Sharpe's Fortress (9 page)

“Closed till tomorrow! All business will be conducted tomorrow. Captain Torrance's
orders!”

“Ahmed!” Sharpe said.

“Shoot the bugger.”

Ahmed spoke no English, but the clerk did not know that. He held his hands out.

“I am closing the office! Work cannot be done like this! I shall complain to Captain
Torrance! There will be trouble! Big trouble!”

The clerk glanced at a door that led to the inner part of the house.

“Is that where Torrance is?” Sharpe asked, gesturing at the door.

“No, sahib, and you cannot go in there. The Captain is sick.”

Sharpe went to the door and pushed it open. The clerk yelped a protest, but Sharpe ignored
him. A muslin screen hung on the other side of the door and entangled Sharpe as he pushed
into the room where a sailor's hammock hung from the beams. The room seemed empty, but then
a whimper made him look into a shadowed corner. A young woman crouched there. She was
dressed in a said, but she looked European to Sharpe. She had been sewing gold braid onto
the outer seams of a pair of breeches, but now stared in wide-eyed fright at the
intruder.

“Who are you, Ma'am?” Sharpe asked.

The woman shook her head. She had very black hair and very white skin. Her terror was
palpable.

“Is Captain Torrance here?” Sharpe asked.

“No,” she whispered.

“He's sick, is that right?”

“If he says so, sir,” she said softly. Her London accent confirmed that she was
English.

“I ain't going to hurt you, love,” Sharpe said, for fear was making her tremble.

“Are you Mrs. Torrance?”

“No!”

“So you work for him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you don't know where he is?”

“No, sir,” she said softly, looking up at Sharpe with huge eyes. She was lying, he
reckoned, but he guessed she had good reason to lie, perhaps fearing Torrance's
punishment if she told the truth. He considered soothing the truth out of her, but
reckoned it might take too long. He wondered who she was. She was pretty, despite her
terror, and he guessed she was Torrance's bibbi. Lucky Torrance, he thought ruefully.

“I'm sorry to have disturbed you, Ma'am,” he said, then he negotiated the muslin
curtain back into the front room.

The clerk shook his head fiercely.

“You should not have gone in there, sahib! That is private quarters! Private! I shall be
forced to tell Captain Torrance.”

Sharpe took hold of the clerk's chair and tipped it, forcing the man off. The men waiting
in the room gave a cheer. Sharpe ignored them, sat on the chair himself and pulled the
tangle of ledgers towards him.

"I

don't care what you tell Captain Torrance,“ he said, 'so long as you tell me about the
horseshoes first.”

“They are lost!” the clerk protested.

“How were they lost?” Sharpe asked.

The clerk shrugged.

“Things get lost,” he said. Sweat was pouring down his plump face as he tentatively
tried to tug some of the ledgers away from Sharpe, but he recoiled from the look on the
Ensign's face.

“Things get lost,” the clerk said again weakly.

“It is the nature of things to get lost.”

“Muskets?” Sharpe asked.

“Lost,” the clerk admitted.

“Buckets?”

“Lost,” the clerk said.

“Paperwork,” Sharpe said.

The clerk frowned.

“Paperwork, sahib?”

“If something's lost,” Sharpe said patiently, 'there's a record. This is the bloody army.
You can't have a piss without someone making a note of it. to show me the records of what's
been lost."

The clerk sighed and pulled one of the big ledgers open.

“Here, sahib,” he said, pointing an inky finger.

"One barrel of horseshoes, see?

Being carried on an ox from Jamkandhi, lost in the Godavery on November 12th."

“How many horseshoes in a barrel?” Sharpe asked.

“A hundred and twenty.” The long-legged cavalry Sergeant had come into the office and
now leaned against the doorpost.

“And there are supposed to be four thousand horseshoes in store?”

Sharpe asked.

“Here!” The clerk turned a page.

“Another barrel, see?”

Sharpe peered at the ill-written entry.

“Lost in the Godavery,” he read aloud.

“And here.” The clerk stabbed his finger again.

“Stolen,” Sharpe read. A drop of sweat landed on the page as the clerk turned it back.

“So who stole it?”

“The enemy, sahib,” the clerk said.

“Their horsemen are everywhere.”

“Their bloody horsemen run if you so much as look at them,” the tall cavalry Sergeant
said sourly.

“They couldn't steal an egg from a chicken.”

