Free Sharpe 18 - Sharpe's Siege by Bernard Cornwell Page B

touched his weapons. His rifle was muzzle-stopped against sea-water splashes, while the lock was wrapped in an old rag for protection. His sword was clumsy in the confines of the tiny boat. A surge heaved the boat up and ran it forward towards the breaking surf that betrayed itself to Sharpe as a spume of spray being whipped from a curling wave by the wind's flick, then the boat dropped into a valley of sliding, glassy grey water that was flecked with floating sea-weed.
    This was the point of danger. This was the moment when the small boats must go from the sea's cradle into the broken forces where the waves battered at the shore. Years ago, on a beach like this in Portugal, Sharpe had watched the longboats broach in the combers and spill their men like puppets into the killing sea. The bodies, he remembered, had come ashore white and swollen, uniforms split by the swelling flesh, and dogs had worried at the corpses for days.
    “Pull!” the bo'sun shouted. “Pull, you bastards!”
    The oarsmen pulled and, like a wagon loaded with cannon-shot, the boat fought the upward slope of the wave. The oars bent under the strain, then the vast power of the sea caught the boat's transom and it was running, suddenly free of all constraint, and the bo'sun was shouting at the men to ship oars and was leaning his full weight on the tiller behind Sharpe.
    The bo'sun's shout seemed like a prolonged bellow that melded with the roar of the surf. The world was white and grey, streaked bottle green at its heart where the wave broke to carry the tiny boat surging forward. Sharpe's right hand was a cold and bloodless white where it gripped the gunwale, then the boat's bow was dipping, falling, and the water was smashing around Sharpe's ears in scraps of freezing white and still the shout echoed in his ears and he felt the panic of a man caught in a danger that is uncontrollable.
    The bow caught, the boat twisted and shuddered, and suddenly she was running amidst bubbling sea-streaks beneath which the sand made a hissing noise as tons of beach were drawn backwards by the sucking water.
    “Now!” the bo'sun shouted, “now, you heathens!” and the bow-men were overboard, up to their knees in churning water and dragging the small boat towards the safety of the shelving beach.
    “There, Major. That was easy,” the bo'sun said calmly.
    Sharpe, trying not to show the terror he had felt, stepped forward over the thwarts. The two remaining oarsmen, grinning at him, helped his unsteady progress. Another wave, breaking and running up the beach, lifted the boat and shifted it sideways so that Sharpe fell heavily on to a huge black man who laughed at the soldier's predicament.
    Sharpe stood again, balanced himself at the prow, then leaped into the receding wave. No firm ground, no lush soil of the most peaceful village green in England, had ever felt so good to him. He splashed to dry sand, breathing a silent thanks for safety as at last his boots crunched the small ridge of seaweed, shells, and timber scraps that marked the height of the winter tides.
    “Major!” A voice hailed him. Lieutenant Ford, Bampfylde's aide, walked through the clinging sand. “Welcome ashore. You're precipitate, are you not, sir?”
    “Precipitate?” Sharpe, taking the rag off his rifle-lock, had to shout over the noise of wind and surf.
    “You'd not been ordered ashore, sir.” Ford spoke respectfully, but Sharpe was certain the young lieutenant had been sent by Bampfylde to deliver this reproof. The captain himself, resplendent in blue, white and gold, directed affairs fifty yards down the strand..
    “Let me remind you, Lieutenant,” Sharpe said, “that proceedings ashore are under my command.”
    The Comte de Maquerre, looking grey beneath the powder he had put on to his face, brushed at his cloak then stumped through the sand towards Bampfylde.
    Ford glanced at the Comte, then back to Sharpe. “You can see, sir,” the lieutenant could not hide his embarrassment,