LITMIR.BIZ

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of lard wrapped up in linen. Get yourself a sweet little bibbi, man, something that ain’t yet run to seed.’

      ‘Very good advice, sir,’ Hakeswill said, his face twitching. ‘Words of wisdom, sir. Shall I dismiss him, sir?’

      ‘Mary Bickerstaff is a good woman, sir,’ Lieutenant Lawford said. The Lieutenant, whom Sharpe had first approached with his request, was eager to do his best. ‘Sharpe could do a lot worse than marry Mary Bickerstaff, sir.’

      Morris cut a cigar and lit it from the guttering candle that burned on his camp table. ‘White, is she?’ he asked negligently.

      ‘Half bibbi and half Christian, sir,’ Hakeswill said, ‘but she had a good man for her husband.’ He sniffed, pretending that he was suddenly overcome with emotion. ‘And Jem Bickerstaff ain’t this month in his grave, sir. Too soon for the trollop to marry again. It ain’t right, sir. Says so in the scriptures.’

      Morris offered Hakeswill a cynical glance. ‘Don’t be absurd, Sergeant. Most army widows marry the next day! The ranks are hardly high society, you know.’

      ‘But Jem Bickerstaff was a friend of mine, sir,’ Hakeswill said, sniffing again and even cuffing at an invisible tear. ‘Friend of mine, sir,’ he repeated more hoarsely, ‘and on his dying bed, sir, he begged me to look after his little wife, sir. I know she ain’t through and through white, he told me, but she deserves to be looked after. His very dying words, sir.’

      ‘He bloody hated you!’ Sharpe could not resist the words.

      ‘Quiet in front of an officer!’ Hakeswill shouted. ‘Speak when you’re spoken to, boy, and otherwise keep your filthy mouth buttoned like God wanted it.’

      Morris frowned as though Hakeswill’s loud voice was giving him a headache. Then he looked up at Sharpe. ‘I’ll talk to Major Shee about it, Sharpe. If the woman is on the strength and wants to marry you, then I don’t suppose we can stop her. I’ll talk to the Major. You’re dismissed.’

      Sharpe hesitated, wondering whether he should thank the Captain for the laconic words, but before he could say anything, Hakeswill was bawling in his ear. ‘About turn! Smartly now! Hat on! Quick march! One two one two, smartly now. Mind the bleeding curtain, boy! This ain’t a pig sty like what you grew up in, but an officer’s quarters!’

      Morris waited till Sharpe was gone, then looked up at Lawford. ‘Nothing more, Lieutenant?’

      Lawford guessed that he too was dismissed. ‘You will talk to Major Shee, Charles?’ he pressed Morris.

      ‘I just said so, didn’t I?’ Morris glared up at the Lieutenant.

      Lawford hesitated, then nodded. ‘Good night, sir,’ he said and ducked under the muslin screen.

      Morris waited until he was certain that both men were out of earshot. ‘Now what do we do?’ he asked Hakeswill.

      ‘Tell the silly bugger that Major Shee refused permission, sir.’

      ‘And Willie Lawford will talk to the Major and find that he didn’t. Or else he’ll go straight to Wellesley. Lawford’s uncle is on the staff, or had you forgotten that? Use your wits, man!’ Morris slapped at a moth that had managed to slip through the screen. ‘What do we do?’ he asked again.

      Hakeswill sat on a stool opposite the camp table. He scratched his head, glanced into the night, then looked back to Morris. ‘He’s a sharp one, Sharpie, he is. Slippery. But I’ll do him.’ He paused. ‘Of course, sir, if you helped, it’d be quicker. Much quicker.’

      Morris looked dubious. ‘The girl will only find herself another protector,’ he said. ‘I think you’re wasting my time, Sergeant.’

      ‘What me, sir? No, sir. Not at all, sir. I’ll have the girl, sir, just you watch, and Nasty Naig says you can have all you want of her. Free and gratis, sir, like you ought to.’

