Sharpe #16 - Sharpe's Enemy by Bernard Cornwell

Author:Bernard Cornwell [Cornwell, Bernard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9780006170136
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-12-07T13:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

There was one priority in Sharpe's head, just one, and he ran towards the Convent, arms waving, voice bellowing. 'Captain Gilliland! Captain Gilliland!'

He pounded over the road and saw with relief that the horses were still in the traces of the carts. 'Get them moving! Hurry!'

'Sir?' Gilliland was running from the Convent's door. 'Get this troop moving! Hurry! Into the Castle. Push that bloody cart aside, but hurry!' Sharpe pointed to the ox cart that blocked the main gate of the Castle. Gilliland was still gaping at him. 'For Christ's sake, move!'

Sharpe looked at the artillerymen spread up the valley towards the village. He cupped his hands. 'Gunners!'

He chivvied them, snapped at them, turned horses himself, and gradually the sense of urgency communicated itself to the men who had thought Christmas Day a day of rest. 'Move, you bastards! It's not a bloody funeral! Whip it up, man! Move!'

He was not fearing an attack by French cavalry. He guessed that the men on the keep had seen the advance scouts of a French force that had been sent to do what he had done last night; rescue the hostages. Now the three horsemen seen in the dawn made sense; they had been a patrol who had discovered that the work had been done for them, and doubtless the French now hoped to recover their own hostages under a flag of truce, but Sharpe still did not want them to see the strange carts and portable forge of the Rocket Troop. Perhaps he was right, and there would be no fight, or perhaps he was wrong. In which case the rockets, bundled inside their special cases on the long carts, would be the one surprise he could spring in this high valley. 'Move it!' Even if the French did see the carts they would have no idea of their purpose, but Sharpe wanted to take no chances. They would know there was something odd at the western end of the valley, and that something would give them caution. Surprise would be diluted.

Sharpe ran with the leading cart and bellowed at Fusiliers. 'Clear that gate! Hurry!'

Frederickson, reliable Frederickson, pushed past the men struggling with the cart. 'Lancers, sir. Green uniforms, red facings. There's only a dozen.'Green and red?'

'Imperial Guard, I think. Germans.' Sharpe looked towards the village, but could see nothing. The valley floor fell beyond Adrados before turning right, turning south, and if he could not see them then they could not see the odd carts that were at last moving behind him into the Castle courtyard. German lancers. Men recruited from the duchies and small kingdoms that had allied themselves to Napoleon. There were far more Germans fighting against the Emperor than for him, but they were alike in one thing; they fought as well as any man on a battlefield. Sharpe looked for Gilliland. 'Hide your men in the stable, d'you hear me? Hide them!'

'Yes, sir.' Gilliland was appalled by the sudden urgency. His war, till now, had been a patient matter of angles and theories; suddenly death was just beyond the horizon.

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