“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.”