JК
Sharpes Siege :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 221 из 223“Can you get me a horse, sir?” He asked it in a voice that suggested nothing had happened, that no blood trickled On the rain-slick deck.
“A horse? I’m sure we can.” Elphinstone saw in Sharpe the weariness of a soldier pushed to the edge of reason. The colonel was an engineer, knowledgeable of the stresses that could shatter stone or wood or iron, and now he saw the same fracturing tension in Sharpe. “Of course!” Elphinstone made his own voice redolent of normality, “you’re eager to see your wife! I had the honour of dining with her two nights ago.”
Sharpe stared at the colonel. “You dined with her?”
“My dear Sharpe, it was entirely proper! At Lady Hope’s! There was a ragout and some very fine beef
Sharpe forgot de Maquerre, forgot the bridge, and forgot the ragged skirmishes that flared and died across the river. He even forgot Hogan. “And Jane’s well?”
Elphinstone shrugged. “Shouldn’t she be? Ah, she did mention a cold, but that was soon gone. A winter’s sniff, nothing more. She was distressed for Hogan, naturally.”
Sharpe gaped incredulously at the colonel. “No fever?”
“Your wife? Good Lord, no!” Elphinstone sounded astonished that Sharpe should even ask. “She wouldn’t credit you were defeated, of course.”
“Oh, God.” Sharpe sat on the ckasse-mare’e‘s gunwale and, because he could not help it, more tears came to his eyes and ran cold on his cheeks. No fever. He had let Killick live because of Jane’s fever, and he would not contemplate surrender to Calvet because of her fever, and it had only been a cold, a winter’s sniff. Sharpe-did not know whether to laugh or cry.
A gun banged over the river and a rocket wobbled into the sky to plunge uselessly into the river’s mud. A French cavalry trumpet sounded the retreat, but Sharpe did not care. He wept. He wept because a friend had died, and he wept with joy because Jane lived. He wept because at last it was over; a battle that should never have been fought, but a battle that, through stubbornness, pride, and an American enemy’s promise, had come to both this victory on a river’s edge and to this vast relief. It was over; Sharpe’s siege.
HISTORICAL NOTE
There was a fort at the Teste de Buch, though no such action as Sharpe’s siege took place there. Yet the freedom enjoyed by the British to make coastal raids had been firmly established by Nelson’s victories, and many such raids did take place. They were made possible, of course, thanks to the Royal Navy’s mastery of the seas.
“A horse? I’m sure we can.” Elphinstone saw in Sharpe the weariness of a soldier pushed to the edge of reason. The colonel was an engineer, knowledgeable of the stresses that could shatter stone or wood or iron, and now he saw the same fracturing tension in Sharpe. “Of course!” Elphinstone made his own voice redolent of normality, “you’re eager to see your wife! I had the honour of dining with her two nights ago.”
Sharpe stared at the colonel. “You dined with her?”
“My dear Sharpe, it was entirely proper! At Lady Hope’s! There was a ragout and some very fine beef
Sharpe forgot de Maquerre, forgot the bridge, and forgot the ragged skirmishes that flared and died across the river. He even forgot Hogan. “And Jane’s well?”
Elphinstone shrugged. “Shouldn’t she be? Ah, she did mention a cold, but that was soon gone. A winter’s sniff, nothing more. She was distressed for Hogan, naturally.”
Sharpe gaped incredulously at the colonel. “No fever?”
“Your wife? Good Lord, no!” Elphinstone sounded astonished that Sharpe should even ask. “She wouldn’t credit you were defeated, of course.”
“Oh, God.” Sharpe sat on the ckasse-mare’e‘s gunwale and, because he could not help it, more tears came to his eyes and ran cold on his cheeks. No fever. He had let Killick live because of Jane’s fever, and he would not contemplate surrender to Calvet because of her fever, and it had only been a cold, a winter’s sniff. Sharpe-did not know whether to laugh or cry.
A gun banged over the river and a rocket wobbled into the sky to plunge uselessly into the river’s mud. A French cavalry trumpet sounded the retreat, but Sharpe did not care. He wept. He wept because a friend had died, and he wept with joy because Jane lived. He wept because at last it was over; a battle that should never have been fought, but a battle that, through stubbornness, pride, and an American enemy’s promise, had come to both this victory on a river’s edge and to this vast relief. It was over; Sharpe’s siege.
HISTORICAL NOTE
There was a fort at the Teste de Buch, though no such action as Sharpe’s siege took place there. Yet the freedom enjoyed by the British to make coastal raids had been firmly established by Nelson’s victories, and many such raids did take place. They were made possible, of course, thanks to the Royal Navy’s mastery of the seas.