03 Sharpe's Fortress by Bernard Cornwell

Author:Bernard Cornwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9780006510314
Publisher: Harp­erCollins
Published: 2000-07-04T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 4

Sharpe was not sure how far away De­ogaum was, but guessed it was close to twen­ty miles and that was at least a sev­en-​hour jour­ney on foot, and so it was long be­fore dawn when he stirred Ahmed from his sleep be­side the smoul­der­ing re­mains of a bul­lock-​dung fire, then set off un­der the stars. He tried to teach Ahmed some En­glish.

“Stars,” Sharpe said, point­ing.

“Stars,” Ahmed re­peat­ed du­ti­ful­ly.

“Moon,” Sharpe said.

“Moon,” Ahmed echoed.

“Sky.”

“Moon?” Ahmed asked, cu­ri­ous that Sharpe was still point­ing to the sky.

“Sky, you bug­ger.”

“Sky­oobug­ger?”

“Nev­er mind,” Sharpe said. He was hun­gry, and he had for­got­ten to ask Cap­tain Tor­rance where he was sup­posed to draw ra­tions, but their north­ward route took them through the vil­lage of Ar­gaum where the fight­ing bat­tal­ions of the army were bivouacked. Un­buried bod­ies still lit­tered the bat­tle­field, and scav­eng­ing wild dogs growled from the dark stench as Sharpe and Ahmed walked past. A pic­quet chal­lenged them at the vil­lage, and Sharpe asked the man where he would find the cav­al­ry lines. He could not imag­ine tak­ing Ahmed to the 74th's mess for break­fast, but Sergeant Eli Lock­hart might be more wel­com­ing.

The reveille had sound­ed by the time Sharpe came to the gul­ly where the hors­es were pick­et­ed and the troop­ers' camp­fires were be­ing re­stored to life. Lock­hart scowled at the un­ex­pect­ed vis­itor through the smoky dawn gloom, then grinned when he rec­og­nized Sharpe.

“Must be some fight­ing to do, lads,” he an­nounced, 'the bleed­ing in­fantry's here. Good morn­ing, sir. Need our help again?"

“I need some break­fast,” Sharpe ad­mit­ted.

“Tea, that'll start you off. Smithers! Pork chops! Davies! Some of that bread you're hid­ing from me. Look live­ly now!” Lock­hart turned back to Sharpe.

“Don't ask me where the chops come from, sir. I might have to lie.” He spat in a tin mug, scoured its in­te­ri­or with the end of his blan­ket, then filled it with tea.

"There you are, sir. Does your boy want some?

Here you are, lad." Lock­hart, a mug of tea in his own hand, then in­sist­ed on tak­ing Sharpe to the pick­et­ed hors­es.

“See, sir?” He lift­ed a horse's leg to show off the new horse­shoe.

“My gu­vnor's be­hold­en to you. I might in­tro­duce you af­ter break­fast.”

Sharpe as­sumed that Lock­hart was talk­ing of his troop com­man­der, but once the pork chops and bread had been eat­en, the Sergeant led Sharpe across to the lines of the na­tive cav­al­ry, and then to the tent of the 7th Na­tive Cav­al­ry's com­mand­ing of­fi­cer who, it seemed, was in charge of all the army's cav­al­ry.

“He's called Hud­dle­stone,” Lock­hart said, 'and he's a de­cent fel­low. He'll prob­ably of­fer us an­oth­er break­fast."

Colonel Hud­dle­stone did in­deed in­sist that both Lock­hart and Sharpe join him for a break­fast of rice and eggs. Sharpe was be­gin­ning to see that Lock­hart was a use­ful man, some­one who was trust­ed by his of­fi­cers and liked by his troop­ers, for Hud­dle­stone greet­ed the Sergeant warm­ly and im­me­di­ate­ly plunged in­to a con­ver­sa­tion about some lo­cal hors­es that had been pur­chased for re­mounts and which Hud­dle­stone reck­oned would nev­er stand the strain of bat­tle, though Lock­hart seemed to feel that a few of them would be ad­equate.

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