‘Riflemen!’ Nairn bridled, Kinney smiled. ‘Why do you think only Riflemen! D’you think no one else can fight in this army?’
‘Because I saw many uniforms there, sir, but I didn’t see one Rifleman. On that night anyone not in a green uniform is an enemy.’
Nairn grunted. ‘But you didn’t see all of his men.’
‘No, sir.’ Sharpe was placatory, yet all of them knew that less men deserted from the Rifles than from other Regiments. Nairn glanced at Sir Augustus’ red, black and gold. ‘Riflemen, then. What else?’
There was one other thing, but it would all be in vain unless Sharpe knew in which building the hostages were kept. He said as much and Nairn smiled slowly, mischievously. ‘But we do know.’
‘We do?’ Sharpe was surprised, remembered to add, ‘sir?’We do, we do.’ Nairn grinned at them. Kinney waited. Sir Augustus looked annoyed. ‘Perhaps you’d care to enlighten us, sir?’
‘My duty and my pleasure, Sir Augustus.’ Nairn closed his eyes, leaned far back, and raised his right hand dramatically. His voice was declamatory. ‘Line after line my gushing eyes o’erflow, Led through a something-something woe: Now warm in love!’ He had raised his voice to a triumphant shout on the word ‘love’, now he lowered it conspiratorially, his eyes opening. ‘… Now with’ring in my bloom, Lost in a convent’s solitary gloom!’
Nairn grinned impishly. ‘Alexander Pope. From Heloise and Abelard. A sad tale of a young man gelded in his prime. That’s what comes of too much love. So! They’re in the Convent. She’s a clever lassie, that Frenchman’s wife.’ Kinney leaned forward. ‘How many Riflemen?’
‘Two Companies, sir?’
Kinney nodded. ‘Can they hold the Convent overnight?’
Sharpe nodded back. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘So you’d need relief in the morning, yes?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Kinney looked at Nairn. ‘It’s as we discussed, sir. One small group to go in and secure the ladies, and a Battalion to come up in the morning to punish the men. There’s one thing worries me, though.’
Nairn raised an eyebrow. ‘Go on.’
‘They may be deserters, but I think we can assume they are not fools. If you go in at night.’ He was looking at Sharpe, Sir Augustus’ request utterly forgotten or ignored. ‘If you go in, Major, don’t you think they’ll be expecting something of the sort? There’ll be sentries, there’ll be a picquet line. It’s a risk, Sharpe, and though I don’t mind a risk, you might find that they have enough time to take their vengeance on the ladies.’
Sir Augustus nodded, seeming to have changed his mind about the desirability of any rescue. ‘I agree with Kinney.’
Nairn looked at Sharpe. ‘Well, Major?’
‘I had thought of that, sir.’ He smiled. This was the second idea, the better idea. ‘I thought of going in on Sowan’s Night.’
Nairn grinned. Automatically he corrected Sharpe. ‘Sowan’s Nicht! I like it, man! I like it! Sowan’s Nicht! The bastards will all be flat on their backs with the drink!’
Sowan’s Nicht, the Scottish name for Christmas Eve, the night when any soldier could expect to get hopelessly, helplessly drunk. In England it was the night for Frumenty, a lethal drink of husked wheat grain boiled in milk and then liberally soused with rum and egg-yolks to be drunk until insensate. Christmas Eve.
Kinney nodded, smiling. ‘We were the first to be caught by that trick, we might as well use it ourselves.’ He was referring to the Christmas Eve of 1776 when George Washington caught the garrison of Trenton unawares, the defenders believing that no war would be waged over Christmas. Then Kinney shook his head. ‘But.’
‘But?’ Nairn asked.
Kinney seemed to subside, the hope of repeating Washington’s trick going. ‘Christmas Day, sir, when you want my men to relieve Major Sharpe. It’s scarce five days away, sir.’ He shook his head. ‘I can do it! I can have the men there, but I don’t much like going empty handed. I’d have a thought to an extra ration issue, sir, and if the French are likely to be poking themselves into the place then I’d be glad of a full spare issue of cartridge.’ He could be talking, Sharpe knew, of up to a thousand pounds of dried beef and over forty thousand cartridges. Kinney’s face grew more dubious. ‘All the mules are gone, sir. They’d take a week to get back here from winter pasture.’ The mules, like the British cavalry, were mostly wintering in the plumper land near the sea.