"Cornwell, Bernard - Sharpe 00 - Sharpe's Fortress" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cornwell Bernard)

"Have you ever seen tits like grapes, Mister Sharpe?"

"I never met your mother, Corporal," Sharpe said.

The men laughed again. McCallum scowled. Sergeant Colquhoun lowered
his Bible and peered at the Corporal.

"The Song of Solomon, John McCallum," Colquhoun said, 'likens a woman's
bosom to clusters of grapes, and I have no doubt it refers to the
garments that modest women wore in the Holy Land. Perhaps their
bodices possessed balls of knotted wool as decoration? I cannot see it
is a matter for your merriment." Another cannon fired, and this time a
round shot whipped through the tall plants close to the ditch. The
stems twitched violently, discharging a cloud of dust and small birds
into the cloudless sky. The birds flew about in panic for a few
seconds, then returned to the swaying seed heads

"I knew a woman who had lumpy tits," Private Hollister said. He was a
dark-jawed, violent man who spoke rarely.

"Lumpy like a coal sack, they were." He frowned at the memory, then
shook his head.

"She died."

"This conversation is not seemly," Colquhoun said quietly, and the men
shrugged and fell silent.

Sharpe wanted to ask the Sergeant about the clusters of grapes, but he
knew such an enquiry would only cause ribaldry among the men and, as an
officer, Sharpe could not risk being made to look a fool. All the
same, it sounded odd to him. Why would anyone say a woman had tits
like a bunch of grapes? Grapes made him think of grapeshot and he
wondered if the bastards up ahead were equipped with canister. Well,
of course they were, but there was no point in wasting canister on a
field of bulrushes. Were they bulrushes? It seemed a strange thing
for a farmer to grow, but India was full of oddities. There were naked
sods who claimed to be holy men, snake-charmers who whistled up hooded
horrors, dancing bears draped in tinkling bells, and contortionists
draped in bugger all, a right bloody circus. And the clowns ahead
would have canister. They would wait till they saw the redcoats, then
load up the tin cans that burst like duck shot from the gun barrels.
For what we are about to receive among the bulrushes, Sharpe thought,
may the Lord make us truly thankful.

"I've found it," Colquhoun said gravely.

"Found what?" Sharpe asked.

"I was fairly sure in my mind, sir, that the good book mentioned