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Sharpes Siege :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 207 из 223Frederickson watched Sharpe, who shook his head. Not yet, not yet. The German flautist carefully wrapped his instrument in wash-leather, tucked it into his jacket, and picked up his rifle that had layers of sacking wrapped round the lock.
The French twelve-pounder guns had ceased firing. The gunners, knowing that this was no weather for Riflemen, had come outside the mill’s sheltering walls to watch the assault.
The rain glittered like polished blades. It seethed down vertically. Water flowed in great swathes off the battlements to flood the inner ditch. A bolt of lightning, sudden and scaring, cracked to the east.
The French were a hundred yards away. They shouted their ‘Vive I’Empereur’ in the drumbeat’s pause, but the great shout was drowned by the hammering, silver rain that bounced in fine spray from the scorched and battered stones of the fort.
Sharpe turned. The west wall was ready. He could do no more there. That was his refuge, the place where he must hold the French just long enough to get his men down to the boats. He turned back to see the French skirmishers, red shoulder-wings darkened by rain, running clumsily up the glacis slope. He wondered if Calvet had sent men to the north who might cut between the west wall and the water and so bar the Riflemens’ escape.
The French were nervous now. Some would be hoping that the rain had destroyed every rifle charge, but the veterans would know that even in this rain some guns would spark. They began to hurry, eager to get this first shock over. The skirmishers were spreading on the glacis and the first muskets banged smoke from the lip.
“Charge! Charge!” Calvet roared the words like a challenge as he led his ‘grumblers’, his veterans, through the gap in the glacis.
They charged. The column lost its order now. Some men, the timorous, sheltered in the outer ditch and pretended to fire upwards, but most, the brave, swarmed along the road towards the chaos of stone that was their shattered bridge to revenge.
Sharpe looked at Frederickson. “Now!” Frederickson’s men, ripping rags from locks, stood to fire directly over the breach’s summit, while from the ramparts every man who could fire a weapon knelt or stood. “Fire!”
Perhaps half the guns fired, while on the other weapons the leather-gripped flints sparked on to damp powder. Sharpe’s rifle kicked back, then he was shouting at the men who guarded the broken edge of the battlement.
The French twelve-pounder guns had ceased firing. The gunners, knowing that this was no weather for Riflemen, had come outside the mill’s sheltering walls to watch the assault.
The rain glittered like polished blades. It seethed down vertically. Water flowed in great swathes off the battlements to flood the inner ditch. A bolt of lightning, sudden and scaring, cracked to the east.
The French were a hundred yards away. They shouted their ‘Vive I’Empereur’ in the drumbeat’s pause, but the great shout was drowned by the hammering, silver rain that bounced in fine spray from the scorched and battered stones of the fort.
Sharpe turned. The west wall was ready. He could do no more there. That was his refuge, the place where he must hold the French just long enough to get his men down to the boats. He turned back to see the French skirmishers, red shoulder-wings darkened by rain, running clumsily up the glacis slope. He wondered if Calvet had sent men to the north who might cut between the west wall and the water and so bar the Riflemens’ escape.
The French were nervous now. Some would be hoping that the rain had destroyed every rifle charge, but the veterans would know that even in this rain some guns would spark. They began to hurry, eager to get this first shock over. The skirmishers were spreading on the glacis and the first muskets banged smoke from the lip.
“Charge! Charge!” Calvet roared the words like a challenge as he led his ‘grumblers’, his veterans, through the gap in the glacis.
They charged. The column lost its order now. Some men, the timorous, sheltered in the outer ditch and pretended to fire upwards, but most, the brave, swarmed along the road towards the chaos of stone that was their shattered bridge to revenge.
Sharpe looked at Frederickson. “Now!” Frederickson’s men, ripping rags from locks, stood to fire directly over the breach’s summit, while from the ramparts every man who could fire a weapon knelt or stood. “Fire!”
Perhaps half the guns fired, while on the other weapons the leather-gripped flints sparked on to damp powder. Sharpe’s rifle kicked back, then he was shouting at the men who guarded the broken edge of the battlement.