"Cornwell, Bernard - Sharpe 05 - Sharpe's Skirmish" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cornwell Bernard)

"Only two dozen?" Tubbs pleaded.

"When it comes to bottles of liquor, Major," Sharpe said, "Sergeant Harper can't count. There'll be six dozen in my room, and as many again hid somewhere else, but if I don't make a point of breaking the rest then the boys will think this is a public house. It ain't. We've got work to do."

Or rather Major Tubbs had work, and to do it he had three Spanish labourers and one Scotsman, MacKeon, who was a Foreman of the Ordnance, which meant that MacKeon would do the work and Tubbs would take the credit for it, for that was the way of the world. Not that much credit would ensue from MacKeon's efforts, but in their small way they would help win the war against the French who, a month before, had been whipped at Salamanca. Arthur Wellesley, now the Viscount Wellington of Talavera, had bamboozled them, dazzled them, unbalanced them and then half destroyed them. So the frogs had gone. They had marched north with their tails between their legs, and the French garrison of the tiny riverside fort of San Miguel had run with them, but they had left behind, locked in the fort's store-room, close to five thousand muskets.

The priest of San Miguel de Tormes had discovered the muskets after the French left, and he remembered the supply convoy that had brought them.

The weapons were supposed to travel further south, to Soult's army, but the cavalry regiment which should have escorted the convoy across the Sierra de Gredos had never turned up and then, in the manner of armies, the weapons were forgotten and the garrison commander had put them in the store-room where the priest had discovered them. The priest had also found the wine, which was locked away with the guns, and, being an honest man, he had padlocked the store-room again and sent word to the British, and now Major Tubbs had arrived to take possession of the muskets. His job was to make sure the guns were all serviceable, after which they would be cleaned, oiled and given to the guerilleros who harassed and ambushed and terrified the French forces who had occupied Spain. Sharpe, and his Light Company of the South Essex, were charged with the duty of guarding Tubbs's men while they did their work.

But guard Tubbs's men against what? Sharpe doubted there was a Frenchman within a hundred miles of this bridge across the River Tormes. Marmont, beaten at Salamanca, was retreating northwards, while Marshal Soult was pinned south of the River Guadiana by General Hill. In truth, Sharpe thought, the two officers and fifty three men of his Light Company could drink wine from now until MacKeon finished his work and it would make no difference, but Sharpe had not stayed alive by complacency. The frogs might have been defeated at Salamanca, but they were not yet beaten.

He ran down the stairs of the fort, crossed the courtyard and walked out of the gate onto the bridge where Patrick Harper and three riflemen had just begun the melancholy task of smashing the wine bottles. The Light Company, resting on the bridge, was protesting the destruction and, though the louder voices ceased as soon as Sharpe appeared, the company still let him know their feelings by thumping the butts of their rifles and muskets on the stones of the roadway. "Lieutenant Price!" Sharpe called.

"Sir?" The lanky Price had been resting in the shade of a wayside chapel built at the bridge's northern end and now jerked up as though he had been woken.

"I saw some strange uniforms among those vines," Sharpe pointed south down the long white road which stretched towards the hills of the Sierra de Gredos. "The vineyard beside that white farmhouse, see it?"

Price peered. "The far vineyard, sir?" He asked in disbelief.

"The very far vineyard," Sharpe confirmed. "Take the whole company and search for the bastards. Looked like a dozen of them."

Price frowned. "But if they see us coming, sir, they'll . . ."

"Run away?" Sharpe asked. "I wouldn't run away from you, Harry, why should they? On your feet, all of you! You've got work!" He strode across the bridge, stirring the company who were dust-stained, sweat soaked and exhausted. They had been marched back from Wellington's advancing army for this duty and they had been on the roads for two long days and all they wanted now was to sleep, drink and sleep again. "Sergeant Huckfield!"

Sharpe called. "Form the company! Sharply, now! Don't want those rascals escaping!"

Lieutenant Price was standing on the bridge parapet to stare at the vines that lay at least two miles away across a dry landscape shimmering in the summer heat. "I don't see anyone there, sir. Maybe they were there, sir, but not now."

"Go!" Sharpe shouted. "Don't let the bastards get away! Hurry! At the double!" He watched the company leave, then turned to Harper. "Is that the fastest you can break those bottles, Sergeant?" Harper and his three men were fetching the bottles from the store room, then stacking them beside the wayside shrine which was a small stone building about ten foot square with a plaster Madonna inside, and only then carrying them one at a time to the bridge parapet. "A spavined cripple could break them faster than you," Sharpe snapped.

"Maybe he could, sir," the big Irishman said, "but you wouldn't be wanting us to be slipshod, now would you, Captain? Must do a thorough job, sir.

Have to make sure each one's properly broken." He tapped a bottle on the parapet. "And you wouldn't want broken glass on the road, sir, now would you."

"Just get on with it," Sharpe snarled, then climbed back up to the fort's parapet where Tubbs was watching the Light Company march southwards.

"Did I hear you say that you saw uniforms, Sharpe?" Tubbs asked anxiously.

"Enemy? Surely not. Surely not here!"

"Didn't see a damn thing, Major," Sharpe said. "But if they've got enough energy to make a protest, they've got energy to go for a march. Don't want them getting slack, do we?"

"No," Tubbs said weakly, "no, we wouldn't want that." He turned to look at the small village of San Miguel de Tormes that stretched along the river's northern bank. It was not much of a place; a couple of dozen houses, a small church, an olive press and the inevitable tavern. Northwards was the plain which lay under a heat haze. A smear of white showed in the shimmering air just beyond a small grove of trees that straddled the Salamanca road. "Is that smoke, Sharpe?" Tubbs asked.

"Dust, sir," Sharpe said.

"Dust?"