of a grave. He felt tears pricking at his eyes, not for the punishment he faced, but for Mary. ‘How long can they protect her?’ he asked gruffly, cursing himself for being so near to weeping.
‘I tell you she’ll be all right,’ Green insisted.
‘You don’t know Hakeswill,’ Sharpe said.
‘Oh, but I do, lad, I do,’ Green said feelingly, then paused. For a second or two he looked embarrassed, then glanced up at Sharpe. ‘The bastard can’t touch her if she’s married. Married proper, I mean, with the Colonel’s blessing.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
Green drew on the pipe. ‘If the worst does happen, Sharpie …’ he said, then stopped in embarrassment again.
‘Aye?’ Sharpe prompted him.
‘Not that it will, of course,’ Green said hurriedly. ‘Billy Nixon survived a couple of thousand tickles, but you probably don’t remember him, do you? Little fellow, with a wall eye. He survived all right. He was never quite the same afterwards, of course, but you’re a tough lad, Sharpie. Tougher than Billy.’
‘But if the worst does happen?’ Sharpe reminded the Sergeant.
‘Well,’ Green said, colouring, but then at last he summoned the courage to say what he had come to say. ‘I mean if it don’t offend you, lad, and only if the worst does happen, which of course it won’t, and I pray it won’t, but if it does then I thought I might ask for Mrs Bickerstaff’s hand myself, if you follow my meaning.’
Sharpe almost laughed, but then the thought of two thousand lashes choked off even the beginnings of a smile. Two thousand! He had seen men with backs looking like offal after just a hundred lashes and how the hell was he to survive with another nineteen hundred strokes on top of that? Such survival really depended on the battalion surgeon. If Mister Micklewhite thought Sharpe was dying after five or six hundred lashes he might stop the punishment to give his back time to heal before the rest of the lashes were given, but Micklewhite was not known for stopping whippings. The rumour in the battalion was that so long as the man did not scream like a baby and thus disturb the more squeamish of the officers, the surgeon would keep the blows coming, even if they were falling onto a dead man’s spine. That was the rumour, and Sharpe could only hope it was not true.
‘Did you hear me, Sharpie?’ Sergeant Green interrupted Sharpe’s gloomy thoughts.
‘I heard you, Sergeant,’ Sharpe said.
‘So would you mind? If I asked her?’
‘Have you asked her already?’ Sharpe said accusingly.
‘No!’ Green said hastily. ‘Wouldn’t be right! Not while you’re still, well, you know.’
‘Alive,’ Sharpe said bitterly.
‘It’s only if the worst happens.’ Green tried to sound optimistic. ‘Which it won’t.’
‘You won’t need my permission when I’m dead, Sergeant.’
‘No, but if I can tell Mary you wanted her to accept me, then it’ll help. Don’t you see that? I’ll be a good man to her, Sharpie. I was married before, I was, only she died on me, but she never complained about me. No more than any woman ever complains, anyhow.’
‘Hakeswill might stop you marrying her.’
Green nodded. ‘Aye, he might, but I can’t see how. Not if we tie the knot quick. I’ll ask Major Shee, and he’s always fair with me. Ask him tonight, see? But only if the worst happens.’
‘But you need a chaplain,’ Sharpe warned the Sergeant. The 33rd’s own chaplain had committed suicide on the voyage from Calcutta to Madras and no marriage in the army was considered official unless it had the regimental commander’s permission and the blessing of a chaplain.
‘The lads in the Old Dozen tell me they’ve got a Godwalloper,’ Green said, gesturing at the soldiers guarding Sharpe, ‘and he can do the splicing tomorrow. I’ll probably have to slip the bugger a shilling, but Mary’s worth a bob.’
Sharpe shrugged. ‘Ask her, Sergeant,’ he said, ‘ask her.’ What else could he say? And if Mary was properly married to Sergeant Green then she would be protected by the army’s regulations. ‘But see what happens to me first,’ Sharpe added.
‘Of course I will, Sharpie. Hope for the best, eh? Never say die.’
Sharpe drained the canteen. ‘There’s a couple of things in my pack, Sergeant. A good pistol I took off an Indian officer the other day and a few coins. You’ll give them to Mary?’
‘Of course I will,’ Green said, carefully hiding the fact that Hakeswill had already plundered Sharpe’s pack. ‘She’ll be all right, Sharpie. Promise you, lad.’
‘And some dark night, Sergeant, give bloody Hakeswill a kicking for me.’
Green nodded. ‘Be a pleasure, Sharpie. Be a pleasure.’ He knocked the ashes of his pipe against the ammunition boxes, then stood. ‘I’ll bring you some more rum, lad. The more the better.’
The preparations for Sharpe’s flogging had all been made. Not that they were many, but it took a few moments to make sure everything was to the Sergeant Major’s satisfaction. A tripod had been constructed out of three sergeant’s halberds, their spear points uppermost and lashed together so that the whole thing stood two feet higher than a tall man. The three halberd butts were sunk into the dry soil, then a fourth halberd was firmly lashed crosswise on one face of the tripod at the height of a man’s armpits.
Sergeant Hakeswill personally selected two of the 33rd’s drummer boys. The drummer boys always administered the floggings, a small element of mercy in a bestial punishment, but Hakeswill made certain that the two biggest and strongest boys were given the task and then he collected the two whips from the Sergeant Major and made the boys practise on a tree trunk. ‘Put your body into it, lads,’ he told them, ‘and keep the arm moving fast after the whip’s landed. Like this.’ He took one of the whips and slashed it across the bark, then showed them how to keep the lash sliding across the target by following the stroke through. ‘I did it often enough when I was a drummer,’ he told them, ‘and I always did a good job. Best flogger in the battalion, I was. Second to none.’ Once he was sure their technique was sufficient for the task he warned them not to tire too quickly, and then, with a pocket knife, he nicked the edges of the leather lashes so that their abrasions would tear at the exposed flesh as they were dragged across Sharpe’s back. ‘Do it well, lads,’ he promised them, ‘and there’s one of these for each of you.’ He showed them one of the Tippoo’s gold coins which had been part of the battle’s loot. ‘I don’t want this bastard walking again,’ he told them. ‘Nor do you neither, for if Sharpie ever finds his feet he’ll give you two a rare kicking, so make sure you finish the bastard off proper. Whip him bloody then put him underground, like it says in the scriptures.’
Hakeswill coiled the two whips and hung them on the halberd that was mounted crosswise on the tripod, then went to find the surgeon. Mister Micklewhite was in his tent where he was trying to tie his white silk stock in preparation for the punishment parade. He grunted when he saw Hakeswill. ‘You don’t need more mercury, do you?’ he snarled.
‘No, sir. Cured, sir. Thanks to your worship’s skill, sir. Clean as a whistle I am, sir.’
