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

finer tailor in London.”
    “Then you’ll have to take them off yourself, sir, you will,” Geoghegan said. He looked as wild as any of the Connaught men, but had a soft, sympathetic voice and a confidence that somewhat allayed the brigadier’s apprehensions, yet even so it took twenty minutes to persuade Moon that he should allow his leg to be straightened. It was the thought that he would have to spend the rest of his life with a crooked limb that really convinced him. He saw himself limping into salons, unable to dance, awkward in the saddle, and his vanity at last overcame his fear. Sharpe, meanwhile, watched the French. Forty men had worked their way over the bluff and now they were walking toward the stranded pontoons.
    “Buggers are going to salvage them,” Harper said.
    “Take the riflemen halfway down the hill,” Sharpe said, “and stop them.”
    Harper left, taking Slattery, Harris, Hagman, and Perkins with him. They were the only men from Sharpe’s company stranded on the pontoons, but it was a consolation that they were all good riflemen. There was no better soldier than Sergeant Patrick Harper, the huge Ulsterman who hated the British rule of his homeland, but still fought like a hero. Slattery was from County Wicklow and was quiet, soft-spoken, and capable. Harris had been a schoolmaster once and was clever, well-read, and too fond of gin, which was why he was now a soldier, but he was amusing and loyal. Dan Hagman was the oldest, well over forty, and he had been a poacher in Cheshire before the law caught him and condemned him to the army’s ranks. There was no better marksman in any rifle company. Perkins was the youngest, young enough to be Hagman’s grandson, and he had been a street urchin in London as Sharpe had once been, but he was learning to be a good soldier. He was learning that discipline tied to savagery was unbeatable. They were all good men and Sharpe was glad to have them, and just then the brigadier gave a yelp that he managed to stifle, though he could not contain a long moan. Geoghegan had eased off the brigadier’s boots, which must have hurt like hell, and somehow managed to take down Moon’s trousers, and now he placed two of Sharpe’s sticks alongside the broken calf and wrapped one of the brigadier’s trouser legs about the limb so that it gripped the sticks. He tightened the pressure by winding the trouser leg as though he wrung water from the material. He tightened it until the brigadier gave a hiss of protest. Then Geoghegan grinned at Sharpe. “Would you help me, sir? Just take the general’s ankle, will you, sir? And when I tell you, sir, give it a good smart pull.”
    “For God’s sake,” the brigadier managed to say.
    “As brave a man as ever I saw, sir, so you are,” Geoghegan said, and he smiled reassuringly at Sharpe. “Are you ready, sir?”
    “How hard do I pull?”
    “A good tug, sir, just like pulling a lamb that doesn’t want to be born. Are you ready? Take firm hold, sir, both hands! Now!”
    Sharpe pulled, the brigadier gave a high-pitched cry, Geoghegan screwed the material even tighter, and Sharpe distinctly heard the bone grate into place. Geoghegan was stroking the brigadier’s leg now. “And that’s just good as can be, sir, good as new, sir.” Moon did not respond and Sharpe realized the brigadier had either fainted or was in such shock that he could not speak.
    Geoghegan splinted the leg with the sticks and the net. “He can’t walk on it, not for a while, but we’ll make him crutches, we will, and he’ll be dancing like a pony soon enough.”
    The rifles sounded and Sharpe turned and ran down the hill to where his greenjackets were kneeling on the turf. They were about a hundred and fifty yards from the river and sixty feet above it, and the French were crouching in the water. They had been trying to haul the big barges off the shingle, but the bullets had ended that effort and now the men were using the pontoon hulls as