LITMIR.BIZ

      ‘Tents!’ Sharpe spat the word out. ‘Goddamned bloody tents!’

      ‘For sleeping in, sir.’ Sergeant Patrick Harper kept a rigidly straight face. The watching men of the South Essex grinned.

      ‘Bloody tents.’

      ‘Clean tents, sir. Nice and white, sir. We could make flower gardens round them in case the lads get homesick.’

      Sharpe kicked one of the enormous canvas bundles. ‘Who needs goddamned tents?’

      ‘Soldiers, sir, in case they get cold and wet at night.’ Harper’s thick Ulster accent was rich with amusement. ‘I expect they’ll give us beds next, sir, with clean sheets and little girls to tuck us up at night. And chamberpots, sir, with God save the King written on their rims.’

      Sharpe kicked the heap of tents again. ‘I’ll order the Quartermaster to burn them.’

      ‘He can’t do that, sir.’

      ‘Of course he can!’

      ‘Signed for, sir. Any loss will be deducted from pay, sir.’

      Sharpe prowled round the great heap of obscene bundles. Of all the ridiculous, unnecessary, stupid things, the Horse Guards had sent tents! Soldiers had always slept in the open! Sharpe had woken in the morning with his hair frozen to the ground, had woken with his clothes sopping wet, but he had never wanted a tent! He was an infantryman. An infantryman had to march, and march fast, and tents would slow them down. ‘How are we supposed to carry the bloody things?’

      ‘Mules, sir, tent mules. One to two companies. To be issued tomorrow, sir, and signed for.’

      ‘Jesus wept!’

      ‘Probably because he didn’t have a tent, sir.’

      Sharpe smiled, because he was enjoying himself, but this sudden arrival of tents from headquarters posed problems he did not need. The tents would need five mules to carry them. Each mule could carry two hundred pounds, plus thirty more pounds of forage that would keep the animal alive for six days. If they marched on a campaign like last summer’s then he would have to assume that forage would be short and extra mules would have to carry extra forage. But the extra mules would need feed too, which meant more mules still, and if he assumed a march of six weeks then that was nine hundred extra pounds of forage. That would need four to five more mules, but those mules would need an extra seven hundred pounds of feed which would mean four more mules, who would also need forage; and so on, until the ridiculous but accurate conclusion was reached that it would take fourteen extra mules simply to keep the five tent-carrying mules alive! He kicked another tent. ‘Christ, Patrick! It’s ridiculous!’

      It was three days since the French had surrendered to them in the hills. They had marched north from the bridge, suddenly leaving the approaches to Salamanca and coming into an area of hills and bad tracks. Waiting for them was the bulk of the army, and a white-grey pile of goddamned tents. Sharpe scowled. ‘We’ll leave them in store.’

      ‘And have them stolen, sir?’

      Sharpe swore. What Harper meant, of course, was that the storekeeper would sell the tents to the Spanish, claim that they were stolen, and have them charged to the Battalion’s accounts. ‘You know the storekeeper?’

      ‘Aye.’ Harper sounded dubious.

      ‘How much?’

      ‘Handful.’

      Sharpe swore again. He could doubtless get five pounds out of the Battalion accounts to bribe the storekeeper, but the job would be a nuisance. ‘He’s no friend of yours, this storekeeper?’

      ‘He’s from County Down.’ Harper said it meaningfully. ‘Sell his own bloody mother for a shilling.’

      ‘You’ve got nothing on the bastard?’

      ‘No.’ Harper shook his head. ‘He’s tighter than an orangeman’s drum.’

      ‘I’ll get you the handful.’ He could sell one of the mules that would arrive tomorrow, claim it died of glanders or God knows what, and see if anyone dared question him. He shook his head in exasperation, then grinned at the big Sergeant. ‘How’s your woman?’

      ‘Grand, sir!’ Harper beamed. ‘Blooming, so she is. I think she’d like to cook you one of those terrible meals.’

      ‘I’ll come for one this week.’ Isabella was a small, dark Spanish girl whom Harper had rescued from the horror at Badajoz. Ever since that terrible night she had loyally followed the Battalion, along with the other wives, mistresses and whores who formed a clumsy tail to every marching army. Sharpe suspected that Harper would be marrying before the year’s end.

      The huge Irishman pushed his shako back and scratched at his sandy hair. ‘Did your dago find you, sir?’

      ‘Dago?’

      ‘Officer; a real ribbon-merchant. He was sniffing about this morning, so he was. Looked as if he’d lost his purse. Grim as a bloody judge.’

      ‘I was here.’

      Harper shrugged. ‘Probably wasn’t important.’

      But Sharpe was frowning. He did not know why, but his instinct, that kept him alive on the battlefield, was suddenly warning him of trouble. The warning was sufficient to destroy the small moment of happiness that insulting the tents had given him. It was as if,

Скачать книгу