“I should damn well hope you do,” Sir David growled. “Is there a jakes in this damn place?”
“That way, sir.” The young man pointed.
“This is Sharpe,” Baird said harshly. “He’s replacing Willsen, God rest his soul, and this”-Baird was talking to Sharpe now-“is the man you’re keeping alive. Captain Lavisser, or should I say Captain and Major Lavisser? The bloody Guards need two ranks. Bloody fools.”
Lavisser gave Sharpe a rather startled look when he heard that the rifleman was to replace the dead Willsen, but then, as the General went to find the lavatory, the guardsman smiled and his face, which had looked sour and cynical to Sharpe, was suddenly full of friendly charm. “So you’re to be my companion?” he asked.
“So it seems, sir.”
“Then I trust we shall be friends, Sharpe. With all my heart.” Lavisser thrust out a hand. Sharpe took it clumsily, embarrassed by Lavisser’s effusive friendliness. “Poor Willsen,” the Captain went on, clasping Sharpe’s hand in both of his. “To be murdered in the street! And he leaves a widow, it seems, and a daughter too. Just a child, just a child.” He looked pained, then turned to see his guardsmen struggling to move a great wooden chest from the cart. “I think the gold should go inside the carriage,” he suggested.
“Gold?” Sharpe asked.
Lavisser turned to him. “You’ve not been told the purpose of our journey?”
“I’m to keep you alive, sir, that’s all I know.”
“For which I shall be eternally grateful. But our purpose, Sharpe, is to carry gold to the Danes. Forty-three thousand guineas! We travel rich, eh?” Lavisser hauled open the carriage door, motioned his men to bring the chest of gold, then noticed the carriage’s last passenger, the pale civilian in the silver coat. Lavisser looked astonished. “God, Pumps! Are you here?”
Pumps, if that was his real name, merely fluttered his fingers again, then shifted his elegantly booted feet as the gold was manhandled onto the carriage floor. An escort of twenty dragoons took their places ahead of the carriage, then Sir David Baird came back and complained that the chest took up all the coach’s leg room. “I suppose we’ll have to endure it,” he grumbled, then rapped on the coach’s roof to signal that the journey could begin.
The General’s mood improved as the coach jolted through the soot-grimed orchards and vegetable fields about Hackney where a fitful sun chased shadows over woods and low hills. “You know Lord Pumphrey?” Baird asked Lavisser, indicating the frail young man who still seemed to be asleep.
“William and I were at Eton together,” Lavisser answered.
Pumphrey opened his eyes, peered at Lavisser as though surprised to see him, shuddered and closed his eyes again.
“You and I should have been to Eton,” Baird said to Sharpe. “We’d have learned useful things, like which side of the pot to piss in. Did you have breakfast, Lavisser?”
“The Lieutenant of the Tower was very hospitable, thank you, sir.”
“They like guardsmen in the Tower,” Baird said, implying that real soldiers would not be so welcome. “Captain Lavisser”-he spoke to Sharpe now-“is an aide to the Duke of York. I told you that, didn’t I? But did I tell you how useless His Royal Highness is? Bloody man thinks he’s a soldier. He buggered up his campaign in Holland in `99 and now he’s Commander in Chief. That’s what happens to you, Sharpe, when you’re the King’s son. Fortunately”-Baird, who was plainly enjoying himself, turned to Lavisser-“fortunately for you royal camp-followers the army has still got one or two real soldiers. Lieutenant Sharpe is one of them. He’s a rifleman in case you don’t recognize that bloodstained green rag, and he’s a thug.”
Lavisser, who had taken no offense as his master was insulted, looked puzzled. “He’s a what, sir?”
“You weren’t in India, were you?” Sir David asked, making the question sound like an accusation. “A thug, Lavisser, is a killer, a brute, conscienceless and efficient killer. I’m a thug, Lavisser, and so is Mister Sharpe. You are not, and nor are you, Gordon.”
“I nightly give thanks to the Almighty for that providence,” Baird’s aide said happily.