could not really see the point in being too finicky.
“I
hadn’t really thought what to do with the lad, sir,” Sharpe admitted.
Wallace turned and spoke to the boy in an Indian language, and Ahmed
stared up at the Colonel and nodded solemnly as though he understood
what had been said. Perhaps he did, though Sharpe did not.
“I’ve told him he’s to serve you properly,” Wallace said, ‘and that
you’ll pay him properly.” The Colonel seemed to disapprove of Ahmed,
or maybe he just disapproved of everything to do with Sharpe, though he
was doing his best to be friendly. It had been Wallace who had given
Sharpe the commission in the 74th, and Wallace had been a close friend
of Colonel McCandless, so Sharpe supposed that the balding Colonel was,
in his way, an ally. Even so, Sharpe felt awkward in the Scotsman’s
company. He wondered if he would ever feel relaxed among officers.
“How’s that woman of yours, Sharpe?” Wallace asked cheerfully.
“My woman, sir?” Sharpe asked, blushing.
“The Frenchwoman, can’t recall her name. Took quite a shine to you,
didn’t she?”
“Simone, sir? She’s in Seringapatam, sir. Seemed the best place for
her, sir.”
“Quite, quite.”
Simone Joubert had been widowed at Assaye where her husband, who had
served Scindia, had died. She had been Sharpe’s lover and, after the
battle, she had stayed with him. Where else, she asked, was she to go?
But Wellesley had forbidden his officers to take their wives on the
campaign, and though Simone was not Sharpe’s wife, she was white, and
so she had agreed to go to Seringapatam and there wait for him. She
had carried a letter of introduction to Major Stokes, Sharpe’s friend
who ran the armoury, and Sharpe had given her some of the Tippoo’s
jewels so that she could find servants and live comfortably.
He sometimes worried he had given her too many of the precious stones,
but consoled himself that Simone would keep the surplus safe till he
returned.
“So are you happy, Sharpe?” Wallace asked bluffly.
“Yes, sir,” Sharpe said bleakly.
“Keeping busy?”
“Not really, sir.”
“Difficult, isn’t it?” Wallace said vaguely. He had stopped to watch
the gunners loading one of the captured cannon, a great brute that
looked to take a ball of twenty or more pounds. The barrel had been
cast with an intricate pattern of lotus flowers and dancing girls, then
painted with garish colours. The gunners had charged the gaudy barrel
with a double load of powder and now they rammed two cannonballs down
the blackened gullet. An engineer had brought some wedges and a gunner
sergeant pushed one down the barrel, then hammered it home with the
rammer so that the ball would jam when the gun was fired.
The engineer took a ball of fuse from his pocket, pushed one end into
the touch-hole, then backed away, uncoiling the pale line.
“Best if we give them some space,” Wallace said, gesturing that they
should walk south a small way.
“Don’t want to be beheaded by a scrap of gun, eh?”
“No, sir.”
“Very difficult,” Wallace said, picking up his previous thought.
“Coming up from the ranks? Admirable, Sharpe, admirable, but
difficult, yes?”
“I suppose so, sir,” Sharpe said unhelpfully.
Wallace sighed, as though he was finding the conversation unexpectedly
hard going.
“Urquhart tells me you seem’ the Colonel paused, looking for the
tactful word ‘unhappy?”
“Takes time, sir.”
“Of course, of course. These things do. Quite.” The Colonel wiped a
hand over his bald pate, then rammed his sweat-stained hat back into
place.
“I remember when I joined. Years ago now, of course, and I was only a
little chap. Didn’t know what was going on! They said turn left, then
turned right. Damned odd, I thought. I was arse over elbow for
months, I can tell you.” The Colonel’s voice tailed away.
“Damned hot,” he said after a while.
“Damned hot. Ever heard of the 95th, Sharpe?”
’95th, sir? Another Scottish regiment?”
“Lord, no. The 95th Rifles. They’re a new regiment. Couple of years
old. Used to be called the Experimental Corps of Riflemen!” Wallace
hooted with laughter at the clumsy name.
“But a friend of mine is busy with the rascals. Willie Stewart, he’s