Sharpe's Fortress Part 65

"Didn't I hear that you'd been captured?"

"Got away, I did. Ain't a b.u.g.g.e.r born who can hold me, Tom. Nor you." Sharpe sat next to his friend, a man with whom he had marched in the ranks for six years.

"Here." He gave Garrard a strip of dried meat.

"What is it?"

"Goat. Tastes all right, though."

The two sat and watched the gunners at work. The closest guns were in the two enfilading batteries, and the gunners were using their twelve pounders to systematically bring down the parapets of the ramparts above Gawilghur's gate. They had already unseated a pair of enemy guns and were now working on the next two embrasures. An ox-drawn limber had just delivered more ammunition, but, on leaving the battery, the limber's wheel had loosened and five men were now standing about the canted wheel arguing how best to mend it. Garrard pulled a piece of stringy meat from between his teeth.

"Pull the broken wheel off and put on a new one," he said scornfully.

"It don't take a major and two lieutenants to work that out."

"They're officers, Tom," Sharpe said chidingly, 'only half brained."

"You should know." Garrard grinned.

"b.u.g.g.e.rs make an inviting target, though." He pointed across the plunging chasm which separated the plateau from the Inner Fort.

"There's a b.l.o.o.d.y great gun over there.

Size of a b.l.o.o.d.y hay wain, it is. b.u.g.g.e.rs have been fussing about it for a half-hour now."

Sharpe stared past the beleaguered Outer Fort to the distant cliffs.

He thought he could see a wall where a gun might be mounted, but he was not sure.

"I need a b.l.o.o.d.y telescope."

"You need a b.l.o.o.d.y uniform."

"I'm doing something about that," Sharpe said mysteriously.

Garrard slapped at a fly.

"What's it like then?"

"What's what like?"

"Being a Jack-pudding?"

Sharpe shrugged, thought for a while, then shrugged again.

"Don't seem real. Well, it does. I dunno." He sighed.

"I mean I wanted it, Tom, I wanted it real bad, but I should have known the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds wouldn't want me. Some are all right. Major Stokes, he's a fine fellow, and there are others. But most of them? G.o.d knows. They don't like me, anyway."

"You got 'em worried, that's why," Garrard said.

"If you can become an officer, so can others." He saw the unhappiness on Sharpe's face.

"Wis.h.i.+ng you'd stayed a sergeant, are you?"

"No," Sharpe said, and surprised himself by saying it so firmly.

"I can do the job, Tom."

"What job's that, for Christ's sake? Sitting around while we do all the b.l.o.o.d.y work? Having a servant to clean your boots and scrub your a.r.s.e?"

"No," Sharpe said, and he pointed across the shadowed chasm to the Inner Fort.

"When we go in there, Tom, we're going to need fellows who know what the h.e.l.l they're doing. That's the job. It's beating h.e.l.l out of the other side and keeping your own men alive, and I can do that."

Garrard looked sceptical.

"If they let you."

"Aye, if they let me," Sharpe agreed. He sat in silence for a while, watching the far gun emplacement. He could see men there, but was not sure what they were doing.

"Where's Hakeswill?" he asked.

"I looked for him yesterday, and the b.u.g.g.e.r wasn't on parade with the rest of you."

"Captured," Garrard said.

"Captured?"

"That's what Morris says. Me, I think the b.u.g.g.e.r ran. Either ways, he's in the fort now."

"You think he ran?"

"We had two fellows murdered the other night. Morris says it were the enemy, but I didn't see any of the b.u.g.g.e.rs, but there was some fellow creeping round saying he was a Company colonel, only he weren't." Garrard stared at Sharpe and a slow grin came to his face.

"It were you, d.i.c.k."

"Me?" Sharpe asked straight-faced.

"I was captured, Tom. Only escaped yesterday."

"And I'm the king of b.l.o.o.d.y Persia. Lowry and Kendrick were meant to arrest you, weren't they?"

"It was them who died?" Sharpe asked innocently.

Garrard laughed.

"Serve them b.l.o.o.d.y right. b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, both of them."