Sharpe's Regiment (24 page)

He crossed Whitehall, stepped round a pile of horse-dung that was being swept from the Horse Guards’ courtyard, returned the salute of the sentries, and nodded at the porter who opened the door to him. Another porter, resplendent in his uniform, eyed Sharpe suspiciously as he came to the long table where he must state his business. ‘Your name, sir?’

‘Major Richard Sharpe. South Essex.’

‘Of course, sir. You was here a few days back.’ The man, as big as Harper, had lost one eye. He was an old soldier, discharged wounded from the war, and, because Sharpe was a fighting man and not a uniformed administrator, he unbent enough to give the Rifleman a smile. ‘And what can we do for you today, sir?’

‘I’ve come to see the Duke of York.’

The smile went. ‘At what time, sir?’ The question was polite, but there was an undoubted warning in the words.

‘I don’t have an appointment.’

The porter, rocking slowly up and down on the balls of his feet, stared with his one good eye at the Rifleman. ‘You don’t have an appointment, sir?’ He said each word very slowly and distinctly.

‘No.’

‘His Royal Highness, the Duke of York,’ the porter said as though the King’s second son was on intimate terms with him, ‘will see no one without an appointment, sir. If you’d like to write your business, sir.’ He waved an imperious hand towards a writing desk that was set beneath the windows which opened onto Whitehall.

‘I shall wait,’ Sharpe said.

He refused to be dissuaded, just as he refused to put on paper the nature of his business. He insisted that he would wait until the Commander in Chief would see him, sat in a leather armchair beside an empty grate and turned a deaf ear to all the porter’s entreaties.

Men came and went in the hallway. Some looked curiously at the Rifle officer; others, sensing that he was being importunate, looked hurriedly away. Sharpe himself, as the great clock by the stairway ticked heavily through the morning, gazed up at a great oil painting above the fireplace. It showed the battle of Blenheim, and Sharpe stared at it for so long that it almost seemed as if the red lines of British infantry were moving before his eyes. Not much had changed, he thought, in a hundred years. The infantry lines were thinner now, but battlefields looked much the same. He yawned.

‘Major Sharpe?’

A staff officer, perfectly uniformed, smiled at him.

‘Yes.’

‘Captain Christopher Messines. Most honoured, sir. Would you like to step this way?’

The porter gave Sharpe a look that seemed to say “I told you so,” as Sharpe followed Messines through a doorway. They went down a hallway hung with paintings, and into a small reception room that looked out to the parade ground. Messines gestured to a chair. ‘Coffee, Major? Tea, perhaps? Sherry, even?’

‘Coffee.’

Messines went to a sideboard where silver pots waited and, into two tiny, fragile cups decorated with blue flowers, poured coffee. ‘You wanted to see His Royal Highness? Do please sit, Major. No need for ceremony. A water-biscuit, perhaps? The weather really is splendid, isn’t it? Quite wonderful!’ Messines seemed fascinated by the two crusts of blood on Sharpe’s cheeks, but was far too well bred to think of asking how they had come to be there.

Messines was charming. He regretted that His Royal Highness was consumed with work, and that, even as they spoke, His Royal Highness’s carriage was waiting outside, and the Lord alone knew when he would be back, but if Major Sharpe cared to tell Captain Messines the nature of his business?

Major Sharpe would not.

Captain Messines blinked as though Sharpe must have misunderstood, then gave his most winning smile. ‘Isn’t it splendid coffee? I believe the beans for this brew were captured at Vitoria. You were there, of course?’

‘Yes.’

Messines sighed. ‘His Royal Highness really will not see random visitors, Major. I do hope you understand.’

Sharpe drained the small cup. ‘You’re telling me it’s hopeless to wait?’

‘Quite hopeless.’ Messines gave his engaging smile to soften the bad news.

Sharpe stood. He pulled the great sword straight in its slings. ‘I’m sure the Prince of Wales would be fascinated by my news.’

It was a shot at random, but it must have struck home, for Messines raised both hands in a gesture of placation. ‘My dear Major Sharpe! Please! Sit down, I beg you!’

