JК
Sharpes Siege :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 183 из 223The Marine sergeant did not hearSharpe’s thanks, but just drove on with his bloodied bayonet.
A Frenchman tripped on a gunslide, an opening appeared and Sharpe hacked down with the axe blade, then screamed the challenge to drive the enemy a full two paces back.
An explosion hammered in the courtyard, a sound that echoed like a drumbeat of hell in the echoing walls of the Teste de Buch. Smoke billowed.
Harper had turned the cannon, then fired it with its charge of stone-shards, nails, and lead scraps into the French who came down the stone ramp. The cannon’s recoil had thrown it back five yards. “Now kill them!” Harper charged.
Minver’s Riflemen, on the north wall, fired down at the French who were left in the courtyard. Some of the Riflemen, wanting loot from the dead, jumped down to risk broken ankles. The long sword bayonets, brass-handled, hunted forward.
Sharpe swung the axe underhand, screaming the chal—lenge and the blade buried itself in a body, wrenched free in a gush of blood and he went forward again.
He saw a movement to his left, ducked, and a man jumping from a ladder tripped on Sharpe’s back and sprawled into the Marines. One hit him a hammer blow of a musket butt, killing him as clean as a rabbit chopped on the neck.
Sharpe turned, protected by the embrasure, and saw the French firing from the dunes. Another man neared the ladder’s head and Sharpe swung the axe into his face, heard the scream, then took an upright of the ladder, pushed it away and sideways, and heard the shouts as the ladder tumbled.
“Behind you!” The voice warned him, Sharpe ducked, and a bayonet slid over his back. He drove the axe handle into the Frenchman’s belly then stepped back, reversed the weapon, and brought the head down in a vicious swing to bury it into the man’s ribs. The axe stuck there.
A French musket, tipped with a bayonet, lay at his feet. It felt unnatural, but it served. He jabbed it forward as he had learned so many years ago. Forward, twist, back, right foot forward, lunge, twist, back.
If he shouted orders he did not know it. If he screamed with rage, he did not know it. He just fought to clear a wall of enemy.
There was the strange sensation that he had noticed before in battle, the odd slowing of the world as though the men around him were puppets under palsied fingers. He alone seemed to be moving fast.
A Frenchman, eyes wide with terror, lunged, and it seemed a simple matter to knock the man’s musket aside and drive the bayonet into the man’s belly, to twist, to draw it free then, stamp the foot forward again.
A Frenchman tripped on a gunslide, an opening appeared and Sharpe hacked down with the axe blade, then screamed the challenge to drive the enemy a full two paces back.
An explosion hammered in the courtyard, a sound that echoed like a drumbeat of hell in the echoing walls of the Teste de Buch. Smoke billowed.
Harper had turned the cannon, then fired it with its charge of stone-shards, nails, and lead scraps into the French who came down the stone ramp. The cannon’s recoil had thrown it back five yards. “Now kill them!” Harper charged.
Minver’s Riflemen, on the north wall, fired down at the French who were left in the courtyard. Some of the Riflemen, wanting loot from the dead, jumped down to risk broken ankles. The long sword bayonets, brass-handled, hunted forward.
Sharpe swung the axe underhand, screaming the chal—lenge and the blade buried itself in a body, wrenched free in a gush of blood and he went forward again.
He saw a movement to his left, ducked, and a man jumping from a ladder tripped on Sharpe’s back and sprawled into the Marines. One hit him a hammer blow of a musket butt, killing him as clean as a rabbit chopped on the neck.
Sharpe turned, protected by the embrasure, and saw the French firing from the dunes. Another man neared the ladder’s head and Sharpe swung the axe into his face, heard the scream, then took an upright of the ladder, pushed it away and sideways, and heard the shouts as the ladder tumbled.
“Behind you!” The voice warned him, Sharpe ducked, and a bayonet slid over his back. He drove the axe handle into the Frenchman’s belly then stepped back, reversed the weapon, and brought the head down in a vicious swing to bury it into the man’s ribs. The axe stuck there.
A French musket, tipped with a bayonet, lay at his feet. It felt unnatural, but it served. He jabbed it forward as he had learned so many years ago. Forward, twist, back, right foot forward, lunge, twist, back.
If he shouted orders he did not know it. If he screamed with rage, he did not know it. He just fought to clear a wall of enemy.
There was the strange sensation that he had noticed before in battle, the odd slowing of the world as though the men around him were puppets under palsied fingers. He alone seemed to be moving fast.
A Frenchman, eyes wide with terror, lunged, and it seemed a simple matter to knock the man’s musket aside and drive the bayonet into the man’s belly, to twist, to draw it free then, stamp the foot forward again.