Sharpe's Regiment (12 page)

The small, sharp-featured man looked at Sharpe. The scar, and Sharpe’s older face, made him pause, then he grinned. ‘Three of us, eh? We can always walk away if we don’t take to the fellow! You’re called Dick?’

Sharpe nodded. The man looked up at the huge Irishman. ‘You?’

‘Patrick.’

‘I’m Terry. Come on, eh, Paddy? Dick?’

Sharpe scratched the thick, stiff bristles of his unshaven chin. ‘Why not? I could drink a bloody barrel.’

Sharpe and Harper went to join the army.

 

Sergeant Horatio Havercamp had been wonderfully successful. Five lads, other than Sharpe and Harper, were in the Green Man’s snug where the good Sergeant ordered quarts of ale and glasses of rum to chase the beer down. A window opened onto the street and the Sergeant sat close by it so he could shout pleasantries to any likely looking young man who wandered towards the fair’s attractions. He had also, Sharpe noted, positioned himself close enough to the door so that he could cut off the retreat of any of his prospective recruits.

The Sergeant made a great show of giving Harper two quarts of beer. ‘So you’re Irish, Paddy?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You don’t call me “sir”! Lord love you, boy! Call me Horatio, just like my mother does! You’re a big lad, Paddy! What’s your other name?’

‘O’Keefe.‘

‘A great name, eh?’ Sergeant Havercamp paused to shout for more beer, then glanced suspiciously at Sharpe who had sat himself in the darkest corner of the room. Havercamp was wise to the men who drank free beer and tried to escape at the evening’s end, and he jerked his head in a tiny, almost imperceptible motion that made Terry move his pot of ale and sit at Sharpe’s side. Then Havercamp smiled confidingly at Harper. ‘It’s a great regiment for the Irish, you know!’

‘The South Essex?’

‘Aye, lad.’ Sergeant Havercamp lowered most of his quart pot, wiped his moustache, and patted his belly. ‘You’ve heard of Sergeant Harper?’

Harper choked, blowing the froth off the ale into the table, then, with sheer amazement on his broad, good-natured face, he gaped at Horatio Havercamp. ‘Aye, I’ve heard of him.’

‘Took an Eagle, lad! A hero, that’s what he is, a hero. No one minds him being Irish, not in the South Essex. Home from home, you’ll find it!’

Harper drank his first quart in one go. He looked at the smiling Sergeant. ‘Would you be knowing Sergeant Harper yourself, sir?’

‘Don’t call me “sir”!’ Havercamp chuckled. ‘Would I be knowing him, you ask! Would I just! Like that, we are!’ He crossed two of his fingers, nodded, and an expression of regret for the good times that were in his past flickered over his face. ‘Many’s a night I’ve sat with him, within earshot of the enemy, lad, just talking. “Horatio,” he’d say to me, “we’ve been through a lot together.” Aye, lad I know him well.’

‘He’s big, I hear?’

Havercamp laughed. ‘Big! He’d give you six inches, Paddy, and you’re not a shrimp, eh?’ He watched with approval as Harper downed the second quart. Havercamp pushed the rum towards him. ‘Get yourself on the outside of that, Paddy, and I’ll buy you some more ale.’

Harper listened wide-eyed as the wonders of the army were unfolded before him. Havercamp seemed to embrace all of his potential recruits as he expanded on the future that waited for them. They would be sergeants, he said, before the snow fell, and as likely as not, they would all be officers within the year. Havercamp laughed. ‘I’ll have to salute you, yes?’ He threw a salute to a bony, hungry boy who drank his beer as though he had not taken sustenance in a week. ‘Sir!’ The boy laughed. Havercamp saluted Harper. ‘Sir!’

‘Sounds grand,’ Harper said wistfully. ‘An officer?’

‘I can see it in you now, Paddy.’ Havercamp slapped the rump of the girl who had brought a tray of ale pots. He distributed them around the table and ordered more. ‘Now you’ve all heard of our Major Sharpe, haven’t you?’

Two or three of the boys nodded. Havercamp blew at the froth on his pot, sipped, then leaned back. ‘Started in the ranks, he did. I remember him like it was yesterday. I said to him, I said, “Richard,” I said, “you’ll be an officer soon.” “Will I, sarge?” he says?’ Havercamp laughed. ‘He didn’t believe me! But there he is! Major Sharpe!’

‘You know him?’ Harper asked.

The fingers twined again. ‘Like that, Paddy. Like that. I call him, “sir” and he says, “Horatio, there’s no call for a ”sir“ to me. You taught me half I know. You call me Richard!”’

