something, and then held his breath as his stomach heaved and, when the spasm had passed, breathed out slowly. ‘Forgive me, my dear Matthews. I think my stomach’s delicate this morning. You wouldn’t, I suppose, do me the honour of lending me five pounds? Just for a day or two? Guineas would be better.’
His father had warned him of this, too, but Matthews felt it would be unwise to begin his acquaintance with his new Company by a churlish refusal. He was aware of the soldiers in the yard listening and he wondered if he was an innocent in some kind of private joke, but what else could he do?
‘Of course, sir.’
Lieutenant Price looked astonished. ‘My dear fellow, how kind! Splendid! I’ll give you my note, of course.’
‘And hope the Ensign gets killed at Badajoz?’
Matthews spun round. The tall soldier, the one whose back was so horribly scarred, had spoken. The man’s face was scarred, too, and it gave him a knowing, even mocking expression, that was belied by his voice. He grinned at Matthews. ‘He’s doing it to everyone. Borrowing in the hope that they die. He should make a tidy enough profit.’
Matthews did not know what to say. The soldier had spoken in a kindly way, but he had not used the word ‘sir’, which was disconcerting, and Matthews had the feeling that what little authority his lowly rank endowed was already being dissipated. He hoped the Lieutenant would intervene, but Price’s expression was sheepish as he put the shako on his head and grinned at the scarred man. ‘This is Ensign Matthews, sir. He’s brought the replacements.’
The tall, scarred man nodded at the Ensign. ‘Glad you’re here, Matthews. I’m Sharpe, Captain Sharpe. What’s your name?’
‘Matthews, sir.’ The Ensign gaped at Sharpe. An officer who had been flogged? He realized his answer had been inadequate. ‘William, sir.’
‘Good morning and welcome.’ Sharpe was making an effort to be pleasant. He hated mornings and this morning, in particular, was unpleasant. Today Teresa was going from Elvas and riding the few miles, across the border, to Badajoz. Another parting. ‘Where did you leave the men?’
Matthews had not left them anywhere; the Sergeant had made all the decisions, but he pointed through the gate. ‘Outside, sir.’
‘Get them in, get them in.’ Sharpe rubbed his hair dry with a piece of sacking. ‘Sergeant Harper! Sergeant Read!’ Harper could settle the recruits into the Company, while Read, the Methodist teetotaller, could fuss over the Company books. It would be a busy day.
Sharpe dressed hurriedly. The rain had stopped, at least for the moment, but the wind still came cold from the north and brought with it high, streaked clouds that promised more bad weather in March. At least, being the first troops to arrive, the Battalion had the pick of Elvas’s billets and the men lived in comparative comfort even as they stared across the border at Badajoz. The two fortresses were just eleven miles apart, either side of a shallow valley, but, despite their closeness, they were vastly different. Badajoz was a city, the capital of a province, while Elvas was a small market town that found itself in the centre of wide, spreading defences. Impressive as were the Portuguese walls, they were small compared with the Spanish fortifications that barred the road to Madrid. Sharpe knew it was fanciful, but there seemed something sinister about the huge fortress to the east and he hated to think of Teresa going behind the towering walls and wide ditches. Yet she had to return to the child, his child, and he would have to find her and protect her when the moment came.
His thoughts of Teresa and Antonia suddenly stopped, wrenched violently away, replaced by a loathing thick as vomit. His past was here, in Elvas, a hated past. The same yellow face, with the same twitch, and the same cackle! My God! Here, in his Company? Their eyes met, and Sharpe saw the insolent grin that seemed to verge on total insanity.
‘Halt!’ The Sergeant glared at the replacements. ‘Left turn! Still, you bastards! Keep your bloody mouth shut, Smithers, or I’ll use it to clean out the stables!’ The Sergeant turned smartly, marched to Sharpe, and crashed to a halt. ‘Sir!’
Ensign Matthews looked between the two tall men. ‘Sir? This is Sergeant …’
‘I know Sergeant Hakeswill.’
The Sergeant cackled, showing his few yellow teeth. Spittle dribbled on to his stubbled chin. Sharpe tried to work out the Sergeant’s age. Hakeswill had to be forty, at least, maybe forty-five, but the eyes were still the eyes of a cunning child. They looked unblinkingly at Sharpe with amusement and scorn. Sharpe was aware that Hakeswill was trying to outstare him so he turned away and saw Harper buckling his belt as he came into the courtyard. He nodded at the Irishman. ‘Stand them easy, Sergeant. They need sleeping space and food.’
‘Sir.’
Sharpe turned back to Hakeswill ‘You’re joining this Company?’
‘Sir!’ He barked the reply, and Sharpe remembered how punctilious Hakeswill had always been in the etiquette of the army. No soldier drilled more exactly, replied more formally, yet every action seemed imbued with a kind of contempt. It was impossible to pin it down, yet it had something to do with the expression in those childlike eyes, as if there was a freak inside the rigorously correct soldier that watched and laughed as it fooled the army. Hakeswill’s face twitched into a grin. ‘Surprised, sir?’
Sharpe wanted to kill the man on the spot, to blot out those offensive eyes, still for ever the twitch and the teeth-grinding, the cackle and the grin. Many men had tried to kill Obadiah Hakeswill. The scar on his neck with its fiery red folds of skin had been put there when he was just twelve years old. He had been sentenced to death by hanging for stealing a lamb. He had been innocent of the charge. His real offence was that he had forced the vicar’s daughter to undress for him by holding a viper at her neck, its tongue flickering, and she had fumbled off her clothes and screamed as the boy attacked her. Her father had rescued the girl and it had been simpler to accuse the boy of stealing a lamb, more certain to end in death, and the deal had been struck with the Justices. No one, even then, had wanted Obadiah Hakeswill to live except, perhaps, his mother, and the vicar, if he could have thought of a way, would have gladly strung her alongside her foul son.
He had lived somehow. They had strung him up, but he was still alive, with the stretched, scrawny neck and its livid scar to prove he had once been hanged. He had found his way into the army and into a way of life that suited him. He put up a hand and rubbed the scar below his left ear. ‘Be all right, sir, now that I’m here.’
Sharpe knew what he meant. There was a legend that Hakeswill the indestructible man, the survivor of a judicial execution, could not be killed and the legend did not diminish with time. Sharpe had seen two files of men blown away by grapeshot, yet Hakeswill, standing immediately to their front, had not been touched.
Hakeswill’s face twitched, hiding the laugh that was prompted by Sharpe’s unexpressed hatred. The twitch stopped. ‘I’m glad I’m here, sir. Proud of you, I am, proud. My best recruit.’ He had spoken loudly, letting the courtyard know of their joint history; and there was a challenge, too, as unspoken as their hatred, which announced that Hakeswill would not submit easily to the discipline of a man he had once drilled and tyrannized.
‘How’s Captain Morris, Hakeswill?’
The Sergeant grinned, then cackled into Sharpe’s face so that the officer caught the foul breath. ‘Remember him, sir, do you? He’s a Major now, sir, so I hear. In Dublin. Mind you, sir, you was a naughty boy, you’ll pardon an old soldier for saying so.’
There was
