Horatio Havercamp opened his pouch and tipped the money glintingly inside. He put his shako on his head, tapped it down, and drew himself up to his considerable height. ‘Well, lads! The chance is yours! Money! Glory! Riches! Fame! Women! I won’t be here long! There’s a war that has to be fought and there are women that wait for us and if you don’t come to us today then perhaps your chance will never come! You’ll grow old and you’ll rue the day that you let Horatio Havercamp go out of your life! Now, lads, I’ve spoken long enough and I’ve a thirst like a dry dog in a smithy, so I’m spending some of that money the army gives me on some pots of ale in the Green Man! So come and see me! No persuasion, lads, just some free froth on your lips and a wee chat!’
The drummers gave a last, loud roll, and Sergeant Havercamp jumped down to the roadway.
The small, weasel-faced man who had led the chanting as the guineas were thrown, looked up at Patrick Harper. ‘Are you going with him?’
Sharpe guessed the man was a corporal, one of Havercamp’s assistants salted into the crowd to snare the likeliest recruits. He wore a corduroy coat over a moleskin waistcoat, but his grey trousers looked suspiciously like standard issue.
Harper shrugged. ‘Who wants to be a soldier?’
‘You’re Irish?’ The small man said it delightedly as though, all his life, he had nurtured a love for the Irish and had never, before this moment, had a chance to display it. ‘Come on! You must be thirsty!’
‘The ale’s free?’
‘He said so, didn’t he? Besides, what can he do to us?’
Harper looked at Sharpe. ‘You want to go, Dick?’ He blushed like an eight year old as he used Sharpe’s name.
The small, sharp-featured man looked at Sharpe. The scar, and Sharpe’s older face, made him pause, then he grinned. ‘Three of us, eh? We can always walk away if we don’t take to the fellow! You’re called Dick?’
Sharpe nodded. The man looked up at the huge Irishman. ‘You?’
‘Patrick.’
‘I’m Terry. Come on, eh, Paddy? Dick?’
Sharpe scratched the thick, stiff bristles of his unshaven chin. ‘Why not? I could drink a bloody barrel.’
Sharpe and Harper went to join the army.
Sergeant Horatio Havercamp had been wonderfully successful. Five lads, other than Sharpe and Harper, were in the Green Man’s snug where the good Sergeant ordered quarts of ale and glasses of rum to chase the beer down. A window opened onto the street and the Sergeant sat close by it so he could shout pleasantries to any likely looking young man who wandered towards the fair’s attractions. He had also, Sharpe noted, positioned himself close enough to the door so that he could cut off the retreat of any of his prospective recruits.
The Sergeant made a great show of giving Harper two quarts of beer. ‘So you’re Irish, Paddy?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You don’t call me “sir”! Lord love you, boy! Call me Horatio, just like my mother does! You’re a big lad, Paddy! What’s your other name?’
‘O’Keefe.’
‘A great name, eh?’ Sergeant Havercamp paused to shout for more beer, then glanced suspiciously at Sharpe who had sat himself in the darkest corner of the room. Havercamp was wise to the men who drank free beer and tried to escape at the evening’s end, and he jerked his head in a tiny, almost imperceptible motion that made Terry move his pot of ale and sit at Sharpe’s side. Then Havercamp smiled confidingly at Harper. ‘It’s a great regiment for the Irish, you know!’
The South Essex?’
‘Aye, lad.’ Sergeant Havercamp lowered most of his quart pot, wiped his moustache, and patted his belly. ‘You’ve heard of Sergeant Harper?’
Harper choked, blowing the froth off the ale into the table, then, with sheer amazement on his broad, good-natured face, he gaped at Horatio Havercamp. ‘Aye, I’ve heard of him.’
‘Took an Eagle, lad! A hero, that’s what he is, a hero. No one minds him being Irish, not in the South Essex. Home from home, you’ll find it!’