‘Lieutenant Mattingley,’ Sharpe spoke with a patience he did not feel, ‘imagine that within two miles of this place there were ten thousand Frenchmen who wanted nothing more than to blow your skull apart. Further imagine that you had orders to retreat. What would you do with the cauldrons if that was the case?’
Mattingley blinked, thought about it, then looked tentatively at Sharpe. ‘Abandon them, sir?’
‘Exactly.’ Sharpe turned his horse away. ‘Do that.’
He abandoned the tents too. There were no mules to carry them, any more than there was transport for half the equipment that had been fetched to Foulness. The hired carriage became the Battalion office, its interior crammed with papers that would all need to be sorted out in Chelmsford. The Battalion chest, which now held the precious attestation forms as well as the money, was pushed between the carriage seats.
‘Sir?’ Captain Smith saluted Sharpe. Smith saw, by the pale moonlight, that the Major wore a rose in his top button-hole, but Captain Smith was not the kind of man to ask why.
‘Captain?’
‘Lieutenant Ryker’s gone, sir.’ That was one officer who had decided to resign rather than stay with the Battalion. ‘And, sir?’
‘Well?’
‘The Colonel’s gone too, sir!’ Smith sounded shocked.
‘Good! Good!’ Sharpe was forcing himself to sound cheerful. Most mornings, as Harper knew well, Sharpe was in a foul mood until the sun or a good march had warmed him, but today, with the uncertainty and chaos that surrounded him, he had to pretend that all was normal. ‘You’ve found some drovers?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Get them moving!’ Sharpe had ordered that men should be found who, before they joined the army, had been herdsmen. A dozen would be needed to drive the Battalion’s ration cattle on the march. ‘And, Captain Smith?’
‘Sir?’
‘Number four Company’s yours!’
‘Thank you, sir!’
He led them, a raggle-taggle Battalion, out of Foulness. As the dawn leeched the dark sky pale they approached a ford across the Crouch, and Harper, marching at the front of the column, was teaching the lead Company the words of “The Drummer Boy.” ‘Sing, you protestant bastards! Sing!’
By the time they had crossed the Crouch, and the first stragglers were limping to catch up, the lead Company knew the first three verses. It was not a song that was heard much on Britain’s roads, where the officers liked to pretend that the only marching songs were patriotic and stern, but the tune was catching, and the drummer boy’s exploits extraordinary, and the men bellowed out the lines about the lad’s pleasuring of the Colonel’s wife with a gusto. Beyond the Crouch, as they approached a small village, Sharpe called a halt. Geese flew overhead. A miller cranked the sails of his mill to catch the wind, and Sharpe looked at the men who collapsed onto the side of the road and he decided that, given a chance, these men could fight as well as any in Spain.
They must be given that chance. He had no proof now, no evidence of the crimping, and Sharpe knew the evidence was lost. If he had been more gentle with Jane, if he had not blundered into a proposal of marriage on just the fourth time he had met her, then she might even now be planning to find the books. Yet he had frightened her away, before he could tell her where she might find lodgings or help, before any of the small, all-important details could be settled. His ten guineas were doubtless lost, scooped up by a servant, and Sharpe rode to a desperate risk.
‘No proof then, sir?’ d’Alembord rode alongside Sharpe.
‘None, Dally.’
d’Alembord looked at the red rose in Sharpe’s buttonhole, decided to say nothing, and gave a confident smile instead. ‘We’ll just have to get confessions out of these buggers.’ He waved at the officers and sergeants ahead.
‘Their word against Lord Fenner?’ Sharpe shrugged. ‘I think I’ve got a better idea.’ He told d’Alembord his thought of the previous night, the outrageous, splendid, desperate idea, and d’Alembord, after hearing it, laughed. Then, realising that Sharpe was serious, he looked appalled. ‘You can’t do it!’
‘I can,’ Sharpe said mildly. ‘You don’t have to come.’