Sharpe's Fortress Part 31

"Haven't had a blister in years! Poor Naig. For a blackamoor he wasn't a bad sort of fellow."

Naig, Torrance believed, had been as evil a creature as any on the surface of the earth, but he smiled piously at Hakeswill's tribute.

"We shall certainly miss him, Sergeant."

"Pity you had to hang him," sir, but what choice did you have?

Between the devil and a deep blue b.u.g.g.e.ration, that's where you were, sir. But poor Naig." Hakeswill shook his head in sad remembrance.

"You should have strung up Sharpie, sir, more's the pity you couldn't. Strung him up proper like what he deserves. A murdering b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he is, murdering!" And an indignant Hakeswill told Captain Torrance how Sharpe had tried to kill him, first by throwing him among the Tippoo's tigers, then by trapping him in a courtyard with an elephant trained to kill by crushing men with its forefoot.

"Only the tigers weren't hungry, see, on account of being fed? And as for the elephant, sir, I had me knife, didn't I? I jabbed it in the paw, I did." He mimed the stabbing action.

"Right in its paw, deep in! It didn't like it. I can't die, sir, I can't die." The Sergeant spoke hoa.r.s.ely, believing every word. He had been hanged as a child, but he had survived the gallows and now believed he was protected from death by his own guardian angel.

Mad, Torrance thought, bedlam-mad, but he was nevertheless fascinated by Obadiah Hakeswill. To look at, the Sergeant appeared the perfect soldier; it was the twitch that suggested something more interesting lay behind the bland blue eyes. And what lay behind those childish eyes, Torrance had decided, was a breathtaking malevolence, yet one that was accompanied by an equally astonishing confidence. Hakeswill, Torrance had decided, would murder a baby and find justification for the act.

"So you don't like Mister Sharpe?" Torrance asked.

"I hates him, sir, and I don't mind admitting it. I've watched him, I have, slither his way up the ranks like a bleeding eel up a drain."

Hakeswill had taken out a knife, presumably the one which he had stabbed into the elephant's foot, and now c.o.c.ked his right heel on his left knee and laid the blade against the blister.

Torrance shut his eyes to spare himself the sight of Hakeswill performing surgery.

"The thing is, Sergeant," he said, 'that Naig's brother would rather like a private word with Mister Sharpe."

"Does he now?" Hakeswill asked. He stabbed down.

"Look at that, sir.

Proper bit of pus. Soon be healed. Ain't had a blister in years! Reckon it must be the new boots." He spat on the blade and poked the blister again.

"I'll have to soak the boots in vinegar, sir. So Jama wants Sharpe's goo lies does he?"

"Literally, as it happens. Yes."

"He can join the bleeding queue."

"No!" Torrance said sternly.

"It is important to me, Sergeant, that Mister Sharpe is delivered to Jama. Alive. And that his disappearance occasions no curiosity."

"You mean no one must notice?" HakeswilPs face twitched while he thought, then he shrugged.

"Ain't difficult, sir."

"It isn't?"

"I'll have a word with Jama, sir. Then you can give Sharpie some orders, and I'll be waiting for him. It'll be easy, sir. Glad to do it for you."

"You are a comfort to me, Sergeant."

"That's my job, sir," Hakeswill said, then leered at the kitchen door where Clare Wall had appeared.

"Sunshine of my life," he said in what he hoped was a winning tone.

"Your tea, sir," Clare said, offering Torrance a cup.

"A mug for the Sergeant, Brick! Where are your manners?"

"She don't need manners," Hakeswill said, still leering at the terrified Clare, 'not with what she's got. Put some sugar in it, darling, if the Captain will spare me some."

"Give him sugar, Brick," Torrance ordered.

Hakeswill watched Brick go back to the kitchen.

"A proper little woman, that, sir. A flower, that's what she is, a flower!"

"No doubt you would like to pluck her?"

"It's time I was married," Hakeswill said.

"A man should leave a son, sir, says so in the scriptures."

"You want to do some begetting, eh?" Torrance said, then frowned as someone knocked on the outer door.

"Come!" he called.

An infantry captain whom neither man recognized put his head round the door.

"Captain Torrance?"

"That's me," Torrance said grandly.

"Sir Arthur Wellesley's compliments," the Captain said, his acid tone suggesting that the compliments would be remarkably thin, 'but is there any reason why the supplies have not moved northwards?"

Torrance stared at the man. For a second he was speechless, then he cursed under his breath.

"My compliments to the General," he said, 'and my a.s.surances that the bullock train will be on its way immediately."

He waited until the Captain had gone, then swore again.

"What happened, sir?" Hakeswill asked.

"The b.l.o.o.d.y chitties Torrance said.

"Still here. Dilip must have come for them this morning, but I told him to b.u.g.g.e.r off." He swore again.