‘He spoke, sir!’
Girdwood stood in front of Sharpe. ‘You spoke?’
Sharpe looked into the white face. The Colonel’s moustache was breaking through its mould of tar; small hairs struggling free between the cracked pitch. Sharpe made his voice as military and toneless as he could. ‘Private O’Keefe, sir. I wondered if he’d gone, sir.’
‘Does it matter?’ Gird wood smiled.
‘Friend, sir!’ Sharpe was staring now at the brilliantly polished badge on Girdwood’s shako, a badge which showed the chained Eagle that Sharpe and Harper had captured.
‘You do not, filth, speak unless you are spoken to. You do not, filth, address yourself to an officer!’ Girdwood’s voice was rising, the only sound in the great camp. ‘You do not, filth, concern yourself with matters beyond your competence. You are insolent!’ This last was almost screamed. It was followed by a silence in which Girdwood, who could not remember a man daring to ask him a question during an inspection, drew back his cane. ‘Filth!’ The cane whistled savagely, striking Sharpe’s left cheek. ‘Filth!’ Girdwood back-handed the weapon, drawing blood on Sharpe’s right cheek. ‘What are you?’
Sharpe could feel the blood on his face. He dropped his eyes to Girdwood’s, meeting the Colonel’s gaze. He was tempted to smile, to show that the blows had not hurt, but this was not a time to mire himself in further difficulties. ‘Filth, sir. Sorry, sir.’
Girdwood stepped back, his eyes fascinated by the blood that was trickling down to Sharpe’s jawbone. He gained a strange pleasure from so hurting and humiliating a taller, stronger man whose sudden, dark gaze had given him a second’s alarm. ‘You will watch this man, Sergeant Lynch!’
‘I always do, sir!’
The blows seemed to have vented an anger in the Colonel so that he did not care, suddenly, that the squad’s uniforms still showed the effects of their day in the marsh. He straightened his shoulders, tucked the cane beneath his arm, returned Lynch’s salute, and walked on to the next squad.
‘Stand still!’ Sergeant Lynch shouted as he saw the infinitesimal slackening of shoulders as the Colonel left. Sharpe obeyed, his back erect, his gaze going through the tents to the darkening east where, pale still in the dying sunlight, a great moon hung low on the horizon. He waited for the night, an inconveniently bright moonlit night, but a night in which he would run this place ragged and show these little men, these petty, moustachioed fools, these murderous, bullying bastards, what real soldiers were and how they fought.
CHAPTER 10
Twelve sergeants and four officers were ready for the night’s sport. They had taken precautions against the prisoner escaping by sending a patrol to the northern sea-wall, a patrol that had orders to herd the fugitive, should he try to flee into the estuary’s mudflats, back towards the hunters in the island’s marsh.
Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood called for attention. ‘You know the rules, gentlemen! Sabres or swords only! You hunt in pairs! Firearms will be used only to head the man off or in self-defence!’ All of the officers and four of the sergeants were on horseback and had cavalry carbines sheathed in their saddle holsters. The other sergeants carried muskets, but their job this night was merely to beat the prey towards the hunters. Girdwood spoke to his mounted men. ‘I want to see clean cuts, gentlemen, approved strokes!’ He meant that he wanted to see his men wielding their sabres and swords according to the diagrams in the cavalry training manuals. The officers and sergeants knew, too, that it was tactful to leave the killing stroke to the Colonel who was proud of his sabre-work. They might draw blood, but Girdwood liked to finish the sport. The Lieutenant Colonel smiled at them. ‘He’s an old soldier, so keep your wits! Don’t lose him!’ He pulled a great turnip watch from his pocket as Sergeant Lynch pushed the prisoner onto the embanked road north of the camp. ‘Thank you, Sergeant!’
Girdwood could have flogged Harper, but Sergeant Lynch had tactfully pointed out that the huge man had been flogged before. ‘Incorrigible, sir!’ It was a word Lynch had learned from Girdwood and used frequently of his fellow-countrymen.