lay behind the bland blue eyes. And what lay behind those childish
eyes, Torrance had decided, was a breathtaking malevolence, yet one
that was accompanied by an equally astonishing confidence. Hakeswill,
Torrance had decided, would murder a baby and find justification for
the act.
“So you don’t like Mister Sharpe?” Torrance asked.
“I hates him, sir, and I don’t mind admitting it. I’ve watched him, I
have, slither his way up the ranks like a bleeding eel up a drain.”
Hakeswill had taken out a knife, presumably the one which he had
stabbed into the elephant’s foot, and now cocked his right heel on his
left knee and laid the blade against the blister.
Torrance shut his eyes to spare himself the sight of Hakeswill
performing surgery.
“The thing is, Sergeant,” he said, ‘that Naig’s brother would rather
like a private word with Mister Sharpe.”
“Does he now?” Hakeswill asked. He stabbed down.
“Look at that, sir.
Proper bit of pus. Soon be healed. Ain’t had a blister in years!
Reckon it must be the new boots.” He spat on the blade and poked the
blister again.
“I’ll have to soak the boots in vinegar, sir. So Jama wants Sharpe’s
goo lies does he?”
“Literally, as it happens. Yes.”
“He can join the bleeding queue.”
“No!” Torrance said sternly.
“It is important to me, Sergeant, that Mister Sharpe is delivered to
Jama. Alive. And that his disappearance occasions no curiosity.”
“You mean no one must notice?” HakeswilPs face twitched while he
thought, then he shrugged.
“Ain’t difficult, sir.”
“It isn’t?”
“I’ll have a word with Jama, sir. Then you can give Sharpie some
orders, and I’ll be waiting for him. It’ll be easy, sir. Glad to do
it for you.”
“You are a comfort to me, Sergeant.”
“That’s my job, sir,” Hakeswill said, then leered at the kitchen door
where Clare Wall had appeared.
“Sunshine of my life,” he said in what he hoped was a winning tone.
“Your tea, sir,” Clare said, offering Torrance a cup.
“A mug for the Sergeant, Brick! Where are your manners?”
“She don’t need manners,” Hakeswill said, still leering at the
terrified Clare, ‘not with what she’s got. Put some sugar in it,
darling, if the Captain will spare me some.”
“Give him sugar, Brick,” Torrance ordered.
Hakeswill watched Brick go back to the kitchen.
“A proper little woman, that, sir. A flower, that’s what she is, a
flower!”
“No doubt you would like to pluck her?”
“It’s time I was married,” Hakeswill said.
“A man should leave a son, sir, says so in the scriptures.”
“You want to do some begetting, eh?” Torrance said, then frowned as
someone knocked on the outer door.
“Come!” he called.
An infantry captain whom neither man recognized put his head round the
door.
“Captain Torrance?”
“That’s me,” Torrance said grandly.
“Sir Arthur Wellesley’s compliments,” the Captain said, his acid tone
suggesting that the compliments would be remarkably thin, ‘but is there
any reason why the supplies have not moved northwards?”
Torrance stared at the man. For a second he was speechless, then he
cursed under his breath.
“My compliments to the General,” he said, ‘and my assurances that the
bullock train will be on its way immediately.”
He waited until the Captain had gone, then swore again.
“What happened, sir?” Hakeswill asked.
“The bloody chitties Torrance said.
“Still here. Dilip must have come for them this morning, but I told
him to bugger off.” He swore again.
“Bloody Wellesley will pull my guts out backwards for this.”
Hakeswill found the chitties on the table and went to the door,
leaving small bloody marks on the floor from his opened blister.
“Dilly!
Dilly! You black bastard heathen swine! Here, take these. On your
way!”
no
“Damn!” Torrance said, standing and pacing the small room.
“Damn, damn, damn.”
“Nothing to worry about, sir,” Hakeswill said.
“Easy for you to say, Sergeant.”
Hakeswill grinned as his face was distorted by twitches.
“Just blame someone else, sir,” he said, ‘as is usually done in the
army.”
“Who? Sharpe? You said yourself he’s Wellesley’s blue-eyed boy.
I’m supposed to blame him? Or you, perhaps?”
Hakeswill tried to calm the Captain down by giving him his cup of