your own,” the East India Company Lieutenant said, backing away.
“Jettis?” The light dragoon Sergeant asked.
“Strongmen,” Sharpe explained.
“Big buggers who kill you by wringing your neck like a chicken.” He
turned back to the clerk.
“Where did Naig get hisjettis? From Seringapatam?”
“Yes, sahib.”
“I killed enough of the buggers,” Sharpe said, ‘so I don’t mind killing
a few more. Are you coming?” he asked the cavalry Sergeant.
“Why not?” The man grinned.
“Anyone else?” Sharpe asked, but no one else seemed to want a fight
that afternoon.
“Please, sahib,” the clerk said weakly.
Sharpe ignored him and, followed by Ahmed and the cavalryman, went back
into the sunlight.
“What’s your name?” Sharpe asked the Sergeant.
“Lockhart, sir. Eli Lockhart.”
“I’m Dick Sharpe, Eli, and you don’t have to call me “sir”, I’m not a
proper bleeding officer. I was made up at Assaye, and I wish the
buggers had left me a sergeant now. They sent me to be a bloody
bullock driver, because I’m not fit for anything else.” He looked at
Lockhart’s six troopers who were still waiting.
“What are they doing here?”
“Didn’t expect me to carry the bloody horseshoes myself, did you?”
Lockhart said, then gestured at the troopers.
“Come on, boys. We’re going to have a scrap.”
“Who said anything about a scrap?” Sharpe asked.
“He’s got horseshoes,” Lockhart explained, ‘but we don’t have money. So
there’s only one way to get them off him.”
“True,” Sharpe said, and grinned.
Lockhart suddenly looked oddly shy.
“Was you in the Captain’s quarters, sir?”
“Yes, why?”
The tough-looking Sergeant was actually blushing now.
“You didn’t see a woman there, did you, sir?”
“Dark-haired girl. Pretty?”
“That’s her.”
“Who is she?”
“Torrance’s servant. A widow. He brought her and her husband out from
England, but the fellow died and left her on her own. Torrance won’t
let her go.”
“And you’d like to take her off his hands, is that it?”
“I’ve only ever seen her at a distance,” the Sergeant admitted.
“Torranee was in another regiment, one of the Madrassi’s, but we camped
together often enough.”
“She’s still there,” Sharpe said drily, ‘still alive.”
“He keeps her close, he does,” Lockhart said, then kicked a dog out of
his path. The eight men had left the village and entered the sprawling
encampment where the merchants with their herds, wagons and families
were camped. Great white oxen with painted horns were hobbled by pegs,
and children scurried among the beasts collecting their dung which they
slapped into cakes that would be dried for fuel.
“So tell me about these jet tis Lockhart asked.
“Like circus strongmen,” Sharpe said, ‘only it’s some kind of religious
thing. Don’t ask me. None of it makes bleeding sense to me. Got
muscles like mountains, they have, but they’re slow. I killed four of
the buggers at Seringapatam.”
“And you know Hakeswill?”
“I know bloody Hakeswill. Recruited me, he did, and he’s been
persecuting me ever since. He shouldn’t even be with this army, he’s
supposed to be with the Havercakes down south, but he came up here with
a warrant to arrest me. That didn’t work, so he’s just stayed, hasn’t
he? And he’s working the bleeding system! You can wager your last
shilling that he’s the bastard who supplies Naig, and splits the
profit.”
Sharpe stopped to look for green tents.
“How come you don’t carry your own spare horseshoes?”
“We do. But when they’ve gone you have to get more from the supplies.
That’s how the system’s supposed to work. And yesterday’s pursuit left
half the hooves wrecked. We need shoes.”
Sharpe had seen a cluster of faded green tents.
“That’s where the bastard is,” he said, then looked at Lockhart.
“This could get nasty.”
Lockhart grinned. He was as tall as Sharpe and had a face that looked
as though it had survived a lifetime of tavern brawls.
“Come this far, ain’t I?”
“Is that thing loaded?” Sharpe nodded at the pistol at Lockhart’s
belt.
A sabre also hung there, just like the one at Sharpe’s hip.
“It will be.” Lockhart drew the pistol and Sharpe turned to Ahmed and
mimed the actions of loading the musket. Ahmed grinned and pointed to