'I killed one, sir! It was an accident, of course. Didn't mean to.'

Sharpe did not seem to care. 'b.u.g.g.e.r them. They shouldn't try and kill us.' He said it angrily and dug his paddle in the water just as the second volley came from the southern bank.

The second volley was more ragged, the splashes wider s.p.a.ced because the punt was now more than a hundred paces away from the sh.o.r.e, but one bullet struck a thwart, drove splinters up, then whined into the darkness. Harper laughed. 'Lucky b.l.o.o.d.y shot.'

'Paddle!'

They had been carried down river and were now opposite Foulness, and Sharpe could see, dark on the southern bank, the shapes of men and a single horseman. He saw, too, the sudden sparkle of muskets, muzzle flashes that were reflected in long, shimmering lights on the water, but again the volley went wide, fired at hopeless range, then the bow of the punt b.u.mped on the northern sh.o.r.e and Harper, carbine in his hand, jumped onto the bank and hauled the boat up.

Sharpe, carrying the bundle, followed and found Harper kneeling on the sea-d.y.k.e, aiming the carbine.

'Don't waste the shot,' Sharpe said.

'This one won't be wasted, sir!' Harper aimed at a horseman on the southern bank, and pulled the trigger. The bullet whipped away over the Crouch, then Harper, standing to his full height, filled his lungs and gave a yell that filled the night above the moon-silvered river and marsh. 'That's from Ireland, you b.u.g.g.e.r!'

There was a yelp from Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood, though whether from wounded pride or flesh, Sharpe could not tell. Then, laughing because of Harper's challenge, he turned and led the big Sergeant inland.

They had escaped Foulness, but not Colonel Girdwood's pursuit. Sharpe knew that even now hors.e.m.e.n would be riding towards the first ford or bridge over the Crouch and that he and Harper must move and move fast.

They went north in the moon-drenched night. They slanted westwards to where they could see hills and trees, the cover sought by all infantrymen in trouble. They walked fast, pushing away from the Crouch, away from the country that an enraged militia would search in the dawn. Always they watched the west, looking for hors.e.m.e.n, looking for the flash of moonlight on a sabre or badge, but they seemed to be alone in a rich, deep-planted country of sleeping farms, gentle hills, wide pastures, and dark woods.

Dawn ended the exhilaration of their escape. They had reached a hill that showed them the view northwards and it was depressing; worse, it could mean defeat, for, stretching from west to east, bright in the rising sun, was another river. It was a river far wider and deeper than the Crouch. This was a great, shining barrier that blocked their northern escape, just as the sea and the River Crouch blocked them to the east and south. They could only go west and there, Sharpe knew, the cavalry would be waiting. By dawn that cordon of cavalry would start combing this land between the rivers.

He unwrapped the bundle that Jane Gibbons had given him. She was to marry Girdwood? The thought stunned him. Sir Henry would marry her off to that posturing idiot? He remembered her hand on his arm, the sheen of moonlight on her eyes, and he wished, against all his better judgment, that she could share this journey of danger. It would take her from the fate that she feared, which offended Sharpe so horribly and deeply, because he had plans of his own, ridiculous, unfounded plans, marriage plans.

A shabby black cloak wrapped the bundle. Inside was a package of waxed paper that held a great chunk of pale and crumbling cheese, a half-cut loaf and, wrapped in more waxed paper, a strange piece of jellied meat.

'What is it?' Harper stared at the meat.

'Don't know.' Sharpe sliced it with the bayonet he had taken from the sentry in Foulness, then ate some. 'b.l.o.o.d.y delicious!'

Beside the cheese was a leather purse that he opened to find, G.o.d bless the girl, three guineas in gold.

Harper helped himself to some of the meat. 'Would you mind me asking you a question, sir?'

'What?'

'Did you persuade Sir Henry to leave this for us?' he grinned.

'He's gone to London.' Sharpe remembered Sir Henry saying as much over Marriott's body. He cut the cheese. 'You remember that b.u.g.g.e.r you killed at Talavera? Christian Gibbons?'

'Aye.'

'Remember his sister?'

Harper had met Jane Gibbons in the porch of the church on that day, nearly four years before, when Sharpe had spoken to her by her brother's memorial. Harper stared at Sharpe with suspicion and amus.e.m.e.nt. 'She left this for us?'

'Yes.' Sharpe said it as though it was the most normal thing in the world for young ladies to help men desert from army camps. 'Good cheese, isn't it?'

