The cold was Sharpe’s biggest worry. It had been colder during the night, but the men had been moving, while now they were immobile, unable to light any fires, and frozen by a wind that blew the length of their hiding place and brought with it an intermittent drizzle. After the patrol had gone Sharpe had started a childish game of tag, its bounds restricted by an imaginary contour halfway up the gully, its most important rule silence. It forced warmth into men and officers, and the game had run for more than two hours. Whenever an officer was in the game it became more boisterous. The tag was passed by forcing another player to the ground and Sharpe had twice been tackled with bone-crunching glee, both times repaying the tag on the same man. Now, as the light was beginning to fade, the men were sitting with their weapons, intent on the preparations for the night.
Patrick Harper had Sharpe’s sword. It was a blade that Harper himself had bought, repaired, and given to Sharpe when it was feared Sharpe was dying in the army hospital at Salamanca. It was a Heavy Cavalry sword, huge and straight bladed, clumsy because of its weight, but a killer wielded with strength. The man who had shot him, the Frenchman Leroux who had brought Sharpe so close to death, had died beneath this sword. Harper sharpened the blade with long strokes of his hand-stone. He had worked the point to needle sharpness and now he held the handle out to Sharpe. ‘There, sir. Like new.’
Next to Harper was his seven-barrelled gun, much admired by Frederickson. It was the only loaded weapon that would go with the first party into the Convent. The men of that party had been hand picked, the cream of the three Companies, and they would attack only with swords, knives, and bayonets. Sharpe would lead that party. Harper beside him, and the signal for the other Riflemen to come forward was a blast from the Irish Sergeant’s gun. Harper picked the gun up, scratched at the touch-hole with wire, blew on it, then grinned happily. ‘Mutton pie, sir.’
‘Mutton pie?’
‘That’s what we’d be eating at home, so we would. Mutton pie, potatoes, and more mutton pie. Ma always makes mutton pie at Christmas.’
‘Goose.’ Frederickson said. ‘And once we had a roast swan. French wine.’ He smiled as he rammed a bullet into his pistol. ‘Mincemeat pies. Now that’s something to fill a belly. Good minced beef.’
‘We used to get minced tripe.’ Sharpe said. Frederickson looked disbelieving, but Harper grinned at the eye-patched Captain. ‘If you ask him nicely, sir, he’ll tell you all about life in the Foundling Home.’ Frederickson looked at Sharpe. ‘Truly?’
‘Yes. Five years. I went when I was four.’
‘And you got tripe for Christmas?’
‘If we were lucky. Minced tripe and hard-boiled eggs, and it was called Mincemeat. We used to enjoy Christmas. There was no work that day.’
`What was the work?’
Harper grinned, for he had heard the stories before. Sharpe put his head back on his pack and stared at the low, dark clouds. ‘We used to pick old ships’ cables apart, the ones that were coated with tar. You’d get a length of eight-inch cable, stiff as frozen leather, and if you were under six you had to pick apart a seven foot length every day.’ He grinned. ‘They sold the stuff to caulkers and upholsterers. Wasn’t as bad as the bone room.’
‘The what?’
‘Bone room. Some children used to pound bones into powder and it was made into some kind of paste. Half the bloody ivory you buy is bone paste. That’s why we liked Christmas. No work.’
Frederickson seemed fascinated. ‘So what happened at Christmas, sir?’
Sharpe thought back. He had forgotten much of it. Once he had run away from the Home and managed to stay away, he had tried to force the memories out of his mind. Now they were so remote that it seemed as if they belonged to some other man, far less fortunate. ‘There was a church service in the morning, I remember that. We used to get a long sermon telling us how bloody lucky we were. Then there was the meal. Tripe.’ He grinned.