`Yes.’
`What did he want?’
`He never found me.’
`Well tell him `no’, whatever he wants, and borrow money off him.’
`Money?’
Leroy turned in the doorway. `The adjutant tells me you owe the Mess sixteen guineas. True?’ Sharpe nodded and Leroy pointed the riding crop at him. `Pay it, Richard. Don’t want you dying and owing the god-damn Mess money.’ He walked into the street to his waiting horse, and Sharpe turned to the table of paperwork that waited for him.
`What the devil are you grinning at?’
Paddock, the Battalion clerk, shook his head. `Nothing, sir.
Sharpe sat to the pile of work. Paddock, he knew, was grinning because Leroy had told Sharpe to pay his debts, but Sharpe could not pay them. He owed the laundry-woman five shillings, the sutler two pounds, and Leroy, quite rightly, was demanding that Sharpe buy a horse. As a Captain, Sharpe had not wanted a horse, preferring to stay on his boots like his men, but as a Major the added height would be useful on a battlefield, as would the added speed. But a good horse was not to be had for under a hundred and thirty pounds and he did not know where the funds were to come from. He sighed. `Can’t you forge my bloody signature?’
`Yes, sir, but only on pay forms. Tea, Major?’
`Any breakfast left?’
`I’ll go and look, sir.’
Sharpe worked through the papers. Equipment reports and weekly reports and new standing orders from Brigade and Army. There was the usual warning from the Chaplain-General to keep an eye on subversive Methodists that Sharpe threw away, and a General Order from Wellington that reminded officers that it was mandatory to remove the hat when the Host was being carried by a priest through a street to a dying man. Do not upset the Spanish was the message of that order and Sharpe noted its receipt and wondered again who the ribbon-merchant was.
He signed his name three dozen times, abandoned the rest of the paper-work, and went out into the spring sunlight to check the picquets and watch the recruits, shipped out from England, fire three rounds of musket fire. He listened to the officer of the day’s usual complaint about the ration beef and dodged round the back of the houses to avoid the Portuguese sutler who was looking for his debtors. The sutler sold tobacco, tea, needles, thread, buttons, and the other small necessities of a soldier’s life. The South Essex’s sutler, who had a small stable of ugly whores, was the richest man with the Battalion.
Sharpe avoided the man. He wondered if the sutler would buy the tent mule, though he knew the man would only pay half value. Sharpe would be lucky to get fifteen pounds from the sutler, less the two pounds he owed and less the five pounds to bribe the storekeeper. Paddock, the clerk, would have to be bribed into silence. Sharpe supposed he would get seven or eight pounds from the deal, enough to keep the Mess happy. He swore. He wished the army was marching and fighting, too busy to worry about such small things as unpaid bills.
The fight at the bridge had been a false alarm. He guessed that it had been meant as a feint, a means to persuade the French that the British were retracing last year’s steps and marching on Salamanca and Madrid. Instead the Battalion had force-marched north to where the main part of the British army gathered. The French were guarding the front door into Spain and Wellington was planning to use the back. But let it start soon, Sharpe prayed. He was bored. Instead of fighting he was worrying about money and having to organize a church parade.
The General had ordered that all Battalions that lacked their own chaplain should receive one sermon at least from a priest borrowed from another unit. Today it was the turn of the South Essex and Sharpe, sitting on Captain d’Alembord’s spare horse, stared at the ten companies of the South Essex as they faced the man of God. Doubtless they were wondering why, after years free of such occasions they should suddenly be hectored by a bald, plump man telling them to count their blessings. Sharpe ignored the sermon. He was wondering how to persuade the sutler to buy a mule when the man already had a half dozen to carry his wares.