'Grand.' Harper still stared at him. 'I seem to remember, sir, that she was a pretty wee thing?'

'I seem to remember that, too,' Sharpe said. Harper laughed, as if unsure what to say, then shook his head as though there was nothing to say. He whistled instead, a sound as insolent as it was amused, and Sharpe laughed. 'Shall we now forget Miss Gibbons, Sergeant Major?'

'I will, sir.'

'And how the devil do we get out of here?'

'There,' Harper was pointing north, down to the bank of the wide river, and Sharpe saw, by a huddle of small houses, a line of great barges that lifted their masts high over the shingle roofs of the small village. 'One of them must be going somewhere, sir.'

'Let's find out.'

They walked the mile to the river's bank, going gently and cautiously, watching always for the cavalrymen whom Sharpe knew must come from the west. No hors.e.m.e.n had appeared yet. Dogs barked as they approached the small hamlet, and Sharpe gestured Harper into the cover of a ditch and gave him the carbine and bayonet. 'Wait for my signal.'

Sharpe walked on into the tiny village. A dog snapped at him and, outside a shuttered inn, a woman grabbed a child and held it against her skirts until the mud-smeared vagabond had pa.s.sed. He went down to a small, wooden pier that jutted into the wide river, a pier to which the huge, tall-masted barges were moored.

The barges were loaded with hay, great cargoes that were netted and roped down beneath heavy booms wrapped in swathes of red sail. The bargemen looked suspiciously at him. One told him to make himself scarce, but Sharpe tossed one of his three guineas into the air, caught it again, and the sight of the gold quieted them. He picked one man who looked less surly than the others. 'Where are you going?'

The man said nothing at first. He stared Sharpe up and down before, slowly and reluctantly, giving an answer. 'London.'

'You take pa.s.sengers?'

'Don't like vagrants.' He had the broad Ess.e.x accent that Sharpe had heard so often in the battle line of his regiment.

Sharpe tossed the guinea in his hand. 'Do you take pa.s.sengers?'

'How many?'

Behind Sharpe, a c.o.c.k challenged the morning. He was listening for hooves, but he dared not show any fear to this man. 'Two of us.'

'One each.' It was sheer robbery, but the man, recognising the tattered fatigue jacket beneath the mud, must have guessed at Sharpe's desperation.

Sharpe gave him the guinea and showed him a second. 'It's yours when we get there.'

The man nodded towards the boats. 'It's the Amelia. Amelia. I'm casting off in five minutes.' I'm casting off in five minutes.'

Sharpe put two fingers into his mouth, whistled, and the vast figure of Harper with his gun came into sight. The man watched them in silence as they went aboard, then, with only a boy to help him, and eschewing any a.s.sistance from the two soldiers, he hoisted three huge red sails. The barge crept away from the jetty, into the river that he said was called the Blackwater, and they glided, with a gentle land breeze, out towards the sea.

A half hour later, as they cleared the land and headed out to make the wide turn about the sandbanks of the Ess.e.x coast, Harper nodded back towards the sh.o.r.e. The bargeman looked and saw nothing, but Sharpe, whose life and health in Spain depended on spotting cavalry at a distance, saw the hors.e.m.e.n on one of the low hills.

They leaned back on the small deck beside the cargo. Before they reached London Sharpe knew he must throw the carbine and bayonet overboard, but for now the weapons were a small insurance against the temptation for the bargeman to turn them in as deserters. The water slapped and ran down the boat's side, the wind bellied the sails, the sun was hot, and Harper slept. Sharpe dozed, the carbine on his knees, and dreamed of a shadowed, hooded girl who had been waiting for him in a damp tunnel. Thanks to Jane Gibbons, they had escaped Foulness, but she, engaged on her uncle's orders, was still trapped in the marshland. He day-dreamed of revenge, and let the boat carry him towards safety.

CHAPTER 12.

The next morning Sharpe saw posters being pasted onto walls throughout London. The printing was thick and black, with a gaudy red Royal coat of arms emblazoned at the top. He paused, on his way from Southwark where he had spent the night, and read one of the posters on Old London Bridge.

A GRAND REVIEWIn the Presence and by the Gracious Command of; and by the Gracious Command of; HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES.

