"Garry Kilworth - We Are The Music Makers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kilworth Garry)

of great composers, asking only a small coin in return. The right arm and
right leg of the former soldier had been torn off by grapeshot and
scattered over the remains of a dead Hussar's mount. Nonetheless, the
cripple was not a bitter man, though he knew common sense had been in
short supply on the day he had been ordered to charge the enemy.
It was in October, on a dull grey evening when the mist swirled lazily
around the lamps, when the colonel first walked past this wretched fellow.
The colonel was intending to cross the Charles Bridge on his way back to
his lodgings. A glass of port awaited him there, along with a hot dinner
of cabbage and beef. There was a bed too, with soft white sheets, and a
willing maid with a copper bed-warmer full of hot coals.
'Sir!' cried the man, as the colonel hurried on by, ignoring both the
music and the proffered tin cup. 'Remember me?'
The colonel turned and stared at the man, half-hidden in the shadow of the
statue. The organ grinder shuffled out on his crutch, awkwardly, into the
jaundiced light. He looked like a thousand other men: broken, pathetic and
near an early death. His face was pitted and ravaged with the vestiges of
past hungers and his eyes held knowledge of both emotional and physical
pain. He was a man who had looked into the pits of hell, but had so far
managed to decline their invitation to enter.
'No,' replied the colonel shortly. 'Should I?'
The man cleared his throat of phlegm and spat on the slick cobbles. Then
he said, 'I was there, sir, at the charge. You remember? We went right
into them cannons and they cut us to pieces. You was up there too, up the
front, but you must have had the angels on your shoulders, sir - you came
out without a scratch, while the rest of us - why, we was chopped up like
mincemeat. Thirty of us left alive, out of near a hundred-and-forty men,
and most of us not whole.'
The colonel narrowed his eyes and stared hard. How could he tell one from
another? They were just men from the fields or the cities, all much the
same: stunted, hollow-chested men, good only to make up an army's numbers,
fill its ranks with blood, flesh and bone, but not to be seen as
individuals. These were the masses, who died like flies of starvation or
disease in the streets if not on the field of battle. They had small
square faces, dull eyes, and grubby hands with which to clutch coins. No,
he did not recognise the man - nor should he.
'Sergeant Kesnek,' murmured the creature before him, leaning heavily on
his crutch. 'You must remember. The men didn't want to charge, but you
spoke to me, quiet like, and talked of honour and such, and then I roused
'em with one of my speeches, told 'em what was at stake - of the glory
that was waiting for them on the other side of the valley - just the same
as you described to me, colonel. You remember?'
The colonel reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. He stepped
forward and dropped it into the tin cup, where it clattered breaking the
stillness. The colonel was aware of shapes going by, shadows in evening
dress and gowns, muffled by the fog. It was getting late and people, real
people, were on the way to the theatres and the opera. He did not want to
be seen by one of his friends, talking to this ragged beggar, and he
walked away, quickly, having performed his act of charity.
The incident quickly passed from his mind and later that evening he went