21 Sharpe's Devil by Bernard Cornwell

Author:Bernard Cornwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9780007235179
Publisher: HarperCollins

They charged. They were men who want­ed to re­venge a near de­feat, and the sound of their vengeance as they scram­bled up the shot-​man­gled steps was blood­cur­dling. Some­where ahead of Sharpe, steel scraped on steel and a man screamed. The top of the stairs was a slaugh­ter­yard of bro­ken stone, blood and man­gled flesh. A Span­ish drum­mer boy, scarce­ly ten years old, was curled at the side of the the arch­way, his hands con­tract­ing in­to claws as he died. Sharpe, reach­ing the stair's head, found him­self shroud­ed in a fog of dust and smoke. Screams sound­ed ahead of him, then a Span­ish sol­dier, his face a mask of blood, came charg­ing from Sharpe's right. The man lunged his bay­onet at Sharpe who, with a prac­ticed re­flex, stepped back, tripped the man, then hacked down once with the sword. The bor­rowed blade seemed hor­ri­bly light and seemed to do so lit­tle dam­age. Harp­er, a pace be­hind Sharpe, killed the man with a thrust of his bay­onet. A vol­ley of mus­kets sound­ed through the smoke, but no bul­lets came near Sharpe or Harp­er, sug­gest­ing that the vol­ley was a rebel sal­vo fired at the re­treat­ing de­fend­ers. “This way!” Miller's voice shout­ed. His re­main­ing drum­mer was beat­ing the charge while the flautists were play­ing an al­most rec­og­niz­able ver­sion of “Heart of Oak.”

The marines ran to the left, charg­ing down a stone tun­nel that led to the pa­rade ground. Sharpe and Harp­er went the oth­er way. They pushed through a half-​open door, stepped over the man­gled body of a Span­ish sol­dier, and found them­selves in the great au­di­ence hall where Bautista had so ef­fort­less­ly hu­mil­iat­ed Sharpe just days be­fore. Now, in the smoky dust that hung in slant­ing beams of morn­ing sun­light, they found the hall de­sert­ed of all but the dead. Sharpe stepped over a fall­en bench and edged past a head­less Span­ish of­fi­cer. One of the O'Hig­gins's can-​non­balls had struck the huge iron chan­de­lier which, grotesque­ly bent and ripped from its chains, was now cant­ed against the far wall. The de­fend­ers, who had been fir­ing down from the great arched win­dows, had fled, leav­ing a lit­ter of torn car­tridge pa­pers be­hind them. A dozen can­non­balls lay on the stone floor. The places where they had struck the wall op­po­site the big arched win­dows were marked by plate-​sized craters. One of the round-​shot must have tak­en off the head of the Span­ish of­fi­cer, for the hall's dusty floor was dec­orat­ed with a mon­strous fan of fresh­ly sprayed blood.

Sharpe pushed open a door at the hall's far end to emerge on­to the big pa­rade ground. The Spaniards, in sheer ter­ror, were aban­don­ing the citadel's de­fens­es, run­ning to­ward the gate at the far side of the citadel. A near­by bat­tery of nine-​pounder can­nons was de­sert­ed, the gun­ner's lin­stocks still smok­ing, the dirty sponge wa­ter in the buck­ets still rip­pling. Sharpe sheathed his sword and walked to the ram­parts that had been smeared black with pow­der stains from the nine pounders' dis­charge and leaned over the citadel's high edge to draw in a great breath of clean, cold air.

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