“Not easy, coming up from the ranks,” Baird admitted. “But if Wallace says you’re a good soldier, then that’s a compliment. And I need a good soldier. I’ve been ordered to find a man who can look after himself in a difficult situation. Someone who ain’t afraid of a fight. I remembered you, but wasn’t sure where to find you. I should have known to look in the Frog Prick. Eat your steak, man. I can’t abide good meat getting cold.”
Sharpe finished the beef as the General’s port and cheese were put on the table. He let Baird pour him a glass before he spoke again. “I was thinking of leaving the army, sir,” he admitted.
Baird looked at him in disgust. “To do what?”
“I’ll find work,” Sharpe said. Maybe he would go to Ebenezer Fairley, the merchant who had shown him friendship on the voyage home from India, or perhaps he would thieve. That was how he had started in life. “I’ll get by,” he said belligerently.
Sir David Baird cut the cheese which crumbled under his knife. “There are three kinds of soldier, Sharpe,” he said. “There are the damned useless ones, and God knows there’s an endless supply of those. Then there are the good solid lads who get the job done, but would piss in their breeches if you didn’t show them how their buttons worked. And then there’s you and me. Soldiers’ soldiers, that’s who we are.”
Sharpe looked skeptical. “A soldier’s soldier?” he asked.
“We’re the men who clean up after the parade, Sharpe. The carriages and kings go by, the bands play, the cavalry prances past like bloody fairies, and what’s left is a mess of dung and litter. We clean it up. The politicians get the world into tangles, then ask their armies to make things right. We do their dirty work, Sharpe, and we’re good at it. Very good. You might not be the best officer in King George’s army, but you’re a bloody fine soldier. And you like the life, don’t tell me you don’t.”
“Being a quartermaster?” Sharpe sneered.
“Aye, that too. Someone has to do it, and as often as not they give it to a man up from the ranks.” He glared at Sharpe and then, unexpectedly, grinned. “So you’ve fallen out with Colonel Beckwith too, have you?”
“I reckon so, sir, yes.”
“How?”
Sharpe considered the question and decided it could not be answered truthfully. He could not say he did not fit into the mess, it was too vague, too self-pitying, so he answered with a half-truth. “They’ve marched off, sir, and left me to clean up the barracks. I’ve fought more battles than any of them, seen more enemies and killed more men than all of them put together, but that don’t count. They don’t want me, sir, so I’m getting out.”
“Don’t be such a bloody fool,” Baird growled. “In a year or two, Sharpe, there’s going to be enough war for every man jack in this army. So far all we’ve been doing is pissing around the edge of the French, but sooner or later we’re going to have to tackle the bastards head-on. We’ll need all the officers we can get then, and you’ll have your chance. You might be a quartermaster now, but ten years from now you’ll be leading a battalion, so just be patient.”
“I’m not sure Colonel Beckwith will want me back, sir. I’m not supposed to be in London. I’m supposed to be at Shorncliffe.”
“Beckwith will do what I tell him,” Baird growled, “and I’ll tell him to kiss your bum if you do this job for me.”
Sharpe liked Baird. Most soldiers liked Baird. He might be a general, but he was as tough as any man in the ranks. He could outswear the sergeants, outmarch the Rifles and outfight any man in green or scarlet. He was a fighter, not a bureaucrat. He had risen high enough in the army, but there were rumors that he had enemies higher still, men who disliked his bluntness. “What kind of job, sir?” Sharpe asked.
“One where you might die, Sharpe,” Baird said with relish. He drained his glass of port and poured another. “We’re sending a guardsman to Copenhagen. Our interest in Copenhagen is supposed to be secret, but I dare sav every French agent in London already knows it. This fellow is going there tomorrow and I want someone to keep him alive. He’s not a real soldier, Sharpe, but an aide to the Duke of York. Not one of those”-he saw Sharpe glancing at the table of theatergoers-“but the same sort of creature. He’s a courtier, Sharpe, not a soldier. You won’t find a better man for standing sentinel over the royal piss pot, but you wouldn’t want to follow him into a breach, not if you wanted to win.”