Sharpe would have needed a soul of stone not to enjoy their reaction. They had been frightened of him from the moment he had walked from the hall shadows, but their fear was almost palpable now. A man they had thought a thousand miles away had come to this plump, soft, lavish place, and each of the three men felt a terrible, quivering fear. Pierce, who had laughed as he ordered Sharpe to about turn, visibly shook. Sharpe let the fear settle into them before speaking in a low voice. ‘You’ve heard of me?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Carline answered.
These officers, Sharpe knew, were the rump of the First Battalion, the men who kept its home records and who were supposed to despatch replacements to Spain. Except there were no recruits, there were no replacements, because the depot was dead and empty, and its officers were entertaining young ladies. Sharpe looked at the two Lieutenants, seeing fleshy, spoilt faces above rich uniforms that, well cut though they were, could not hide the spreading waists and fat thighs. Merrill and Pierce, in turn, stared back at the tall, battle-hardened Rifleman as though he was a visitor from some strange, undiscovered island of savages.
Sharpe put the Eagle back on the sideboard. ‘Why was there no guard detail on the gate?’
‘Don’t know, sir.’ Carline, Sharpe saw, was wearing glossy dancing shoes buttoned over silk stockings.
‘What in Christ’s name do you mean? You’re officer of the day, aren’t you?’ The sudden loudness of Sharpe’s voice startled them.
‘Should have been, sir.’ Carline said it helplessly.
Sharpe looked through the window as the file of horsemen, dressed in fatigues, trotted past. ‘Who the hell are they?’
‘Militia, sir. They use the stables here.’
The three young men, standing rigidly at attention, watched Sharpe as he moved about the room, examining ornaments, picking up a newspaper, once pressing a key of the spinet and letting the plucked note die into ominous silence before he again spoke softly. ‘How many men of the First Battalion are here, Carline?’
‘Forty-eight, sir.’
‘Detail them!’
Carline did. There was himself, three Lieutenants, four sergeants, and the rest were all storekeepers or clerks. Sharpe’s face showed nothing, yet he was seething with frustration and anger within. Forty-eight men to revive a wounded First Battalion, and no sign of the Second Battalion!
He stopped by the window and looked at each man in turn. ‘You god-damn bloody astonish me! No guard mounted, but you’ve got time to play blind-man’s buff and have a little tea-party. What do you do when you exert yourselves, arrange flowers?’ All three kept a judicious, embarrassed silence, avoiding his eyes as he looked at them again in turn. ‘Starting at six this evening, and thereafter on the hour, every hour, day and night till I’m bored with you, you will report in full regimentals to Sergeant Major Harper, who, you will be glad to hear, has returned from Spain with me. You!’ Sharpe pointed at Merrill, whose face showed utter horror at the thought of parading in front of an inferior, ‘and you!’ The finger moved to Pierce. ‘You will find Captain d’Alembord outside. You will request him to parade the men and tell him I am making an inspection in ten minutes, and once I have done that I shall inspect the barracks. Move!’
They moved like hares out of a coursing trap, running out of the room, leaving Carline alone with Sharpe.
Sharpe ate a sandwich. He let the silence stretch. The walls of this comfortable room were bright with hunting pictures, red-coated horsemen in full cry across grass. Sharpe’s sudden question made Carline jump. ‘Where’s Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood?’
‘Don’t know, sir.’ Captain Carline now sounded plaintive, like a small boy hauled up in front of a fearsome headmaster.
Sharpe stared with distaste at the thin, petulant man. ‘Colonel Girdwood does command the Second Battalion?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So where the hell is he? And where in Christ’s name is the Second Battalion?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’
Sharpe stepped close to him, close enough to smell the tea on Carline’s breath and the pomade in his carefully waved hair. ‘Captain.’ Sharpe, taller than Carline, looked down into the pale eyes and made his voice conversational. ‘You’ve heard men speak, presumably, of Regimental Sergeant Major MacLaird?’