Sharpes Siege   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

Bampfylde was a lying bastard, Sharpe thought. The two Riflemen sent by Frederickson had warned the Marines of the field guns, and Marine Captain Palmer had already thanked Sharpe for the service. But Bampfylde was speaking as though he had both detected and defeated the ambush, whereas the bloody man had done nothing. Bampfylde finished the wine. “Some of the Americans escaped?” He made the question sound like an accusation.

“So I believe.” Sharpe did not care. Bampfylde had thirty American prisoners to send to England, and surely that was enough. The fort was taken, seamen from the Scylla had gone up channel to find the chasse-mare’es, and no man could have expected more of the day.

“So you’ll go inland in the morning, Sharpe?” Bampfylde peered at Sharpe’s head wound. “That’s only a scratch, isn’t it? Nothing to slow your reconnaissance?”

Sharpe did not reply. The fort was taken, Elphinstone would get the extra chasse-marees he needed, and the rest of this operation was farcical. Besides, he did not care whether Bordeaux was seething with discontent or not, he only cared that Jane should not die while he was away. Sharpe twisted round to look at the surgeon. “What’s the first symptom of fever?”

The surgeon was helping himself to the wine. “Black-spot, Yellow, Swamp? Walcheren? Which fever?”

“Any fever,” Sharpe growled.

The surgeon shrugged. “A heated skin, uncontrolled shivering, a looseness of the bowels. I can’t say you have any pyretic symptoms yourself, Major.”

Sharpe felt a horrid dread. For a second he felt a temptation to claim that his wound was incapacitating and to demand that he was returned to St Jean de Luz by the first ship.

“Well, Sharpe?” Bampfylde was offended that Sharpe had ignored his questions. “You will be marching inland?”

“Yes, sir.” Sharpe stood. Anything rather than endure this bumptious naval captain. Sharpe would march inland, ambush the road, then return and refuse to have any further part of Bampfylde’s madness. He knew he should dry his sword if it was not to have rust spots by morning, but he was too tired. He had not slept last night, he had marched all day, and he had taken a fortress. Now he would sleep.

He pushed past Bampfylde and went to find a cot in an empty room of the barracks. There, surrounded by the small belongings of a gunner evicted by his Green Jackets, he lay down and slept.

It was night now, a cold night. Sentries shivered on the ramparts and the flooded ditch had a skin of thin ice.