Sharpe 3-Book Collection 1: Sharpe’s Tiger, Sharpe’s Triumph, Sharpe’s Fortress

‘They were going to flog me, sir.’ Lawford was nervous telling the lie, and the nervousness intrigued Gudin.

‘For doing nothing?’ Gudin asked with amusement.

‘For stealing a watch, sir.’ Lawford reddened as he spoke. ‘Which I did steal,’ he added, but most unconvincingly. He had made no effort to hide the accent that betrayed his education, though whether Gudin’s ear was sufficiently attuned to English to detect the nuance was another matter.

The Frenchman was certainly intrigued by Lawford. ‘What did you say your name was?’ the Colonel asked.

‘Lawford, sir.’

Gudin gave Lawford a long scrutiny. The Frenchman was tall and thin, with a lugubrious and tired face, but his eyes, Sharpe decided, were shrewd and kind. Gudin, Sharpe reckoned, was a gentleman, a proper type of officer. Like Lawford, really, and maybe that was the trouble. Maybe Gudin had already seen through Lawford’s disguise. ‘You do not seem to me, Private Lawford, to be a typical British soldier,’ Gudin said, thus fulfilling Sharpe’s fears. ‘In France, now, you would be nothing strange for we must insist that every young man serve his country, but in Britain, am I not right, you only accept the dregs of the streets? Men from the gutter?’

‘Men like me,’ Sharpe said.

‘Quiet,’ Gudin reproved Sharpe with a sudden authority. ‘I did not speak to you.’ The Frenchman took one of Lawford’s hands and mutely inspected the soft uncalloused fingers. ‘How is it that you are in the army, Lawford?’

‘Father went bankrupt, sir,’ Lawford said, conjuring the worst disaster that he could ever imagine.

‘But the son of a bankrupt father can take employment, can he not?’ Gudin looked again at the soft fingers, then released Lawford’s hand. ‘And any job, surely, is better than the life of a British soldier?’

‘I got drunk, sir,’ Lawford said miserably, ‘and I met a recruiting sergeant.’ The Lieutenant’s misery was not at the imagined memory, but at the difficulty he was having in telling the lie, but his demeanour impressed Gudin. ‘It was in a pub, sir, in Sheffield,’ Lawford went on. ‘The Hawse in the Lake, sir. In Sheffield, sir. In Pond Lane, sir, on market day.’ His voice tailed away as he suddenly realized he did not know which day of the week the market was held.

‘In Sheffield?’ Gudin asked. ‘Is that not where they make iron? And – what is the word? – cutlery! You don’t look like a cutler, Lawford.’

‘I was a lawyer’s apprentice, sir.’ Lawford was blushing violently. He knew he had mixed up the name of the pub, though it was doubtful that Colonel Gudin would ever know the difference, but the Lieutenant was certain his lies were as transparent as a pane of glass.

‘And your job in the army?’ Gudin asked.

‘Company clerk, sir.’

Gudin smiled. ‘No ink on your breeches, Lawford! In our army the clerks spatter ink everywhere.’

For a moment it seemed as though Lawford was about to abandon his lie and, in his misery, confess the whole truth to the Frenchman, but then the Lieutenant had a sudden inspiration. ‘I wear an apron, sir, when I’m writing. I don’t want to be punished for a dirty uniform, sir.’

Gudin laughed. In truth he had never doubted Lawford’s story, mistaking the Lieutenant’s embarrassment for shame at his family’s bankruptcy. If anything, the Frenchman felt sorry for the tall, fair-haired and fastidious young man who should plainly never have become a soldier, and that, to Gudin, was enough to explain Lawford’s nervousness. ‘You’re a clerk, eh? So does that mean you see paperwork?’

‘A lot, sir.’

‘So do you know how many guns the British are bringing here?’ Gudin asked. ‘How much ammunition?’

Lawford shook his head in consternation. For a few seconds he was speechless, then managed to say that he never saw that sort of paperwork. ‘It’s just company papers I see, sir. Punishment books, that sort of thing.’

