JК
Sharpes Escape :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 33 из 283Do you know where I'll find Major Hogan?"
"End of the passage, door on the right."
The supper was awkward. They ate in one of the small cells that was lined with cork to keep out the cold of the coming winter, and their meal was a stew of goat and beans, with coarse bread, cheese and a plentiful supply of wine. Hogan did his best to keep the conversation moving, but Sharpe had little to say to Major Ferreira who never referred to the events on the hilltop where Sharpe had burned the telegraph tower. Instead he talked of his time in Brazil where he had commanded a fort in one of the Portuguese settlements. "The women are beautiful!" Ferreira exclaimed. "The most beautiful women in all the world!"
"Including the slaves?" Sharpe asked, causing Hogan, who knew Sharpe was trying to turn the subject to the Major's brother, to roll his eyes.
"The slaves are the prettiest!" Ferreira said. "And so obliging."
"Not much choice," Sharpe observed sourly. "Your brother didn't give them any, did he?"
Hogan tried to intervene, but Major Ferreira stilled his protest. "My brother, Mister Sharpe?"
"He was a slaver, yes?"
"My brother has been many things," Ferreira said. "As a child he was beaten because the monks who taught us wanted him to be pious. He is not pious. My father beat him because he would not read his books, but the beating did not make him a reader. He was happiest with the servants' children, he ran wild with them until my mother could take his wildness no longer and so he was sent to the nuns of Santo Espirito. They tried to beat the spirit from him, but he ran away. He was thirteen then, and he came back sixteen years later. He came back rich and quite determined, Mister Sharpe, that no one would ever beat him again."
"I did," Sharpe said.
"Richard!" Hogan remonstrated.
Ferreira ignored Hogan, staring at Sharpe across the candles. "He has not forgotten," he said quietly.
"But it's all cleared up," Hogan said. "An accident! Apologies have been made. Try some of this cheese, Major." He pushed a chipped plate of cheese across the table. "Major Ferreira and I, Richard, have been questioning deserters all afternoon."
"French?"
"Lord, no. Portuguese." Hogan explained that, following the fall of Almeida, scores of that fortress's Portuguese garrison had volunteered into the Portuguese Legion, a French unit. "It seems they did it," Hogan explained, "because it gave them a chance to get near our lines and desert. Over thirty came in this evening. And they're all saying that the French will attack in the morning.
"End of the passage, door on the right."
The supper was awkward. They ate in one of the small cells that was lined with cork to keep out the cold of the coming winter, and their meal was a stew of goat and beans, with coarse bread, cheese and a plentiful supply of wine. Hogan did his best to keep the conversation moving, but Sharpe had little to say to Major Ferreira who never referred to the events on the hilltop where Sharpe had burned the telegraph tower. Instead he talked of his time in Brazil where he had commanded a fort in one of the Portuguese settlements. "The women are beautiful!" Ferreira exclaimed. "The most beautiful women in all the world!"
"Including the slaves?" Sharpe asked, causing Hogan, who knew Sharpe was trying to turn the subject to the Major's brother, to roll his eyes.
"The slaves are the prettiest!" Ferreira said. "And so obliging."
"Not much choice," Sharpe observed sourly. "Your brother didn't give them any, did he?"
Hogan tried to intervene, but Major Ferreira stilled his protest. "My brother, Mister Sharpe?"
"He was a slaver, yes?"
"My brother has been many things," Ferreira said. "As a child he was beaten because the monks who taught us wanted him to be pious. He is not pious. My father beat him because he would not read his books, but the beating did not make him a reader. He was happiest with the servants' children, he ran wild with them until my mother could take his wildness no longer and so he was sent to the nuns of Santo Espirito. They tried to beat the spirit from him, but he ran away. He was thirteen then, and he came back sixteen years later. He came back rich and quite determined, Mister Sharpe, that no one would ever beat him again."
"I did," Sharpe said.
"Richard!" Hogan remonstrated.
Ferreira ignored Hogan, staring at Sharpe across the candles. "He has not forgotten," he said quietly.
"But it's all cleared up," Hogan said. "An accident! Apologies have been made. Try some of this cheese, Major." He pushed a chipped plate of cheese across the table. "Major Ferreira and I, Richard, have been questioning deserters all afternoon."
"French?"
"Lord, no. Portuguese." Hogan explained that, following the fall of Almeida, scores of that fortress's Portuguese garrison had volunteered into the Portuguese Legion, a French unit. "It seems they did it," Hogan explained, "because it gave them a chance to get near our lines and desert. Over thirty came in this evening. And they're all saying that the French will attack in the morning.