“How did the Tippoo die?” he asked after a while.
“And don’t lie to me, Sharpe, it must have been you who killed him.”
“Like a man, sir. Bravely. Facing front, he was. Never gave up.”
“He was a good soldier,” McCandless said, reflecting that the Tippoo had been beaten by a better one.
“I trust you’ve still got some of his jewels?”
“Jewels, sir?” Sharpe asked.
“I don’t know about jewels, sir.”
“Of course not,” McCandless said. If the Company ever heard that Sharpe was carrying the Tippoo’s gems their prize agents would descend on the Sergeant like locusts.
“Thank you, Sharpe,” McCandless said fulsomely, ‘thank you very much. I shall repay you, of course, but you’ve touched me.
“Pon my soul, you have touched me.” He insisted upon shaking Sharpe’s hand, then watched the Sergeant walk away with the General’s orderly. So much sin there, McCandless thought, and so much goodness. But why had Pohknann ever put the idea of a commission into Sharpe’s head? It was an impossible dream, doomed to disappointment.
Another man also watched Sharpe walk away. It was Private Lowry, of the King’s 33rd, who now hurried back to the baggage camp. Tt was him, Sergeant,” he told Hakeswill.
“You sure?”
“Large as life.”
“God bless you, Lowry, God bless you.” And God, Hakeswill thought, had certainly blessed him. He had feared that he would have to endure a battle, but now Sharpe had come and Hakeswill could produce his precious warrant and be on his way south. Let the army fight its battle, and let it win or lose, Hakeswill did not care, for Sergeant Hakeswill had what he wanted and he would be rich.
CHAPTER 8
General Wellesley was like a gambler who had emptied his purse onto the table and now had to wait for the cards to fall. There was still time to scoop the money back and walk away from the game, but if he ever felt that temptation, he did not betray it to his aides, nor to any of the army’s senior officers. The colonels in his army were all older than Wellesley, some much older, and Wellesley courteously sought their advice, though he largely ignored it. Orrock, a Company colonel and commander of the 78th Madras Infantry, recommended an extravagant outflanking march to the east, though so far as Wellesley could determine the only ambition of such a manoeuvre was to remove the army as far as possible from the enemy horde. The General was forced to pay more attention to his two Williams, Wallace and Harness, the commanding officers of his two Scottish battalions who were also his brigade leaders.
“If we join Stevenson, sir, we might manage the business,” Wallace opined, his tone making it clear that, even combined, the two British armies would be dangerously outnumbered.
“I’ve no doubt Harness will agree with me, sir,” Wallace added, though William Harness, the commander of the 778th, seemed surprised to have his opinion sought.
“Your business how you fight them, Wellesley,” he growled.
“Point my men and I warrant they’ll fight. The bastards had better fight. I’ll flog the scum witless if they don’t.”
Wellesley forbore to point out that if the 778th refused to fight then there would be no one left to flog, for there would be no army. Harness would not have listened anyway, for he had taken the opportunity to lecture the General on the ameliorative effects of a flogging.
“My first colonel liked to see one well-scourged back a week, Wellesley,” he said.
“He reckoned it kept the men to their duty. He once flogged a sergeant’s wife, I recall. He wanted to know if a woman could take the pain, you see, and she couldn’t. The lass was fair wriggling.” Harness sighed, recalling happier days.
“D’you dream, Wellesley?”
“Dream, Harness?”
“When you sleep.”
“At times.”
“A flogging will stop it. Nothing to bring on a good night’s sleep like a well-whipped back.” Harness, a tall black-browed man who seemed to wear a constant expression of wide-eyed disapproval, shook his head sadly.
“A dreamless sleep, that’s what I dream of! Loosens the bowels too, y’know?”
“Sleep?”
“A flogging!” Harness snapped angrily.