Sharpe's Triumph (21 page)

So Sergeant Hakeswill would have much preferred not to confront General Wellesley, but
when his convoy reached Ahmednuggur his enquiries established that Colonel McCandless
had ridden north and had taken Sharpe with him, and the Sergeant had known he could do
nothing further without Wellesley's permission and so he had gone to the General's tent
where he announced himself to an orderly who had informed an aide who had commanded the
Sergeant to wait in the shade of a banyan tree.

He waited the best part of a morning while the army readied itself to leave
Ahmednuggur. Guns were being attached to limbers, oxen harnessed to carts and tents
being struck by lascars. The fortress of Ahmednuggur, fearing the same fate as the city,
had meekly surrendered after a few cannon shots and, with both the city and its fort safe
in his hands, Wellesley was now planning to march north, cross the Godavery and seek out
the enemy army. Sergeant Hakeswill had no great wish to take part in that adventure, but he
could see no other way of catching up with Sharpe and so he was resigned to his fate.

“Sergeant Hakeswill?” An aide came from the General's big tent.

“Sir!” Hakeswill scrambled to his feet and stiffened to attention.

“Sir Arthur will see you now, Sergeant.”

Hakeswill marched into the tent, snatched off his shako, turned smartly to the left,
quick-marched three short paces, then slammed to a halt in front of the camp table where the
General was doing paperwork.

Hakeswill stood quivering at attention. His face shuddered.

“At ease, Sergeant,” Wellesley, bare-headed, had barely glanced up from his papers as
the Sergeant entered.

“Sir!” Hakeswill allowed his muscles to relax slightly.

“Papers for you, sir!” He pulled the warrant for Sharpe's arrest from his pouch and
offered it to the General.

Wellesley made no move to accept the warrant. Instead he leaned back in his chair and
examined Hakeswill as though he had never seen the Sergeant before. Hakeswill stood rigid,
his eyes staring at the tent's brown wall above the General's head. Wellesley sighed and
leaned forward again, still ignoring the warrant.

“Just tell me, Sergeant,” he said, his attention already returned to the documents on
his desk. An aide was taking whatever sheets the General signed, sprinkling sand on the
signatures, then placing more papers on the table.

“I'm ordered here by Lieutenant Colonel Gore, sir. To apprehend Sergeant Sharpe,
sir.”

Wellesley looked up again and Hakeswill almost quailed before the cold eyes. He sensed
that Wellesley could see right through him, and the sensation made his face quiver in a
series of uncontrollable twitches.

Wellesley waited for the spasms to end.

“On your own, are you, Sergeant?” the General asked casually.

“Detail of six men, sir.”

“Seven of you! To arrest one man?”

“Dangerous man, sir. I'm ordered to take him back to Hurryhur, sir, so he can ”Spare me
the details," Wellesley said, looking back to the next paper needing his signature. He
tallied up a list of figures.

“Since when did four twelves and eighteen yield a sum of sixty-eight?” he asked no one in
particular, then corrected the calculation before signing the paper.

“And since when did Captain Lampert dispose of the artillery train?”

The aide wielding the sand-sprinkler blushed.

“Colonel Eldredge, sir, is indisposed.” Drunk, if the truth was known, which it was, but
it was impolitic to say that a colonel was drunk in front of a sergeant.

“Then invite Captain Lampert to supper. We must feed him some arithmetic along with a
measure of common sense,” Sir Arthur said. He signed another paper, then rested his pen
on a small silver stand before leaning back and looking at Hakeswill. He resented the
Sergeant's presence, not because he disliked Sergeant Hakeswill, though he did, but rather
because Wellesley had long ago left behind the cares of being the commander of the 33rd
and he did not want to be reminded of those duties now. Nor did he want to be in a
position to approve or disapprove of his successor's orders for that would be an
impertinence.

“Sergeant Sharpe is not here,” he said coldly.

“So I hear, sir. But he was, sir?”

“Nor am I the person you should be troubling with this matter, Sergeant,” Wellesley went
on, ignoring Hakeswill's question. He took up the pen again, dipped it in ink, and crossed a
name from a list before adding his signature.

“In a few days,” he continued, "Colonel McCandless will return to the army and you will
report to him with your warrant and I've no doubt he will give the matter its due
attention.

Till then I shall employ you usefully. I won't have seven men idling while the rest of
the army works." Wellesley turned to the aide.