      Morris stood, pulled on his jacket and picked up his hat and sword. ‘You think I’d share your woman, Hakeswill?’ The Captain shuddered. ‘And get your pox?’

      ‘Pox, sir? Me, sir?’ Hakeswill stood. ‘Not me, sir. Clean as a whistle, I am, sir. Cured, sir. Mercury.’ His face twitched. ‘Ask the surgeon, sir, he’ll tell you.’

      Morris hesitated, thinking of Mary Bickerstaff. He thought a great deal about Mary Bickerstaff. Her beauty ensured that, and men on campaign were deprived of beauty and so Mary’s allure only increased with every mile the army marched westwards. Morris was not alone. On the night when Mary’s husband had died, the 33rd’s officers, at least those who had a mind for such games, had wagered which of them would first take the widow to their bed and so far none of them had succeeded. Morris wanted to win, not only for the fourteen guineas that would accrue to the successful seducer, but because he had become besotted by the woman. Soon after she had become a widow he had asked Mary to do his laundry, thinking that thereby he could begin the intimacy he craved, but she had refused him with a lacerating scorn. Morris wanted to punish her for that scorn, and Hakeswill, with his intuition for other men’s weaknesses, had sensed what Morris wanted and promised he would arrange everything. Naig, Hakeswill assured his bitter officer, had a way of breaking reluctant girls. ‘There ain’t a bibbi born that Nasty can’t break, sir,’ Hakeswill had promised Morris, ‘and he’d give a small fortune for a proper white one. Not that Mrs Bickerstaff’s proper white, sir, not like a Christian, but in the dark she’d pass well enough.’ The Sergeant needed Morris’s help in ridding Mrs Bickerstaff of Richard Sharpe and as an inducement he had offered Morris the free run of Naig’s tent. In return, Morris knew, Hakeswill would expect a lifetime’s patronage. As Morris climbed the army’s ranks, so Hakeswill would be drawn ineluctably after him and with each step the Sergeant would garner more power and influence.

      ‘So when will you free Mrs Bickerstaff of Sharpe?’ Morris asked, buckling his sword belt.

      ‘Tonight, sir. With your help. You’ll be back here by midnight, I dare say?’

      ‘I might.’

      ‘If you are, sir, we’ll do him. Tonight, sir.’

      Morris clapped the cocked hat on his head, made sure his purse was in his coat-tail pocket and ducked under the muslin. ‘Carry on, Sergeant,’ he called back.

      ‘Sir!’ Hakeswill stood to attention for a full ten seconds after the Captain was gone, and then, with a sly grin twitching on his lumpy face, followed Morris into the night.

      Nineteen miles to the south lay a temple. It was an ancient place, deep in the country, one of the many Hindu shrines where the country folk came on high days and holidays to do honour to their gods and to pray for a timely monsoon, for good crops and for the absence of warlords. For the rest of the year the temple lay abandoned, its gods and altars and richly carved spires home to scorpions, snakes and monkeys.

      The temple was surrounded by a wall through which one gate led, though the wall was not high and the gate was never shut. Villagers left small offerings of leaves, flowers and food in niches of the gateposts, and sometimes they would go into the temple itself, cross the courtyard and climb to the inner shrine where they would place their small gifts beneath the image of a god, but at night, when the Indian sky lay black over a heat-exhausted land, no one would ever dream of disturbing the gods.

      But this night, the night after battle, a man entered the temple. He was tall and thin, with white hair and a harsh, suntanned face. He was over sixty years old, but his back was still straight and he moved with the ease of a much younger man. Like many Europeans who had lived a long time in India he was prone to bouts of debilitating fever, but otherwise he was in sterling health, and Colonel Hector McCandless ascribed that good health to his religion and to a regimen that abjured alcohol, tobacco and meat. His religion was Calvinism for Hector McCandless had grown up in Scotland and the godly lessons that had been whipped into his young, earnest soul had never been forgotten. He was an honest man, a tough man, and a wise one.

      His soul was old in experience, but even so it

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