The barges were loaded with hay, great cargoes that were netted and roped down beneath heavy booms wrapped in swathes of red sail. The bargemen looked suspiciously at him. One told him to make himself scarce, but Sharpe tossed one of his three guineas into the air, caught it again, and the sight of the gold quieted them. He picked one man who looked less surly than the others. ‘Where are you going?’
The man said nothing at first. He stared Sharpe up and down before, slowly and reluctantly, giving an answer. ‘London.’
‘You take passengers?’
‘Don’t like vagrants.’ He had the broad Essex accent that Sharpe had heard so often in the battle line of his regiment.
Sharpe tossed the guinea in his hand. ‘Do you take passengers?’
‘How many?’
Behind Sharpe, a cock challenged the morning. He was listening for hooves, but he dared not show any fear to this man. ‘Two of us.’
‘One each.’ It was sheer robbery, but the man, recognising the tattered fatigue jacket beneath the mud, must have guessed at Sharpe’s desperation.
Sharpe gave him the guinea and showed him a second. ‘It’s yours when we get there.’
The man nodded towards the boats. ‘It’s the Amelia. I’m casting off in five minutes.’
Sharpe put two fingers into his mouth, whistled, and the vast figure of Harper with his gun came into sight. The man watched them in silence as they went aboard, then, with only a boy to help him, and eschewing any assistance from the two soldiers, he hoisted three huge red sails. The barge crept away from the jetty, into the river that he said was called the Blackwater, and they glided, with a gentle land breeze, out towards the sea.
A half hour later, as they cleared the land and headed out to make the wide turn about the sandbanks of the Essex coast, Harper nodded back towards the shore. The bargeman looked and saw nothing, but Sharpe, whose life and health in Spain depended on spotting cavalry at a distance, saw the horsemen on one of the low hills.
They leaned back on the small deck beside the cargo. Before they reached London Sharpe knew he must throw the carbine and bayonet overboard, but for now the weapons were a small insurance against the temptation for the bargeman to turn them in as deserters. The water slapped and ran down the boat’s side, the wind bellied the sails, the sun was hot, and Harper slept. Sharpe dozed, the carbine on his knees, and dreamed of a shadowed, hooded girl who had been waiting for him in a damp tunnel. Thanks to Jane Gibbons, they had escaped Foulness, but she, engaged on her uncle’s orders, was still trapped in the marshland. He day-dreamed of revenge, and let the boat carry him towards safety.
CHAPTER 12
The next morning Sharpe saw posters being pasted onto walls throughout London. The printing was thick and black, with a gaudy red Royal coat of arms emblazoned at the top. He paused, on his way from Southwark where he had spent the night, and read one of the posters on Old London Bridge.
A GRAND REVIEW
In the Presence
and by the Gracious Command of;
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES
On the Forenoon of Saturday 21st August, in Hyde Park, His Majesty’s Cavalry, Artillery, and Infantry, with their Bands, Colours and Appurtenances, will Parade before His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, the Prince Regent, and before His Royal Highness, the Duke of York, together with the Trophies and Artillery pieces captured in the Present Wars against the French now being fought in Spain.
And, by His Royal Highness’s Gracious Command and Pleasure, the troops will enact, with Precision and Verisimilitude, the Recent Great Victory Gained over the forces of the Corsican Tyrant at Vittoria.
GOD SAVE THE KING!
The battle of Vitoria, Sharpe thought, was being milked for all it was worth, presumably to take the minds of Londoners away from the rising price of food and the ever-increasing taxes that fuelled the war.
He was dressed in the uniform he had bought to attend Carlton House, his old boots polished, his scabbard shining, only the crusts of blood on his cheeks remaining of his time at Foulness.