“Where do we lack men, Barclay?”

The aide considered for a moment.

“Captain Mackay could certainly use some assistance, sir.”

“Very well.” Wellesley pointed the pen's steel nib at Hakeswill.

“You'll attach yourself to Captain Mackay. Captain Mackay commands our bullock train
and you will do whatever he desires until Colonel McCandless relieves you of that duty.
Dismissed.”

“Sir!” Hakeswill said dutifully, but inwardly he was furious that the General had
not shared his indignation about Sharpe. He about-turned, stamped from the tent, and went
to find his men.

“Going to the dogs,” he said bitterly.

“Sergeant?” Flaherty asked.

"The dogs. Time was in this army when even a general officer respected sergeants. Now
we're to be bullock guards. Pick up your bleeding fire locks

“Sharpe ain't here, Sergeant?”

“Of course he ain't here! If he was here we wouldn't be ordered to wipe bullocks' arses,
would we? But he's coming back. General's word on it. Just a few days, lads, just a few days
and he'll be back with all his glittering stones hidden away.” Hakeswill's fury was
abating. At least he had not been ordered to attach himself to a fighting battalion, and
he was beginning to realize that any duty attached to the baggage animals would give
him a fine chance to fillet the army stores. Pickings were to be made there, and more than
just the pickings of stores, for the baggage always travelled with the army's tail of
women and that meant more opportunity. It could be worse, Hakeswill thought, so long as
this Captain Mackay was no martinet.

“You know what the trouble is with this army?” Hakeswill demanded.

“What?” Lowry asked.

“Full of bleeding Scotchmen.” Hakeswill glowered.

"I hates Scotchmen. Not English, are they? Peasant bleeding Scotchmen.

Sawney creatures, they are, sawney! Should have killed them all when we had the chance, but
we takes pity on them instead. Scorpions in our bosoms, that's what they are. Says so in
the scriptures. Now get a bleeding move on!"

But it would only be a few days, the Sergeant consoled himself, only a few days, and
Sharpe would be finished.

Colonel Pohlmann's bodyguard carried McCandless to a small house that lay at the edge of
the encampment. A widow and three children lived there, and the woman shrank away from the
Mahratta soldiers who had raped her, stolen all her food and fouled her well with their
sewage. The Swiss doctor left Sharpe with strict instructions that the dressing on the
Colonel's leg was to be kept damp.

“I'd give you some medicine for his fever, but I have none,” the doctor said, 'so if the
fever gets worse just keep him warm and make him sweat." The doctor shrugged.

“It might help.”

Pohlmann left food and a leather bag of silver coins.

“Tell McCandless that's for his horses,” he told Sharpe.

“Yes, sir.”

“The widow will look after you,” Pohlmann said, 'and when the Colonel's well enough you
can move him to Aurungabad. And if you change your mind, Sharpe, you know I'll welcome you."
The Colonel shook Sharpe's hand, then mounted the silver steps to his howdah. A horseman
unfurled his banner of the white horse of Hanover.

“I'll spread word that you're not to be molested,” Pohlmann called back, then his mahout
tapped the elephant's skull and the great beast set off northwards.

Simone Joubert was the last to say farewell.

“I wish you were staying with us,” she said unhappily.

“I can't.”

“I know, and maybe it's for the best.” She looked left and right to make certain no one was
watching, then leaned swiftly forward and kissed Sharpe on the cheek.

“Au revoir, Richard.”

He watched her ride away, then went back into the hovel which was nothing but a palm
thatch roof set above walls made of decayed reed mats. The interior of the hut was
blackened by years of smoke, and its only furniture was the rope cot on which McCandless
lay.

“She's an outcast,” the Colonel told Sharpe, indicating the woman.

“She refused to jump onto her husband's funeral fire, so her family sent her away.”
The Colonel flinched as a stab of pain scythed through his thigh.

“Give her the food, Sergeant, and some cash out of that bag. How much did Pohlmann leave
us?”

The coins in Pohlmann's bag were of silver and copper, and Sharpe sorted and counted
each different denomination, and McCandless then translated their rough worth into
pounds.

“Sixty!” He announced the total bitterly.

“That might just buy one cavalry hack, but it won't buy a horse that can stay over
country for days on end.”

“How much did your gelding cost, sir?” Sharpe asked.

“Five hundred and twenty guineas,” McCandless said ruefully.