The potential recruits stared in awe at the Sergeant. The drinks came fast. Three of the boys were farmers’ lads, dressed in smocks, all of them, Sharpe judged, likely to become good, solid men if only Horatio could persuade them to take the shilling. One of the farm boys had a bright, lively face and a small terrier that shared his ale. The dog, he said, was called Buttons. Buttons’ owner was named Charlie Weller. Horatio Havercamp ordered a bowl of ale specially for Buttons.

‘Can I bring my dog?’ Charlie Weller asked.

‘Of course you can, lad!’ Havercamp smiled. Weller, Sharpe guessed, was seventeen. He was sturdy, cheerful, and any Battalion would be pleased to have him.

‘Will we fight?’ Weller asked.

‘You want to, lad?’

‘Aye!’ Weller grinned. ‘I want to go to Spain!’

‘You will! You will!’

The hungry boy, called Tom, was half-witted. His eyes flicked about the small room as though he expected at any moment to be hit. The last of the five was a sad-faced, frowning man of twenty-three or four, dressed in a faded coat of broadcloth with a decent but shabby shirt beneath. This last man, whose face and hands suggested he had never worked in the open air, hardly spoke. Sharpe guessed that he had already made up his mind to join and that this drinking and japery were not to his taste.

Tom, the half-wit, Sharpe judged, would join simply so as not to be hungry. He would fatten up in the army and could be taught to stand in the musket line and perform his duty. Havercamp, Sharpe could see, was worried about Harper and the three farm lads. They were the ones he wanted, the ones he wanted to see drunk, the ones he wanted to snare before sobriety drove sense
into their head.

Sharpe himself, sitting in the corner, was ignored. It was not till dusk, when the drink had already made the three farm boys unsteady and silly, that Sergeant Havercamp came over to Sharpe’s corner.

The Sergeant sat down. Sharpe was about to lift the pot of ale to his mouth when Havercamp’s big hand came across the table and pushed Sharpe’s down.

The Sergeant’s face, hidden from his other victims, was suddenly knowing and unfriendly. He kept his hand on Sharpe’s wrist. ‘What’s your bloody game?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Don’t blind me, you bastard! You’ve served, haven’t you?’

Sharpe stared into the small, blue eyes. At this distance he could see the broken veins in Havercamp’s skin, the knowing lines about his eyes. Sharpe nodded. ‘Thirty-third.’

‘Discharged ?’

‘Wounded, Sarge. India.’

‘Or you bloody ran.’

Sharpe smiled. ‘I’d hardly be here, Sarge, if I was a scrambler, would I?’

Sergeant Havercamp stared at Sharpe suspiciously as though he might have discovered a deserter. His fingers tightened on Sharpe’s wrist. ‘So you’re not a scrambler, eh? A jumper?’

‘No, Sarge.’

‘You’d better not be, lad, or else I’ll tear your bloody eyes out and shove them up your arse.’ Havercamp feared this might be a man who signed up, took that part of the bounty which was given first, then absconded to repeat the trick with another recruiting sergeant.

‘No, Sarge, I’m not a jumper.’

‘No, Sarge, I’m not a jumper.’ Havercamp mimicked him cruelly. ‘So why are you here?’

Sharpe shrugged. ‘No work.’

‘When did you leave?’

‘Year back, maybe more.’

Havercamp stared at him. Finally he let go of Sharpe’s wrist and let him lift the ale to his lips. The Sergeant watched him as though he begrudged every sip Sharpe took. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Dick Vaughn.’

‘Read and write?’

Sharpe laughed. ‘No.’

‘Got a clean back?’

Sharpe shrugged, then shook his head. ‘No.’ He had been flogged years before, in India.

‘I’m watching you, Dick Vaughn. I’m watching you every bleeding step to the bleeding depot, you understand? You queer my pitch, lad, and I’ll have the rest of the skin off your bloody back. You know what I mean.’

‘Yes, Sarge.’

Sergeant Havercamp reached into his pocket and took out a shilling piece. His expression, as he held the coin out, mocked Sharpe’s failure to survive outside the army. His voice was jeering. ‘Take it.’

Sharpe nodded. Reluctantly, as though this was an act of desperation, as though every movement was an acknowledgement of his failure, he took the shilling.

‘There, lads!’ Havercamp turned round. ‘Dick here has joined up! Well done, Dick!’

The farm boys cheered him. ‘Well done, Dick!’ Buttons, half drunk and excited by the cheers, barked.

The half-wit was next, grabbing the shilling eagerly, and laughing as he bit it and pushed it into his rags. The young man in the broadcloth coat took his without any fuss, resigned to it, taking it as though he was bored.

