“Yes, Richard, unless you have money or influence.”
Sharpe grinned. “Thank you, sir. I’ll go and join the happy throng. I presume my Riflemen come with me?”
Lawford nodded. “Good luck.” He watched Sharpe go. If any man could pluck an Eagle from the French, he thought that the newly made Captain, Richard Sharpe, was that man. Lawford stood in the window and looked down into the street. He saw Sharpe step into the sunlight and put the battered shako on his head; a huge Sergeant was waiting in the shade, the kind of man Lawford would happily wager a hundred guineas on in a bare-fisted prize fight, and he watched as the Sergeant walked up to Sharpe. The two men talked for a moment, and then the big Sergeant clapped the officer’s back and uttered a whoop of joy that Lawford could hear two floors above.
“Lawford!”
“Sir?” Lawford crossed to the other room and took the despatch from Wellesley’s hand. The General rattled the quill in the ink-pot.
“Did you explain to him?”
“Yes, sir.”
Wellesley shook his head. “Poor devil. What did he say?”
“He said he’d take his chance, sir.”
Wellesley grunted. “We all have to do that.” He picked up another piece of paper. “My God! They’ve sent us four cases of gum ammoniac, three of Glauber’s salts, and two hundred assorted stump-caps! They think I’m running a bloody hospital instead of an army!”
CHAPTER 11
The boots of the Coldstream Guards rang on the flag-stones, echoing hollowly in the darkness, fading down the steep street to be replaced by the leading companies of the 3rd Guards. They were followed by the first Battalion of the 61st, the second of the 83rd, and then by four full Battalions of the crack King’s German Legion. Sharpe, standing in a church porch, watched the Germans march past.
“They’re good troops, sir.”
Forrest, shivering despite a greatcoat, peered into the darkness. “What are they?”
“King’s German Legion.”
Forrest thrust his hands deeper into his pockets. “I’ve not seen them before.”
“You wouldn’t have, sir.” The Germans were a foreign corps of the army, and the law said they were allowed no nearer the British mainland than the Isle of Wight. Overhead the church clock struck three times. Three o’clock on the morning of Monday, 17th July, 1809, and the British army was leaving Plasencia. A company of the 60th went past, another German unit, with the incongru-ous title of the Royal American Rifles. Forrest saw Sharpe staring ruefully at the marching Riflemen with their green jackets and black belts.
“Homesick, Sharpe?”
Sharpe grinned in the darkness. “I’d rather it was the other Rifle Regiment, sir.” He yearned for the sanity of the 95th rather than the worsening suspicion and moroseness that was infecting Simmerson’s Battalion.
Forrest shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sharpe.”
“Don’t be, sir. I’m a Captain at last.”
Forrest ignored the statement. “He showed me the letter, you know.” Sharpe knew. Forrest kept apologising and had mentioned the letter twice already. Dereliction of duty, gross disobedience, even the word `treason’ had found its place into Simmerson’s scathing account of Sharpe’s actions at Valdelacasa; but none of that was surprising. What had disturbed Sharpe was Simmerson’s final re-quest: that Sharpe be posted, as a Lieutenant, to a Battalion in the West Indies. No one ever purchased a commission in one of those Battalions, even though promotion was quicker there than anywhere else in the army, and Sharpe had even known men resign rather than go to the sun-drenched islands with their lazy garrison duty.
“It may not happen, Sharpe.” Forrest’s tone betrayed that he thought Sharpe’s fate was sealed.
“No, sir.” Not if I can help it, thought Sharpe, and he imagined an Eagle in his hands. Only an Eagle could save him from the islands where fever reduced a man’s life expectancy to less than a year, from the dreadful, sweating disease that made Simmerson’s request into a virtual death warrant unless Sharpe resigned his hard-won commission.
Almost every unit marched before them. Five Regi-ments of Dragoons and the Hussars of the King’s German Legion, over three thousand cavalry in all, followed by an army of mules carrying fodder for the precious horses. The cumbersome artillery with their guns, limbers, and portable forges added even more mules, more supplies, but mostly it was infantry who disturbed the quiet streets. Twenty-five Battalions of unglamorous infantry, with stained uniforms and worn boots, the men who had to stand and face the world’s best artillerymen and cavalry; and with them marched even more mules mixed up with the Battalions’ women and children.