JК
Sharpes Siege :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 43 из 223“Captain Tremgar!”
“Sir?”
“Your boat can put me ashore?”
Tremgar, a middle-aged man wrapped in a filthy tarpaulin jacket, knocked the dottle from his pipe on the brass binnacle cover that was covered with tiny dents from just such treatment. “Ain’t got orders to do it, Major.”
“I’m giving you orders!”
Tremgar turned. One of the longboats was pulling away from the Vengeance and carrying, instead of Marines, a group of blue-cloaked naval officers. Tremgar shrugged. “Don’t see why not, Major.”
It took twenty minutes to lower the Amelie‘s small tender into the water, and another five before Sharpe was sitting uncomfortably on the stern thwart. The Comte de Maquerre, seeing a chance to escape from the stinking collier, had insisted on sharing the boat. He had exchanged his British uniform for a suit of brown cloth.
From the Amelie’s deck the sea had appeared benign, but here, in the tiny boat, it swelled and threatened and ran cold darts of fear up Sharpe’s back. The oars spattered him with water, the waves heaved towards the gunwales, and at any moment Sharpe expected the small rowboat to turn turtle. The Comte, wrapped in his cloak, looked seasick.
Sharpe twisted. The Amelies tar- and salt-stained hull reared above him. A cook jettisoned a bucket of slops over the side and gulls, screaming like banshees, swooped from the air between the yards to fight over the scraps.
The Comte, offended by Sharpe’s cavalier treatment in the small hours, said not a word. Slowly, oar-tug by oar-tug, the four boatmen dragged the small craft away from the Amelie and the grumble of the surf, like the roar of a far-off, relentless battle, grew louder.
Sharpe instinctively touched his weapons. His rifle was muzzle-stopped against sea-water splashes, while the lock was wrapped in an old rag for protection. His sword was clumsy in the confines of the tiny boat. A surge heaved the boat up and ran it forward towards the breaking surf that betrayed itself to Sharpe as a spume of spray being whipped from a curling wave by the wind’s flick, then the boat dropped into a valley of sliding, glassy grey water that was flecked with floating sea-weed.
This was the point of danger. This was the moment when the small boats must go from the sea’s cradle into the broken forces where the waves battered at the shore. Years ago, on a beach like this in Portugal, Sharpe had watched the longboats broach in the combers and spill their men like puppets into the killing sea. The bodies, he remembered, had come ashore white and swollen, uniforms split by the swelling flesh, and dogs had worried at the corpses for days.
“Pull!” the bo’sun shouted.
“Sir?”
“Your boat can put me ashore?”
Tremgar, a middle-aged man wrapped in a filthy tarpaulin jacket, knocked the dottle from his pipe on the brass binnacle cover that was covered with tiny dents from just such treatment. “Ain’t got orders to do it, Major.”
“I’m giving you orders!”
Tremgar turned. One of the longboats was pulling away from the Vengeance and carrying, instead of Marines, a group of blue-cloaked naval officers. Tremgar shrugged. “Don’t see why not, Major.”
It took twenty minutes to lower the Amelie‘s small tender into the water, and another five before Sharpe was sitting uncomfortably on the stern thwart. The Comte de Maquerre, seeing a chance to escape from the stinking collier, had insisted on sharing the boat. He had exchanged his British uniform for a suit of brown cloth.
From the Amelie’s deck the sea had appeared benign, but here, in the tiny boat, it swelled and threatened and ran cold darts of fear up Sharpe’s back. The oars spattered him with water, the waves heaved towards the gunwales, and at any moment Sharpe expected the small rowboat to turn turtle. The Comte, wrapped in his cloak, looked seasick.
Sharpe twisted. The Amelies tar- and salt-stained hull reared above him. A cook jettisoned a bucket of slops over the side and gulls, screaming like banshees, swooped from the air between the yards to fight over the scraps.
The Comte, offended by Sharpe’s cavalier treatment in the small hours, said not a word. Slowly, oar-tug by oar-tug, the four boatmen dragged the small craft away from the Amelie and the grumble of the surf, like the roar of a far-off, relentless battle, grew louder.
Sharpe instinctively touched his weapons. His rifle was muzzle-stopped against sea-water splashes, while the lock was wrapped in an old rag for protection. His sword was clumsy in the confines of the tiny boat. A surge heaved the boat up and ran it forward towards the breaking surf that betrayed itself to Sharpe as a spume of spray being whipped from a curling wave by the wind’s flick, then the boat dropped into a valley of sliding, glassy grey water that was flecked with floating sea-weed.
This was the point of danger. This was the moment when the small boats must go from the sea’s cradle into the broken forces where the waves battered at the shore. Years ago, on a beach like this in Portugal, Sharpe had watched the longboats broach in the combers and spill their men like puppets into the killing sea. The bodies, he remembered, had come ashore white and swollen, uniforms split by the swelling flesh, and dogs had worried at the corpses for days.
“Pull!” the bo’sun shouted.