“Poor man,” he said, and he guided the elephant through the gate into the courtyard.
“I’ll make sure you’re brought some food,” he told the beast, then he turned and barred the gate.
He left the courtyard through the house, picking his way across the welter of bodies in the kitchen. He pushed open the outer door and found himself staring into Sergeant Hakeswill’s blue eyes.
“I’ve been looking for you, sir,” Hakeswill said.
“You and I have no business, Sergeant,” McCandless said.
“Oh, but we does, sir,” Hakeswill said, and his three men blocked the alley behind him.
“I wanted to talk to you, sir,” Hakeswill said, ‘about that letter you ain’t going to write to my Colonel Gore.”
McCandless shook his head.
“I have nothing to say to you, Sergeant.”
“I hates the bleeding Scotch,” Hakeswill said, his face twitching.
“All prayers and morals, ain’t you, Colonel? But I ain’t cumbered with morals. It’s an advantage I have.” He grinned, then drew his bayonet and slotted it onto the muzzle of his musket.
“They hanged me once, Colonel, but I lived ‘cos God loves me, He does, and I ain’t going to be punished again, not ever. Not by you, Colonel, not by any man. Says so in the scriptures.” He advanced on McCandless with the bayonet. His three men hung back and McCandless reckoned they were nervous, but Hakeswill showed no fear of this confrontation.
“Put up your weapon, Sergeant,” McCandless snapped.
“Oh, I will, sir, I’ll put it up inside you unless you promises me on the holy word of God that you won’t write no letter.”
“I shall write the letter tonight,” McCandless said, then drew his claymore.
“Now put up your weapon, Sergeant.”
Hakes wilTs face twitched. He stopped three paces from McCandless.
“You’d like to strike me down, wouldn’t you, sir?
“Cos you don’t like me, sir, do you? But God loves me, sir, he does. He looks after me.”
“You’re under arrest, Sergeant,” McCandless said, ‘for threatening an officer.”
“Let’s see who God loves most, sir. Me or you.”
“Put up your weapon!” McCandless roared.
“Bloody Scotch bastard,” Hakeswill said, and pulled his trigger. The bullet caught McCandless in the gullet and blew out through the back of his spine, and the Colonel was dead before his body touched the floor. The elephant in the nearby courtyard, startled by the shot, trumpeted, but Hakeswill ignored the beast.
“Scotch bastard,” he said, then stepped through the doorway and knelt to the body which he searched for gold.
“And if any one of you three says a bleeding word,” he threatened his men, ‘you’ll join him in heaven. If he’s gone there, which I doubt, on account of God not wanting to clutter paradise with Scotchmen. Says so in the scriptures.” He found gold in McCandless’s sporran and turned to show the coins to his men.
“You want it?” he asked.
“Then you keeps silent about it.”
They nodded. They wanted gold. Hakeswill tossed them the coins, then led them deeper into the house to see if there was anything worth plundering in its rooms.
“And once we’re done,” he said, ‘we’ll find the General, we will, and have him give us Sharpie. We’re almost there, lads. It’s been a long road, it has, and hard in places, but we’re almost there.”
Sharpe searched the village for Colonel McCandless, but could not find him in any of the alleys. He took Simone with him as he searched some of the larger houses and, from one high window, he found himself staring down into the courtyard where Pohlmann’s great elephant was penned, but there was no sign of McCandless and Sharpe decided he was wasting his time.
“I reckon we’ll give up, love,” he told Simone.
“He’ll look for me, like enough, probably down by the river.” They walked back to the ford. Pohlmann had vanished and Dodd’s men had long disappeared. The sun was at the horizon now and the farmlands north of the Juah were stained black by long shadows. The men who had captured the village were filling their canteens from the river, and the first few campfires glittered in the dusk as men boiled water to make themselves tea. Simone clung to him and kept talking of her husband.