Teresa had reached for the rifle. She froze. Harper was through the door and his momentum drove him on to the cot and then he, too, was utterly motionless as he sprawled, on all fours, and stared at the seventeen inch bayonet. Sharpe, the girl behind him, stopped in the doorway and his sword, which had been reaching towards Hakeswill, was suspended in mid lunge so that its blood-thickened tip quivered in the room’s centre.
Hakeswill laughed. ‘Bit late, aren’t you, Sharpy. They called you that, didn’t they, Sharpy? Or Dick. Lucky Sharpe. I remember. Clever little Sharpy, but it didn’t stop you being flogged, did it?’
Sharpe looked to Harper, Teresa, then back to Hakeswill. He gestured slowly at Knowles’s body. ‘Did you do this?’
Hakeswill cackled and his shoulders heaved. ‘Clever little bastard, aren’t you, Sharpy? Of course I bloody did it. The little bastard came to protect your lady.’ He sneered at Teresa. ‘My lady, now.’ Her dress was open at the neck and Hakeswill could see a slim gold cross against her brown skin. He wanted her, he wanted that skin beneath his hands, and he would have her! And kill her! And Sharpe could watch, because none of them would dare touch him while he still threatened the baby.
The girl behind Sharpe moaned and Hakeswill’s head twitched towards the door. ‘You got a whore there, Sharpy? You have! Bring her in!’ The girl stepped over Knowles’s body and into the room. She moved slowly, terrified of the yellow-skinned, belly-paunched man who held the heaving, sob-racked baby. She went to stand by Harper, her foot kicking Hakeswill’s shako mat had fallen from the upset cot. The hat rolled to a stop, upended, by Harper’s hand. Hakeswill watched her. ‘Very nice. Pretty little missy.’ He cackled. ‘You like the Irishman, do you, dearie?’ She was shaking at the sight of him, and Hakeswill laughed. ‘He’s a pig. They all are, the bloody Irish, dirty great pigs. You’re better off with me, missy.’ The blue eyes went back to Sharpe. ‘Shut the door, Sharpy. Gently now.’
Sharpe shut the door, careful not to alarm the twitching man who held his baby. He could not see Antonia’s face, just the great saw-backed bayonet that was above the bundle of bed-clothes. Hakeswill laughed at him. ‘Very good. You can watch now, Sharpy.’ He looked at Harper, frozen grotesquely where he had tripped. ‘And you, pig. You can watch. Stand up.’
Hakeswill was not sure how he would do this, but he would work something out because he knew that, as long as the child was in his power, then all these people were in it, too. He liked the new girl, Harper’s girl by the look of it, and he could take her with him, out into the city, but he would have to kill Sharpe and Harper first because they knew he had killed
Knowles. He shook his head. He would kill them because he hated them! He laughed, then saw that Harper had not moved. ‘I told you to stand up, you Irish bastard! Stand!’
Harper stood up, his heart beating at the risk, and in his hands he held the shako. He had seen the picture in the crown and he had no real idea who it was, but he stood up, one hand holding the hat, the other reaching inside it. He saw Hakeswill’s face show alarm. The bayonet quivered. ‘Give it to me. ‘ The voice had become whining. ‘Give it to me!’
‘Put the baby down.’
No one else moved. Teresa did not understand, nor did Sharpe, and Harper had only the vaguest idea; a hunch, a straw that was the only thing to clutch in this whirling madness. Hakeswill shook, his face jerking spasmodically. ‘Give it to me!’ He was sobbing. ‘My Mammy! My Mammy! Give her to me!’
The Ulster voice was soft, growling deep from the massive chest. ‘I have my nails on her eyes, Hakeswill, soft eyes, soft eyes, and I will claw them out, Hakeswill, claw them out, and your Mammy will scream.’
‘No! No! No!’ Hakeswill was swaying, crying, cringing. The baby was crying with him. The yellow face looked at Harper, the voice was pleading. ‘Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Not to my Mammy.’