SHARPE’S REGIMENT

They seemed to be giving a display of drill to a group of seated officers who sipped drinks as they watched the two Companies. Behind the officers, standing stiffly at ease, was a line of sergeants.

Sharpe watched for ten whole minutes, watching a comprehensive display of Company drill that finished with some crisp musket movements. The officers, sitting in wrought iron chairs, clapped politely. A servant brought more drinks on a silver tray.

Sergeant Major Brightwell ordered the parade to attention, to open order, to order arms, then there was silence.

The officers stood. Sharpe, his face half hidden by the geranium pot, saw Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood walk forward and, next to him, the unmistakeable figure of Sir Henry Simmerson who was, this fine summer’s day, dressed in his old uniform. Somehow there was no surprise in this proof that Sir Henry was allied to Girdwood. The two men, followed by the other officers, strolled up and down the paraded ranks.

‘What are you doing?’ Marriott whispered.

‘Shut up!’

Sergeant Major Brightwell ordered a half-dozen men out of the ranks. They seemed to have been selected at random by the officers and the six were lined at the bottom of the garden, facing north, and the Sergeant Major took cartridges from his pouch and handed them to the men. Sharpe watched as the six, with reasonable proficiency, fired two small volleys into the empty marshland. The muskets sounded flat in this wide, damp landscape. The smoke, in small white clouds, drifted over the scythed lawn. Two of the visiting officers turned back to the house. Both were laughing, both holding drinks in their hand, and Sharpe saw that both had buff facings on their red jackets. He had not seen many officers at Foulness, but whoever these men were, they were not of the South Essex.

Two more officers turned back towards the house. One had white facings, the other red, and suddenly Sharpe understood why officers from other regiments were brought to this remote place. He understood, and the realisation made him slide back down the steps so he was hidden, and he wondered if he could be right, yet knew that he was, and part of him was filled with admiration for such a clever, profitable scheme. Sir Henry Simmerson and Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood were nothing but crimpers, goddamned bloody crimpers! And what was more, Lord Fenner was with them.

Crimping was not an honourable trade. The army was chronically short of recruits. In 1812, Sharpe knew, it had lost more than twenty-five thousand men through disease or war, and less than five thousand had come forward in Britain to take their place. A good regiment, like the Rifles, was never short of volunteers, but for most regiments of foot there was always a shortage that was combated with extravagant promises of lavish bounty, promises that were never sufficient to fill the ranks who fought in India, in Spain and in America, and who garrisoned forts from the Far East to the Fever Islands. The army was short of recruits, and crimping was one answer to that simple, eternal fact.

A crimp was a contractor, a man paid so much a head for recruits, and Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood and Sir Henry Simmerson had turned the Second Battalion of the South Essex into just such a contractor! Sharpe knew he was right. They were raising the recruits, using the achievements of the First Battalion as a lure, training the men, then selling them to those unfashionable, unsuccessful regiments who could not attract their own recruits. What Sharpe had just seen on this lawn was the end of the process, the display of the goods, and now, he supposed, in Sir Henry’s drawing room, the money would be paid over. Seven years before, Sharpe knew, a crimper could fetch twenty-five pounds for a man. The price must have doubled since then!

He guessed there were close to two hundred men on the north lawn. If each man fetched fifty pounds then there was a profit this day alone of ten thousand pounds! Enough to keep a man in solid comfort for two lifetimes! Add to that the stolen bounty and the other peculations of the Foulness Camp and it seemed to Sharpe that Sir Henry and Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood could be making a profit of close to seventy pounds a man.