Sharpe's Rifles Read Online Free PDF Page B

the French held the place where

the road crossed the ridge, but in the freezing darkness and among the jumble of rocks, he lost

his bearings and grudgingly went back to the hollow where the Riflemen sheltered.
    The cloud lifted before dawn, letting the first wan light reveal the main body of the French

pursuit in the valley which lay to the south. The enemy cavalry was already gone to the west, and

Sharpe stared down at Marshal Soult’s infantry which marched in dogged pursuit of Sir John

Moore’s army.
    “We’re bloody cut off.” Sergeant Williams offered his pessimistic assessment to Sharpe who,

instead of replying, went to squat beside the wounded men. Captain Murray slept fitfully,

shivering beneath a half-dozen greatcoats. The Sergeant who had been slashed across the neck and

shoulders had died in the night. Sharpe covered the man’s face with a shako.
    “He’s a jumped-up bit of nothing.” Williams stared malevolently at Lieutenant Sharpe’s back.

“He ain’t an officer, Harps. Not a real one.”
    Rifleman Harper was sharpening his sword-bayonet, doing the job with the obsessive

concentration of a man who knows his life depends on his weapons.
    “Not a proper officer,” Williams went on. “Not a gentleman. Just a jumped-up Sergeant, isn’t

he?”
    “That’s all.” Harper looked at the Lieutenant, seeing the scars on the officer’s face and the

hard line of his jaw.
    “If he thinks he’s giving me orders, he’s a bugger. He ain’t no better than I am, is

he?”
    Harper’s reply was a grunt, and not the agreement which would have given the Sergeant the

encouragement he wanted. Williams waited for Harper’s support, but the Irishman merely squinted

along the edge of his bayonet, then carefully sheathed the long blade.
    Williams spat. “Put a bloody sash and sword on them and they think they’re God Almighty. He’s

not a real Rifle, just a bloody Quartermaster, Harps!”
    “Nothing else,” Harper agreed.
    “Bloody jumped-up storekeeper, ain’t he?”
    Sharpe turned quickly and Williams, even though it was impossible, felt that he had been

overheard. The Lieutenant’s eyes were hard as flint. “Sergeant Williams!”
    “Sir.” Williams, despite his assertion of disobedience, stepped dutifully towards Lieutenant

Sharpe.
    “Shelter.” Sharpe pointed down into the northern valley where, far beneath them and slowly

being revealed by a shredding mist, a stone farmstead could be seen. “Get the wounded down

there.”
    Williams hissed a dubious breath between yellowed teeth. “I dunno as how they should be moved,

sir. The Captain’s…“
    “I said get the wounded down there, Sergeant.” Sharpe had stepped away, but now turned back.

“I didn’t ask for a debate on the God-damned matter. Move.”
    It took the best part of the morning, but they succeeded in carrying the wounded down to the

derelict farm. The dryest building was a stone barn, built on rock pillars that were meant to

keep vermin at bay, and with a roof surmounted by crosses so that, from a distance, it looked

like a small crude church. The ruined house and byres yielded damp and fungus-ridden timbers

that, split and shredded with cartridge Powder, were coaxed into a fire that slowly warmed the

wounded men. Rifleman Hagman, a toothless, middle-aged Cheshire man, went to hunt for food, while

the Lieutenant put picquets on the goat tracks that led east and west.
    “Captain Murray’s in a poorly way, sir.” Sergeant Williams cornered Sharpe when the Lieutenant

returned to the barn. “He needs a surgeon, sir.”
    “Hardly possible, is it?”
    “Unless we… that is…“ The Sergeant, a squat, red-faced man, could not say what was in his

mind.
    “Unless we surrender to the French?” Sharpe asked acidly.
    Williams looked into the Lieutenant’s eyes. They were curious eyes, almost reptilian in their

present coldness. The Sergeant found a truculence to brace his