JК
Sharpes Siege :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 47 из 223That despatch was already taking shape in Bampfylde’s head, a despatch that would be printed in the Naval Gazette and tell, with a modesty that would be as impressive as it was transparent, of a fortresscarried, of a bay cleared, and of a victory gained. But that small victory would be but a whisper compared to the trumpeted glory when Bordeaux fell. Thus Bampfylde walked through the cloying, crunching sand and his head was filled with dreams of triumph and the sweeter dreams of victory’s rewards that were fame and wealth beyond measure.
CHAPTER 5
Cornelius Killick spat coffee grounds into the fire that had been lit beneath the pine trees. The wind was chill, but at least it was not raining, though Killick suspected the lull in the foul weather would not last.
Some of his men slept, some clenched muskets, others played cribbage or dice. They were nervous, but they took comfort from their captain’s blithe confidence.
Killick’s confidence was a pretence. He was as nervous as any of his men, and regretting his impulsive offer to defend the fort’s landward approaches. It was not that the American was afraid of a fight, but it was one thing to fight at sea, where he knew the meaning of every catspaw on the water and where he could use his skill at the Thuella’s helm to run confusion about his enemies, and quite another to contemplate a fight on dry land. It was, as his Irish lieutenant would say, a horse of a different colour, and Cornelius Killick was not sure he liked the colour.
He hated the fact that the land was such a clogging, cloying platform for a fight. A ship moved guns much faster than wheels, and there was nowhere to hide at sea. There, in the clean wind, a fight was open and undisguised, while here any bush could hide an enemy. Killick was keenly aware that he had never trained as a soldier, nor even experienced a battle on land, yet he had made the offer to Commandant Lassan, and so, in this chill wind, he was preparing to offer battle if the British Marines came.
Yet if Cornelius Killick had doubts to plague his confidence, he also had compensating encouragements. With him were the six twelve-pounder guns that had been swung out of the Thuella’s hold and mounted on their carriages. Their solidity gave Killick an odd comfort. The guns, so beautifully designed and yet so functional in their appearance, offered an implicit promise of victory. The enemy would come with muskets and be faced with these weapons that Napoleon called his ‘beautiful daughters’. They were Gribeauval twelve-pounders, brute killers of the battlefield, massive.
To serve those guns Killick had sixty men; all of them trained in the use of cannon.
CHAPTER 5
Cornelius Killick spat coffee grounds into the fire that had been lit beneath the pine trees. The wind was chill, but at least it was not raining, though Killick suspected the lull in the foul weather would not last.
Some of his men slept, some clenched muskets, others played cribbage or dice. They were nervous, but they took comfort from their captain’s blithe confidence.
Killick’s confidence was a pretence. He was as nervous as any of his men, and regretting his impulsive offer to defend the fort’s landward approaches. It was not that the American was afraid of a fight, but it was one thing to fight at sea, where he knew the meaning of every catspaw on the water and where he could use his skill at the Thuella’s helm to run confusion about his enemies, and quite another to contemplate a fight on dry land. It was, as his Irish lieutenant would say, a horse of a different colour, and Cornelius Killick was not sure he liked the colour.
He hated the fact that the land was such a clogging, cloying platform for a fight. A ship moved guns much faster than wheels, and there was nowhere to hide at sea. There, in the clean wind, a fight was open and undisguised, while here any bush could hide an enemy. Killick was keenly aware that he had never trained as a soldier, nor even experienced a battle on land, yet he had made the offer to Commandant Lassan, and so, in this chill wind, he was preparing to offer battle if the British Marines came.
Yet if Cornelius Killick had doubts to plague his confidence, he also had compensating encouragements. With him were the six twelve-pounder guns that had been swung out of the Thuella’s hold and mounted on their carriages. Their solidity gave Killick an odd comfort. The guns, so beautifully designed and yet so functional in their appearance, offered an implicit promise of victory. The enemy would come with muskets and be faced with these weapons that Napoleon called his ‘beautiful daughters’. They were Gribeauval twelve-pounders, brute killers of the battlefield, massive.
To serve those guns Killick had sixty men; all of them trained in the use of cannon.