Sharpes Havoc   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

He pushed Williamson forward again, but the man obstinately refused to attack and Christopher now found himself trapped on a slippery ledge between cliff and river, and the Colonel, in this last extremity, finally abandoned trying to talk himself out of trouble and simply shoved the deserter toward Sharpe. „Kill him!” he shouted at Williamson. „Kill him!”

The hard shove in his back seemed to startle Williamson, who nevertheless raised the saber and slashed it at Sharpe’s head. There was a great clang as the two blades met, then Sharpe kicked the deserter’s left knee, a kick that made Williamson’s leg buckle, and Sharpe, who looked as though he was not making any particular effort, sliced the sword across Williamson’s neck so that the deserter was knocked back to the right and then the sword lunged through the rifleman’s green jacket and into his belly. Sharpe twisted the blade to stop it being trapped by the suction of flesh, ripped it free and watched the dying Williamson topple into the river. „I hate deserters,” Sharpe said, „I do so hate bloody deserters.”

Christopher had watched his man defeated and seen that Sharpe had not had to fight hard at all to do it. „No, Sharpe,” he said, „you don’t understand!” He tried to think of the words that would make Sharpe think, make him step back, but the Colonel’s mind was in panic and the words would not come.

Sharpe watched Williamson. For a moment the dying man tried to struggle out of the river, but the blood ran red from his neck and his belly and he suddenly flopped back and his ugly face sank under the water. „I do so hate deserters,” Sharpe said again, then he looked at Christopher. „Is that sword good for anything except picking your teeth, Colonel?”

Christopher numbly drew his slender blade. He had trained with a sword. He used to spend good money that he could scarce afford at Horace Jackson’s Hall of Arms on Jermyn Street where he had learned the finer graces of fencing and where he had even earned grudging praise from the great Jackson himself, but fighting on the French-chalked boards of Jermyn Street was one thing and facing Richard Sharpe in the Misarella’s ravine was altogether another. „No, Sharpe,” he said as the rifleman stepped toward him, then raised his blade in a panicked riposte as the big sword flickered toward him.

Sharpe’s lunge had been a tease, a probe to see whether Christopher would fight, but Sharpe was staring into his enemy’s eyes and he knew this man would die like a lamb. „Fight, you bastard,” he said, and lunged again, and again Christopher made a feeble riposte, but then the Colonel saw a boulder in the river’s center and he thought that he might just leap to it and from there he could reach the opposite bank and so climb to safety. He slashed his sword in a wild blow to give himself the space to make the jump and then he turned and sprang, but his broken ankle crumpled, the rock was wet under his boots and he slipped and would have fallen into the river except that Sharpe seized his jacket and so Christopher fell on the ledge, the sword useless in his hand and with his enemy above him. „No!” he begged. „No.” He stared up at Sharpe. „You saved me, Sharpe,” he said, realizing what had just happened and with a sudden hope surging through him. „You saved me.”

„Can’t pick your pockets, Colonel, if you’re under water,” Sharpe said and then his face twisted in rage as he rammed the sword down.

Christopher died on the ledge just above the pool where Williamson had drowned. The eddy above the deserter’s body ran with new red blood, then the red spilled out into the main stream where it was diluted first to pink and then to nothing. Christopher twitched and gargled because Sharpe’s sword had taken out his windpipe and that was a mercy for it was a quicker death than he deserved. Sharpe watched the Colonel’s body jerk and then go still, and he dipped his blade in the water to clean it, dried it as best he could on Christopher’s coat and then gave the Colonel’s pockets a quick search and came up with three gold coins, a broken watch with a silver case and a leather folder crammed with papers that would probably interest Hogan. „Bloody fool,” Sharpe said to the body, then he looked up into the gathering night and saw a great shadow at the ravine’s edge above him. For a second he thought it must be a Frenchman, then he heard Harper’s voice.

„Is he dead?”

„Didn’t even put up a fight. Williamson too.”

Sharpe climbed up the ravine’s side until he was near Harper and the Sergeant lowered his rifle to haul Sharpe the rest of the way. Sergeant Macedo was there and the three could not return to the bluff because the French were on the road and so they took shelter from the rain in a gully formed where one of the great round boulders had been split by a frost. Sharpe told Harper what had happened, then asked if the Irishman had seen Kate.

„The Lieutenant’s got her, sir,” Harper answered. „The last I saw of her she was having a good cry and he was holding hard onto her and giving her a nice pat on the back. Women like a good cry, have you noticed that, sir?”

„I have,” Sharpe said, „I have.”

„Makes them feel better,” Harper said. „Funny how it doesn’t work for us.”

Sharpe gave one of the gold coins to Harper, the second to Macedo and kept the third. Darkness had fallen. It promised to be a long, cold and hungry night, but Sharpe did not mind. „Got my telescope back,” he told Harper.

„I thought you would.”

„Wasn’t even broken. At least I don’t think so.” The glass had not rattled when he shook it, so he assumed it was fine.

The rain eased and Sharpe listened and heard nothing but the scrape of French feet on the Saltador’s stones, the gusting of the wind, the sound of the river and the fall of the rain. He heard no gunfire. So that faraway fight at the Ponte Nova was over and he did not doubt that it was a victory. The French were going. They had met Sir Arthur Wellesley and he had licked them, licked them good and proper, and Sharpe smiled at that, for though Wellesley was a cold beast, unfriendly and haughty, he was a bloody good soldier. And he had made havoc for King Nicolas. And Sharpe had helped. He had done his bit.



HISTORICAL NOTE

Sharpe is once again guilty of stealing another man’s thunder.