Sharpe’s Regiment

by Bernard Cornwell

  He wondered if Sir Henry had returned. There would be consternation in London if Lord Fenner, finding Sharpe gone from the Rose Tavern, believed him to have come here, and who better than Sir Henry to come to Foulness to hide all evidence of wrongdoing?

  He walked forward, his shadow cast before him, but no one saw him, no one called an alarm, and he crouched in safety at the top of the bank and stared into the rooms.

  On his left was an empty dining room, its table showing the litter of dinner. On the wall over the mantelpiece was a huge picture like the one in the entrance hall of the Horse Guards; British infantry lined beneath the battle's smoke.

  In the second room, less brightly lit, he saw Girdwood. It was a library, its shelves scantily provided with books, but its walls lavish with weapons. A rosette of swords surmounted the doorway opposite Sharpe, while muskets were racked above the fireplace. Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood, his back to Sharpe, was opening the drawers of a bureau. From it he took a brace of pistols, fine-looking weapons with silver handles, then two black leather-bound books with page edges marbled in bright colours.

  Sharpe had planned to follow Girdwood from the house, reasoning that he could more easily take the auction records on the lonely marsh road than in a house where Sir Henry's servants could and should resist him. Sharpe was ready to run back across the lawn, jump into the creek bed and find his horse, but, as Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood pushed the books and pistols into a saddlebag and buckled it, so a servant came to the library door and spoke with him. The servant seemed to gesticulate, inviting Girdwood to another room, and Sharpe, rather than running for his horse, waited.

  Girdwood buckled the last strap, dropped the bag on the library table, and followed the servant into the hallway. They turned to their right, and Sharpe, still on the slope of the bank beneath the terrace, sidled that way.

  He saw a sitting room. A grey-haired woman sat with her back to the window while, beside the empty fireplace, a book on her lap, sat Jane Gibbons. Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood, introduced into the room, bowed to his fiancee. The servant who had fetched Girdwood crossed to the girl's side and picked up the small white dog to keep it from annoying the Colonel.

  Sharpe watched for a few seconds, then went back to the library window. The room was empty, the saddlebag left on the table, and within that leather bag, he knew, were the books that would finish Lord Fenner, Sir Henry, and Girdwood. Sharpe stared at the bag, knowing he could take the books now, and then, remembering that hesitation was fatal, he unslung his rifle and opened the small brass lid that covered a compartment carved in the butt.

  Inside the compartment were the tools that were used to clean the rifle's lock and to draw a bullet after a misfire. There was a stiff brush, a small screwdriver to take off the plate, a one inch iron nail that held the tension of the mainspring when the cock was dismounted, a small, flat, round oil can, a wormscrew that fitted on the ramrod to draw a bullet, and a metal bar to give leverage on the ramrod when screwing down onto the misfired round. He took the wormscrew, torque bar, and screwdriver, closed the butt trap, and moved over the gravel terrace to the library door.

  His sword clanged as he stooped, but there was no pause of alarm in the indistinct noise of voices from the next window on the terrace. He ran the slim screwdriver blade between the leaves of the window, pushed gently to confirm that it was latched, then saw where the shadow, thrown by the candles within the library, betrayed the presence of a lock-tongue.

  There was no keyhole on the outside of the door, but the wormscrew, provided by His Majesty, was a perfect cracksman's tool. He slotted the torque bar onto one end, so that it looked like a grim corkscrew, and worked the screw tip to where he knew the tip of the lock-tongue would be. He turned it.

  The screw point grated, screeched, and he pushed it further into the gap of the doors, breaking the old wood, turned again, and the wood creaked alarmingly as the strain came onto the metal, then, with a click that he thought must raise the dead, the lock-tongue shot back.

  He froze. He could hear nothing except the low voices and the far off mutter of the sea. He pushed the latch down, pressed gently on the door to see whether there were bolts both top and bottom and, to his surprise, the door swung back. The servants had not bolted it, perhaps waiting to do so when they closed and barred the heavy shutters.

