Bernard Cornwell – 1812 10 Sharpe’s Enemy

‘And plum pudding, sir. You told me you got plum pudding once.’ Harper was loading the huge gun.

‘Once. Yes. It was a gift from someone or other. In the afternoon the quality would come and visit. Little boys and girls brought by their mothers to see how the orphans lived. God! We hated them! Mind you, it was the one bloody day of the winter when they heated the place. Couldn’t have the children of the rich catching a cold when they visited the poor.’ He held the sword up, stared at the blade reflectively. ‘Long time ago, Captain, long time ago.’

‘Did you ever go back?’

Sharpe sat up. ‘No.’ He paused. ‘I thought about it. Be nice to go back, dressed up in uniform, carrying this.’ He hefted the sword again, then grinned. ‘It’s probably all changed. The bastards who ran it are probably dead and the children probably sleep in beds and get three meals a day and don’t know how lucky they are.’ He stood up so that he could slide the sword into its scabbard.

Frederickson shook his head. ‘I don’t think it’s changed much.’

Sharpe shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter, Captain. Children are tough little things. Leave them to life and they manage.’ He made it sound brutal because he had managed, and he walked away from Frederickson and Harper because the conversation had made him think of his own daughter. Was she old enough to be excited by Christmas Eve? He did not know. He thought of her small round face, her dark hair that had looked so much like his when he had last seen her, and he wondered what kind of life she would have. A life without a father, a life that had come out of war, and he knew that he did not want to leave her alone to life.

He talked to the men, chatting easily, listening to their jokes and knowing their hidden fears. He had the Sergeants hand out another half dozen canteens of brandy and was touched because men offered him swigs of the precious liquid. He left his own advance party till last, the fifteen men sitting in their own group and putting the last touches to sword bayonets that were already sharp. Eight were Germans who spoke good English, good enough to understand urgent orders, and he waved them down as, with the formality of their race, they began getting to their feet. ‘Warm enough?’

Nods and smiles. ‘Yes, sir.’ They looked freezing. One man, thin as a ramrod, licked his lips as he ran an oiled leather cloth over his sword bayonet. He held the blade up to the last light of the day and seemed satisfied. He put the bayonet down and, with meticulous care, folded the leather and put it into an oilskin packet. He looked up, saw Sharpe’s interest, and wordlessly handed the blade up to the Major. Sharpe put a thumb on the fore-edge. Christ! It was like a razor. ‘How do you get it that sharp?’

‘Trouble, sir, trouble. Work it every day.’ The man took the bayonet back and pushed it carefully into its scabbard.

Another man grinned at Sharpe. ‘Taylor wears a spike out every year, sir. Sharpens ’em too much. You should see his rifle, sir.’ Taylor was obviously the showpiece of his company, used to the attention, and he handed the weapon to Sharpe.

Like the bayonet, this, too, had been worked on. The wood was oiled to a deep polish. The stock had been reshaped with a knife, giving a narrower grip behind the trigger while, on top of the butt, a leather pad had been nailed with brass-headed nails. A cheek-piece. Sharpe pulled the cock back, checking first that the gun was unloaded, and the flint seemed to rest uneasily at the full position. Sharpe touched the trigger and the flint snapped forward, almost without any pressure from Sharpe’s finger, and the thin man grinned. ‘Filed down, sir.’

Sharpe gave the rifle back. Taylor’s voice reminded him of Major Leroy’s of the South Essex. ‘Are you American, Taylor?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Loyalist?’

‘No, sir. Fugitive.’ Taylor seemed an unsmiling, laconic man.

‘From what?’

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