Read Online Sharpe's Gold by Bernard Cornwell - Free Book Online

there they were well hidden. Kearsey

    chuckled. 'The ambushers ambushed!'
    The horsemen had stopped. Sharpe swung the glass back. One Spaniard held the reins of the

    prisoners' horses while the others dismounted. The naked men were pulled from their

    saddles and the ropes that had tied their legs beneath the horses' bellies were used to

    lash their ankles tightly together. Then more rope was produced, thick loops hanging from

    the Partisans' saddles, and the two Frenchmen were tied behind the horses. Knowles had

    borrowed Sharpe's telescope and beneath his tan he paled, shocked by the sight.
    'They won't run far,' the Lieutenant said half in hope.
    Kearsey shook his head. 'They will.'
    Sharpe took the glass back. The Partisans were unfastening their saddle-bags, going

    back to the horses with the roped men. 'What are they doing, sir?'
    'Thistles.'
    Sharpe understood. Along the paths and in the high rocks huge purple thistles grew,

    often as high as a man, and the Spanish, a horse at a time, were thrusting the heads of the

    spiny plants beneath the empty saddles. The first horse began fighting, rearing up, but

    was held firm, until with a final crack over its rump the beast was released and it sprung

    off, infuriated by the pain, the prisoner jerked by the legs and scraped in a cloud of

    dust behind the angry horse.
    The second horse followed, pulling left and right, zigzagging behind the first towards

    the village. The three Spaniards mounted and stood their horses quietly. One had a long

    cigar, and through the telescope Sharpe saw the smoke drift over the fields,
    'Good God.' Knowles stared unbelieving.
    'No need for blasphemy.' Kearsey's gruff reprimand did not hide the excitement in his

    voice.
    The two naked, tied men were invisible in the dust, but, as the horses swerved at a rock,

    Sharpe caught a glimpse, a flash through the cloud, of a body streaked red, and then the horse

    was running again. By now the Frenchmen would be unconscious, the pain gone, but the

    Partisans had guessed right and Sharpe saw the first movement in the village as the gates

    of Cesar Moreno's big house were thrown open and cavalry, hidden all morning, rode on to

    the street. Sharpe saw sky-blue trousers, brown jackets, and the tall fur helmet.

    'Hussars.'
    'Wait. This is the clever bit.' Kearsey could not hide this admiration.
    The Hussars, sabres drawn, cantered down the street to meet the two horses with their

    terrible attachments. It seemed that the Spanish plan was to end in anti-climax, for

    the Hussars would rescue the two bloody and battered Frenchmen at the northern end of the

    village, but then the two horses became aware of the cavalry. They stopped.
    'Jesus,' Harper muttered. He was using Sharpe's glass. 'One of those buggers is

    moving.'
    Sharpe could see him. Far from unconscious, one of the two naked Frenchmen was trying to

    sit up, a writhing mass of blood, but suddenly he was whirled back to the roadway, wrenched

    terribly about, and the horses were moving, away from the Hussars, splitting apart in a

    mad, panicked gallop. Kearsey nodded in satisfaction. 'They won't go near French

    cavalry, not unless they're ridden. They're too used to running from it.'
    There was chaos in the valley. The horses, with their thistle-driven pain, circled

    crazily in the fields; the Hussars, all order gone, tried to ride them down, and the nearer

    the French came to them the more the Spanish horses took the disorganized mass

    northwards. Sharpe guessed there were a hundred Frenchmen, in undisciplined groups,

    crossing and recrossing the fields. He looked back to the village, saw more horsemen

    standing in the street, watching the chase, and he wondered how he would feel if those two

    bodies were his men, and he knew that he would do what the French were doing: try to rescue

    them.
    'Good.' Knowles seemed to have sided, instinctively, with the French.
    One of the horses had been caught and quieted, and dismounted