LITMIR.BIZ

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gathered excitedly to stare at the captured heathen. They saw an old man and some wondered if they had captured the enemy’s General, but the captive seemed to speak no language any of them knew and so his identity would have to wait. He was given one of his dead escort’s horses and then, as the sun climbed towards its daily furnace heat, McCandless was taken west towards the Tippoo’s stronghold.

      While behind him the vultures circled and at last, sure that nothing lived where the dust and flies had settled on the newly made corpses, flew down for their feast.

      It took two days to convene the court martial. The army could not spare the time in its march for the business to be done immediately and so Captain Morris had to wait until the great ponderous horde was given a half-day’s rest to allow the straggling herds to catch up with the main armies. Only then was there time to assemble the officers and have Private Sharpe brought into Major Shee’s tent which had one of its sides brailed up to make more space. Captain Morris laid the charge and Sergeant Hakeswill and Ensign Hicks gave evidence.

      Major John Shee was irritable. The Major was irritable at the best of times, but the need to stay at least apparently sober had only shortened his already short Irish temper. He did not, in truth, enjoy commanding the 33rd. Major Shee suspected, when he was sober enough to suspect anything, that he did the job badly and that suspicion had given rise to a haunting fear of mutiny, and mutiny, to Major Shee’s befuddled mind, was signalled by any sign of disrespect for established authority. Private Sharpe was plainly a man who brimmed over with such disrespect and the offence with which he was charged was plain and the remedy just as obvious, but the court proceedings were delayed because Lieutenant Lawford, who should have spoken for Sharpe, was not present. ‘Then where the devil is he?’ Shee demanded.

      Captain Fillmore, commander of the fourth company, spoke for Lawford. ‘He was summoned to General Harris’s tent, sir.’

      Shee frowned at Fillmore. ‘He knew he was supposed to be here?’

      ‘Indeed, sir. But the General insisted.’

      ‘And we’re just supposed to twiddle our thumbs while he takes tea with the General?’ Shee demanded.

      Captain Fillmore glanced through the tent’s open side as if he hoped to see Lawford hurrying towards the court martial, but there were only sentries to be seen. ‘Lieutenant Lawford did ask me to assure the court, sir, that Private Sharpe is a most reliable man,’ Fillmore said, fearing that he was not doing a very good job of defending the unfortunate prisoner. ‘The Lieutenant would have spoken most forcibly for the prisoner’s character, sir, and begged the court to grant him the benefit of any doubt.’

      ‘Doubt?’ Shee snapped. ‘What doubt is there? He struck a sergeant, he was seen doing it by two officers, and you think there’s doubt? It’s an open-and-shut case! That’s what it is, open and shut!’

      Fillmore shrugged. ‘Ensign Fitzgerald would also like to say something.’

      Shee glared at Fitzgerald. ‘Not much to say, Ensign, I trust?’

      ‘Whatever it might take, sir, to prevent a miscarriage of justice.’ Fitzgerald, young and confident, stood and smiled at his commanding officer and fellow Irishman. ‘I doubt we’ve a better soldier in the regiment, sir, and I suspect Private Sharpe was given provocation.’

      ‘Captain Morris says not,’ Shee insisted, ‘and so does Ensign Hicks.’

      ‘I cannot contradict the Captain, sir,’ Fitzgerald said blandly, ‘but I was drinking with Timothy Hicks earlier that evening, sir, and if his eyes weren’t crossed by midnight then he must possess a belly like a Flanders cauldron.’

      Shee looked dangerously belligerent. ‘Are you accusing a fellow officer of being under the influence of liquor?’

      Fitzgerald reckoned that most of the 33rd’s mess was ever under the influence of arrack, rum or brandy, but he also knew better than to say as much. ‘I’m just agreeing with Captain Fillmore, sir, that we should give Private Sharpe the benefit of the doubt.’

      ‘Doubt?’ Shee spat. ‘There is no doubt! Open and shut!’ He gestured at Sharpe who stood hatless in front of his escort. Flies crawled on Sharpe’s face, but he was not allowed to brush them away. Shee seemed to shudder at the thought of Sharpe’s villainy. ‘He struck a sergeant in full view of two officers, and you think there’s doubt about what happened?’

      ‘I do, sir,’ Fitzgerald declared forcibly. ‘Indeed I do.’

      Sergeant Hakeswill’s face twitched. He watched Fitzgerald with loathing. Major Shee stared at Fitzgerald for a few seconds, then shook his head as though questioning the Ensign’s sanity.

      Captain Fillmore tried one last time. Fillmore doubted the evidence of Morris and Hicks, and he had never trusted Hakeswill, but he knew Shee could never be persuaded to take the word of a private against that of two officers and a sergeant. ‘Might I beg the court,’ Fillmore said respectfully, ‘to suspend judgment until Lieutenant Lawford can speak for the prisoner?’

      ‘What can Lawford say, in the name of God?’ Shee demanded. There was a flask of arrack waiting in his baggage and he wanted to get these proceedings over and done. He had a brief, muttered conversation with his two fellow judges, both of them field officers from other regiments, then glared at the prisoner. ‘You’re a damned villain, Sharpe, and the army has no need of villains. If you can’t respect authority, then don’t expect authority to respect you. Two thousand lashes.’ He ignored the shudder of astonishment and horror that some of the onlookers gave and looked instead at the Sergeant Major. ‘How soon can it be done?’

      ‘This afternoon’s as good a time as any, sir,’ Bywaters answered stolidly. He had expected a flogging verdict, though not as severe as this, and he had already made the necessary arrangements.

      Shee nodded. ‘Parade the battalion in two hours. These proceedings are over.’ He gave Sharpe one foul glance, then pushed his chair back. He would need some arrack, Shee thought, if he was to sit his horse in the sun through two thousand lashes. Maybe he should have only given one thousand, for a thousand lashes were as liable to kill as two, but it was too late now, the verdict was given, and Shee’s only hope of respite from the dreadful heat was his hope that the prisoner would die long before the awful punishment was finished.

      Sharpe was kept under guard. His sentinels were not men from his own battalion, but six men from the King’s 12th who did not know him and who could therefore be trusted not to connive in his escape. They kept him in a makeshift pen behind Shee’s tent and no one spoke to Sharpe there until Sergeant Green arrived. ‘I’m sorry about this, Sharpie,’ Green said, stepping over the ammunition boxes that formed the crude walls of the pen.

      Sharpe was sitting with his back against the boxes. He shrugged. ‘I’ve been whipped before, Sergeant.’

      ‘Not in the army, lad, not in the army. Here.’ Green held out a canteen. ‘It’s rum.’

      Sharpe uncorked the canteen and drank a good slug of the liquor. ‘I didn’t do nothing anyway,’ he said sullenly.

      ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Green said, ‘but the more you drink the less you’ll feel. Finish it, lad.’

      ‘Tomkins says you don’t feel a damn thing after the first thirty,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘I hope he’s right, lad, I hope he’s right, but you drink that rum anyway.’ Green took off his shako and wiped the sweat from his bald head with a scrap of rag.

      Sharpe tipped the canteen again. ‘And where was Mister Lawford?’ he asked bitterly.

      ‘You heard, son. He was called off to see the General.’ Green hesitated. ‘But what could he have said anyway?’ he added.

      Sharpe leaned his head against the box-built wall. ‘He could have said that Morris is a lying bastard and that Hicks will say anything to please him.’

      ‘No, he couldn’t say that, lad, and you know it.’ Green filled a clay pipe with tobacco and lit it with

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