"The enemy hara.s.ses us, but they"re not thrusting home."
"They should, they should. A battalion of skirmishers in these hills could keep us at bay for a month! Well, I never, Sharpe! An ensign!"
The Major turned back to Pinckney.
"Sharpe and I ran the armoury at Seringapatam for four years."
"You ran it, sir," Sharpe said.
"I was just your sergeant."
"Best sergeant I ever had," Stokes told Pinckney enthusiastically.
"And it"s not "sir"" he turned to Sharpe "but John." He grinned at Sharpe.
"They were four good years, eh? Best we"ll ever have, I daresay. And here you are now, an officer! My dear fellow, I couldn"t be more overjoyed." He sniffed the air.
"Been blowing things up, Pinckney?"
"Cutting through that ridge, sir. I trust you don"t mind that we didn"t wait for you?"
"Mind? Why should I mind? You go ahead, dear fellow. I"m sure you know your business better than I do. G.o.d knows why they need an engineer here at all! Probably to be decorative, eh? Still, I"ll make myself useful. I thought I might map the escarpment. Hasn"t been done, you see. Of course, Pinckney, if you need advice, just ask away, but I"ll probably be at sixes and sevens groping for an answer." He beamed at the delighted Pinckney, then looked at the rough country through which the road led.
"This is fine landscape, isn"t it? Such a relief after the plains. It reminds me of Scotland."
"There are tigers here, Major," Sharpe said.
"And there"s all kinds of fierce things in Scotland too, Sharpe. I was once posted to Fort William and might as well have been in darkest China! It was worse than Newfoundland. And speaking of America, Sharpe, that young lady you sent me has travelled there. Extraordinary thing to do, I thought, and I advised her to abandon the whole wretched idea. There are bears, I told her, fierce bears, but she wouldn"t be persuaded."
"Simone, sir?" Sharpe asked, at first not believing his ears, then feeling a dreadful premonition.
"A charming creature, I thought. And to be widowed so young!"
Stokes tutted and shook his head.
"She went to a fortune teller, one of those naked fellows who make funny faces in the alley by the Hindu temple, and says she was advised to go to a new world. Whatever next, eh?"
"I thought she was waiting for me, sir," Sharpe said.
"Waiting for you? Good Lord, no. Gone to Louisiana, she says. She stayed in my house for a week I moved out, of course, to stop any scandal and then she travelled to Madras with Mrs. Pennington.
Remember Charlotte Pennington? The clergyman"s widow? I can"t think the two of them will get along, but your friend said the fortune teller was adamant and so she chose to go." The Major was eager to give Sharpe the rest of the news from Seringapatam. The armoury was closing down, he said, now that the frontier of the British-held territory was so much farther north, but Stokes had kept himself busy dismantling the town"s inner fortifications.
"Very ill made, Sharpe, disgraceful work, quite disgraceful. Walls crumbled to the touch."
But Sharpe was not listening. He was thinking of Simone. She had gone! By now she was probably in Madras, and maybe already on board a ship. And she had taken his jewels. Only a few of them, true, but enough. He touched the seam of his jacket where a good many of the Tippoo"s other jewels were hidden.
"Did Madame Joubert leave any message?" he asked Stokes when the Major paused to draw breath. What did he hope, Sharpe wondered, that Simone would want him to join her in America?
"A message? None, Sharpe. Too busy to write, I daresay. She"s a remarkably wealthy woman, did you know? She bought half the raw silk in town, hired a score of bearers and off she went. Every officer in town was leaving a card for her, but she didn"t have the time of day for any of them. Off to Louisiana!" Stokes suddenly frowned.
"What is the matter, Sharpe? You look as if you"ve seen a ghost. You"re not sickening, are you?"
"No, no. It"s just I thought she might have written."
"Oh! I see! You were sweet on her!" Stokes shook his head.
"I feel for you, Sharpe, "pon my soul, I do, but what hope could you have? A woman with her sort of fortune doesn"t look at fellows like us! "Pon my soul, no. She"s rich! She"ll marry high, Sharpe, or as high as a woman can in French America."
Her sort of fortune indeed! Simone had no fortune, she had been penniless when Sharpe met her, but he had trusted her. G.o.d d.a.m.n the Frog b.i.t.c.h! Stolen a small fortune.
"It doesn"t matter," he told Stokes, but somehow it did. Simone"s betrayal was like a stab to the belly. It was not so much the jewels, for he had kept the greater part of the plunder, but the broken promises. He felt anger and pity and, above all, a fool. A great fool. He turned away from Stokes and stared down the track to where a dozen oxen escorted by two companies of sepoys were trudging towards him.
"I"ve got work coming," he said, not wanting to discuss Simone any further.
"I pa.s.sed those fellows on my way," Stokes said, "carrying powder, I think. I do like blowing things up. So just what do you do here, Sharpe?"
"I keep the pioneers supplied with material, sir, and sign in all the convoys."
"Hope it leaves you time to help me, Sharpe. You and me together again, eh? It"ll be like the old days."
"That"d be good, sir," Sharpe said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, then he walked down the track and pointed to where the ox-drivers should drop their barrels of gunpowder. The men crowded about him with their chitties and he pulled out a pencil and scrawled his initials in the corner of each one, thus confirming that they had completed and were owed for one journey.
The last man also handed Sharpe a sealed paper with his name written in a fine copperplate hand.
"From the clerk, sahib," the man said, the phrase plainly much practised for he spoke no other English.
Sharpe tore the seal off as he walked back up the hill. The letter was not from the clerk at all, but from Torrance.
"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!" he cursed.
"What is it?" Stokes asked.
"A man called Torrance," Sharpe complained.
"He"s in charge of the bullocks. He wants me back at Deogaum because he reckons there are forged chitties in the camp."
"In the far south of India," Stokes said, "they call them s.h.i.ts."
Sharpe blinked at the Major.
"Sorry, sir?"
"You mustn"t call me "sir", Sharpe. "Pon my soul, yes. I had a Tamil servant who was forever asking me to sign his s.h.i.ts. Had me all in a dither at first, I can tell you."
Sharpe crumpled Torrance"s note into a ball.
"Why the h.e.l.l can"t Torrance sort out his own s.h.i.ts?" he asked angrily. But he knew why.