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

gone? Perhaps they had hitched their painted cannon to their ox teams,
stowed the canister in its limbers and buggered off northwards? In
which case it would be a quick about-turn, back to the village where
the baggage was stored, then another awkward evening in the officers'
mess.

Lieutenant Cahill would watch Sharpe like a hawk, adding tuppence to
Sharpe's mess bill for every glass of wine, and Sharpe, as the junior
officer, would have to propose the loyal toast and pretend not to see
when half the bastards wafted their mugs over their canteens. King
over the water. Toasting a dead Stuart pretender to the throne who had
died in Roman exile. Jacobites who pretended George III was not the
proper King. Not that any of them were truly disloyal, and the secret
gesture of passing the wine over the water was not even a real secret,
but rather was intended to goad Sharpe into English indignation. Except
Sharpe did not give a fig. Old King Cole could have been King of
Britain for all Sharpe cared.

Colquhoun suddenly barked orders in Gaelic and the men picked up their
muskets, jumped into the irrigation ditch where they formed '3

into four ranks and began trudging northwards. Sharpe, taken by
surprise, meekly followed. He supposed he should have asked Colquhoun
what was happening, but he did not like to display ignorance, and then
he saw that the rest of the battalion was also marching, so plainly
Colquhoun had decided number six company should advance as well.

The Sergeant had made no pretence of asking Sharpe for permission to
move. Why should he? Even if Sharpe did give an order the men
automatically looked for Colquhoun's nod before they obeyed. That was
how the company worked; Urquhart commanded, Colquhoun came next, and
Ensign Sharpe tagged along like one of the scruffy dogs adopted by the
men.

Captain Urquhart spurred his horse back down the ditch.

"Well done, Sergeant," he told Colquhoun, who ignored the praise. The
Captain turned the horse, its hooves breaking through the ditch's crust
to churn up clots of dried mud.

"The rascals are waiting ahead," Urquhart told Sharpe.

"I thought they might have gone," Sharpe said.

"They're formed and ready," Urquhart said, 'formed and ready." ', The
Captain was a fine-looking man with a stern face, straight back | and
steady nerve. The men trusted him. In other days Sharpe would have
been proud to serve a man like Urquhart, but the Captain seemed
irritated by Sharpe's presence.