“What are you doing here, Sergeant?” he asked harshly.
“My duty, sir, as is incumbent on me,” Hakeswill said. As ever, when addressed by an officer, he had straightened to attention, his right foot tucked behind his left, his elbows back and his chest thrust out.
“And what are your duties?” McCandless asked.
“Puckalees, sir. In charge of pucka lees sir, making sure the scavenging little brutes does their duty, sir, and nothing else, sir. Which they does, sir, on account of me looking after them like a father.” He unbent sufficiently to give a swift nod in the direction of the 778th where, sure enough, a group of pucka lees was distributing heavy skins of water they had brought from the river.
“Have you written to Colonel Gore yet?” McCandless asked.
“Have I written to Colonel Gore yet, sir?” Hakeswill repeated the question, his face twitching horribly under the shako’s peak. He had forgotten that he was supposed to have the warrant reissued, for he was relying instead on McCandless’s death to clear the way to Sharpe’s arrest.
Not that this was the place to murder McCandless, for there were a thousand witnesses within view.
“I’ve done everything what ought to be done, sir, like a soldier should,” Hakeswill answered evasively.
“I shall write to Colonel Gore myself,” McCandless now told Hakeswill, ‘because I’ve been thinking about that warrant. You have it?”
“I do, sir.”
“Then let me see it again,” the Colonel demanded.
Hakeswill unwillingly pulled the grubby paper from his pouch and offered it to the Colonel. McCandless unfolded the warrant, quickly scanned the lines, and suddenly the falsity in the words leaped out at him.
“It says here that Captain Morris was assaulted on the night of August the fifth.”
“So he was, sir. Foully assaulted, sir.”
“Then it could not have been Sharpe who committed the assault, Sergeant, for on the night of the fifth he was with me. That was the day I collected Sergeant Sharpe from Seringapatam’s armoury.”
McCandless’s face twisted with distaste as he looked down at the Sergeant.
“You say you were a witness to the assault?” he asked Hakeswill.
Hakeswill knew when he was beaten.
“Dark night, sir,” the Sergeant said woodenly.
“You’re lying, Sergeant,” McCandless said icily, ‘and I know you are lying, and my letter to Colonel Gore will attest to your lying. You have no business here, and I shall so inform Major General Wellesley.
If it was up to me then your punishment would take place here, but that is for the General to decide. You will give me that horse.”
“This horse, sir? I found it, sir. Wandering, sir.”
“Give it here!” McCandless snapped. Sergeants had no business having horses without permission. He snatched the reins from Hakeswill.
“And if you do have duties with the pucka lees Sergeant, I suggest you attend to them rather than plunder the dead. As for this warrant.. .” The Colonel, before Hakeswill’s appalled gaze, tore the paper in two.
“Good day, Sergeant,” McCandless said and, his small victory complete, turned his horse and spurred away.
Hakeswill watched the Colonel ride away, then stooped and picked up the two halves of the warrant which he carefully stowed in his pouch.
“Scotchman,” he spat.
Private Lowry shifted uncomfortably.
“If he’s right, Sergeant, and Sharpie wasn’t there, then we shouldn’t be here.”
Hakeswill turned savagely on the private.
“And since when, Private Lowry, did you dispose of soldiery? The Duke of York has made you an officer, has he? His Grace put braid on your coat without telling me, did he? What Sharpie did is no business of yours, Lowry.” The Sergeant was in trouble, and he knew it, but he was not broken yet.
He turned and stared at McCandless who had given the horse to a dismounted officer and was now in deep conversation with Colonel Wallace. The two men glanced towards Hakeswill and the Sergeant guessed they were discussing him.
“We follows that Scotchman,” Hakeswill said, ‘and this is for the man who puts him under the sod.” He fished a gold coin from his pocket and showed it to his six privates.
The privates stared solemnly at the coin, then, all at once, they ducked as a cannonball screamed low over their heads. Hakeswill swore and dropped flat. Another gun sounded, and this time a barrelful of canister flecked the grass just south of Hakeswill.