"Smith, Wilbur - Courtney 03 - A Sparrow Falls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Wilbur)

Auckland, Melbourne, Singapore and Toronto

Reprinted 1992 (five times), 1993

Copyright Wilbur Smith 1977 A CIP catalogue record for this title is
available from the British Library

ISBN 0 7493 0551 7

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berks

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated
without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover
other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A sky the colour of old bruises hung low over the battlefields of
France, and rolled with ponderous dignity towards the German lines.

Brigadier-General Sean Courtney had spent four winters in France and
now, with the eye of a cattleman and a farmer, he could judge this
weather almost as accurately as that of his native Africa. It will snow
tonight, he grunted, and Lieutenant Nick van der Heever, his orderly
officer, glanced back at him over his shoulder. I shouldn't wonder,
sir. Van der Heever was heavily laden. In addition to his service
rifle and webbing, he carried a canvas kitbag across his shoulder, for
General Courtney was on his way to dine as a mess guest of the 2nd
Battalion. At this moment the Colonel and officers of the. 2nd
Battalion were completely unaware of the impending honour, and Sean
grinned in wicked anticipation at the panic that his unannounced arrival
would create. The contents of the kitbag would be some small
compensation for the shock, for it included half a dozen bottles of
pinch bottle Haig and a fat goose.

Nevertheless, Sean was aware that his officers found his informal
behaviour and his habit of arriving suddenly in the front lines,
unannounced and unattended by his staff, more than a little
disconcerting. Only a week before, he had overheard a field telephone
conversation on a crossed line between a major and a captain.

The old bastard thinks he's still fighting the Boer War.

Can't you keep him in a cage back there at H. Q.? How do you cage a
bull elephant? Well, at least warn us when he's on his way Sean grinned
again and trudged on after his orderly officer, the folds of his
great-coat flapping about his putteed legs and, for warmth, a silk scarf
wrapped around his head beneath the soup-plate shape of his helmet. The
boards bounced under his feet and the gluey mud sucked and gurgled
beneath them at the passing weight of the two men.