"Cornwell, Bernard - Sharpe 10 - sharpe's battle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cornwell Bernard)

we lost, sir?'
"No, Harry, I came here for the hell of it. Wherever
the hell this is.' Sharpe stared glumly about the damp,
bleak valley. He was proud of his sense of direction and
his skills at crossing strange country, but now he was
comprehensively, utterly lost and the clouds were thick
enough to disguise the sun so that he could not even
tell which direction was north. "We need a compass,' he
said.
"Or a map?' Lieutenant Price suggested happily.
"We've got a bloody map. Here.' Sharpe thrust the
haIled up map into the Lieutenant's hands. "Major
Hogan drew it for me and I can't make head nor tail
out of it.'
"I was never any good with maps,' Price confessed. "I
once got lost marching some recruits from Chelmsford
to the barracks, and that's a straight road. I had a map
that time, too. I think I must have a talent for getting
lost.'
"My grand a was like that,' Harper said proudly. "He
could get lost between one side of a gate and the other.
I was telling the Captain here about the time he took a
bullock up Slieve Snaght. It was dirty weather, see, and
he was taking the short cut '
"Shut up,' Sharpe said nastily.
"We went wrong at that ruined village,' Price said,
frowning over the creased map. "I think we should have
stayed on the other side of the stream, sir.' Price showed
Sharpe the map. "If that is the village. Hard to tell really.
But I'm sure we shouldn't have crossed the stream, sir.'
Sharpe half suspected the Lieutenant was right, but
he did not want to admit it. They had crossed the stream
two hours before, so God only knew where they were
now. Sharpe did not even know if they were in Portugal
or Spain, though both the scenery and the weather
looked more like Scodand. Sharpe was supposedly on
his way to Vilar ormoso where his company, the Light
Company of the South Essex Regiment, would be
attached to the Town Major as a guard unit, a prospect
that depressed Sharpe. Town garrison duty was litfie
better than being a provost and provosts were the lowest
form of army life, but the South Essex was short of men
and so the regiment had been taken out of the battle
line and set to administrative duties. Most of the regi
ment were escorting bullock carts loaded with supplies
that had been barged up the Tagus from Lisbon, or else
were guarding french prisoners on their way to the ships
that would carry them to Britain, but the Light Company
was lost, and all because Sharpe had heard a distant
cannonade resembling far away thunder and he had