JК
Sharpes Escape :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 96 из 283Ahead of the column the sound of the skirmishing grew in intensity as the voltigeurs closed the range and opened on the riflemen with their muskets. There were so many skirmishers now that the noise of their battle was a continuous crackling. Smoke drifted off the hillside. " Vive l'Empereur !" the French shouted and the first riflemen began picking at the columns' front ranks. A bullet smacked an Eagle, ripping off the tip of a wing, and an officer went down in the front rank, gasping with pain as the files tramped round him. The voltigeurs, outranged by the rifles, were being driven back onto the columns and so Marshal Ney, who commanded this attack, ordered that more companies were to deploy as skirmishers to drive the riflemen and cazadores back up the slope.
The drummers kept up their monotonous rhythm. A round of shrapnel, designed to burst in the air and slam its load of bullets down and forward, exploded above the right-hand column and the drums momentarily ceased as a dozen boys went down and the men behind were spattered with their blood. "Close up!" a sergeant shouted and a shell banged behind him and a hat went spiraling up in the air and fell on the road with a heavy thump because half the man's head was still inside. A drummer boy, both legs broken and his belly slit by shell fragments, sat and kept up his drumming as the files went past him. The men patted his head for luck, leaving him to die among the vines.
Ahead of the columns the new French skirmishers deployed and their officers shouted them up the hill to close the range and so swamp the hated greenjackets with musket fire. The Baker rifle was a killer, but a slow one. To fire it accurately a man was supposed to wrap each ball in a greased leather patch, then ram it down on the charge, and ramming a patched bullet was hard work and made a rifle slow to load. A man could shoot a musket three times while a rifleman reloaded. Time could be saved by forgetting the patch, but then the ball did not grip the seven lands and grooves spiraling inside the barrel and the weapon became little more accurate than a musket. The reinforced voltigeurs climbed and the sheer weight of their fire forced the riflemen and cazadores back, then more Portuguese skirmishers joined the fight, the whole of the 1st cazadores, but the French countered with three more companies of blue-jacketed troops who ran out of the columns and broke down the vines to climb up to where the powder smoke dotted the hillside. Their muskets added more smoke and their bullets pressed the brown- and green-jacketed men back.
The drummers kept up their monotonous rhythm. A round of shrapnel, designed to burst in the air and slam its load of bullets down and forward, exploded above the right-hand column and the drums momentarily ceased as a dozen boys went down and the men behind were spattered with their blood. "Close up!" a sergeant shouted and a shell banged behind him and a hat went spiraling up in the air and fell on the road with a heavy thump because half the man's head was still inside. A drummer boy, both legs broken and his belly slit by shell fragments, sat and kept up his drumming as the files went past him. The men patted his head for luck, leaving him to die among the vines.
Ahead of the columns the new French skirmishers deployed and their officers shouted them up the hill to close the range and so swamp the hated greenjackets with musket fire. The Baker rifle was a killer, but a slow one. To fire it accurately a man was supposed to wrap each ball in a greased leather patch, then ram it down on the charge, and ramming a patched bullet was hard work and made a rifle slow to load. A man could shoot a musket three times while a rifleman reloaded. Time could be saved by forgetting the patch, but then the ball did not grip the seven lands and grooves spiraling inside the barrel and the weapon became little more accurate than a musket. The reinforced voltigeurs climbed and the sheer weight of their fire forced the riflemen and cazadores back, then more Portuguese skirmishers joined the fight, the whole of the 1st cazadores, but the French countered with three more companies of blue-jacketed troops who ran out of the columns and broke down the vines to climb up to where the powder smoke dotted the hillside. Their muskets added more smoke and their bullets pressed the brown- and green-jacketed men back.