“The convoys are ambushed, sahib,” the clerk insisted, 'and things are stolen."

Sharpe pushed the clerk's hand away and turned the pages back, looking for the date when
the battle had been fought at Assaye. He found it, and discovered a different
handwriting had been used for the previous entries. He guessed Captain Mackay must have
kept the ledger himself, and in Mackay's neat entries there were far fewer annotations
reading 'stolen' or 'lost'. Mackay had marked eight cannonballs as being lost in a river
crossing and two barrels of powder had been marked down as stolen, but in the weeks since
Assaye no fewer than sixty-eight oxen had lost their burdens to either accidents or
thieves. More tellingly, each of those oxen had been carrying a scarce commodity. The
army would not miss a load of round shot, but it would suffer grievously when its last
reserve of horseshoes was gone.

“Whose handwriting is this?” Sharpe had turned to the most recent page.

“Mine, sahib.” The clerk was looking frightened.

“How do you know when something is stolen?”

The clerk shrugged.

“The Captain tells me. Or the Sergeant tells me.”

“The Sergeant?”

“He isn't here,” the clerk said.

“He's bringing a convoy of oxen north.”

“What's the Sergeant's name?” Sharpe asked, for he could find no record in the ledger.

“Hakeswill,” the cavalry Sergeant said laconically.

“He's the bugger we usually deal with, on account of Captain Torrance always being
ill.”

“Bloody hell,” Sharpe said, and pushed the chair back. Hakeswill!

Obadiah bloody Hakeswill!

“Why wasn't he sent back to his regiment?”

Sharpe asked.

“He isn't supposed to be here at all!”

“He knows the system,” the clerk explained.

“Captain Torrance wanted him to stay, sahib.”

And no bloody wonder, Sharpe thought. Hakeswill had worked himself into the army's most
profitable billet! He was milking the cow, but making sure it was the clerk's handwriting
in the ledger. No flies on Obadiah.

“How does the system work?” he asked the clerk.

“Chitties,” the clerk said.

“Chitties?”

“An ox driver is given a chitty, sahib, and when he has delivered his load the chitty
is signed and brought here. Then he is paid. No chitty, no money. It is the rule, sahib. No
chitty, no money.”

“And no bloody horseshoes either,” put in the lean Sergeant of the “And Sergeant Hakeswill
pays the money?” Sharpe asked.

“If he is here, sahib,” the clerk said.

“That doesn't get me my damned horseshoes,” the Company Lieutenant protested.

“Or my buckets,” the gunner put in.

“The bhinjarries have all the essentials,” the clerk insisted. He made shooing
gestures.

"Go and see the bhinjarriesl They have necessaries!

This office is closed till tomorrow."

“But where did the bhinjarries get their necessaries, eh? Answer me that?” Sharpe
demanded, but the clerk merely shrugged. The bhinjarries were merchants who travelled
with the army, contributing their own vast herds of pack oxen and carts. They sold food,
liquor, women and luxuries, ar'.d now, it seemed, they were offering military supplies as
well, which meant that the army would be paying for things that were normally issued free,
and doubtless, if bloody Hakeswill had a finger in the pot, things which had been stolen from
the army in the first place.

“Where do I go for horseshoes?” Sharpe asked the clerk.

The clerk was reluctant to answer, but he finally spread his hands and suggested
Sharpe ask in the merchants' encampment.

“Someone will tell you, sahib.”

“You tell me,” Sharpe said.

“I don't know!”

“So how do you know they have horseshoes?”

“I hear these things!” the clerk protested.

Sharpe stood and bullied the clerk back against the wall.

“You do more than hear things,” he said, leaning his forearm against the clerk's neck,
'you know things. So you bloody well tell me, or I'll have my Arab boy chop off your goo lies
for his breakfast. He's a hungry little bugger."

The clerk fought for breath against the pressure of Sharpe's arm.

“Naig.” He offered the name plaintively when Sharpe relaxed his arm.

“Naig?” Sharpe asked. The name rang a distant bell. A long-ago bell.

Naig? Then he remembered a merchant of that name who had followed the army to
Seringapatam.

“Naig?” Sharpe asked again.

“A fellow with green tents?”

“The very one, sahib.” The clerk nodded.

“But I did not tell you this thing! These gentlemen are witnesses, I did not tell
you!”