Sharpe guessed that there was little love lost between the pleasure-loving Prince of Wales and his sterner brother, the Duke of York. The Duke, whose ineptness as a General had given currency to a mocking little rhyme that described how, in his Flanders campaign, he had marched ten thousand men to the top of a hill and marched them down again, had nevertheless proved an efficient, meticulous, and mostly honest administrator. There had only been one scandal, when his mistress had been found selling commissions, and Sharpe’s words suggested, rightly, that the Prince would relish another scandal that would sully his younger brother’s stern reputation. Messines smiled. ‘If you could just tell me what it’s about, Major?’

‘No.’ Sharpe had decided that his words should be only for the Duke, for the Commander in Chief. There were other men in this building, important men, but he did not know which of them were involved, like Fenner, in the Foulness business. It had even occurred to him that perhaps there were other camps doing the same crimping trade.

Messines sighed again. He steepled his fingers and stared at a print of cavalrymen that hung on one wall, then shrugged at Sharpe. ‘You may be in for a very long wait, sir.’

‘I don’t mind.’

Messines gave up. He invited Sharpe to stay in the small room, even fetching a copy of that morning’s
Times
for him.

The newspaper shocked Sharpe. It printed a report from San Sebastian on Spain’s northern coast and it appeared, though this was not the burden of the report, that at least one assault on the town had failed and the British army, however optimistic the newspaper sounded, was baulked and taking casualties. It was what followed that shocked Sharpe. The newspaper was reporting a victory, though its report was confusing, and Sharpe, who had been told by Major General Nairn that the rest of this summer would see a lull in the war, now read that a French thrust over the Pyrenees had been repulsed after grim fighting. There was a list of casualties on an inside page and Sharpe read it intently. There was no mention of any man from the shrunken South Essex, so perhaps, he thought, they still guarded the Pasajes wharfs.

He stared into the parade ground. Men were fighting and dying in Spain and he was here! It struck him as a bitter fate. His place was not here where men drank their coffee from small, exquisite cups.

A clock in the passage struck eleven.

He read the rest of the paper. There was no other news from Spain. There had been riots because of the high price of bread in Leicestershire and the militia had been called out and found it necessary to fire a volley of musketry into the crowd. A weaving mill in Derbyshire had been broken into by a mob who feared that its machinery would take away their jobs. The mill’s looms had been smashed with hammers, and its wheel-shaft damaged by fire, causing the magistrates to call out the local militia. He turned back to the report from Spain. A battle had been fought at Sorauren. He had never heard of the place, and he wondered if it was in France or Spain, for the border was intricate in the Pyrenees, but then he reflected that the
Times
would surely have said if any British troops had crossed the frontier. He wanted to be there when it happened. He wanted to be there with his own regiment.

The clock struck twelve and the door behind him opened. ‘Richard! By all the Gods! Richard!’ Sharpe turned, startled by the good-natured interruption. A one-armed man, elegantly dressed in civilian clothes; a handsome man, smiling in unforced welcome, faced him. ‘My dear Sharpe! I had business with the Adjutant General and the porter told me you were here!’

‘Sir!’ Sharpe smiled in genuine pleasure.

‘My dear Richard! How very good to see you, and almost properly dressed!’

Sharpe shook the one hand. ‘How are you, sir?’

‘My dear fellow! I’m wondrously healthy. You look very good yourself, very good indeed.’ The Honourable William Lawford was pumping Sharpe’s hand up and down. ‘Except for your face. Had a fight with a cat?’

Lawford was plumper than in the days when he had been the South Essex’s Lieutenant Colonel, and much plumper than when he had been a Lieutenant in India and Sharpe had been his Sergeant. They had been imprisoned together by the Sultan Tippoo, and in those days Lieutenant Lawford had been thin as a ramrod. Now, out of the army, and evidently prospering as a civilian, he had spread in the waist and his handsome face was rounded with good living and success. ‘What are you doing here, Richard?’

‘I’m hoping to see the Duke.’

‘My dear fellow! You’ll wait in vain! He’s gone to Windsor and I doubt we’ll see him again this week. You’ll take some lunch?’

Sharpe hesitated, but Lawford’s certainty that the Duke would not be returning to the Horse Guards swayed him. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Splendid.’

Lawford had a carriage; a rich, high, open vehicle drawn by four horses and driven by liveried servants. They crossed the parade ground at a fast clip and Lawford raised his cane to acknowledge a greeting from a horseman who came from the park. He smiled at Sharpe. ‘I heard you were in London. You saw Prinny, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘What a fool he is! Almost took my head off with the sword when he gave me the knighthood.’ He laughed, but Sharpe sensed that the true message being given was that Lawford was now Sir William.

