‘No, I don’t know, lad,’ Hakeswill said. ‘Upon my soul, I don’t. So you tell me now.’
Sharpe shrugged. ‘Because we fought well the other day, Sergeant. It’s a reward, like.’
‘No, it bleeding ain’t!’ Hakeswill shouted, then dodged to one side and slashed his cane onto Sharpe’s wounded back. Sharpe almost screamed with the pain. ‘You don’t get called away to a general’s tent for that, Sharpie!’ Hakeswill said. ‘Stands to reason! Never heard nothing like it in all my born days. So you tell me why, you bastard.’
Sharpe turned to face his persecutor. ‘You lay that cane on me again, Obadiah,’ he said softly, ‘and I’ll tell General Harris about you. I’ll have you skinned of your stripes, I will, and turned back into a private. Would you like that, Obadiah? You and me in the same file? I’d like that, Obadiah.’
‘Stand still!’ Hakeswill spat.
‘Shut your face, Sergeant,’ Sharpe said. He had called Hakeswill’s bluff, and there was pleasure in that. The Sergeant had doubtless thought he could bully the truth out of Sharpe, but Sharpe held all the trump cards here. ‘How’s your nose?’ he asked Hakeswill.
‘Be careful, Sharpie. Be careful.’
‘Oh, I am, Sergeant, I am. I’m real careful. Have you done now?’ Sharpe did not wait for an answer, but just walked away. The next time he faced Obadiah, he thought, he would have the stripes on his sleeve, and God help Hakeswill then.
He talked to Mary for half an hour, then it was time to make the excuses that Lieutenant Lawford had rehearsed with him. He picked up his pack, took his musket, and said he had to report to the paymaster’s tent. Tm on light duties till the stripes heal,’ he told his mates, ‘doing sentry-go on the money. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Major General Baird had made all the arrangements. The camp’s western perimeter was guarded by men he could trust, and those men had orders to disregard anything they saw,
while next day, Baird promised Lawford, the army would take care not to send any cavalry patrols directly west in case those patrols discovered the two fugitives. ‘Your job is to go as far west as you can tonight,’ Baird told Sharpe and Lawford when he met them close to the western picquet line, ‘and then keep walking west in the morning. You understand now?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Lawford answered. The Lieutenant, beneath a heavy cloak that disguised his uniform, was now dressed in the common soldier’s red wool coat and white trousers. Sharpe had tugged Lawford’s hair back, then wrapped it round the learner pad to form the queue, and after that he had smothered it with a mix of grease and powder so that Lawford looked no different from any other private except that his hands were still too soft, but at least they now had ink under the fingernails and ground into the pores. Lawford had grimaced as Sharpe had tugged at his hair, and protested when Sharpe had gouged two marks in his neck where a stock would have scraped twin calluses, but Baird had hushed him. Lawford winced again when he put on the leather stock and realized just what discomfort the ordinary soldier endured daily. Now, safe out of sight of the soldiers about their camp-fires, he dropped the cloak, pulled on a pack and picked up his musket.
Baird hauled a huge watch from his pocket and tilted its face to the half moon. ‘Eleven o’clock,’ the General said. ‘Time you fellows were away.’ He put two fingers in his mouth and sounded a shrill quick whistle and the picquet, visible in the pale moonlight, magically parted north and south to leave an unguarded gap in the camp’s perimeter. Baird had shaken Lawford’s hand, then patted Sharpe’s shoulder. ‘How’s your back, Sharpe?’
‘Hurts like hell, sir.’ It did too.
Baird looked worried. ‘You’ll manage, though?’
‘I ain’t soft, sir.’
T never supposed you were, Private.’ Baird patted Sharpe’s
shoulder again, then gestured into the dark. ‘Off you go, lads, and God be with you.’ Baird watched the two men run across the open ground and disappear into the darkness on the farther side. He waited for a long time, hoping to catch a last glimpse of the two men’s shadows, but he saw nothing, and his best judgement suggested that he would probably never see either soldier again and that reflection saddened him. He sounded the whistle again and watched as the sentries reformed the picquet line, then he turned and walked slowly back to his tent.