“He runs a brothel!” Sharpe said, remembering, and he remembered too how Naig had been
a friend to Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill four years before. Sharpe had been a private then
and Hakeswill had trumped up charges that had fetched Sharpe a flogging.

"Nasty Naig' had been the man's nickname, and back then he had sold pale-skinned whores
who travelled in green-curtained wagons.

“Right!” Sharpe said.

“This office is closed!” The gunner protested and the cavalry Sergeant looked
disappointed.

“We're going to see Naig,” Sharpe announced.

“No!” the clerk said too loud.

“No?” Sharpe asked.

“He will be angry, sahib.”

“Why should he be angry?” Sharpe demanded.

"I'm a customer, ain't I?

He's got horseshoes, and we want horseshoes. He should be delighted to see us."

“He must be treated with respect, sahib,” the clerk said nervously.

“He is a powerful man, Naig. You have money for him?”

“I just want to look at his horseshoes,” Sharpe said, 'and if they're army issue then I'll
ram one of them down his bloody throat."

The clerk shook his head.

“He has guards, sahib. He has jettisl' ”I think I might let you go on your own," the East
India Company Lieutenant said, backing away.

“Jettis?” The light dragoon Sergeant asked.

“Strongmen,” Sharpe explained.

“Big buggers who kill you by wringing your neck like a chicken.” He turned back to the
clerk.

“Where did Naig get hisjettis? From Seringapatam?”

“Yes, sahib.”

“I killed enough of the buggers,” Sharpe said, 'so I don't mind killing a few more. Are you
coming?" he asked the cavalry Sergeant.

“Why not?” The man grinned.

“Anyone else?” Sharpe asked, but no one else seemed to want a fight that afternoon.

“Please, sahib,” the clerk said weakly.

Sharpe ignored him and, followed by Ahmed and the cavalryman, went back into the
sunlight.

“What's your name?” Sharpe asked the Sergeant.

“Lockhart, sir. Eli Lockhart.”

“I'm Dick Sharpe, Eli, and you don't have to call me ”sir“, I'm not a proper bleeding
officer. I was made up at Assaye, and I wish the buggers had left me a sergeant now. They
sent me to be a bloody bullock driver, because I'm not fit for anything else.” He looked at
Lockhart's six troopers who were still waiting.

“What are they doing here?”

“Didn't expect me to carry the bloody horseshoes myself, did you?”

Lockhart said, then gestured at the troopers.

“Come on, boys. We're going to have a scrap.”

“Who said anything about a scrap?” Sharpe asked.

“He's got horseshoes,” Lockhart explained, 'but we don't have money. So there's only
one way to get them off him."

“True,” Sharpe said, and grinned.

Lockhart suddenly looked oddly shy.

“Was you in the Captain's quarters, sir?”

“Yes, why?”

The tough-looking Sergeant was actually blushing now.

“You didn't see a woman there, did you, sir?”

“Dark-haired girl. Pretty?”

“That's her.”

“Who is she?”

“Torrance's servant. A widow. He brought her and her husband out from England, but the
fellow died and left her on her own. Torrance won't let her go.”

“And you'd like to take her off his hands, is that it?”

“I've only ever seen her at a distance,” the Sergeant admitted.

“Torranee was in another regiment, one of the Madrassi's, but we camped together
often enough.”

“She's still there,” Sharpe said drily, 'still alive."

“He keeps her close, he does,” Lockhart said, then kicked a dog out of his path. The eight
men had left the village and entered the sprawling encampment where the merchants with
their herds, wagons and families were camped. Great white oxen with painted horns were
hobbled by pegs, and children scurried among the beasts collecting their dung which they
slapped into cakes that would be dried for fuel.

"So tell me about these jet tis Lockhart asked.

“Like circus strongmen,” Sharpe said, 'only it's some kind of religious thing. Don't
ask me. None of it makes bleeding sense to me. Got muscles like mountains, they have, but
they're slow. I killed four of the buggers at Seringapatam."

“And you know Hakeswill?”

“I know bloody Hakeswill. Recruited me, he did, and he's been persecuting me ever
since. He shouldn't even be with this army, he's supposed to be with the Havercakes down
south, but he came up here with a warrant to arrest me. That didn't work, so he's just
stayed, hasn't he? And he's working the bleeding system! You can wager your last shilling
that he's the bastard who supplies Naig, and splits the profit.”