sir. There’s rust on the spring, see? Shame to keep an expensive gun
so shabbily. Are you sitting on your cartridge box?”
Torrance meekly raised his bottom to take out his leather pouch which
held the powder and bullets for his pistols. He gave the bag to
Sharpe, thought about fetching the robe himself, then decided that any
untoward move might upset his visitor.
“I’m delighted to see you’re alive, Sharpe,” he said.
“Are you, sir?” Sharpe asked.
“Of course.”
“Then why did you sell me to Jama?”
“Sell you? Don’t be ridiculous, Sharpe. No!” The cry came as the
pistol barrel whipped towards him, and it turned into a moan as the
barrel slashed across his cheek. Torrance touched his face and winced
at the blood on his fingers.
“Sharpe’ he began.
“Shut it, sir,” Sharpe said nastily. He perched on the table and
poured some powder into the pistol barrel.
“I talked to Jama last night. He tried to have me killed by a couple
ofjettis. You know what jet tis are, sir?
Religious strongmen, sir, but they must have been praying to the wrong
God, for I cut one’s throat and left the other bugger blinded.” He
paused to select a bullet from the pouch.
“And I had a chat with
Jama when I’d killed his thugs and he told me lots of interesting
things. Like that you traded with him and his brother. You’re a
traitor, Torrance.”
“Sharpe-‘ “I said shut it!” Sharpe snapped. He pushed the bullet into
the pistol’s muzzle, then drew out the short ramrod and shoved it down
the barrel.
“The thing is, Torrance,” he went on in a calmer tone, “I know the
truth. All of it. About you and Hakeswill and about you and Jama and
about you and Naig.” He smiled at Torrance, then slotted the short
ramrod back into its hoops.
“I used to think officers were above that sort of crime. I knew the
men were crooked, because I was crooked, but you don’t have much
choice, do you, when you’ve got nothing?
But you, sir, you had everything you wanted. Rich parents, proper
schooling.” Sharpe shook his head.
“You don’t understand, Sharpe.”
“But I do, sir. Now look at me. My ma was a whore, and not a very
good one by all accounts, and she went and died and left me with
nothing.
Bloody nothing! And the thing is, sir, that when I go to General
Wellesley and I tells him about you selling muskets to the enemy, who’s
he going to believe? You, with your proper education, or me with a
dead frow as a mother?” Sharpe looked at Torrance as though he
expected an answer, but none came.
“He’s going to believe you, sir, isn’t he? He’d never believe me, on
account of me not being a proper gentleman who knows his Latin. And
you know what that means, sir?”
“Sharpe?”
“It means justice won’t be done, sir. But, on the other hand, you’re a
gentleman, so you knows your duty, don’t you?” Sharpe edged off the
table and gave the pistol, butt first, to Torrance.
“Hold it just in front of your ear,” he advised Torrance, ‘or else put
it in your mouth. Makes more mess that way, but it’s surer.”
“Sharpe!” Torrance said, and found he had nothing to say. The pistol
felt heavy in his hand.
“It won’t hurt, sir,” Sharpe said comfortingly.
“You’ll be dead in the blink of an eyelid.” He began scooping the
coins off the table into Torrance’s pouch. He heard the heavy click as
the pistol was cocked, then glanced round to see that the muzzle was
pointing at his face.
He frowned and shook his head in disappointment.
“And I thought you were a gentleman, sir.”
“I’m not a fool, Sharpe,” Torrance said vengefully. He stood and took
a pace closer to the Ensign.
“And I’m worth ten of you. Up from the ranks? You know what that
makes you, Sharpe? It makes you a brute, a lucky brute, but it don’t
make you a real officer. You’re not going to be welcome anywhere,
Sharpe. You’ll be endured, Sharpe, because officers have manners, but
they won’t welcome you because you ain’t a proper officer. You weren’t