05 Sharpe's Prey by Bernard Cornwell

Author:Bernard Cornwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9780007235155
Publisher: HarperCollins

CHAPTER 7

Sharpe walked Jens away from the car­nage. Once be­yond the ditch and out of sight of the two red­coat bat­tal­ions Sharpe point­ed back to­ward the city. “Get in­to that low­er ground”-he showed Jens how to sneak round the side of the fusiliers-“and then just keep walk­ing.”

Jens frowned. “You are not Amer­ican?”

“I'm not.”

Jens seemed re­luc­tant to go. “Did you know what would hap­pen back there?”

“No. But it wasn't hard to guess, was it? They're re­al sol­diers, lad. Trained to it.” Sharpe took the re­main­ing pis­tol from his belt. “You know Ulfedt's Plads?”

“Of course.”

“There's a man called Skov­gaard there. Give this gun to him. Now hur­ry, be­fore the British cap­ture the rest of the gar­dens. Keep in those low­er trees and then go straight to the gate. Un­der­stand?”

“You're En­glish?”

“I'm En­glish.” Sharpe pushed the un­primed gun in­to Jens's hand. “And thank you for sav­ing my life. Now go on. Hur­ry.”

Jens gave Sharpe a be­wil­dered glance then ran. Sharpe watched un­til the Dane was safe­ly hid­den among the trees, then slung his great­coat over his shoul­der and walked on. Failed, he thought. Failed ut­ter­ly.

He climbed a low hill. The new­ly dug ditch where the fusiliers had fired their vol­leys had ev­ident­ly been the be­gin­ning of a new Dan­ish out­work that had been cap­tured be­fore they could throw up walls or mount guns, and now red­coat­ed en­gi­neers were stand­ing on the hill's sum­mit from where they trained tele­scopes on the city walls. They were ob­vi­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing the hill as a place for a bat­tery. The sea could be seen to the south, while on the hill's north­ern side, in a gul­ly, a gar­den­er was care­ful­ly car­ry­ing plants in­to a green­house. Be­yond the gul­ly the land rose to a low ridge where a group of mount­ed British of­fi­cers watched an­oth­er bat­tal­ion ad­vance in­to the wood­lands. Thick smoke smeared the east­ern air. The Danes, re­treat­ing from the sub­urbs clos­er to the city, had set some hous­es on fire, pre­sum­ably so that the British could not use them as ad­vance po­si­tions. Far­ther north, out of sight, there was some heavy ar­tillery at work, for the air was be­ing punched by the per­cus­sive blasts and the sky was streaked and silt­ing with smoke.

Ma­jor Gen­er­al Sir David Baird had a mus­ket wound on his left hand and an­oth­er rivulet of blood where a ball had grazed his neck, but he was feel­ing ebul­lient. He had led a brigade in­to the gar­dens, eject­ed some Dan­ish reg­ulars, mas­sa­cred some brave id­iots from the mili­tia and now watched as his men se­cured the south­ern ground that would fi­nal­ly iso­late Copen­ha­gen from the rest of Zealand. Cap­tain Gor­don, his aide and nephew, had been wast­ing his breath by chid­ing the Gen­er­al for ex­pos­ing him­self to un­nec­es­sary dan­ger, but Baird was en­joy­ing him­self. He would have liked to keep the ad­vance go­ing, right through the west­ern sub­urbs, across the lakes and in­to the city it­self. “We could have the fleet by night­fall,” he claimed.

Lord Pumphrey, the civ­il­ian aide from the For­eign Of­fice, looked alarmed at the Gen­er­al's bel­li­cos­ity, but Cap­tain Gor­don did his best to re­strain Sir David.

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