He stood, retrieving the soldier’s fallen shako, then, with difficulty, stripped the man of his jacket and weapons. Sharpe wiped the mud from his face, pulled the jacket on and strapped the bayonet and ammunition pouch about his waist. He slung the musket, checked that the man was still insensible, then walked boldly out into the moonlit compound between the Battalion’s buildings.
No one noticed anything strange as a sentry strolled from the makeshift latrine towards the stables. No officer or sergeant challenged Sharpe as he went into the darkness beyond the stable door. ‘Hello!’
No one answered. There was only a single horse left in the stable, and no saddle that Sharpe could see, but he did find an old bridle hanging on the wall. He put it onto the horse, his movements clumsy, but the beast seemed used to such unskilled treatment in this camp of infantrymen. Sharpe tied the reins to a hook by the door, then crouched down beside the straw of an empty stall.
He lifted the musket’s pan lid and found, as he had feared, that the weapon was loaded. He did not want to fire a shot at this moment, drawing attention to himself, and he cursed softly, for what he must do now would render the musket useless for the rest of the night, but time was passing and the problems that were to come would have to be faced without a weapon.
He took one cartridge from the captured pouch, bit the bullet free and spat it away. He tore the stiff wax-paper cylinder open and laid it carefully beside him on the stable floor.
He lifted the musket, raised the frizzen again, turned the weapon over and shook its priming onto the ground. If the flint fell now there was no powder to spark the charge in the barrel.
He needed the spark of the flint and the flare of the pan, but he had to stop the musket firing. He pinched a lump of earth from the stable entrance into his palm, spat on it, then worked it into a small ball of mud. He pressed the mud into the touch-hole of the musket, blocking it, then, with powder from the opened cartridge, he re-primed the pan. He spat onto the powder to retard its explosion, then, carefully, he twisted the rest of the cartridge into a paper spill that was filled with gunpowder.
He prayed that the mud would stop up the touch-hole, held the paper of the torn cartridge in his right hand, and pulled the trigger with his left.
The flint snapped down, struck sparks from the steel, but the powder did not catch. He swore, wondering if he had moistened the powder overmuch, and cocked the gun again. He pulled the trigger a second time and again it did not catch. He did it yet again, and this time, fizzing and sparking, the powder flared and Sharpe held the paper spill in the sudden seething fire and willed the flame to catch. For a second he thought it would not, then the powder wrapped in his paper caught the flame and burst brightly upwards. The horse, seeing the sudden fire, whinnied and shuffled sideways. Sharpe clicked his tongue, then pushed the burning paper deep into the straw of the stall. He stood, slinging the musket on his shoulder. It was useless as a firearm until its touch-hole was cleared, but he might yet need it as a club.
He had planned a fire whatever might happen tonight; a diversion to draw men away from Harper. The straw was smoking, small flames creeping up the stems, and to help it he broke apart and scattered more cartridges on the fire. Then, satisfied that the stable was doomed, he climbed clumsily onto the horse’s back, leaned forward to unloop the reins, and almost fell from the bareback horse as it started forward under the stable door. Sharpe ducked beneath the lintel, clung to the horse’s mane, and snatched at the slung musket as it fell down to his elbow.
God, but it was hard to ride bareback! He slipped left, corrected his balance, and almost fell from the horse’s right side. He wrenched the reins, driving it north between two buildings, and he heard the first shout of alarm as a man saw the leaping, fierce flames that now spread among the dry summer straw. No man thought it strange that a uniformed man should ride towards the marsh this night, nor was any man willing to challenge Sharpe, for, in an infantry Battalion, the men who rode horses were usually officers. Sharpe, unmolested and with the chaos about to begin, rode to join the hunt.