Sharpes Siege   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

“Bastards.” The Marine’s knuckles, gripping the stock of his heavy musket, were white.

“What’s your name? Sharpe asked.

The Marine, who looked about sixteen years old, blinked. “Moore, sir.”

“Where are you from?”

“Exminster, sir.”

“Where’s that?” Sharpe was peering through the loophole, watching for an attack, but when the boy did not reply, he turned to him. “Well?”

“Near Exeter, sir. In Devon.”

“Farmers?”

“Father’s a publican, sir. The Stowey Arms.”

Two shells exploded, filling the air with smoke, thunder and the hot breath of flame, and Marine Moore, for once, did not swear.

“One day,” Sharpe said, “you and I will drink some pots of ale at your Stowey Arms in Exminster and no one will believe the tales we tell.”

The boy grinned. “Yes, sir.”

„Is it a good alehouse?“

“The best, sir.”

“And the ale?”

“Rare stuff, sir. Better than the muck you get here.”

“French beer,” Major Richard Sharpe said authoritatively, “is pissed by virgins.” He saw the boy grin as he was supposed to, and slapped his shoulder. “You, Marine Moore, look through that hole. You see anything move, sing out. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m relying on you.” Sharpe, hiding his own terror that was quite as keen as Moore’s, stepped out of the citadel’s shelter. He straightened his jacket and sword, then walked down the southern rampart. He saw the destruction in the courtyard, heard a roundshot shiver a merlon not six paces away, but walked on calmly. Men, sheltering in the archways opening from the courtyard or crouching in the rampart’s citadels, should see him now. He must look calm in the face of this terror, he must let them know that the shells and shot, however loud, were not the end of the earth. He remembered how he, as a younger soldier, had watched his officers and sergeants and how he had believed that if they could take the murderous sounds, then so could he.

He stood at the midpoint of the rampart and stared south.

He felt all the old symptoms of fear. His heart thumped in his ribcage, his belly seemed to be sinking, his throat was dry, he felt a muscle trembling in his thigh that he could not still, and sweat, though it was a cold day, pricked at his skin. He told himself he should not move from the spot until he had counted to twenty, then decided that a brave man would count to sixty.