Sergeant, I’ll bloody kill you.’ Hakeswill grinned, was about to reply, but Sharpe was faster. ‘Shun!’ Hakeswill snapped upright, his face suddenly clouded with anger because he had been denied his reply. ‘About turn!’
Sharpe left him there, facing a wall. God damn it! Hakeswill! The scars were on Sharpe’s back because of Hakeswill and Morris, and Sharpe had sworn on that far-off day that he would inflict as much pain on them as they had on him. Hakeswill had beaten a Private into bloody insensibility; the man had recovered his consciousness, but never his senses, and Sharpe had been a witness. He had tried to stop the hammering and, for his efforts, was accused by Morris and Hakeswill of the beating. He had been tied to a cart’s wheel and flogged.
Now, suddenly face to face with his enemy after all these years, he felt an uneasy sense of helplessness. Hakeswill seemed untouchable. He had the confidence of a man who simply did not care what happened to him, because he knew he was indestructible. The Sergeant went through life with a suppurating hatred of other men, and, from behind his mask of military conformity, spread poison and fear throughout the companies he served. Hakeswill, Sharpe knew, would not have changed, any more than his appearance had changed. The same great belly, perhaps a few inches bigger, a few more lines on the face, another tooth or two missing, yet still the same yellow skin and the mad stare, and Sharpe remembered, uncomfortably, that once Hakeswill had told him they were alike. Both on the run, both without family, and the only way to survive, the Sergeant said, was to hit hard and hit first.
He looked at the recruits. They were wary, as well they might be, cautious of this new Company. Sharpe, though they could not know it, shared their unease. Hakeswill, of all people, in his Company? Then he remembered the gazette, and knew that the Company might not be his, and he felt his thoughts begin their profitless descent into gloom so he snapped them away. ‘Sergeant Harper?’
‘Sir?’
‘What’s happening today?’
‘Football, sir. Grenadier Company playing the Portuguese. Heavy casualties expected.’
Sharpe knew that Harper was trying to cheer up the newcomers and so he dutifully smiled. ‘A light day, then, for your first day. Enjoy it. Tomorrow we work.’ Tomorrow he would be without Teresa, tomorrow would be a day nearer Badajoz and tomorrow he might be a Lieutenant. He realized the recruits, some of whom he had found himself, were waiting for him to continue. He forced another smile. ‘Welcome to the South Essex. I’m glad you’re here. This is a good Company and I’m sure it will stay that way.’ The words sounded incredibly lame, even to himself, as if he knew they were untrue.
He nodded at Harper. ‘Carry on, Sergeant.’
The Irishman’s eyes flicked towards Hakeswill, still facing the wall, and Sharpe pretended not to see. Damn Hakeswill, he could stay there, but then he relented. ‘Sergeant Hakeswill!’
‘Sir!’
‘Dismiss!’
Sharpe walked into the street, wanting to be alone, but Leroy was leaning on the gatepost and the American lifted an amused eyebrow. ‘Is that how the Hero of the Field of Talavera welcomes recruits? No calls to glory? No bugles?’
‘They’re lucky to get a welcome at all.’
Leroy drew on his cigar and fell into step beside Sharpe. ‘I suppose this unhappiness is caused by your lady leaving us?’
Sharpe shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’
‘Then shall I share other news?’
Leroy had stopped and his dark eyes seemed to be amused.
‘Napoleon’s dead?’
‘Alas, no. Our Colonel arrives today. You don’t seem surprised?’
Sharpe waited for a priest, mounted on a drooping mule, to go past. ‘Should I be surprised?’
‘No.’ Leroy grinned at him. ‘But the usual reaction is to say “who, why, what, how do you know?” Then I give you all the answers, and that’s called a conversation.’
Sharpe’s depression was dissipated by Leroy. ‘So tell me.’
The thin, laconic American looked surprised. ‘I never thought you would ask. Who is he? His name is Brian Windham. I’ve never liked the name Brian, it’s the sort of name a woman gives to a boy in the hope he will grow up honest.’ He tapped ash on to the roadway. ‘Why? I think there is no answer to that. What is he? He is a mighty hunter of foxes. Do you hunt, Sharpe?’
‘You know I don’t.’
‘Then your future may be gloomy, as mine may be. And how do I know?’
He paused.
‘How do you know?’
‘Because our good Colonel, honest Brian Windham, has a forerunner, a messenger, a John the Baptist to his coming, a Paul Revere, no less.’
‘Who?’
Leroy sighed; he was being unusually loquacious. ‘You’ve never heard of Paul Revere?’
‘No.’
‘Lucky man, Sharpe. He called my father a traitor, and our family called Revere a traitor, and I rather think we lost the argument. The point is, my dear Sharpe, that he was a forerunner, an agent of warning, and our good Colonel has sent such a warning of his arrival in the shape of a new Major.’
Sharpe looked at Leroy, the American’s expression had not changed. ‘I’m sorry, Leroy. I’m sorry.’
Leroy shrugged. As the senior Captain he had been hoping for the vacant Majority in the Battalion. ‘One should expect nothing in this army. His name is Collett, Jack Collett, another honest name and another fox-hunter.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Leroy began walking again. ‘There is something else.’
‘What?’
Leroy pointed with his cigar into the courtyard of the house where the officers were billeted and Sharpe looked through the archway and, for the second time that morning, he had a sudden, unwelcome shock. A young man, in his middle twenties, stood next to a pile of luggage that his servant was unstrapping. Sharpe had never seen the officer before but the uniform was only too familiar. It was the uniform of the South Essex, complete even to the silver badge of the Eagle that Sharpe had captured, but it was a uniform only one man could wear. It had a curved sabre, slung on chains, and a silver whistle holstered on the crossbelt. The insignias of rank, denoting a Captain, were not epaulettes, but wings made from chains and decorated with a bugle horn. Sharpe was looking at a man dressed as the Captain of the South Essex Light Company. He swore.
Leroy laughed. ‘Join the downtrodden.’
No one had the guts to tell him, except Leroy! The bastards had brought in a new man, over his head, and he had never been told! He felt a huge anger, a depression, and a helplessness in the face of the army’s cumbersome machinery. He could not believe it. Hakeswill, Teresa going, and now this?
Major Forrest appeared in the archway, saw Sharpe, and came towards him. ‘Sharpe?’
‘Sir.’
