LITMIR.BIZ

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as me then,’ Sharpe said. ‘Exact same as me. Except till the General said you was coming with me I had half a mind to run proper.’

      Lawford was shocked by the admission. ‘You really wanted to desert?’

      ‘For Christ’s sake! What do you think it’s like in the ranks if you’ve got an officer like Morris and a sergeant like Hakeswill? Those bastards think we’re just bleeding cattle, but we’re not. Most of us want to do a decent job. Not too decent, maybe. We want a bit of money and a bibbi from time to time, but we don’t actually enjoy being flogged. And we can fight like the bloody devil. If you bastard lot started trusting us instead of treating us like the enemy, you’d be bloody amazed what we could do.’

      Lawford said nothing.

      ‘You’ve got some good men in the company,’ Sharpe insisted. ‘Tom Garrard is a better soldier than half the officers in the battalion, but you don’t even notice him. If a man can’t read and doesn’t speak like a bleeding choirboy you think he can’t be trusted.’

      ‘The army’s changing,’ Lawford said defensively.

      ‘Like hell it is. Why do you make us powder our hair like bleeding women? Or wear that bloody stock?’

      ‘Change takes time,’ Lawford said weakly.

      ‘Too much bloody time,’ Sharpe said fervently, then leaned against the wall and eyed the girls who were cooking at the tavern’s far end. Were they whores, he wondered? Hickson and Blake had told him they knew where the best whores were, then he remembered Mary and suddenly felt guilty. He had not seen her once since their arrival in Seringapatam, but nor had he thought that much about her. In truth he was having too good a time here; the food was good, the liquor cheap and the company acceptable, and to that was added the heady spice of danger. ‘After that brilliant piece of sharpshooting,’ he encouraged Lawford, ‘we’re going to be all right. We’ll have a chance to get out of here.’

      ‘What about Mrs Bickerstaff?’ Lawford asked.

      ‘I was just thinking of her. And maybe you were right. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought her. Couldn’t leave her with the army though, could I? Not with Hakeswill planning to sell her to a kin.’

      ‘A kin?’

      ‘A pimp.’

      ‘He really planned that?’ Lawford asked.

      ‘Him and Morris. In it together, they were. Bloody Hakeswill told me as much, the night he got me to hit him. And Morris was there with that little bastard Hicks, just waiting for me to do it. I was a bloody fool to fall for it, but there it is.’

      ‘Can you prove it?’

      ‘Prove it!’ Sharpe asked derisively. ‘Of course I can’t prove it, but it’s true.’ He blew out a rueful breath. ‘Just what am I going to do with Mary?’

      ‘Take her with you, of course,’ Lawford said sternly.

      ‘Might not have a chance,’ Sharpe said.

      Lawford stared at him for a few seconds. ‘God, you’re ruthless,’ he finally said.

      ‘I’m a soldier. It fits.’ Sharpe said it proudly, but he was not proud, merely defiant. What was he to do with Mary? And where was she? He drank the rest of his arrack and clapped his hands for more. ‘You want to find a bibbi tonight?’ he asked Lawford.

      ‘A whore?’ Lawford asked in horror.

      ‘I don’t suppose a respectable woman will help us out much. Not unless you want a spot of polite conversation.’

      Lawford stared aghast at Sharpe. ‘What we should do,’ the Lieutenant said softly, ‘is find this man Ravi Shekhar. He may have a way of getting news out of the city.’

      ‘And how the hell are we supposed to find him?’ Sharpe asked defiantly. ‘We can’t wander the bloody streets asking for this fellow in English. No one will know what the heck we’re doing! I’ll ask Mary to find him when we see her.’ He grinned. ‘Bugger Shekhar. How about a bibbi instead?’

      ‘Maybe I’ll read.’

      ‘Your choice,’ Sharpe said carelessly.

      Lawford hesitated, his face reddening. ‘It’s just that I’ve seen men with the pox,’ he explained.

      ‘Christ! You’ve seen men vomit, but it don’t stop you drinking. Besides, don’t worry about the pox. That’s why God gave us mercury. The stuff worked for bloody Hakeswill, didn’t it? Though God knows why. Besides, Harry Hickson says he knows some clean girls, but of course they always say that. Still, if you want to ruin your eyes reading the Bible, go ahead, but there ain’t no mercury that will give you your sight back.’

      Lawford said nothing for a few seconds. ‘Maybe I will come with you,’ he finally said shyly, staring down at the table.

      ‘Learning how the other half lives?’ Sharpe asked with a grin.

      ‘Something like that,’ Lawford mumbled.

      ‘Well enough, I tell you. Give us some cash and a willing couple of frows and we can live like kings. We’ll make this the last drink, eh? Don’t want to lower the flag, do we?’

      Lawford was now deep red. ‘You won’t, of course, tell anyone about this when we’re back?’

      ‘Me?’ Sharpe pretended to be astonished at the very idea. ‘My lips are gummed together. Not a word, promise.’

      Lawford worried that he was letting his dignity slide, but he did not want to lose Sharpe’s approval. The Lieutenant was becoming fascinated by the younger man’s confidence, and envied the way in which Sharpe so instinctively negotiated a wicked world and he wished he could find the same easy ability in himself. He thought briefly of the Bible waiting back in the barracks, and of his mother’s advice to read it diligently, but then he decided to hell with them both. He drained his arrack, picked up his musket and followed Sharpe into the dusk.

      Every house in the city was prepared for the siege. Store-houses were filled with food and valuables were being hastily concealed in case the enemy armies broke through the wall. Holes were dug in gardens and filled with coins and jewellery, and in some of the wealthier houses whole rooms were concealed by false walls so that the women could be hidden away when the invaders rampaged through the streets.

      Mary helped General Appah Rao’s household prepare for that ordeal. She felt guilty, not because she came from the army that was imposing this threatened misery on the city, but because she had unexpectedly found herself happy in Rao’s sprawling home.

      When General Appah Rao had first taken her away from Sharpe she had been frightened, but the General had taken her to his own house and there reassured her of her safety. ‘We must clean you,’ the General told her, ‘and let that eye heal.’ He treated her gently, but with a measure of reserve that sprang from her dishevelled looks and her presumed history. The General did not believe that Mary was the most suitable addition to his household, but she spoke English and Appah Rao was shrewd enough to reckon that a command of English would be a profitable accomplishment in Mysore’s future and he had three sons who would have to survive in that future. ‘In time,’ Rao told Mary, ‘you can join your man, but it’s best he should settle in first.’

      But now, after a week in the General’s household, Mary did not want to leave. For a start the house was filled with women who had taken her into their care and treated her with a kindness that astonished her. The General’s wife, Lakshmi, was a tall plump woman with prematurely grey hair and an infectious laugh. She had two grown unmarried daughters and, though there was a score of female servants, Mary was surprised to discover that Lakshmi and her daughters shared the work of the big house. They did not sweep it or draw water – those tasks were for the lowest of the servants – but Lakshmi loved to be in the kitchen from where her laughter rippled out into the rest of the house.

      It had been Lakshmi who had scolded

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