  He left the garden door open one inch, then silently crossed the bare, polished wooden boards and, praying that the hinges would not creak, closed the library door. He bolted it. Now, should anyone come to the library, he could leave with the books and be on his horse long before they could break down the door or think to use the garden entrance.

  He smiled as he unbuckled the saddlebag and took out the two heavy books. He opened one. On the flyleaf, in neat handwriting, was written "The Property of Bartholomew Girdwood, Major". The "Major" had been crossed out and, next to it, was written "Lieutenant Colonel". Then Sharpe's smile went, for the heavy volume was not an account book at all. It had no pages of ruled columns, no closely written figures that would add up to Sir Henry Simmerson's disgrace. It was an ordinary book, entitled A Description of the Sieges of The Duke of Marlborough. Sharpe riffled its pages, seeing only text and diagrams. The second book, equally bare of figures, was called Thoughts on the Late Campaign in Northern Italy with Special Reference to Cavalry Manoeuvres. There were no other books in the saddlebag, just sheafs of paper that proved to be verse, all written in the same meticulous hand. Sharpe stood, frozen. He had pinned all his hopes on finding the auction records in this house, and instead he had found two books of military history. He pushed them, with the poetry, back into the saddlebag and buckled it.

  He turned to re-open the door, planning to leave the room as he had found it so that no one would know an intruder had been in the library. He unbolted the door, turned the lever, and pulled it ajar. Then he froze again.

  When he had closed the door, caring only about the noise of its hinges and the grating of its bolt, he had been aware that the entrance hall to the house was as packed with weapons as the library in which he stood. Rosettes of bayonets and fans of lances vied with hung pistols and crossed swords. The weapons could have furnished a small fortress, yet it was not the carefully arranged armaments that caught his attention, but rather what, when he had glimpsed them before, he had taken to be the draped folds of curtains.

  But he was not seeing curtains. He was seeing two great flags. Each was thirty-six square feet of coloured silk, fringed with yellow tassels. The staffs were proudly topped with carved crowns of England. He was seeing the Colours of the Second Battalion of the South Essex which, against all honour and decency, had been brought to this house and hung in its hallway like trophies of battle.

  Sir Henry Simmerson had thought himself a great soldier, yet, when he faced the French in battle for the first time, he had lost a Colour. The second time, he had run away. Now Sharpe was seeing the man's home, seeing the fantasy of a career. The house was filled with weapons, with pictures of soldiers, with models of guns, and now this!

  Sharpe felt a terrible anger at the, sight. The flags were the pride of a Battalion, the symbols of its purpose. These great squares of silk were as out of place in this house as the French Eagle was in the Court of St James's, yet at least the French Eagle had been to war, had been won in a fight, while these flags, these pristine, new flags, had never flapped in a musket-fogged wind or drawn men towards their signal as the enemy fire thundered and whipped at the line. They had been purloined to feed Sir Henry's fantasies, just as the Battalion had been purloined to fill his pockets.

  The door to the sitting room clicked open and Sharpe, standing in the doorway to the library, knew he could not reach the window undiscovered. There was one place only to hide and he stepped, praying his sword would not knock on wood, behind the angle of the open library door.

  Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood's voice sounded just inches from his ear. 'You will forgive my haste, Miss Jane?'

  'It seems extravagan
t, sir.'

  Girdwood's footsteps sounded on the floorboards. Sharpe heard the saddle-bag scrape on the table, then Girdwood chuckled. 'When the army summons a soldier, dear Miss Jane, all we may do is obey with alacrity. It was ever thus.' His footsteps paused the other side of the door. 'One day, perhaps, when my service is over, I might look forward to a leisure spent ever at your side.' His heels clicked together, his spurs ringing. 'Mrs Grey? May I wish you a good night?'

  'Thank you, sir. You have your books safe?'

  'Most safe.'

  'And I pray you give Sir Henry our most dutiful regards.'

  'It will be my pleasure.' There were more footsteps in the hall, the sound of the front door opening, and Sharpe stood, silent and still, debating whether to leave now. Perhaps, on the moonlit road, he could force from Girdwood the whereabouts of the accounts.