‘Bloody thousands,’ Sharpe interjected. ‘Beg pardon for speaking, sir.’

‘Thousands of what?’ Gudin asked.

‘Bullocks, sir. Six eighteen-pounder shot strapped on apiece, sir, and some of the buggers have got eight. But it’s thousands of round shot.’

‘Two thousand? Three?’ Gudin asked.

‘More than that, sir. I ain’t seen a herd the size of it, not even when the Scots drive the beeves down from Scotland to London.’

Gudin shrugged. He very much doubted whether these two could tell him anything useful, certainly nothing that the Tippoo’s scouts and spies had not already discovered, but the questions had to be asked. Now, waving flies from his face, he told the two deserters what they might expect. ‘His Majesty the Tippoo Sultan will decide your fate, and if he is merciful he will want you to serve in his forces. I assume you are willing?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Sharpe said eagerly. ‘It’s why we came, sir.’

‘Good,’ Gudin said. ‘The Tippoo might want you in one of his own cushoons. That’s the word they use for a regiment here, a cushoon. They’re all good soldiers and well trained, and you’ll be made welcome, but there is one disadvantage. You will both have to be circumcised.’

Lawford went pale, while Sharpe just shrugged. ‘Is that bad, sir?’

‘You know what circumcision is, Private?’

‘Something the army does to you, sir? Like swear you in?’

Gudin smiled. ‘Not quite, Sharpe. The Tippoo is a Muslim and he likes his foreign volunteers to join his religion. It means one of his holy men will cut your foreskin off. It’s quite quick, just like slicing the top from a soft-boiled egg, really.’

‘My prick?’ Sharpe was as aghast as Lawford now.

‘It’s over in seconds,’ Gudin reassured them, ‘though the bleeding can last for a while and you cannot, how shall I say … ?’ He glanced at Mary, then back to Sharpe. ‘You can’t let the egg become hard boiled for a few weeks.’

‘Bloody hell, sir!’ Sharpe said. ‘For religion? They do that?’

‘We Christians sprinkle babies with water,’ Gudin said, ‘and the Muslims chop off foreskins.’ The Frenchman paused, then smiled. ‘However, I cannot think that a man with a bleeding prick will make a good soldier, and your armies will be here in a few days, so I will suggest to His Majesty that the two of you serve with my men. We are few, but none of us are Muslims, and all of our soft-boiled eggs retain their full shells.’

‘Quite right too, sir,’ Sharpe said enthusiastically. ‘And it’ll be an honour to serve you, sir,’ he added.

‘In a French battalion?’ Gudin teased him.

‘If you don’t flog, sir, and you don’t carve up pricks, then it’ll be more than an honour.’

‘If the Tippoo allows it,’ Gudin warned them, ‘which he may not. But I think he might. I have other Britishers in the battalion, and some Germans and Swiss. I’m sure you will be happy there.’ He looked at Mary. ‘But what of you, Mademoiselle?’

Mary touched Sharpe’s elbow. ‘I came with Richard, sir.’

Gudin inspected her black eye. ‘How did that happen, Mademoiselle?’

‘I fell, sir,’ Mary said.

Gudin’s face flickered with a smile. ‘Or did Private Sharpe hit you? So that you would not appear attractive?’

‘I fell over, sir.’

Gudin nodded. ‘You hit hard, Private Sharpe.’

‘No point else, sir.’

‘That is true,’ Gudin said, then shrugged. ‘My men have their women. If His Majesty allows it I don’t see why the two of you should not stay together.’ He turned as his sergeant reappeared, bringing with him an elderly Indian who carried a cloth-covered basket. ‘This is Doctor Venkatesh,’ Gudin said, greeting the doctor with a bow, ‘and he is quite as good as any physician I ever found in Paris. I imagine, Sharpe, that removing those filthy bandages will hurt?’

‘Not as much as circumscribing, sir.’