fool. He turned away from Stokes and stared down the track to where a
dozen oxen escorted by two companies of sepoys were trudging towards
him.
“I’ve got work coming,” he said, not wanting to discuss Simone any
further.
“I passed those fellows on my way,” Stokes said, ‘carrying powder, I
think. I do like blowing things up. So just what do you do here,
Sharpe?”
“I keep the pioneers supplied with material, sir, and sign in all the
convoys.”
“Hope it leaves you time to help me, Sharpe. You and me together
again, eh? It’ll be like the old days.”
“That’d be good, sir,” Sharpe said with as much enthusiasm as he could
muster, then he walked down the track and pointed to where the
ox-drivers should drop their barrels of gunpowder. The men crowded
about him with their chitties and he pulled out a pencil and scrawled
his initials in the corner of each one, thus confirming that they had
completed and were owed for one journey.
The last man also handed Sharpe a sealed paper with his name written in
a fine copperplate hand.
“From the clerk, sahib,” the man said, the phrase plainly much
practised for he spoke no other English.
Sharpe tore the seal off as he walked back up the hill. The letter was
not from the clerk at all, but from Torrance.
“Bloody hell!” he cursed.
“What is it?” Stokes asked.
“A man called Torrance,” Sharpe complained.
“He’s in charge of the bullocks. He wants me back at Deogaum because
he reckons there are forged chitties in the camp.”
“In the far south of India,” Stokes said, ‘they call them shits.”
Sharpe blinked at the Major.
“Sorry, sir?”
“You mustn’t call me “sir”, Sharpe. “Pon my soul, yes. I had a Tamil
servant who was forever asking me to sign his shits. Had me all in a
dither at first, I can tell you.”
Sharpe crumpled Torrance’s note into a ball.
“Why the hell can’t Torrance sort out his own shits?” he asked
angrily. But he knew why.
Torrance was scared of another meeting with Wellesley, which meant the
Captain would now follow the rules to the letter.
“It won’t take long,” Stokes said, ‘not if you take my horse. But keep
her to a steady walk, Richard, because she’s tired. And have her
rubbed down and watered while you’re sorting out the shits.”
Sharpe was touched by Stokes’s generosity.
“Are you sure?”
“What are friends for? Go on, Richard! On horseback you’ll be home
for supper. I’ll have my cook brew up one of those mussallas you like
so much.”
Sharpe left his pack with Stokes’s baggage. The big ruby and a score
of other stones were in the pack, and Sharpe was half tempted to carry
it to Deogaum and back, but if he could not trust Stokes, who could he
trust? He tried to persuade Ahmed to stay behind and keep an eye on
the baggage, but the boy refused to be parted from Sharpe and insisted
on trotting along behind the horse.
“Stokes won’t hurt you,” Sharpe told Ahmed.
“I’m your havildar,” Ahmed insisted, hefting his musket and peering
about the deserted landscape for enemies. There was none in sight, but
Ahmed’s gesture reminded Sharpe of Elliott’s death and he wondered if
he should have waited for the ox convoy to return to Deogaum, for the
convoys all had escorts of sepoys or mercenary horsemen. He was
tempted to kick the horse into a trot, but he resisted the impulse.
The danger was more acutC once he reached the lower hills, for Mahratta
horsemen were forever probing the perimeter of the British camp and
being chased away by cavalry patrols. Twice he saw horsemen in the
distance, but neither group took any notice of Sharpe who was ready to
haul Ahmed up onto the horse and then ride for his life if he was
threatened. He did not relax until he met a patrol of Madrassi cavalry
under the command of a Company lieutenant who escorted him safely to
the encampment.
Deogaum was now surrounded by a great spread of tents and make shift
booths, homes to soldiers and camp followers. A dancing bear was