  Yet before he could move, the sound of hooves on gravel was abruptly cut off by the closing of the front door, and voices murmured outside the library. They were close, and coming closer. 'I shall take your aunt her medicine, Jane.'

  'Thank you, Mrs Grey.' Jane's voice was demure.

  'And you will go to bed?' It was as much an order as a question.

  'I shall fetch my book first, Mrs Grey.'

  'Then goodnight.' Sharpe heard footsteps on the hall floor. He was staring at the window. If a servant came to bolt the window-doors, then fold and bar the shutters on the night, surely he must see Sharpe behind the door? He held his breath as footsteps sounded in the room again.

  'I'll lock the windows, Miss Gibbons?' The voice was just the other side of the door.

  ‘I’ll do it, King.'

  'Thank you, miss.'

  Sharpe was in shadow. The room smelt musty and damp. He heard steps in the room, a key in the lock, then the squeal of a drawer opening. He guessed Jane Gibbons was looking into the bureau from which the books and pistols had been taken. The drawer closed, was locked again, then Sharpe saw her. She walked to the window-doors, closed them and seemed to show no surprise that one leaf had been ajar onto the night. Then, as she stooped to push the lower bolt home, she became completely still.

  Sharpe could see her golden hair was in ringlets. She wore a blue dress, white collared, with a tight, old-fashioned waist that showed her slim hips.

  She was staring at the floor.

  There was mud there, brought in on Sharpe's boots from the creek bed, mud that led to his hiding place.

  She straightened, turned, and raised her eyes slowly, following the trail of dry mud until she was staring into the shadow beside the door.

  She jumped when she saw him, but did not cry out. Sharpe stepped sideways, out of the shadow, and they stared at each other, neither saying a word. He smiled.

  For a moment he thought she was going to laugh, so mischievous and delighted was her face, then, decisively, she crossed to the door beside him. 'I have to talk with you!'

  'Here?'

  She shook her head. There was a pergola in the garden, built at the corner of the north wall, and she would join him there. 'You'll wait?'

  ‘I’ll wait.'

  He waited in the dark shadow of the roses that grew unpruned about the lattice shelter. There was a seat in the pergola that ran around a table made of rough planks. The sea, far off to his right, seethed, faded, then seethed again. He had come here to find the missing Battalion's accounts, and instead he waited for a girl that he imagined he loved.

  He had waited twenty minutes and was beginning to think that she would not come when he heard the creak of a door, and, seconds later, saw a dark-cloaked figure running over the grass. She slid into the shadow, sat, then looked nervously back at the upper windows of the brick house that were glowing with lamplight. 'I shouldn't be here.'

  He stared at her, suddenly not knowing what to say, and she bit her lower lip and shrugged as if she, too, was suddenly uncertain.

  'Thank you for the food and money,' Sharpe said.

  She smiled and her teeth showed white in the moonlight that filtered through the roses. 'I stole it.' She spoke barely above a whisper. She shuddered suddenly, perhaps remembering the man who had died in the marsh that night. 'I shouldn't be here.'

  He realised that, for all her vivacity, she was frightened. He put his hands slowly over the table and covered hers. 'I shouldn't be here either.'

  'No.' She did not move her hands that were, even though it was a warm night, bitterly cold. 'No, you shouldn't.' She smiled a little uncertainly. 'Why were you in the house?'

  'I wanted to find the records of the auctions. There must be records? Accounts?' His voice tailed off, for she was nodding assent.

  'There are. In London.'

  'London?' In his disappointment he spoke too loudly, and she looked, fear on her face, towards the house. He lowered his voice. 'I thought Girdwood was taking them out of the drawer.'

  'He keeps some things there. Books, pistols.' She shrugged. 'He said he'd been ordered to London, and I suppose he wanted the pistols for the road. What's happening?'

  He told her what he had done that day, how he had stripped Girdwood of his command. He did not tell her that he had no orders to take the camp under his authority. 'But I need those accounts.'

  'They're only here for the auctions. I write them and my uncle takes them back.'

  'You write them?'

