his sabre to beat the guns down.
“There’s a bloody fire!” he shouted into their faces.
“A fire! You want everything to burn?” They did not understand him,
but some realized that the fire threatened their master’s supplies and
so ran to haul the half-collapsed burning canvas away from the wooden
crates.
“But who started the fire?” a voice said behind Sharpe, and he turned
to see a tall, fat Indian dressed in a green robe that was embroidered
with looping fish and long-legged water-birds. The fat man was holding
a halfnaked child by the hand, the same small boy who had watched
Sharpe push the burning straw into a crease of the canvas.
“British officers,” the fat man said, ‘have a deal of freedom in this
country, but does that mean they can destroy an honest man’s
property?”
“Are you Naig?” Sharpe asked.
The fat man waved to his guards so that they gathered behind him.
The tent had been dragged clear of the crates and was burning itself
out harmlessly. The green-robed man now had sixteen or seventeen men
with him, four of themjettis and all of them armed, while Sharpe had
Lockhart and his battered troopers and one defiant child who was
reloading a musket as tall as himself.
“I will give you my name,” the fat man said unpleasantly, ‘when you
tell me yours.”
“Sharpe. Ensign Sharpe.”
“A mere ensign!” The fat man raised his eyebrows.
“I thought ensigns were children, like this young man.” He patted the
half-naked boy’s head.
“I am Naig.”
“So perhaps you can tell me,” Sharpe said, ‘why that tent was stuffed
full of our supplies?”
“Your supplies!” Naig laughed.
“They are my goods, Ensign Sharpe.
Perhaps some of them are stored in old boxes that once belonged to your
army, but what of that? I buy the boxes from the quartermaster’s
department.”
“Lying bastard,” Sergeant Lockhart growled. He had prised open the
barrel with the number 19 incised on its side and now flourished a
horseshoe.
“Ours!” he said.
Naig seemed about to order his guards to finish off Sharpe’s small
band, but then he glanced to his right and saw that two British
officers had come from the larger tent. The presence of the two, both
captains, meant that Naig could not just drive Sharpe away, for now
there were witnesses. Naig might take on an ensign and a few troopers,
but captains carried too much authority. One of the captains, who wore
the red coat of the Scotch Brigade, crossed to Sharpe.
“Trouble?” he asked. His revels had plainly been interrupted, for his
trousers were still unbuttoned and his sword and sash were slung across
one shoulder.
“This bastard, sir, has been pilfering our supplies.” Sharpe jerked
his thumb at Naig then nodded towards the crates.
“It’s all marked as stolen in the supply ledgers, but I’ll wager it’s
all there. Buckets, muskets, horseshoes.”
The Captain glanced at Naig, then crossed to the crates.
“Open that one,” he ordered, and Lockhart obediently stooped to the box
and levered up its nailed lid with his sabre.
“I have been storing these boxes,” Naig explained. He turned to the
second captain, an extraordinarily elegant cavalryman in Company
uniform, and he pleaded with him in an Indian language. The Company
Captain turned away and Naig went back to the Scotsman. The merchant
was in trouble now, and he knew it.
“I was asked to store the boxes!” he shouted at the Scotsman.
But the infantry Captain was staring down into the opened crate where
ten brand new muskets lay in their wooden cradles. He stooped for one
of the muskets and peered at the lock. Just forward of the hammer and
behind the pan was an engraved crown with the letters GR beneath it,
while behind the hammer the word Tower was engraved.
“Ours,” the Scotsman said flatly.
“I bought them.” Naig was sweating now.
“I thought you said you were storing them?” the Scotsman said.
“Now you say you bought them. Which is it?”
“My brother and I bought the guns from silladars,” Naig said.
“We don’t sell these Tower muskets,” the Captain said, hefting the gun
that was still coated with grease.