On the Forenoon of Sat.u.r.day 21st August, in Hyde Park, His Majesty's Cavalry, Artillery, and Infantry, with their Bands, Colours and Appurtenances, will Parade before His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, the Prince Regent, and before His Royal Highness, the Duke of York, together with the Trophies and Artillery pieces captured in the Present Wars against the French now being fought in Spain. And, by His Royal Highness's Gracious Command and Pleasure, the troops will enact, with Precision and Verisimilitude, the Recent Great Victory Gained over the forces of the Corsican Tyrant at Vittoria. And, by His Royal Highness's Gracious Command and Pleasure, the troops will enact, with Precision and Verisimilitude, the Recent Great Victory Gained over the forces of the Corsican Tyrant at Vittoria.

G.o.d SAVE THE KING!.

The battle of Vitoria, Sharpe thought, was being milked for all it was worth, presumably to take the minds of Londoners away from the rising price of food and the ever-increasing taxes that fuelled the war.

He was dressed in the uniform he had bought to attend Carlton House, his old boots polished, his scabbard shining, only the crusts of blood on his cheeks remaining of his time at Foulness.

He had left Harper in Southwark, eating a huge breakfast and regaling Isabella and his relatives with stories of the chase over the marshland. The Sergeant, as soon as breakfast was done, was taking a message to the Rose Tavern for d'Alembord and Price. Sharpe fervently hoped that those two officers had stayed safely out of Lord Fenner's notice.

Sharpe stopped in St Alban's Street and, from Mr Hopkinson, took thirty guineas of the gold he had left with the army agent. He had money again, he wore a proper uniform, and he was ready for battle against Girdwood, Simmerson, and all the men who made their profits from the camp at Foulness.

He had thought long, as the Thames barge lumbered towards London on an incoming tide, just how he should fight the battle. Harper had been all for an immediate descent on the camp, both men in uniform, but, tempting as the prospect was, Sharpe had decided against it. Instead, with some trepidation, he would go to the authorities. He would turn the bureaucracy, behind which Simmerson and Girdwood hid, against them. He would return to Foulness, but in his own time, and on different business; the business of a golden-haired girl who had helped him escape.

He crossed Whitehall, stepped round a pile of horse-dung that was being swept from the Horse Guards' courtyard, returned the salute of the sentries, and nodded at the porter who opened the door to him. Another porter, resplendent in his uniform, eyed Sharpe suspiciously as he came to the long table where he must state his business. 'Your name, sir?'

'Major Richard Sharpe. South Ess.e.x.'

'Of course, sir. You was here a few days back.' The man, as big as Harper, had lost one eye. He was an old soldier, discharged wounded from the war, and, because Sharpe was a fighting man and not a uniformed administrator, he unbent enough to give the Rifleman a smile. 'And what can we do for you today, sir?'

'I've come to see the Duke of York.'

The smile went. 'At what time, sir?' The question was polite, but there was an undoubted warning in the words.

'I don't have an appointment.'

The porter, rocking slowly up and down on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, stared with his one good eye at the Rifleman. 'You don't have an appointment, sir?' He said each word very slowly and distinctly.

'No.'

'His Royal Highness, the Duke of York,' the porter said as though the King's second son was on intimate terms with him, 'will see no one without an appointment, sir. If you'd like to write your business, sir.' He waved an imperious hand towards a writing desk that was set beneath the windows which opened onto Whitehall.

'I shall wait,' Sharpe said.

He refused to be dissuaded, just as he refused to put on paper the nature of his business. He insisted that he would wait until the Commander in Chief would see him, sat in a leather armchair beside an empty grate and turned a deaf ear to all the porter's entreaties.

Men came and went in the hallway. Some looked curiously at the Rifle officer; others, sensing that he was being importunate, looked hurriedly away. Sharpe himself, as the great clock by the stairway ticked heavily through the morning, gazed up at a great oil painting above the fireplace. It showed the battle of Blenheim, and Sharpe stared at it for so long that it almost seemed as if the red lines of British infantry were moving before his eyes. Not much had changed, he thought, in a hundred years. The infantry lines were thinner now, but battlefields looked much the same. He yawned.

'Major Sharpe?'

A staff officer, perfectly uniformed, smiled at him.

'Yes.'

'Captain Christopher Messines. Most honoured, sir. Would you like to step this way?'

The porter gave Sharpe a look that seemed to say "I told you so," as Sharpe followed Messines through a doorway. They went down a hallway hung with paintings, and into a small reception room that looked out to the parade ground. Messines gestured to a chair. 'Coffee, Major? Tea, perhaps? Sherry, even?'

