JК
Sharpes Siege :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 215 из 223”You’ve comefrom the north, sir?“
“Yes.” It seemed too difficult to explain it all; to explain how an American privateer captain had agreed to rescue a garrison and to land that garrison as close as he dared to the British lines. To explain how the Thuella had flogged her way south through a wet night, and how Riflemen and Marines had thumped the schooner’s pump-handles till their muscles burned in the cold, or how Sharpe, his turn at the pumps over, had drunk brandy with an American enemy in a small cabin and promised, that when this damn fool war was done, to drink even more in a place called Marblehead. Or to explain how, in the rain-misted dawn, Cornelius Killick had landed Sharpe’s men north of the Adour estuary.
“I wish I could take you further,” the American had said.
“You can’t.” A strange sail had been spotted to the south, merely a scrap of ghostly white above a blurred horizon, but the sail meant danger to the Thuella and so Killick had turned for the shore.
Now Sharpe, marching south, had met British troops north of the river which could only mean that Elphinstone had built his bridge. “Who are you?” Sharpe asked the staff captain.
“First Division, sir.”
Sharpe nodded towards another racing plume of rocket smoke. “The Adour?”
“Yes, sir.”
They were safe. There would be surgeons for the wounded and a precious bridge across the river; a bridge leading south to St Jean de Luz and to Jane.
The bridge was there. The miraculous bridge, the bridge that only a clever man could build, a bridge to outflank the French Army, a bridge of boats.
The bridge was made from chasse-marees. A whole fleet of the luggers was moored side-by-side in the wide river mouth and, stretching from deck to deck and supported by vast cables, was a wide roadway of planks. Over the bridge marched red-coated Companies, Company after Company, an Army outflanking an enemy and going further into France. The Divisional headquarters, the staff officer said, was still south of the river.
Sharpe took his men to the northern bank where a surgeon had erected a tent and waited for customers. “Best if you wait here,” Sharpe said to Frederickson.
“Yes, sir.”
Sharpe looked at his Marines and Riflemen, at Harper and Minver and Rossner and Palmer and all the men who had fought as no men should be asked to fight. “I’ll come back for you,” he said lamely.
Sharpe left them.
“Yes.” It seemed too difficult to explain it all; to explain how an American privateer captain had agreed to rescue a garrison and to land that garrison as close as he dared to the British lines. To explain how the Thuella had flogged her way south through a wet night, and how Riflemen and Marines had thumped the schooner’s pump-handles till their muscles burned in the cold, or how Sharpe, his turn at the pumps over, had drunk brandy with an American enemy in a small cabin and promised, that when this damn fool war was done, to drink even more in a place called Marblehead. Or to explain how, in the rain-misted dawn, Cornelius Killick had landed Sharpe’s men north of the Adour estuary.
“I wish I could take you further,” the American had said.
“You can’t.” A strange sail had been spotted to the south, merely a scrap of ghostly white above a blurred horizon, but the sail meant danger to the Thuella and so Killick had turned for the shore.
Now Sharpe, marching south, had met British troops north of the river which could only mean that Elphinstone had built his bridge. “Who are you?” Sharpe asked the staff captain.
“First Division, sir.”
Sharpe nodded towards another racing plume of rocket smoke. “The Adour?”
“Yes, sir.”
They were safe. There would be surgeons for the wounded and a precious bridge across the river; a bridge leading south to St Jean de Luz and to Jane.
The bridge was there. The miraculous bridge, the bridge that only a clever man could build, a bridge to outflank the French Army, a bridge of boats.
The bridge was made from chasse-marees. A whole fleet of the luggers was moored side-by-side in the wide river mouth and, stretching from deck to deck and supported by vast cables, was a wide roadway of planks. Over the bridge marched red-coated Companies, Company after Company, an Army outflanking an enemy and going further into France. The Divisional headquarters, the staff officer said, was still south of the river.
Sharpe took his men to the northern bank where a surgeon had erected a tent and waited for customers. “Best if you wait here,” Sharpe said to Frederickson.
“Yes, sir.”
Sharpe looked at his Marines and Riflemen, at Harper and Minver and Rossner and Palmer and all the men who had fought as no men should be asked to fight. “I’ll come back for you,” he said lamely.
Sharpe left them.