  'My uncle makes me enter the figures.' She left her hands in his and, in a low voice, told him of the money that had flowed through Foulness. Sir Henry Simmerson had made more than fifteen thousand pounds, Lord Fenner the same, and Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood about half. They had spent three thousand and eight hundred pounds for expenses. She smiled, as if at her own precision. 'They're in two big books, red leather books.'

  'Where?'

  'In my uncle's town house.'

  'Where in his house?' Sharpe was wondering if his ancient skills would have to be put to a sterner test.

  'I don't know. I don't go to London often.'

  'You don't go to London?'

  She heard the astonishment in his voice, as if he had expected her to dazzle London's society and as if that expectation had given him the irrational envy people feel about the undiscovered life of someone they desire. She stared at him. 'You don't understand, Mr Sharpe.'

  'I don't understand what?'

  She did not answer for a long time. The waves beat at the mudbanks behind Sharpe, water sucked and gurgled in the creek bed, then she pulled her hands free, rubbed her face, and began talking. 'My mother was the younger daughter. She married badly, at least that's what my uncle thinks. You see, my father was in trade. He was a saddler. He was successful, but it's still trade, isn't it? So I'm not well-born enough to go into society, and I'm not rich enough for society to come here.' She gave the smile again, rueful and fast. 'Do you understand?'

  'But your brother ..."

  She nodded quickly, understanding the question. Her brother had presented the appearance of aristocratic birth and breeding; it had made him into a loud, arrogant, insensitive and elegant lout. 'Christian always wanted to be fashionable. He worked hard at it, Mr Sharpe. He aped the accent, the clothes, everything. And he inherited the money and lost most of it.'

  'Lost it?'

  'Horses, clothes.' She shrugged. 'But I imagine he made a good soldier.' She could not have been more wrong, though Sharpe said nothing. Jane pushed hair from her forehead. 'He wanted to go into the cavalry, but it was too expensive. We weren't rich. At least, not as rich as Christian would have liked.' She said her parents had died eleven years before, when she had been thirteen, and she and her brother had come to this house where her mother's sister was Sir Henry's wife. Lady Simmerson was ill. Jane shrugged. 'Or so she says.'

  'What do you mean?'

  The quick smile again, shy and dazzling, and she looked behind her as though worried that a servant might be watching from the moon-glossed windows of the house. 'She doesn't leave her room, hardly her bed. She says she's ill. Do you think a person can be so v
ery unhappy that they think they're ill?'

  'I don't know.'

  She looked at the table top. She pushed a leaf between two of the rough planks and he saw how the white cuff of her dress was darned with small, neat stitches. 'I don't think she wanted to marry my uncle, but women don't have a choice, really.' She talked very softly, not just because she feared her voice carrying, but because she had never talked like this to anyone. She said she should have been married herself, two years before, but the man had lost his fortune and Sir Henry had called off the wedding.

  'Who was he?' Sharpe asked with a stab of jealousy.

  'A man from Maldon. It's not far away.' Now she had been told she was to marry Bartholomew Girdwood.

  Told?'

  She gave her sudden, enchanting, mischievous smile, that always, Sharpe was noticing, left a residue of sadness on her face. 'I ran away when it was arranged. My uncle brought me back.'

  Sharpe wondered if that was why she had been in the carriage on the day when he and Harper were being marched as recruits to Foulness. 'Ran away?'

  'I have a cousin who married a vicar. Celia said I should come to them, but my uncle knows the man who owns the living, and you can imagine what happened.' Doubtless Sir Henry had threatened the vicar with the loss of his parish and livelihood. She smiled at Sharpe. 'I wasn't much good at running away.'

  'Are you frightened of Sir Henry?'

  She thought about it, her hands linked on the table top, then nodded. 'Yes. But most of the time he's in London. He's only here for a few days at a time.' She looked out over the moon-washed marshes to where, now at its height, the tide was pushing waves across the drowned mudflats in shimmering, silver sheets that broke in small, bright spurts of foam where they met the river's push. 'So here I am. I'm a companion to my aunt, I talk with the housekeeper, and sometimes, when my uncle's at home, I have to be a hostess for his dinners.' She smiled. 'That means soldier's talk.'