18 Sharpe's Siege by Bernard Cornwell

Author:Bernard Cornwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9780006175247
Publisher: HarperCollins

CHAPTER 11

Lieu­tenant of Marines Fytch, to whom Sharpe had hard­ly spo­ken since they had marched in­land, brought the civil­ians to Ma­jor Sharpe. The Lieu­tenant herd­ed them at pis­tol-​point un­til told by Sharpe to put his damned toy away. Fytch, his mar­tial ar­dour of­fend­ed by the Ri­fle­man, ges­tured at the four stout and wor­ried look­ing men. “They're from the town, sir. Bug­gers want to sur­ren­der.”

The four men, all dressed in good woollen clothes, smiled ner­vous­ly at the mount­ed of­fi­cer. They each wore the white cock­ade which was the sym­bol of the ex­iled King Louis XVI­II and thus an em­blem of an­ti-​Napoleon­ic sen­ti­ment. The sight of the cock­ade, and the ev­ident will­ing­ness of the four men to em­brace a British vic­to­ry, were un­com­fort­able re­minders to Sharpe of Bamp­fylde's hopes. Per­haps Bor­deaux, like this small town, was ripe for re­bel­lion? He should, Sharpe knew, have in­ter­ro­gat­ed a cap­tured French of­fi­cer by now, but his de­ter­mi­na­tion to obey El­phin­stone's pri­vate­ly giv­en or­ders, had made him ig­nore the du­ty.

“Kind­ly ask them,” Sharpe said to Fytch who ev­ident­ly had some French, “if they still wish to sur­ren­der when they un­der­stand that we will be leav­ing here this af­ter­noon and may not be back for some months?”

The May­or's monar­chi­cal en­thu­si­asm evap­orat­ed swift­ly. He smiled, bowed, fin­gered the cock­ade ner­vous­ly, and backed away. But he still wished to as­sure the En­glish milord that any­thing the town could of­fer his men would be avail­able. They had on­ly to ask for Mon­sieur Cal­abord.

“Get rid of him,” Sharpe said. “Po­lite­ly! And get those damned civil­ians off the bridge!” Towns­peo­ple, hear­ing the crack­le of mus­ketry, had come to view the bat­tle. The one-​legged toll-​keep­er was vain­ly try­ing to make them pay for the priv­ilege of their grand­stand view.

Fred­er­ick­son's ri­fles snapped from the north as he har­ried the bro­ken in­fantry away from the scene of their de­feat. Two wag­goners and four cav­al­ry­men, hands held high, were be­ing prod­ded from the beech trees to­wards the dis­con­so­late pris­on­ers. Marines were pil­ing cap­tured mus­kets in a pile.

The luck­iest Marines were ri­fling the wag­gons. Much of the plun­der was use­less to a loot­er. There were vats of yel­low and black paint that the French mixed to colour their gun-​car­riages, and which now the Marines spilled on to the road to min­gle with the blood and ox-​dung. Two of the wag­gons held noth­ing but en­gi­neer's sup­plies. There were coils of three inch white-​ca­ble, sap forks, cross-​cut saws, bench-​ham­mers, chalk-​lines, scrap­ers, felling-​ax­es, augers, and bar­rels of Ham­bro` line. There were spare car­touch­es for the in­fantry, each bag filled with a wood­en block drilled to hold car­tridges. Oth­er wag­gons held drag-​chains, crooked-​sponges, re­liev­ers, bricoles, wad-​hooks, sabot-​brac­ers, and hand-​spikes. There were gar­lands for the stack­ing of round-​shot and even band in­stru­ments in­clud­ing a Jin­gling John­ny that a proud Ma­rine pa­rad­ed about the stripped wag­gons and shook so that the tiny bells mount­ed on the wood­en frame made a strange­ly fes­tive sound in the bleak, cold day. An­oth­er man banged the clash-​pans un­til Sharpe curt­ly or­dered him to drop the bloody cym­bals.

On one wag­gon there were crates of tinned food.

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