Читать книгу The Story of a Peninsular Veteran. Sergeant in the Forty-Third Light Infantry, during the Peninsular War онлайн

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Sir John Moore, while earnestly watching the result of the battle about the village of Elvina, was struck on the left breast by a cannon-shot. The shock threw him from his horse with violence. He rose again in a sitting posture. His eye was still fixed on the regiments engaged in his front; and in a few moments, when he was satisfied that the troops were gaining ground, his countenance brightened, and he suffered himself to be taken to the rear. The dreadful nature of the injury he had received was then noticed; the shoulder was shattered in pieces, and the muscles of the breast torn into long strips, which were interlaced by their recoil from the strain and dragging of the shot. As the soldiers placed him in a blanket his sword got entangled, and the hilt entered the wound. Captain Hardinge, a staff officer, who was near, attempted to take it off; but the dying man stopped him, saying: ‘It is as well as it is. I had rather it should go out of the field with me.’ In that manner Sir John was borne from the fight.