Sharpe, who knew better than to stare into an officer’s face, was nevertheless fascinated by the rock hard, gleaming black moustache that contrasted so oddly with the white, scraped skin of Girdwood’s face. ‘Thirty-third, sir!’
‘Discharged?’
‘Sir!’
Girdwood glanced at the huge man, instinctively disliking Harper because he was so tall. ‘You?’
‘Fourth Dragoon Guards, sir!’
Sharpe, who was amused that Harper had chosen such an elegant regiment for his supposed past, sensed that Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood’s hostility had been increased by the big man’s answer. Girdwood made the odd, snarling noise in his throat once more, then tapped his left palm with the silver-topped cane. ‘The Royal Irish!’ He said it slowly, with savage dislike. ‘Then listen to me, soldier, this is not an Irish regiment. I’ll have none of your damned insolence here, do you understand me?’
‘Sir!’
‘None of it!’ Girdwood’s voice was a harsh shriek that startled the other recruits whom he glared at, staring at them one by one as if, by the sheer force of his dark, harsh gaze, he could fill them with fear and respect.
He seemed to stare at them for a long, long time, saying nothing, but in his head the angry thoughts uncoiled. Peasants, he thought, nothing but peasants! Scum, filth. Horrid, stinking, foul, stupid, lax, undisciplined scum. Civilians!
His gaze came back to Harper’s stolid, expressionless face. ‘Who’s the King of Ireland?’
‘King George, sir!’
Girdwood’s polished black moustache was level with the second button of Harper’s fatigue jacket. The Colonel glared up at the huge man. ‘And what are the rebels?’
Harper paused. Sharpe, standing next to him, prayed that the Irishman would lie. Harper, if an accident of hunger and fate had not driven him into the British Army, would doubtless have been one of the rebels who had fought so hopelessly against the British in Ireland. Harper, who liked his job, and who fought the French as enthusiastically as any man, had never lost his love for Ireland, any more than had most of the Irishmen who made up a third of Wellington’s army in Spain.
‘Well?’ Gird wood asked.
Harper chose dumb stupidity as his best tactic. ‘Don’t know, sir!’
‘Scum! Pig-shit! Bastards! Irish! That’s what they are! Sergeant Lynch!’
‘Sir!’ The small Sergeant who had so effectively silenced Giles Marriott took one pace forward. He looked as if he could have been Girdwood’s twin; they were two moustached, small, black-haired, manikins.
Girdwood pointed with his cane at Harper. ‘You’ll note this man, Sergeant Lynch?’
‘I’ll do that, sir!’
‘I’ll not have Irish tricks, by Christ I will not!’
‘No, sir!’
Sharpe, who was feeling relief that the Colonel had not demanded that Harper repeat his litany against the Irish rebels, now saw that the Colonel was staring with apparent shock towards the end of the line of recruits. Girdwood raised his cane. It was shaking. ‘Sergeant Lynch! Sergeant Lynch!’
Lynch turned. He too froze. When he spoke, in seemingly equal shock, his voice had a sudden touch of the Irish accent that he had worked so hard to lose. ‘A dog, sir? One of the filth has a dog, sir!’
Buttons, sensing the sudden interest in him, wagged his muddy tail, ducked his head, and started forward to be petted by these new men who stared at him.
Girdwood stepped back. ‘Get it away from me!’ His voice betrayed true panic.
Sergeant Lynch darted forward. Charlie Weller stepped forward too, but a corporal tripped him just as Sergeant Lynch kicked the dog, a brutal, rib-breaking kick that forced a yelp out of the animal and lifted it into the air to fly, screaming as it went, a full five yards away. Charlie Weller, his face aghast, tried to stand up, but the corporal kicked him in the head, and kicked again to keep the boy down.
Buttons, his ribs broken, came whimpering and limping back towards his master. He flinched away from Sergeant Lynch, but the Sergeant stood over the dog, lifted his heel and smashed it down onto the dog’s skull. Buttons shrieked again, the heel was forced slowly, grindingly down, and the recruits stood in horror as the dog slowly died.
It seemed to take a long time. No one spoke. The corporal pulled Weller upright, blood on the boy’s face, and pushed him, too stunned to resist, back into the line.