SHARPE’S REGIMENT

Harper drank his first quart in one go. He looked at the smiling Sergeant. ‘Would you be knowing Sergeant Harper yourself, sir?’

‘Don’t call me “sir”!’ Havercamp chuckled. ‘Would I be knowing him, you ask! Would I just! Like that, we are!’ He crossed two of his fingers, nodded, and an expression of regret for the good times that were in his past flickered over his face. ‘Many’s a night I’ve sat with him, within earshot of the enemy, lad, just talking. “Horatio,” he’d say to me, “we’ve been through a lot together.” Aye, lad I know him well.’

‘He’s big, I hear?’

Havercamp laughed. ‘Big! He’d give you six inches, Paddy, and you’re not a shrimp, eh?’ He watched with approval as Harper downed the second quart. Havercamp pushed the rum towards him. ‘Get yourself on the outside of that, Paddy, and I’ll buy you some more ale.’

Harper listened wide-eyed as the wonders of the army were unfolded before him. Havercamp seemed to embrace all of his potential recruits as he expanded on the future that waited for them. They would be sergeants, he said, before the snow fell, and as likely as not, they would all be officers within the year. Havercamp laughed. ‘I’ll have to salute you, yes?’ He threw a salute to a bony, hungry boy who drank his beer as though he had not taken sustenance in a week. ‘Sir!’ The boy laughed. Havercamp saluted Harper. ‘Sir!’

‘Sounds grand,’ Harper said wistfully. ‘An officer?’

‘I can see it in you now, Paddy.’ Havercamp slapped the rump of the girl who had brought a tray of ale pots. He distributed them around the table and ordered more. ‘Now you’ve all heard of our Major Sharpe, haven’t you?’

Two or three of the boys nodded. Havercamp blew at the froth on his pot, sipped, then leaned back. ‘Started in the ranks, he did. I remember him like it was yesterday. I said to him, I said, “Richard,” I said, “you’ll be an officer soon.” “Will I, sarge?” he says?’ Havercamp laughed. ‘He didn’t believe me! But there he is! Major Sharpe!’

‘You know him?’ Harper asked.

The fingers twined again. ‘Like that, Paddy. Like that. I call him, “sir” and he says, “Horatio, there’s no call for a “sir” to me. You taught me half I know. You call me Richard!”‘

The potential recruits stared in awe at the Sergeant. The drinks came fast. Three of the boys were farmers’ lads, dressed in smocks, all of them, Sharpe judged, likely to become good, solid men if only Horatio could persuade them to take the shilling. One of the farm boys had a bright, lively face and a small terrier that shared his ale. The dog, he said, was called Buttons. Buttons’ owner was named Charlie Weller. Horatio Havercamp ordered a bowl of ale specially for Buttons.

‘Can I bring my dog?’ Charlie Weller asked.

‘Of course you can, lad!’ Havercamp smiled. Weller, Sharpe guessed, was seventeen. He was sturdy, cheerful, and any Battalion would be pleased to have him.

‘Will we fight?’ Weller asked.

‘You want to, lad?’

‘Aye!’ Weller grinned. ‘I want to go to Spain!’

‘You will! You will!’

The hungry boy, called Tom, was half-witted. His eyes flicked about the small room as though he expected at any moment to be hit. The last of the five was a sad-faced, frowning man of twenty-three or four, dressed in a faded coat of broadcloth with a decent but shabby shirt beneath. This last man, whose face and hands suggested he had never worked in the open air, hardly spoke. Sharpe guessed that he had already made up his mind to join and that this drinking and japery were not to his taste.

Tom, the half-wit, Sharpe judged, would join simply so as not to be hungry. He would fatten up in the army and could be taught to stand in the musket line and perform his duty. Havercamp, Sharpe could see, was worried about Harper and the three farm lads. They were the ones he wanted, the ones he wanted to see drunk, the ones he wanted to snare before sobriety drove sense into their head.

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