“Denny!”
The boy came awake, frightened. “Sir!”
“Where’s Knowles?”
“Don’t know, sir. In town, I think.”
Sharpe thought for a second. The boy stared wide-eyed from the mattress. Sharpe’s hand gripped and regripped the sword hilt. “Join me in the courtyard as soon as you’re dressed. Hurry.”
Harper was waiting in the street, where the heat of the sun had seared the stones so that Sharpe could feel the burning even through the soles of his boots. “Sergeant, I want the Light Company on parade in five minutes in the track behind the orchard. Full kit.”
The Sergeant opened his mouth to ask a question, saw the look on Sharpe’s face, and threw a salute instead. He strode off. Denny came out of the courtyard buckling on his sword, which trailed on the stones beside him. He looked apprehensive as Sharpe turned to him. “Listen carefully. You are to find out for me where Colonel Simmerson is and what he is doing. Understand?” The boy nodded. “And you’re not to let him know that’s what you’re doing. Try the castle. Then come and find me. I’ll either be on the track beside the orchard or on the square in front of the timber yard. If I’m not in either place, then find Sergeant Harper and wait with him. Understand?” Denny nodded again. “Repeat it to me.”
The boy went through his instructions. He desperately wanted to ask Sharpe what the excitement was about but dared not. Sharpe nodded when he finished. “One more thing, Christopher.” He deliberately used Denny’s Christian name to give the lad reassurance. “You are not, in any circumstance, to go in the timber yard. Now, be off. If you see Lieutenant Knowles, or Major Forrest, or Captain Leroy, ask them if they’ll join me. Hurry!”
Denny clutched his sword and ran off. Sharpe liked him. One day he would make a good officer, if he was not first spitted on the bayonet of a French Grenadier. Sharpe turned down the hill towards the timber yard and the billets of the men. There was only one chance of averting a disaster and that was to get the Battalion on parade as soon as possible, before Simmerson had time to react to the threat of mutiny. There was a clatter of hooves behind him and he turned to see a rider waving at him. It was Captain Sterritt, the officer of the day, and he looked understand-ably nervous.
“Sharpe!”
“Sterritt?”
Sterritt pulled up his horse. “There’s an officers’ call at the Castle. Now. Everyone.”
“What’s happening?”
Sterritt looked frantically round the deserted street as though someone might overhear the further disaster that had overtaken Simmerson’s Battalion. Sharpe had hardly seen Sterritt since the fight at the bridge. The man was patently frightened of Simmerson, of the men, of Sharpe, of everyone, and deliberately made himself insignificant so as to escape notice. He sketched in the events at the timber yard. Sharpe interrupted him. “I know about that. What’s happening at the castle?”
“The Colonel’s asked to see General Hill.”
There was still time. He looked up at the frightened Captain. “Listen. You haven’t seen me. Understand, Ster-ritt? You have not seen me.”
“But… ”
“No buts. Do you want to see those sixty men shot?”
Sterritt’s mouth dropped open. He looked round the street again and back to Sharpe. “The Colonel’s orders are that no-one is to go near the timber yard.”
“You haven’t seen me so how could I have heard the order?”
“Oh.” Sterritt did not know how to react. He watched Sharpe go on down the street and wished again that he had been born four years earlier; then he would have been the eldest and would now be a gentleman farmer. As it was he felt like a rag doll swept away in a flood. He turned sadly away towards the casde and wondered what would become of it all.
In front of the timber yard was a huge open space like an English village green, except that the grass here was bleached yellow and grew thinly on the shallow soil. The space was used for a weekly market but today it was a football ground for soldiers from a dozen Battalions. Sharpe could see troops from the 48th, the 29th, and a company of Royal American Rifles whose green jackets reminded him of happier days. The men cheered and jeered the players; soon, thought Sharpe, they would have a more interesting spectacle to watch.