‘You were knighted?’

‘Yes.’ Lawford smiled modestly at Sharpe’s evident admiration. ‘All nonsense, of course, but Jessica approves.’

Sharpe gestured at the coach they sat in. ‘You must be prospering, sir!’

‘That’s kind of you, Sharpe!’ Sir William smiled. ‘I’ve a few acres these days. I’m in the Commons, of course.’ He laughed as though it was a minor thing. ‘I sit as a magistrate and send a few villains to Australia as well. It keeps me busy, what? Ah! Here we are!’

They had passed St James’s Palace, stopped on the hill beyond, and servants hastened to open the carriage door. Lawford gestured Sharpe forward, then up some steps into a great hallway where Sir William was greeted by obsequious servants. It was evidently a gentlemen’s club. Sharpe was relieved of his sword and ushered into the dining room.

Lawford took Sharpe’s elbow. ‘They do a cold spiced beef, Richard, which I really must recommend. The salmagundi is truly the best in London. Turtle soup, perhaps? Ah, this table, splendid.’

The meal was excellent. It seemed odd to think that their last meeting had been in the convent at Ciudad Rodrigo where, the city still stinking of fire and cannon-smoke, Lawford had lain in bed with his left arm newly amputated. Lawford laughed at the memory. ‘Seems I was damned lucky to miss Badajoz, yes?’

‘It was bad.’

‘You survived, Richard!’ Lawford raised his glass of claret and signalled with his head for the waiter to bring another bottle.

Cigars were given to them and Sharpe admiringly watched the skill with which Lawford used his one hand to clip and light the cigar. He refused to let the waiter do it, preferring, he said, always to cut his own. He blew out a plume of smoke. ‘So why on earth were you trying to see York?’

Sharpe told him. He wanted to tell someone, and who better than this Member of Parliament, magistrate, and old soldier with whom he had fought on two continents.

Lawford listened, sometimes asking a question, more often prompting Sharpe to continue. His shrewd eyes watched the Rifleman and, if the story of Foulness astonished him, he took care to hide it. Indeed, the only real surprise he showed was when Sharpe described the attempt in the rookery to murder him.

When the tale was told Lawford put his cigar down and sipped at some brandy. He swirled the liquid in his glass and stared at Sharpe. ‘So what’s your private interest, Richard?’

‘Private?’ Sharpe was puzzled.

Lawford retrieved his cigar and sketched a gesture in the air, leaving a trail of smoke. ‘What do you personally want out of it?’

Sharpe paused. This was not the moment to talk of Jane Gibbons, or his wish to save her from an odious marriage. ‘I just want men to take to Spain. I want a Battalion to fight into France.’

‘Ah!’ Lawford seemed surprised that Sharpe should want nothing more. ‘I see, I see. Who else have you told?’

‘No one.’

‘Except your Sergeant, of course. He’s well, is he?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Do tell him I asked. Splendid fellow, for an Irishman.’ Lawford frowned. ‘You say he killed a militia man?’

‘We killed one.’

Lawford smiled at the “we”. ‘A trifle clumsy, perhaps? Better not to have done it.’

‘They were trying to kill us!’

‘Bound to be questions asked, Richard, bound to be! Fellows will be up on their hind legs embarrassing the government. It’s really too bad.’

‘Say they were chasing smugglers!’ Sharpe could not understand this concern for a dead militia man that did not seem extended to Sir Henry’s peculations.

‘Brilliant! Smugglers! Very good, Richard. We’ll do that.’ He leaned forward and laid the stub of his cigar on a silver plate. ‘You do have some proof of these auctions, Richard, of course? Account books, records, tedious paperwork?’ He smiled.

‘Accounts?’

‘Proof, Richard, proof.’

‘I saw it!’

Sir William shook his head slowly, then sipped his brandy. ‘My dear Sharpe! All you saw were some soldiers on Simmerson’s lawn! The rest is surmise!’ Sharpe had said nothing about Jane Gibbons or what she had told him, though now, facing Lawford’s sceptical face, he doubted whether her testimony would add any weight to his argument.