JК
Sharpes Siege :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 15 из 223Yet one man might still tell him, and to know the answer would bring a victory, and France, in this bitter, wet winter of 1814, was in need of a victory.
“Looking for us, sir?” A midshipman in a tarred jacket stood at the top of weed-slimed watersteps on St Jean de Luz’s quay.
“Are you the Vengeance?” Sharpe looked apprehensively at the tiny boat, frail on the filth-littered water, that was to carry him to the Vengeance. Sharpe had received a sudden order, peremptory and harsh, that offered no explanations but merely demanded his immediate presence on the quay where a boat from His Majesty’s ship Vengeance would be waiting.
Four grinning oarsmen, doubtless hoping to see the Rifle officer slip on the steep stone stairs, waited in the gig. “The captain would have sent his barge, sir,” the midshipman said in unconvincing apology, “but it’s being used for the other gentlemen.”
Sharpe stepped into the rocking gig. “What other gentlemen?”
“No one confides in me, sir.” The midshipman could scarce have been more than fourteen, but he gave his orders with a jaunty confidence as Major Sharpe crouched on the stern thwart and wondered which of the ships moored in the outer harbour was the Vengeance.
It seemed to be none of them, for the midshipman took his tiny craft out through the harbour entrance to buck and thump its bows in the tide-race over the sandbar. Ahead now, in the outer roads, a flotilla of naval craft was anchored. Amongst them, and towering over the other vessels like a behemoth, was a ship of the line. “Is that the Vengeance?” Sharpe asked.
“It is, sir. A 74, and as sweet a sailor as ever was.”
The midshipman’s enthusiasm seemed misplaced to Sharpe. Nothing about the Vengeance suggested sweetness; instead, moored in the long swell of the grey ocean, she seemed like a brutal mass of timber, rope and iron; one of the slab-sided killers of Britain’s deep-water fleet. Her chequered sides were like cliffs, and the ponderous hull, as Sharpe’s gig neared the vast craft, gave off the rotten stench of tar, unwashed bodies and ordure; the normal odour of a battleship becalmed.
The midshipman shouted orders, oars backed, the tiller was thrown across, and somehow the gig was laid alongside with scarce a bump of timber. Above Sharpe now, water dripping from its lower rungs, was a tumblehome ladder leading to the maindeck. “You’d like a sling lowered, sir?” the midshipman asked solicitously.
„I’ll manage.“ Sharpe waited as a wave lifted the gig, then jumped for the rain-slicked ladder. He clawed at it, held on, then scrambled ignominiously up to the greeting of a bosun’s whistle.
“Looking for us, sir?” A midshipman in a tarred jacket stood at the top of weed-slimed watersteps on St Jean de Luz’s quay.
“Are you the Vengeance?” Sharpe looked apprehensively at the tiny boat, frail on the filth-littered water, that was to carry him to the Vengeance. Sharpe had received a sudden order, peremptory and harsh, that offered no explanations but merely demanded his immediate presence on the quay where a boat from His Majesty’s ship Vengeance would be waiting.
Four grinning oarsmen, doubtless hoping to see the Rifle officer slip on the steep stone stairs, waited in the gig. “The captain would have sent his barge, sir,” the midshipman said in unconvincing apology, “but it’s being used for the other gentlemen.”
Sharpe stepped into the rocking gig. “What other gentlemen?”
“No one confides in me, sir.” The midshipman could scarce have been more than fourteen, but he gave his orders with a jaunty confidence as Major Sharpe crouched on the stern thwart and wondered which of the ships moored in the outer harbour was the Vengeance.
It seemed to be none of them, for the midshipman took his tiny craft out through the harbour entrance to buck and thump its bows in the tide-race over the sandbar. Ahead now, in the outer roads, a flotilla of naval craft was anchored. Amongst them, and towering over the other vessels like a behemoth, was a ship of the line. “Is that the Vengeance?” Sharpe asked.
“It is, sir. A 74, and as sweet a sailor as ever was.”
The midshipman’s enthusiasm seemed misplaced to Sharpe. Nothing about the Vengeance suggested sweetness; instead, moored in the long swell of the grey ocean, she seemed like a brutal mass of timber, rope and iron; one of the slab-sided killers of Britain’s deep-water fleet. Her chequered sides were like cliffs, and the ponderous hull, as Sharpe’s gig neared the vast craft, gave off the rotten stench of tar, unwashed bodies and ordure; the normal odour of a battleship becalmed.
The midshipman shouted orders, oars backed, the tiller was thrown across, and somehow the gig was laid alongside with scarce a bump of timber. Above Sharpe now, water dripping from its lower rungs, was a tumblehome ladder leading to the maindeck. “You’d like a sling lowered, sir?” the midshipman asked solicitously.
„I’ll manage.“ Sharpe waited as a wave lifted the gig, then jumped for the rain-slicked ladder. He clawed at it, held on, then scrambled ignominiously up to the greeting of a bosun’s whistle.