“He is called Ranjit, sahib.”
“So fetch the bugger,” Sharpe said, ‘and I’ll tell you if he’s lying or
not.”
Sajit seemed nervous of confronting Ranjit for he hesitated, but then
plucked up his courage, collapsed the parasol and dropped to the ground
to crawl into the tent which sagged so deeply that the doorway was
scarce higher than a man’s knee. Sharpe heard the murmur of voices,
then Sajit backed hurriedly out of the low fringed entrance. He
slapped at the dust on his white robes, then looked at Sharpe with a
face close to tears.
“He is a bad man, sahib. He will not come out. I told him a sahib was
here to see him, but he used rude words!”
“I’ll take a look at the bastard,” Sharpe said.
“That’s all you need, isn’t it? For me to say whether I’ve seen him or
not?”
“Please, sahib,” Sajit said, and gestured at the tent’s entrance.
Sharpe took off his hat so it would not tangle with the canvas, hoisted
the tent’s entrance as high as he could, then ducked low under the
heavy brown cloth.
And knew instantly that it was a trap.
And understood, almost in the same instant, that he could do nothing
about it.
The first blow struck his forehead, and his vision exploded in streaks
of lightning and shuddering stars. He fell backwards, out into the
sunlight and someone instantly grabbed one of his ankles and began
pulling him into the deep shadow. He tried to kick, tried to push
himself against the tent’s sides, but another hand seized his second
leg, another blow hammered the side of his skull and, mercifully, he
knew nothing more.
“He’s got a thick skull, our Sharpie,” Hakeswill said with a grin. He
prodded Sharpe’s prone body and got no reaction.
“Fast asleep, he is.”
The Sergeant’s face twitched. He had hit Sharpe with the heavy
brassbound butt of a musket and he was amazed that Sharpe’s skull was
not broken. There was plenty of blood in his black hair, and he would
have a bruise the size of a mango by nightfall, but his skull seemed to
have taken the two blows without splintering.
“He always was a thick-headed bugger,” Hakeswill said.
“Now strip him.”
“Strip him?” Kendrick asked.
“When his body is found,” Hakeswill explained patiently, ‘if it is
found, and you can’t rely on bleeding blackamoors to do a proper job
and hide it, we don’t want no one seeing he’s a British officer, do
we?
Not that he is an officer. He’s just a jumped-up bit of muck. So
strip him, then tie his hands and feet and cover his eyeballs.”
Kendrick and Lowry jerked and tugged Sharpe’s coat free, then handed
the garment to Hakeswill who ran his fingers along the hems.
“Got it!” he exulted when he felt the lumps in the cloth. He took
out
H3
a knife, slit the coat and the two privates stared in awe as he eased
the glittering jewels out of the tightly sewn seam. It was dark in the
shadowed tent, but the stones gleamed bright.
“Get on with it!” Hakeswill said.
“The rest of his clothes off!”
“What are you doing?” Sajit had sidled into the tent and now stared at
the jewels.
“None of your bleeding business,” Hakeswill said.
“You have jewels?” Sajit asked.
Hakeswill slid out his bayonet and stabbed it at Sajit, checking the
lunge a fraction before the blade would have punctured the clerk’s
neck.
“The jewels ain’t your business, Sajit. The jewels are my business.
Your business is Sharpie, got it? I agreed to give him to your
bleeding uncle, but I gets what he carries.”
“My uncle will pay well for good stones,” Sajit said.
“Your Uncle Jama’s a bleeding monkey who’d cheat me soon as fart at me,
so forget the bleeding stones. They’re mine.” Hakeswill thrust the
first handful into a pocket and started searching the rest of Sharpe’s
clothes. He slit open all the seams, then cut Sharpe’s boots apart to
discover a score of rubies hidden in the folded boot-tops. They were
small rubies, scarce bigger than peas, and Hakeswill was looking for
one large ruby.