Sharpe’s Fortress: The Siege of Gawilghur, December 1803. Bernard Cornwell

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 goolies 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 jettis!’

      ‘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 his jettis? 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. ‘Torrance 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 jettis,’ 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.’ Sharpe stopped to look for green tents. ‘How come you don’t carry your own spare horseshoes?’

      ‘We do. But when they’ve gone you have to get more from the supplies. That’s how the system’s supposed to work. And yesterday’s pursuit left half the hooves wrecked. We need shoes.’

      Sharpe had seen a cluster of faded green tents. ‘That’s where the bastard is,’ he said, then looked at Lockhart. ‘This could get nasty.’

      Lockhart grinned. He was as tall as Sharpe and had a face that looked as though it had survived a lifetime of tavern brawls. ‘Come this far, ain’t I?’

      ‘Is that thing loaded?’ Sharpe nodded at the pistol at Lockhart’s belt. A sabre also hung there, just like the one at Sharpe’s hip.

      ‘It will be.’ Lockhart drew the pistol and Sharpe turned to Ahmed and mimed the actions of loading the musket. Ahmed grinned and pointed to the lock, indicating that his weapon was already charged.

      ‘How many of the buggers will be waiting for us?’ Lockhart asked.

      ‘A dozen?’ Sharpe guessed.

      Lockhart glanced back at his six men. ‘We can deal with a dozen buggers.’

      ‘Right,’ Sharpe said, ‘so let’s bloody well make some trouble.’ He grinned, because for the first time since he had become an officer he was enjoying himself.

      Which meant someone was about to get a thumping.

      CHAPTER THREE