so he kept going. Way off to his left he could see some buildings in the mist: a couple of cottages, a barn, some sheds and a larger house and he supposed it had been a prosperous farmstead before the engineers flooded the valley.