a message to the world that the South Essex was the only regiment in the Peninsula that had captured a French standard. Sharpe stood back satisfied. ‘That’s better, sir.’
Lawford took the hint, and smiled. ‘You’re a bastard, Sharpe. Just because you captured an Eagle doesn’t mean you can do what you like.’
‘While just because some idiot is dressed up as a provost, I suppose, means that he can?’
‘Yes,’ Lawford said. ‘It does. Come on.’
It was strange, Sharpe thought, how Lawford was the sum of all he disliked about privilege and wealth, yet he liked Lawford and was content to serve him. They were the same age, thirty-three, but Lawford had always been an officer, had never worried about promotion, because he could afford the next step, and never concerned himself where the next year’s money would come from. Seven years ago, Lawford had been a Lieutenant and Richard Sharpe his Sergeant, both fighting the Mahrattas in India, and the Sergeant had kept the officer alive in the dungeons of the Tippoo Sultan. In return, Lawford taught the Sergeant to read and write and thus qualified him for a commission if ever he were foolish enough to perform some act of bravery on a battlefield that could hoist a man from the ranks into the officers’ exalted company.
Sharpe followed Lawford through the crowded streets towards Wellington’s headquarters, and seeing the Colonel’s exquisite uniform and expensive accoutrements, he wondered where they would be in another seven years. Lawford was ambitious, as was Sharpe, but the Colonel had the birth and the money for great things. He’ll be a general, Sharpe thought, and he grinned because he knew that Lawford would still need him or someone like him. Sharpe was Lawford’s eyes and his ears, his professional soldier, the man who could read the faces of the failed criminals, drunks, and desperate men who had somehow become the best infantry in the world. And more than that, Sharpe could read the ground, could read the enemy, and Lawford, for whom the army was a means to a glorious and exalted end, relied on his ex-Sergeant’s instinct and talent. Lawford, Sharpe decided, had done well in the last year. He had taken over an embittered, brutalized, and frightened Regiment and turned them into a unit as good as any battalion in the line. Sharpe’s Eagle had helped. It had wiped out the stain of Valdelacasa, where the South Essex, under Sir Henry Simmerson, had lost a colour and their pride; but it was not just the Eagle. Lawford, with his politician’s instincts, had trusted the men while he worked them hard, had given them back their confidence. And the badge, which every man wore on his shako, shared the glory of Talavera with every soldier in the Regiment.
Lawford led them through the press of officers and townspeople. Major Forrest kept glancing at Sharpe with an avuncular smile that made him look, more than ever, like a kindly country vicar dressed as a soldier for the village pageant. He tried to reassure Sharpe. ‘It won’t come to a court-martial, Richard; it can’t! You’ll probably have to apologize, or something, and it will all blow over.’
Sharpe shook his head. ‘I won’t bloody apologize, sir.’
Lawford stopped and turned round, his finger pushed into Sharpe’s chest. ‘If you are ordered to apologize, Richard Sharpe, you will damned well apologize. You will grovel, squirm, cringe and toady to order. Do you understand?’
Sharpe clicked the heels of his tall French boots. ‘Sir!’
Lawford exploded in rare anger. ‘Christ Almighty, Richard, don’t you bloody understand? This is a general-court-martial offence. Ayres has screamed his head off to the Provost Marshal and the Provost Marshal has screamed to the General that the authority of the provost must not be undermined. And the General, Mr Sharpe, is rather sympathetic to that point of view.’ Lawford’s passion had attracted a small crowd of interested spectators. His anger faded as suddenly as it had erupted, but he still jabbed his finger into Sharpe’s chest. ‘The General wants more provosts, not fewer, and he is understandably not happy with the thought that Captain Richard Sharpe is declaring open season on them.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Lawford was not placated by Sharpe’s crestfallen expression, which the Colonel suspected was not motivated by true regret. ‘And do not think, Captain Sharpe, that just because the General ordered us here he will look kindly on your action. He’s saved your miserable skin often enough in the past and he may not be of a mind to do it again. Understand?’
There was a burst of applause from a group of cavalry officers standing by a wine shop. Lawford shot them a withering look and strode on, followed by someone’s ironic mimicry of the bugle call for the full charge. Sharpe followed. Lawford could be right. The General had summoned the South Essex, no one knew why, and Sharpe had hoped that it was for some special task, something to wipe out the memory of the winter’s boredom. But the scene with Lieutenant Ayres could change that for Sharpe, condemn him to a court-martial, to a future far more dreary even than patrol work on an empty border.
Four ox-carts stood outside Wellington’s headquarters, another reminder that the army would move soon, but otherwise everything was peaceful. The only unusual object was a tall mast that jutted from the roof of the house, topped by a crosspiece, from which hung four tarred sheep bladders. Sharpe looked at them curiously. This was the first time he had seen the new telegraph and he wished that it was working so that he could watch the black, inflated bladders running up and down on their ropes and sending messages, via other similar stations, to the far-off fortress of Almeida and to the troops guarding the river Coa. The system had been copied from the Royal Navy and sailors had been sent to man the telegraph. Each letter of the alphabet had its own arrangement of the four black bags, and common words, like ‘regiment’, ‘enemy’, and ‘general’, were abbreviated to a single display that could be seen, miles away, through a huge naval telescope. Sharpe had heard that a message could travel twenty miles in less than ten minutes and he wondered, as they came close to the two bored sentries guarding the General’s headquarters, what other modern devices would be thrown up by the necessity of the long war against Napoleon.
He forgot the telegraph as they stepped into the cool hallway of the house and he felt a twinge of fear at the coming interview. In a curious fashion his career had been linked to Wellington. They had shared battlefields in Flanders, India, and now in the Peninsula, and in his pack Sharpe carried a telescope that had been a present from the General. There was a small, curved, brass plate let into the walnut tube and on it was inscribed IN GRATITUDE. AW. SEPTEMBER 23RD, 1803. Sir Arthur Wellesley believed that Sergeant Sharpe had saved his life, though Sharpe, if he was honest, could remember little of the event except that the General’s horse had been piked and the Indian bayonets and curved tulwars were coming forward and what else did a Sergeant do except get in the way and fight back? That had been the battle of Assaye, a bastard of a fight, and Sharpe had watched his officers die in the shot from the ornate guns and, his blood up, he had taken the survivors on and the enemy had been beaten. Only just, by God, but victory was victory. After that he was made into an officer, dressed up like a prize bull, and the same man who had rewarded him then must decide his fate now.
‘His Lordship will see you now.’ A suave young Major smiled at them through the door as though they had been invited for tea. It had been a year since Sharpe had seen Wellington, but nothing had changed: still the table covered with papers, the same blue eyes that gave nothing away above the beak of a nose, and the handsome mouth that was grudging with a smile. Sharpe was glad there were no provosts in the room so at least he would not have to grovel in front of the General, but even so he felt apprehensive of this quiet man’s anger and he watched, cautiously, as the quill pen was laid down and the expressionless eyes looked up at him. There was no recognition in them.
‘Did you threaten Lieutenant Ayres with a rifle, Captain Sharpe?’ There was the faintest stress on the ‘Captain’.
‘Yes, sir.’
Wellington nodded. He
