Messines was charming. He regretted that His Royal Highness was consumed with work, and that, even as they spoke, His Royal Highness’s carriage was waiting outside, and the Lord alone knew when he would be back, but if Major Sharpe cared to tell Captain Messines the nature of his business?
Major Sharpe would not.
Captain Messines blinked as though Sharpe must have misunderstood, then gave his most winning smile. ‘Isn’t it splendid coffee? I believe the beans for this brew were captured at Vitoria. You were there, of course?’
‘Yes.’
Messines sighed. ‘His Royal Highness really will not see random visitors, Major. I do hope you understand.’
Sharpe drained the small cup. ‘You’re telling me it’s hopeless to wait?’
‘Quite hopeless.’ Messines gave his engaging smile to soften the bad news.
Sharpe stood. He pulled the great sword straight in its slings. ‘I’m sure the Prince of Wales would be fascinated by my news.’
It was a shot at random, but it must have struck home, for Messines raised both hands in a gesture of placation. ‘My dear Major Sharpe! Please! Sit down, I beg you!’
Sharpe guessed that there was little love lost between the pleasure-loving Prince of Wales and his sterner brother, the Duke of York. The Duke, whose ineptness as a General had given currency to a mocking little rhyme that described how, in his Flanders campaign, he had marched ten thousand men to the top of a hill and marched them down again, had nevertheless proved an efficient, meticulous, and mostly honest administrator. There had only been one scandal, when his mistress had been found selling commissions, and Sharpe’s words suggested, rightly, that the Prince would relish another scandal that would sully his younger brother’s stern reputation. Messines smiled. ‘If you could just tell me what it’s about, Major?’
‘No.’ Sharpe had decided that his words should be only for the Duke, for the Commander in Chief. There were other men in this building, important men, but he did not know which of them were involved, like Fenner, in the Foulness business. It had even occurred to him that perhaps there were other camps doing the same crimping trade.
Messines sighed again. He steepled his fingers and stared at a print of cavalrymen that hung on one wall, then shrugged at Sharpe. ‘You may be in for a very long wait, sir.’
‘I don’t mind.’
Messines gave up. He invited Sharpe to stay in the small room, even fetching a copy of that morning’s Times for him.
The newspaper shocked Sharpe. It printed a report from San Sebastian on Spain’s northern coast and it appeared, though this was not the burden of the report, that at least one assault on the town had failed and the British army, however optimistic the newspaper sounded, was baulked and taking casualties. It was what followed that shocked Sharpe. The newspaper was reporting a victory, though its report was confusing, and Sharpe, who had been told by Major General Nairn that the rest of this summer would see a lull in the war, now read that a French thrust over the Pyrenees had been repulsed after grim fighting. There was a list of casualties on an inside page and Sharpe read it intently. There was no mention of any man from the shrunken South Essex, so perhaps, he thought, they still guarded the Pasajes wharfs.
He stared into the parade ground. Men were fighting and dying in Spain and he was here! It struck him as a bitter fate. His place was not here where men drank their coffee from small, exquisite cups.
A clock in the passage struck eleven.
He read the rest of the paper. There was no other news from Spain. There had been riots because of the high price of bread in Leicestershire and the militia had been called out and found it necessary to fire a volley of musketry into the crowd. A weaving mill in Derbyshire had been broken into by a mob who feared that its machinery would take away their jobs. The mill’s looms had been smashed with hammers, and its wheel-shaft damaged by fire, causing the magistrates to call out the local militia. He turned back to the report from Spain. A battle had been fought at Sorauren. He had never heard of the place, and he wondered if it was in France or Spain, for the border was intricate in the Pyrenees, but then he reflected that the Times would surely have said if any British troops had crossed the frontier. He wanted to be there when it happened. He wanted to be there with his own regiment.