“They are an abomination unto the Lord. Cleanliness, we are constantly
told by tedious folk, is next to godliness, but I suspect it is a
superior virtue. Any peasant can be godly, but it is a rare person who
is clean. Brick, however, keeps me clean. If you pay her a trifle,
Sharpe, she will doubtless wash and mend those rags you are pleased to
call a uniform.”
“They’re all I’ve got, sir.”
“So? Walk naked until Brick has serviced you, or does the idea
embarrass you?”
“I wash my own clothes, sir.”
“I wish you would,” Torrance said tartly.
“Remind me why you came here, Sharpe?”
“Orders, sir.”
“Very well,” Torrance said.
“At dawn you will go to Colonel Butters’s quarters and find an aide who
can tell you what is required of us. You then tell Dilip. Dilip then
arranges everything. After that you may take your rest. I trust you
will not find these duties onerous?”
Sharpe wondered why Torrance had asked for a deputy if the clerk did
all the work, then supposed that the Captain was so lazy that he could
not be bothered to get up early in the morning to fetch his orders.
“I get tomorrow’s orders at dawn, sir,” Sharpe said, ‘from an aide of
Colonel Butters.”
“There!” Torrance said with mock amazement.
“You have mastered your duties, Ensign. I congratulate you.”
“We already have tomorrow’s orders, sahib,” Dilip said from the table
where he was copying a list of the recovered stores into Torrance’s
report.
“We are to move everything to Deogaum. The pioneers’ stores are to be
moved first, sahib. The Colonel’s orders are on the table, sahib, with
the chitties Pioneers’ stores first, then everything else.”
“Well, I never!” Torrance said.
“See? Your first day’s work is done, Sharpe.” He drew on the hookah
which the woman had relit.
“Excellent,
my dear,” he said, then held out a hand to stop her from leaving. She
crouched beside the hammock, averting her eyes from Torrance’s naked
body. Sharpe sensed her unhappiness, and Torrance sensed Sharpe’s
interest in her.
“Brick is a widow, Sharpe,” he said, ‘and presumably looking for a
husband, though I doubt she’s ever dared to dream of marrying as high
as an ensign. But why not? The social ladder is there to be climbed
and, low a rung as you might be, Sharpe, you still represent a
considerable advancement for Brick. Before she joined my service she
was a mop-squeezer. From mop-squeezer to an officer’s wife! There’s
progress for you. I think the two of you would suit each other vastly
well. I shall play Cupid, or rather Dilip will. Take a letter to the
chaplain of the 94th, Dilip. He’s rarely sober, but I’m sure he can
waddle through the marriage ceremony without falling over.”
“I can’t marry, sir!” Sharpe protested.
Torrance, amused at himself, raised an eyebrow.
“You are averse to women? You dislike dear Brick? Or you’ve taken an
oath of celibacy, perhaps?”
Sharpe blushed.
“I’m spoken for, sir.”
“You mean you’re engaged? How very touching. Is she an heiress,
perhaps?”
Sharpe shrugged.
“She’s in Seringapatam,” he said lamely.
“And we’re not engaged.”
“But you have an understanding,” Torrance said, ‘with this ravishing
creature in Seringapatam. Is she black, Sharpe? A black bibbi? I’m
sure Clare wouldn’t mind, would you? A white man in India needs a
bibbi or two as well as a wife. Don’t you agree, Brick?” He turned to
the woman, who ignored him.
“The late Mister Wall died of the fever,” Torrance said to Sharpe, ‘and
in the Christian kindness of my heart I continue to employ his widow.
Does that not speak well of my character?”
“If you say so, sir,” Sharpe said.
“I see my attempt to play Cupid is not meeting with success,” Torrance
said.
“So, Sharpe, to business. Tomorrow morning I suggest you go to
Deogaum, wherever the hell that is.”
“With the bullocks, sir?”
Torrance raised his eyebrows in exasperation.
“You are an officer, Sharpe, not a bullock driver. You don’t prod
rumps, you leave that to the natives. Go early. Ride there at dawn,
and your first duty will be to find me quarters.”
“I don’t have a horse,” Sharpe said.