“McCandless, sir?”
“A Company colonel, but still a colonel. I’ll need a round-file too, I suspect.”
“I knows Colonel McCandless, sir,” Hakeswill said gloomily. He had shared the Tippoo’s dungeons with McCandless and Sharpe, and he knew the Scotsman disliked him. Which did not matter by itself, for Hakeswill did not like McCandless either, but the Scotsman was a colonel and, as Major Stokes had intimated, when colonels demand, other men obey. Colonel McCandless, Hakeswill decided, could be a problem. But a problem that could wait. The urgent need was to catch up with Sharpe.
“Do you have any convoys going north, sir? To the army, sir?”
“One leaves tomorrow,” Stokes said helpfully, ‘carrying ammunition.
But have you authority to travel?”
“I have authority, sir, I have authority.” Hakeswill touched the pouch where he kept the precious warrant. He was angry that Sharpe had gone, but knew there was little point in displaying the anger. The thing was to catch up with the quarry, and then God would smile on Obadiah Hakeswill’s fortunes.
He explained as much to his detail of six men as they drank in one of Seringapatam’s soldiers’ taverns. So far the six men only knew that they were ordered to arrest Sergeant Sharpe, but Hakeswill had long worked out that he needed to share more information with his chosen men if they were to follow him enthusiastically, especially if they were to follow him northwards to where Wellesley was fighting the Mahrattas. Hakeswill considered them all good men, by which he meant that they were all cunning, violent and biddable, but he still had to make sure of their loyalty.
“Sharpie’s rich,” he told them.
“Drinks when he likes, whores when he likes. He’s rich.”
“He works in the stores,” Private Kendrick explained.
“Always on the fiddle, the stores.”
“And he never gets caught? He can’t be fiddling that much,” Hakeswill said, his face twitching.
“You want to know the truth of Dick Sharpe? I’ll tell you. He was the lucky bugger what caught the Tippoo at Seringapatam.” “Course he weren’t!” Flaherty said.
“So who was it?” Hakeswill challenged them.
“And why was Sharpie made up into a sergeant after the battle? He shouldn’t be a sergeant! He ain’t experienced.”
“He fought well. That’s what Mister Lawford says.” no
“Mister bloody Lawford,” Hakeswill said scathingly.
“Sharpie didn’t get noticed for fighting well! Bleeding hell, boys, I’d be a major-general if that’s all it took! No, it’s my belief he paid his way up to the stripes.”
“Paid?” The privates stared at Hakeswill.
“Stands to reason. No other way. Says so in the scriptures! Bribes, boys, bribes, and I knows where he got the money. I know ‘cos I followed him once. Here in Seringapatam. Down to the goldsmiths’ street, he went, and he did his business and after he done it I went to see the fellow he did it with. He didn’t want to tell me what the business was, but I thumped him a bit, friendly like, and he showed me a ruby.
Like this it was!” The Sergeant held a finger and thumb a quarter-inch apart.
“Sharpie was selling it, see? And where does Sharpie get a prime bit of glitter?”
“Off the Tippoo?” Kendrick said wonderingly.
“And do you know how much loot the Tippoo had? Weighed down with it, he was! Had more stones on him than a Christmas whore, and you know where those stones are?”
“Sharpe,” Flaherty breathed.
“Right, Private Flaherty,” Hakeswill said.
“Sewn into his uniform seams, in his boots, hidden in his pouches, tucked away in his hat. A bloody fortune, lads, which is why when we gets him, we don’t want him to get back to the battalion, do we?”
The six men stared at Hakeswill. They knew they were his favourites, and all of them were in his debt, but now they realized he was giving them even more reason to be grateful.
“Equal shares, Sergeant?” Private Lowry asked.
“Equal shares?” Hakeswill exclaimed.
“Equal? Listen, you horrid toad, you wouldn’t have no chance of any share, not one, if it wasn’t for my loving kindness. Who chose you to come on this parish outing?”
“You did, Sergeant.”