"I bought him four years ago, when you and I were released from Seringapatam, and I
prayed he'd be the last horse I'd ever buy. Except for the mare, of course, but she was just
a remount. Even so she cost me a hundred and forty guineas. A bargain, too! I bought her in
Madras, fresh off the boat and she was just skin and bones then, but two months of pasture put
some muscle on her."

The figures were almost incomprehensible to Sharpe. Five hundred and twenty guineas
for a horse? A man could live his whole life on five hundred and forty-six pounds, and live
well. Ale every day.

“Won't the Company replace the horses, sir?” he asked.

McCandless smiled sadly.

“They might, Sharpe, but I doubt it. I doubt it very much.”

“Why not, sir?”

“I'm an old man,” the Scotsman said, 'and my salary is a heavy impost on the Company's
debit column. I told you they'd like me to retire, Sharpe, and if I indent for the value
of two horses they might well insist on my retirement." He sighed.

"I knew this pursuit of Dodd was doomed.

I felt it in my bones."

“We'll get you another horse, sir,” Sharpe said.

McCandless grimaced.

“How, pray?”

“We can't have you walking, sir. Not a full colonel. Besides, it was my fault,
really.”

“Your fault? Don't be absurd, Sharpe.”

“I should have been with you, sir. But I wasn't. I was off thinking.”

The Colonel looked at him steadily for what seemed a long while.

"I should imagine, Sergeant,“ he said at last, 'that you had a lot to think about. How
was your elephant ride with Colonel Pohlmann?”

“He showed me Aurungabad, sir.”

“I think he took you to the mountain top and showed you the kingdoms of this world,” the
Colonel said.

“What did he offer you? A lieutenancy?”

“Yes, sir.” Sharpe blushed to admit as much, but it was dark inside the widow's hovel
and the Colonel did not see.

“He told you of Benoit de Boigne,” McCandless asked, 'and of that rogue George Thomas? And
he said you could be a rich man in two or three years, aren't I right?"

“Something like that, sir.”

McCandless shrugged.

"I won't deceive you, Sharpe, he's right.

Everything he told you is true. Out there' he waved towards the setting sun which
glinted through the chinks in the reed-mat walls' is a lawless society that for years has
rewarded the soldier with gold. The soldier, mark me, not the honest farmer or the
hard-working merchant. The princedoms grow fat, Sharpe, and the people grow lean, but
there is nothing to stop you serving those princes. Nothing but the oath you took to serve
your King."

“I'm still here, sir, aren't I?” Sharpe said indign andy

“Yes, Sharpe, you are,” McCandless said, then he closed his eyes and groaned.

“I fear the fever is going to come. Maybe not.”

“So what do we do, sir?”

“Do? Nothing. Nothing helps the fever except a week of shivering in the heat.”

“I meant about getting you back to the army, sir. I could go to Aurungabad and see if I
can find someone to take a message.”

“Not unless you speak their language, you won't,” McCandless said, then he lay for a
while in silence.

“Sevajee will find us,” he went on eventually.

“News carries far in this countryside, and Sevajee will smell us out in the end.” Again
he fell silent, and Sharpe thought he had fallen asleep, but then he saw the Colonel shake his
head.

“Doomed,” the Colonel said.

“Lieutenant Dodd is going to be the end of me.”

“We'll capture Dodd, sir, I promise.”

“I pray so, I pray so.” The Colonel pointed to his saddlebags in the corner of the
hut.

“Would you find my Bible, Sharpe? And perhaps you'd read to me while there's still a
little light? Something from the Book of Job, I think.”

McCandless fell into days of fever and Sharpe into days of isolation.

For all he knew the war might have been won or lost, for he saw no one and no news came to
the thatched hovel under its thin-leaved trees. To keep himself busy he cleared out an old
irrigation ditch that ran northwards across the woman's land, and he hacked at the brush,
killed snakes and shovelled earth until he was rewarded by a trickle of water.

That done, he tackled the hovel's roof, laying new palm thatch on the old and binding it
in place with twists of frond. He went hungry, for the woman had little food other than the
grain Pohlmann had left and some dried beans. Sharpe stripped to the waist when he worked and
his skin went as brown as the stock of his musket. In the evenings he played with the woman's
three children, making forts out of the red soil that they bombarded with stones and, in
one memorable twilight, when a toy rampart proved impregnable to thrown pebbles, Sharpe
laid a fuse of powder and blew a breach with three of his musket cartridges.