Bernard Cornwell Box Set: Sharpe's Triumph , Sharpe's Tiger , Sharpe's Fortress

by Bernard Cornwell

  “She’s too young,” Pierce said. “I told Phil to give her another six months. Let her practice, I said, but he wouldn’t listen. Cloth ears, that’s his problem.” He stared at Sharpe. “I can’t believe it. Dick Sharpe a bloody jack pudding.” He meant officer, for a jack pudding was a motley fool from the fairground, a clown dressed in fake finery and with donkey’s ears pinned to his hair. “Hocking didn’t recognize you?”

  “I don’t want him to either.”

  “I won’t tell the bastard,” Pierce said, then settled back to watch the bitch hunt the last few rats. The sand was speckled with fresh blood. A few of the rats were merely crippled and those who had wagered on the bitch were shouting at her to finish them off. “I thought when I first saw her,” Pierce said, “that she’d hunt like her mother did. Christ, but that bitch was a cold-hearted killer. But this one’s too young. She’ll get better.” He watched her kill a rat that had been particularly elusive. She shook it hard, spraying blood onto the customers closest to the barrier. “It ain’t the teeth that kills ’em,” Pierce said, “but the shaking.”

  “I know.”

  “ ’Course you do, ’course you do.” Pierce watched as the boy climbed into the ring and shoved the bloodied rats into a sack. “Lumpy’s still trying to sell the corpses,” he said. “You’d think someone would want to eat them. Nothing wrong with rat pie, especially if you don’t know what it is. But he can’t sell ’em.” He looked down at Jem Hocking. “Is there to be trouble?”

  “Would you mind?”

  Pierce picked at a tooth with a long fingernail. “No,” he said curtly, “and Lumpy will be pleased. He wants to run the book here, but Hocking won’t let him.”

  “Won’t let him?”

  “Hocking owns the place now,” Pierce said. “He owns every house in the street, the bastard.” Two more cages had been tipped into the arena and the new rats, black and slick, scampered about the ring as a roar from the crowd greeted the dog. It was held above the skittering sand for a second, then dropped and began to fight. It went about its business efficiently and Pierce grinned. “Jem’s going to lose his shirt on this one.”

  The bitch had been good and quick, but the dog was old and experienced. It killed swiftly and the crowd’s cheers got louder. Most, it seemed, had bet on the dog and the pleasure of winning was doubled by the knowledge that Jem Hocking was about to lose. Except that Jem Hocking was not a man to lose. The dog had killed about twenty of the rats when suddenly a spectator on the front bench leaned forward and vomited over the barrier and the dog immediately ran to gobble up the half-digested meat pie. The owner screamed at it, the crowd jeered and Hocking’s face showed nothing.

  “Bastard,” Pierce said.

  “Old trick that,” Sharpe said, leaning back. He fingered his saber’s hilt. He did not like the weapon’s curved blade which was too light to do real damage, but it was the official weapon of Rifle officers. He would have preferred one of the basket-hilted broadswords that the Scots carried into battle, but regulations were regulations and the greenjackets had insisted he equip himself properly. A sword or saber, they said, was merely decorative and an officer who was forced to use one in battle had already failed so it did not matter that the light cavalry saber was unhandy, but Sharpe had used enough swords in battle and he had never failed. Go into a breach, he had told Colonel Beckwith, and you’ll be glad enough of a butchering sword, but the Colonel had shaken his head. “It is not the business of Rifle officers to be in the breach,” he had said. “Our job is to be outside, killing from a distance. That is why we have rifles, not muskets.” Not that any of it mattered to Sharpe now. He would make his money, resign his commission, sell the saber and forget the Rifles.

  Lumpy closed the entertainment by announcing that the next evening would be a mixture of cockfighting and badger-baiting. They would be Essex badgers, he boasted, as though Essex gave the animals special fighting skills, though in truth it was simply the closest source to Wapping. The crowd streamed out and Sharpe went back to the storeroom. Dan Pierce went with him. “I wouldn’t stay, Dan,” Sharpe said. “Likely to be trouble.”

  “Trouble for you, Dick,” Pierce tried to warn his old friend. “He’s never on his own.”

