From Crimea with Love by Jason Salkey

Author:Jason Salkey
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783529582
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2021-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

VIVA LA REVOLUTION

Needless to say, that evening in the KGB bar there was some serious unwinding, with a bit of soul-searching thrown in about what had just occurred; after all, this was the second time we’d taken matters into our own hands and those of less importance to the show might get left behind on the next campaign. Sean, Lyndon and I chatted at length about how our actions would be perceived by the crew; we knew the acting department was certainly on our side but other members of the unit had to dutifully roll into work on time and waited on the side of a mountain kicking their heels the entire day. Props, horses, extras and all that expensive camera and lighting equipment all standing idle while the dollars flowed down the drain.

The next morning, we were reacquainted with iconic Sharpe location Dimerdji to shoot the rifles-for-deserters swap scene. I wouldn’t say we were greeted like conquering heroes by the crew, but the reception was overwhelmingly positive. I suppose waking up to a hot shower and being able to flush the toilet was met with universal favour; our strike was not being seen as the selfish, entitled, petulant act of pampered thespians, but was being taken in the spirit in which it had been meant, a stand taken for the greater good, for the benefit of all. Even Tom showed no outward sign of resentment; we responded with ultra-efficiency and rapt attention when rehearsing and lining up the shot. The vibe on set was upbeat, I got to display Harris’s language skills in a nice scene with Sharpe and the meowing El Casco and we were all entertained by the deserter boys in full flow, playing their parts to perfection with just a hint of slapstick.

With impeccable timing, Malcolm Craddock arrived to hold a post-mortem of the previous day’s strike. It was good to see Malcolm, who after all was also a three-campaign veteran and someone we felt we could speak frankly with. I also needed to get a Portuguese visa for Natasha; Malcolm very helpfully steered me towards a person from the production office in Lisbon. He also mentioned Carlton was producing a Sharpe book that might need to use some of my on-set photos; so, there seemed a chance I might make a couple of bucks off Sharpe in the future. His arrival was timed perfectly for him to witness a cockroach population explosion at the sanatorium; getting rid of them was a sub-clause of the ‘water action’ agreement, so while we were finishing up at Dimerdji, they were fumigating the bathrooms and corridor areas. During the strike Lyndon had kept himself busy killing and harvesting twenty or so of the little buggers in a jar before presenting them to the production office. Suitably disgusted, Chris Burt dumped the cockroaches, with the jar, in the Russian production office; I would say that Chris was beginning to be sympathetic to the multi-layered shit storm we’d all had to put up with.

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