Sharpe's Fury - 11 by Bernard Cornwell Read Free Book Online Page A

the buggers free, sir,” Harper suggested. It was a good suggestion. If one of the pontoons could be loosed from the others then they would have a boat light enough to be forced off the shingle, but the big barges were connected by ropes and by stout timber beams that had carried the plank roadway.
    “It’ll take us half a day to do it,” Sharpe said, “and I don’t think the Crapauds will be happy.”
    “What the devil are you doing, Sharpe?” Moon demanded from the raft.
    “Going ashore, sir,” Sharpe decided, “all of us.”
    “For God’s sake, why?”
    “Because, sir,” Sharpe said, forcing himself to stay patient, “the French will be here in half an hour and if we’re in the river, sir, they’ll either shoot us down like dogs or else take us prisoner.”
    “So your intentions?”
    “Go up that hill, sir, hide there, and wait for the enemy to leave. And when they’ve gone, sir, we’ll cut one of the pontoons free.” Though how he would do that with no tools he was not sure, but he would have to try.
    Moon plainly wanted to suggest another course of action, but none came to his mind so he submitted to being carried ashore by Sergeant Harper. The rest of the men followed, carrying their weapons and cartridge boxes over their heads. Once ashore they made a makeshift stretcher from a pair of muskets threaded through the sleeves of two red coats, then Harris and Slattery carried the brigadier up the steep hill. Sharpe, before leaving the riverbank, collected a few short sticks and a scrappy piece of fishing net, all of which had been washed onto the rocks, then he followed the others up to the first crest and saw, looking to his left, that the French had climbed to the top of the bluff. They were nearly half a mile away, which did not stop one of them loosing off his musket. The ball must have fallen into the intervening valley and the report, when it came, was muffled.
    “This is far enough,” Moon announced. The jolting of the crude stretcher was giving him agony and he looked pale.
    “To the top,” Sharpe said, nodding to where rocks crowned the bare hill.
    “For God’s sake, man,” Moon began.
    “French are coming, sir,” Sharpe interrupted the brigadier. “If you want, sir, I can leave you for them, sir? They must have a surgeon in the fort.”
    Moon looked tempted for a few seconds, but understood that high-ranking prisoners were rarely exchanged. It was possible that a French brigadier might be captured soon and after prolonged negotiations would be exchanged for Moon, but it would take weeks if not months, and all the while his career would be stalled and other men promoted over him. “Up the hill if you must,” he said grudgingly, “but what are your plans after that?”
    “Wait for the French to go, sir, detach a pontoon, cross the river, get you home.”
    “And why the devil are you carrying firewood?”
    The brigadier discovered why at the top of the hill. Private Geoghegan, one of the men from the 88th, claimed his mother had been a bonesetter and said he had often helped her as a child. “What you do, sir,” he explained, “is pull the bone.”
    “Pull it?” Sharpe asked.
    “Give it a good swift tug, sir, and he’ll like as not squeal like a piglet, and I straightens it then and we bind it up. Would the gentleman be a Protestant, would he, sir?”
    “I should think so.”
    “Then we don’t need the holy water, sir, and we’ll do without the two prayers as well, but he’ll be straight enough when we’re done.”
    The brigadier protested. Why not wait till they were across the river, he wanted to know, and blanched when Sharpe said that could be two days. “Soonest done, soonest mended, sir,” Private Geoghegan said, “and if we don’t mend it soon, sir, it’ll set crooked as can be. And I’ll have to cut your trouser off, sir, sorry, sir.”
    “You’ll not damned well cut them!” Moon protested hotly. “They’re Willoughby’s best! There isn’t a