‘Now, Paddy! What about you?’

Harper laughed. ‘You think I’m a fool, eh? Just because I’m Irish?’

One of the drummer boys, sitting on his drum, snored in a corner. Sergeant Havercamp watched as his two corporals, both of whom had taken their shillings obediently as they still pretended to be recruits, poured rum for the three boys in their smocks. He looked up at the big Irishman. ‘What’s the problem, Paddy? Tell me, eh?’

Harper traced patterns on the wooden table with spilt beer. ‘It’s nothing.’

‘Come on, tell me!’

‘Nothing!’

Havercamp rolled a shilling into the spilt beer. It fell onto its side. ‘Tell me why you won’t take it.’

Harper frowned. He bit his lip, shrugged, and looked at the Sergeant. ‘Do I get a bed?’

‘What?’

‘A bed? Do I get one? A bed?’

Havercamp stared at him, saw the intensity on the big face, and nodded. ‘Fit for a King, Paddy. You’ll get a bed with satin sheets and pillows big as bloody cows!’

‘That’s grand!’ Harper picked up the shilling. ‘I’m all yours!’

Sergeant Havercamp failed with the three farm boys. Charlie Weller was desperate to join up, but would not take the shilling unless his two friends joined with him, and they were reluctant. Sharpe watched Havercamp try all the tricks, even the old one of slipping the shillings into their beer so they would pick them out of the dregs in astonishment, but the three lads were wise to that one. They became drunker and drunker, so drunk that Sharpe was sure that one of them would take the proferred, glittering coin, yet at the very moment when it seemed that Charlie Weller would take his anyway, even without his friends, the door to the snug banged open and a woman stood there, screaming in rage, shouting at Havercamp and hitting with her fist at Charlie. ‘You little bastard!’

‘Ma!’ he shouted. ‘Ma! Stop it!’

‘Out! And you, Horace and James! Out! Disgrace, you are, disgrace to your families! Playing at soldiers! You think I brought you into this world to see you throw yourself away?’ She cuffed Charlie Weller about the ears. ‘Only a fool joins the army, you fool!’

‘Aye, you’re right,’ Harper said drunkenly.

Havercamp surrendered the three boys gracefully. He had, to console his loss, twenty-eight men in a barn outside town, he had scooped up four today, and he had high hopes of the whores who were working the inns for him. He would have a tidy enough number to take back to Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood. He smiled reassuringly at his recruits as Mrs Weller left, drained his last ale, and ordered them to their feet.

They had taken the King’s Shilling, but they were not quite yet the King’s men. Sharpe lay that night in the broken-down stable behind the Green Man and he stared at the stars through the gaping thatch. He smiled. Six weeks before, in the nights after the battle of Vitoria, he had slept in a great bedroom with the whore of gold, the Marquesa, the woman who was a spy and who had been his lover. He had lain with an aristocrat and now he lay in old, filthy straw. What would she think if she could see him now?

The other recruits snored. In the next stable a horse whinnied softly. Beside Sharpe the straw rustled.

‘You awake?’ Harper whispered.

‘Yes.’

‘What are you thinking of?’

‘Women. Helene.’

‘They come and go, eh?’ Harper chuckled, then pointed at the broken roof. ‘We could go now. Bugger off, eh?’

‘I know.’

But they did not. They were in England, recruited, and going to battle.

In the morning Sergeant Horatio Havercamp had thirty-four men, the last few brought in by the whores whom he had brought from London and who were paid to dazzle young men with unfamiliar spirits and flesh. Twenty-eight of his men were guarded in the barn outside of town, while the nine new recruits were in the Green Man’s stable.

‘On your feet, lads! On your feet!’ Sergeant Havercamp was still genial, for none of these nine recruits were in the bag yet, even though they did have the King’s Shilling. ‘Come on, lads! Up!’

A man in a long, brown, woollen coat and with a tall, brown hat stood next to the Sergeant. His nose dripped. He coughed with a cavernous, retching cough that, each time it exploded in his chest, made him groan afterwards with a hopeless, dying moan. He went round the stable, peering at each man, sometimes asking them to lift up a leg. It was the quickest medical inspection Sharpe had ever seen, and when it was done the doctor was given a handful of coins. Sergeant Havercamp clapped his hands as the doctor left. ‘Right, lads!Follow me! Breakfast!’

The two corporals, magically transformed into redcoats with tall, black shakoes, helped hustle the nine men towards the inn. It was not fully light yet. A cock crowed in the yard and a maid carried a clanking pail from the pump.