'Coffee.'

Messines went to a sideboard where silver pots waited and, into two tiny, fragile cups decorated with blue flowers, poured coffee. 'You wanted to see His Royal Highness? Do please sit, Major. No need for ceremony. A water-biscuit, perhaps? The weather really is splendid, isn't it? Quite wonderful!' Messines seemed fascinated by the two crusts of blood on Sharpe's cheeks, but was far too well bred to think of asking how they had come to be there.

Messines was charming. He regretted that His Royal Highness was consumed with work, and that, even as they spoke, His Royal Highness's carriage was waiting outside, and the Lord alone knew when he would be back, but if Major Sharpe cared to tell Captain Messines the nature of his business?

Major Sharpe would not.

Captain Messines blinked as though Sharpe must have misunderstood, then gave his most winning smile. 'Isn't it splendid coffee? I believe the beans for this brew were captured at Vitoria. You were there, of course?'

'Yes.'

Messines sighed. 'His Royal Highness really will not see random visitors, Major. I do hope you understand.'

Sharpe drained the small cup. 'You're telling me it's hopeless to wait?'

'Quite hopeless.' Messines gave his engaging smile to soften the bad news.

Sharpe stood. He pulled the great sword straight in its slings. 'I'm sure the Prince of Wales would be fascinated by my news.'

It was a shot at random, but it must have struck home, for Messines raised both hands in a gesture of placation. 'My dear Major Sharpe! Please! Sit down, I beg you!'

Sharpe guessed that there was little love lost between the pleasure-loving Prince of Wales and his sterner brother, the Duke of York. The Duke, whose ineptness as a General had given currency to a mocking little rhyme that described how, in his Flanders campaign, he had marched ten thousand men to the top of a hill and marched them down again, had nevertheless proved an efficient, meticulous, and mostly honest administrator. There had only been one scandal, when his mistress had been found selling commissions, and Sharpe's words suggested, rightly, that the Prince would relish another scandal that would sully his younger brother's stern reputation. Messines smiled. 'If you could just tell me what it's about, Major?'

'No.' Sharpe had decided that his words should be only for the Duke, for the Commander in Chief. There were other men in this building, important men, but he did not know which of them were involved, like Fenner, in the Foulness business. It had even occurred to him that perhaps there were other camps doing the same crimping trade.

Messines sighed again. He steepled his fingers and stared at a print of cavalrymen that hung on one wall, then shrugged at Sharpe. 'You may be in for a very long wait, sir.'

'I don't mind.'

Messines gave up. He invited Sharpe to stay in the small room, even fetching a copy of that morning's Times Times for him. for him.

The newspaper shocked Sharpe. It printed a report from San Sebastian on Spain's northern coast and it appeared, though this was not the burden of the report, that at least one a.s.sault on the town had failed and the British army, however optimistic the newspaper sounded, was baulked and taking casualties. It was what followed that shocked Sharpe. The newspaper was reporting a victory, though its report was confusing, and Sharpe, who had been told by Major General Nairn that the rest of this summer would see a lull in the war, now read that a French thrust over the Pyrenees had been repulsed after grim fighting. There was a list of casualties on an inside page and Sharpe read it intently. There was no mention of any man from the shrunken South Ess.e.x, so perhaps, he thought, they still guarded the Pasajes wharfs.

He stared into the parade ground. Men were fighting and dying in Spain and he was here! It struck him as a bitter fate. His place was not here where men drank their coffee from small, exquisite cups.

A clock in the pa.s.sage struck eleven.

He read the rest of the paper. There was no other news from Spain. There had been riots because of the high price of bread in Leicestershire and the militia had been called out and found it necessary to fire a volley of musketry into the crowd. A weaving mill in Derbyshire had been broken into by a mob who feared that its machinery would take away their jobs. The mill's looms had been smashed with hammers, and its wheel-shaft damaged by fire, causing the magistrates to call out the local militia. He turned back to the report from Spain. A battle had been fought at Sorauren. He had never heard of the place, and he wondered if it was in France or Spain, for the border was intricate in the Pyrenees, but then he reflected that the Times Times would surely have said if any British troops had crossed the frontier. He wanted to be there when it happened. He wanted to be there with his own regiment. would surely have said if any British troops had crossed the frontier. He wanted to be there when it happened. He wanted to be there with his own regiment.