Sharpe’s Havoc by Bernard Cornwell

„I’m glad you’re here, Sharpe,” Christopher said. „I was wondering how to get away from the French. They were keeping a pretty close eye on me, as you can imagine. I have lots to tell Sir Arthur. He’s done well, hasn’t he?”

„He’s done well,” Sharpe agreed, „and he wants you dead.”

„Don’t be ridiculous, Sharpe! We’re English!” Christopher had lost his hat when he jumped and the rain was flattening his hair. „We don’t assassinate people.”

„I do,” Sharpe said, and he took a step nearer again, and Christopher and Williamson edged away.

Christopher watched Sharpe pick up the glass. „Not damaged, you see? I took good care of it.” He had to shout to make himself heard over the seething rain and the crash of the river thrusting through the rocks. He pushed Williamson forward again, but the man obstinately refused to attack and Christopher now found himself trapped on a slippery ledge between cliff and river, and the Colonel, in this last extremity, finally abandoned trying to talk himself out of trouble and simply shoved the deserter toward Sharpe. „Kill him!” he shouted at Williamson. „Kill him!”

The hard shove in his back seemed to startle Williamson, who nevertheless raised the saber and slashed it at Sharpe’s head. There was a great clang as the two blades met, then Sharpe kicked the deserter’s left knee, a kick that made Williamson’s leg buckle, and Sharpe, who looked as though he was not making any particular effort, sliced the sword across Williamson’s neck so that the deserter was knocked back to the right and then the sword lunged through the rifleman’s green jacket and into his belly. Sharpe twisted the blade to stop it being trapped by the suction of flesh, ripped it free and watched the dying Williamson topple into the river. „I hate deserters,” Sharpe said, „I do so hate bloody deserters.”

Christopher had watched his man defeated and seen that Sharpe had not had to fight hard at all to do it. „No, Sharpe,” he said, „you don’t understand!” He tried to think of the words that would make Sharpe think, make him step back, but the Colonel’s mind was in panic and the words would not come.

Sharpe watched Williamson. For a moment the dying man tried to struggle out of the river, but the blood ran red from his neck and his belly and he suddenly flopped back and his ugly face sank under the water. „I do so hate deserters,” Sharpe said again, then he looked at Christopher. „Is that sword good for anything except picking your teeth, Colonel?”

Christopher numbly drew his slender blade. He had trained with a sword. He used to spend good money that he could scarce afford at Horace Jackson’s Hall of Arms on Jermyn Street where he had learned the finer graces of fencing and where he had even earned grudging praise from the great Jackson himself, but fighting on the French-chalked boards of Jermyn Street was one thing and facing Richard Sharpe in the Misarella’s ravine was altogether another. „No, Sharpe,” he said as the rifleman stepped toward him, then raised his blade in a panicked riposte as the big sword flickered toward him.

Sharpe’s lunge had been a tease, a probe to see whether Christopher would fight, but Sharpe was staring into his enemy’s eyes and he knew this man would die like a lamb. „Fight, you bastard,” he said, and lunged again, and again Christopher made a feeble riposte, but then the Colonel saw a boulder in the river’s center and he thought that he might just leap to it and from there he could reach the opposite bank and so climb to safety. He slashed his sword in a wild blow to give himself the space to make the jump and then he turned and sprang, but his broken ankle crumpled, the rock was wet under his boots and he slipped and would have fallen into the river except that Sharpe seized his jacket and so Christopher fell on the ledge, the sword useless in his hand and with his enemy above him. „No!” he begged. „No.” He stared up at Sharpe. „You saved me, Sharpe,” he said, realizing what had just happened and with a sudden hope surging through him. „You saved me.”

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