JК
Sharpes Escape :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 65 из 283Sharpe let him go. He could see the Eagles were being hurried down the slope, being carried away from the danger of capture, and more Frenchmen, seeing their standards retreat, broke from the unequal fight. The allied cannons had stopped their fire because their targets were masked by their own men, but the French guns still shot through the thinning fog and then, off to Sharpe's right, more cannons opened and he saw a second column, even larger than the first, appearing on the lower slope.
The first French attack broke from the back. Most of the men in the front ranks could not escape because they were trapped by their comrades behind, and those men were being savaged by Portuguese and British bayonets, but the French rear ranks followed the Eagles and, as the pressure eased, the remnants of the column fled. They ran, leaping over the dead and wounded that marked their passage up the hill, and the redcoats and Portuguese pursued them. A man from the grenadier company rammed his bayonet into the small of a Frenchman's back, stabbed him again when he fell, then kicked him and stabbed him a third time when the man obstinately refused to die. A drum, painted with a French Eagle, rolled downhill. A drummer boy, his arm shot off by a cannonball, hunched in misery beside a gorse bush. British redcoats and blue-jacketed Portuguese ran past him, intent on pursuing and killing the fleeing enemy. "Come back!" Lawford shouted angrily. "Come back!" The men did not hear him, or did not care; they had won and now they simply wanted to kill. Lawford looked for Sharpe. "Get them, Sharpe!" the Colonel snapped. "Fetch them back!"
Sharpe wondered how the hell he was to stop such a chaotic pursuit, but he obediently kicked his borrowed horse, which immediately bolted downhill so violently that he was nearly thrown off the back of the saddle. He yanked the reins to slow the mare and she swerved to her left and Sharpe heard a bullet flutter past him and looked up to see that scores of voltigeurs still held the rocky knoll and were firing at him. The horse ran on, Sharpe clinging to the saddle's pommel for dear life, then she stumbled and he felt himself flying. By a miracle his feet came clear of the stirrups and he landed on the slope with an almighty thump, rolled for a few yards and then banged against a boulder. He was sure he must have broken a dozen bones, but when he picked himself up he found he was only bruised. Ferragus had hurt him much worse, but the fall from the horse had exacerbated those injuries.
The first French attack broke from the back. Most of the men in the front ranks could not escape because they were trapped by their comrades behind, and those men were being savaged by Portuguese and British bayonets, but the French rear ranks followed the Eagles and, as the pressure eased, the remnants of the column fled. They ran, leaping over the dead and wounded that marked their passage up the hill, and the redcoats and Portuguese pursued them. A man from the grenadier company rammed his bayonet into the small of a Frenchman's back, stabbed him again when he fell, then kicked him and stabbed him a third time when the man obstinately refused to die. A drum, painted with a French Eagle, rolled downhill. A drummer boy, his arm shot off by a cannonball, hunched in misery beside a gorse bush. British redcoats and blue-jacketed Portuguese ran past him, intent on pursuing and killing the fleeing enemy. "Come back!" Lawford shouted angrily. "Come back!" The men did not hear him, or did not care; they had won and now they simply wanted to kill. Lawford looked for Sharpe. "Get them, Sharpe!" the Colonel snapped. "Fetch them back!"
Sharpe wondered how the hell he was to stop such a chaotic pursuit, but he obediently kicked his borrowed horse, which immediately bolted downhill so violently that he was nearly thrown off the back of the saddle. He yanked the reins to slow the mare and she swerved to her left and Sharpe heard a bullet flutter past him and looked up to see that scores of voltigeurs still held the rocky knoll and were firing at him. The horse ran on, Sharpe clinging to the saddle's pommel for dear life, then she stumbled and he felt himself flying. By a miracle his feet came clear of the stirrups and he landed on the slope with an almighty thump, rolled for a few yards and then banged against a boulder. He was sure he must have broken a dozen bones, but when he picked himself up he found he was only bruised. Ferragus had hurt him much worse, but the fall from the horse had exacerbated those injuries.