Sharpe’s Christmas. by Bernard Cornwell.
Sharpe’s Christmas. by Bernard Cornwell.
PART ONE.
THE TWO riflemen crouched at the edge of the field. One, a dark-haired man with a scarred face and hard eyes, eased back the cock of his rifle, aimed, but then, after a few seconds, lowered it. “Too far away,” he whispered.
The second was taller than the first and, like his companion, wore the faded green jacket of the 95th Rifles, but instead of a Baker rifle, he carried a curious volley gun of seven barrels. “No good trying with this,” he whispered, hefting the huge gun, “only works at close range.”
“If we get too close they’ll run,” the first man said.
“Where can they run to? It’s a field, for God’s sake.”
“So we just walk up and shoot him?”
“Unless you want to strangle the sod.”
Major Richard Sharpe lowered his rifle’s flint. “Come on, then,” he said, and the two men stood and walked gingerly towards the three bullocks. “You think they’ll charge us, Pat?” Sharpe asked.
“They’re gelded, sir!” Sergeant Major Patrick Harper offered. “Got about as much spark as three blind mice.”
“They look dangerous to me,” Sharpe said. “They’ve got horns.”
“But they’re missing their other equipment, sir. They can’t sing the low notes, if you follow me,” Harper said, then pointed to one of the bullocks.
“He’s got some fat on him, sir. He’ll roast just fine.” The chosen bullock, unaware of its fate, watched the two men.
“I can’t just shoot it!” Sharpe protested.
“It’s Christmas dinner, sir,” Harper encouraged his commanding officer.
“Proper roast beef, plum pudding and wine. We’ve got the plums and we’ve got the wine, sir, so all we need is the beef and the suet.”
“Where do you get suet?”
“Off the bullock, of course. It’s sort of stacked around the kidneys, so it is, but you’d best shoot the poor beast first. It’s kinder.”
Sharpe walked closer to the animal. It had large, brown, sad eyes. “I can’t do it, Pat.”
“One shot, sir. Imagine it’s a Frenchman.”
Sharpe lifted the rifle, cocked it and aimed straight between the bullock’s eyes. The animal gazed at him ruefully. “You do it,” Sharpe said to Harper, lowering the gun.
“With this?” Harper held up the volley gun. “I’ll blow its head off!”
“We don’t want its head, do we?” Sharpe said. “Just its rumps and suet. Go on, do it.”
“Not very accurate, sir, not a volley gun. Good for killing Frogs, it is. But not for slaughtering cattle.”
“So have the rifle,” Sharpe said, offering the weapon.
Harper gazed at the rifle for a second, but did not take it. “The thing is, sir,” the huge Irishman said, “that I drank a drop too much last night. My hands are shaky, see? Best that you do it, sir.”
Sharpe hesitated. The Light Company had set their hearts on a proper Christmas dinner: bloody roast beef, gravy thick enough to choke a rat and a brandy-soaked pudding clogged with plums and suet. “It’s daft, isn’t it?” he said. “I wouldn’t think twice if it was a Frog. It’s only a cow.”
“Bullock, sir.”
“What’s the difference?”
“You can’t milk this one, sir.”
“Right,” Sharpe said, and aimed the rifle again. “Just hold still,” he ordered the bullock, then crept a half-pace closer so that the gun’s blackened muzzle was only a few inches from the coarse black hair. “I shot a tiger once,” he said.
“Go on, sir, kill it.”
Sharpe gazed into the beast’s eyes. He had put wounded horses out of their misery and shot enough rabbits in his time, but somehow he could not squeeze the trigger. And then he was saved from having to shoot at all because a small, high eager voice hailed him from the field’s far side.
“Mr. Sharpe, sir! Mr. Sharpe!”
Sharpe lowered the rifle’s cock, then turned to see Ensign Charles Nicholls rustling over the grass.
Nicholls had only just arrived in Spain and went everywhere at a tumultuous pace, as if he feared the war might get away from him.
“Slow down, Mr. Nicholls,” Sharpe said.
“It’s Colonel Hogan, sir,” Ensign Nicholls panted, “he wants you, sir. He says it’s the Frogs, sir. He says we’ve got to stop some Frogs, sir, and it’s urgent.”