“I will, why?”
“Because, Major, you don’t need to come to Wapping to get boys. You can find lads anywhere, magistrates or no magistrates.” Hocking turned his shrewd eyes on Sharpe. “No, Major, you came to me on purpose.”
“I came to you for drummer boys,” Sharpe said, “and no awkward magistrates and no one caring that so many die.”
Hocking still stared at him. “Go on,” he said.
Sharpe hesitated, then seemed to make up his mind. “And girls,” he said.
“Ah.” Hocking half smiled. He understood weakness and greed, and Sharpe, at last, was making sense.
“We hear-” Sharpe began.
“Who’s we?”
“The Colonel and me.”
“And who told you?” Hocking asked fiercely.
“No one told me,” Sharpe said, “but someone told the Colonel. He sent me.”
Hocking leaned back and pulled at his bushy side whiskers as he considered the answer. He found it plausible and nodded. “Your Colonel likes `em young, eh?”
“We both do,” Sharpe said, “young and untouched.”
Hocking nodded again. “The boys will be four pounds apiece and the girls ten a time.”
Sharpe pretended to consider the price, then shrugged. “I want a taste tonight.”
“Girl or boy?” Hocking leered.
“Girl,” Sharpe said.
“You’ve got the money?”
Sharpe patted his sack which stood on the sawdust-strewn floor. “Guineas,” he said.
Another cheer sounded behind the back door and Hocking jerked his head in that direction. “I’ve got business in there, Major, and it’ll take me an hour or two to settle it. I’ll have the girl cleaned up while you wait. But I want five pounds now.”
Sharpe shook his head. “You’ll see my money when I see the girl.”
“Getting particular, are we?” Hocking sneered, though he did not insist on receiving any deposit. “What do you want, Major? A redhead? A blackbird? Fat? Skinny?”
“Just young,” Sharpe said. He felt dirty even though he was merely pretending.
“She’ll be young, Major,” Hocking said and held out his hand to seal the bargain. Sharpe took the hand and suppressed a shudder when Hocking held on to it. Hocking gripped hard, frowning. “It’s strange,” he said, “but you do look familiar.”
“I was raised in Yorkshire,” Sharpe lied. “Maybe you were up there once?”
“I don’t travel to foreign places.” Hocking let go of Sharpe’s hand and stood. “Joe here will show you where to wait, but if I was you, Major, I’d watch the dogs for a while.”
Joe was one of the two young men and he jerked his head to show that Sharpe should follow him through the tavern’s back door. Sharpe knew what to expect there, for when Beaky Malone had been alive Sharpe had helped in that back room which was little more than a long and gloomy shed raised above the yards of three houses. It stank of animals. There were storerooms at either end of the shed, but most of the space had been converted into a makeshift arena of banked wooden benches that enclosed a pit twelve feet in diameter. The pit’s floor was sand and was surrounded by a barrier of planks.
“It’s in there,” Joe said, indicating one of the storerooms. “It ain’t luxury, but there’s a bed.”
“I’ll wait out here,” Sharpe said.
“When the dogs are done,” Joe explained, “wait in the room.”
Sharpe climbed to the topmost bench where he sat close under the roof beams. Six oil lamps hung above the pit, which was spattered with blood. The shed stank of it, and of gin, tobacco and meat pies. There must have been a hundred men on the benches and a handful of women. Some of the spectators watched Sharpe as he climbed the steps. He did not fit in here and the silver buttons of his uniform coat made them nervous. All uniforms unsettled these folk, and spectators made room for him on the bench just as a tall man with a hooked nose climbed over the plank barrier. “The next bout, ladies and gentlemen,” the man bellowed, “is between Priscilla, a two-year-old bitch, and Nobleman, a dog of three years. Priscilla is by way of being the property of Mister Philip Machin”-the name provoked a huge cheer-“while Nobleman,” the man went on when there was silence, “was bred by Mister Roger Collis. You may place your wagers, gentlemen and ladies, and I do bids you all good fortune.”