  “I’ll be all right. You can buy me an ale afterward.”

  Pierce left and Sharpe went into the stinking room. The badgers were all in wire cages stacked against one wall while the rest of the room was occupied by a table on which a dim oil lamp burned, and by an incongruous bed that was plump with sheets, blankets and pillows. Lumpy’s girls, the ones who sold gin and hot pies, used the room for their other business, but it would suit Sharpe perfectly. He put his pack and greatcoat on the table, then unsheathed the saber which he placed on the badger cages with the hilt toward him. The beasts, pungent and sullen, stirred behind their wire.

  He waited, listening to the sounds fading in the shed. A year ago he had been living in a house with eight rooms that he and Grace had rented close to Shorncliffe. He had fitted in with the battalion well enough then, for Grace had charmed the other officers, but why should he have ever thought it could last? It had been like a dream. Except Grace’s brothers and their lawyers kept intruding on the dream, demanding she leave Sharpe, even offering her money if she did the decent thing, and other lawyers had tied up her dead husband’s will in a tangle of words, delay and obfuscation. Get her out of your head, he told himself, but she would not leave and when the footsteps sounded outside the storeroom Sharpe’s sight was blurred with tears. He brushed his eyes as the door opened.

  Jem Hocking came in with the girl, leaving the door ajar with the two young men just outside. The child was thin, frightened, red-haired and pale. She glanced at Sharpe then began to cry silently. “This is Emily,” Jem Hocking said, tugging the girl’s hand. “The nice man wants to play games with you, ain’t that right, Major?”

  Sharpe nodded. The anger he was feeling was so huge that he did not trust himself to speak.

  “I don’t want her hurt bad,” Hocking said. He had a face the color of beefsteak and a nose erupting with broken veins. “I want her back in one piece. Now, Major, the money?” He patted the satchel that was hanging from his shoulder. “Ten pounds.”

  “In the pack,” Sharpe said, nodding at the table, “just open the top flap.” Hocking turned to the table and Sharpe edged the door closed with his shoulder as he moved to Emily’s side. He picked her up and placed her on the bed, then whipped the blanket up over her head. She cried aloud as she was smothered in woollen darkness and Hocking turned as Sharpe pulled the saber off the cage tops. Hocking opened his mouth, but the blade was already against his throat. “Not a word,” Sharpe said. He shot the door bolt. “All your money, Jem. Put the satchel on the table and empty your pockets into it.”

  Jem Hocking, despite the saber at his throat, did not look alarmed. “You’re mad,” he said calmly.

  “Money, Jem, on the table.”

  Jem Hocking shook his head in puzzlement. This was his kingdom and it did not seem possible that anyone would dare challenge him. He took a deep breath, plainly intending to call for help, but the saber’s tip was suddenly hard in the flesh of his neck, drawing a trickle of blood.

  “On the table, Jem,” Sharpe said, the softness of his voice belying the anger in his soul.

  Hocking still did not obey. He frowned instead. “Do I know you?”

  “No,” Sharpe said.

  “You ain’t getting a penny of mine, son,” Hocking said.

  Sharpe twisted the blade. Hocking stepped back, but Sharpe kept the saber in his neck. He had only broken Hocking’s skin, nothing more, but he pushed a little harder and twisted again. “Money,” he said, “on the table.”

  “Daft as a pudding, boy,” Hocking said. “You ain’t going anywhere, not now. I’ve got lads out there and they’ll cut you into tatters.”

  “Money,” Sharpe said, and reinforced the demand by whipping the saber’s tip twice across Hocking’s face to leav
e long thin cuts in his cheeks and nose. Hocking looked astonished. He touched a finger to his cheek and seemed not to believe the blood he saw.

  There was a knock on the door. “Mister Hocking?” a voice called.

  “We’re just settling the money,” Sharpe shouted, “aren’t we, Jem? On the table or I’ll bloody fillet you.”

  “You ain’t an officer, are you? You dress up, don’t you, but you picked the wrong man this time, son.”

  “I’m an officer,” Sharpe said, and drew blood from Hocking’s neck. “A real officer,” he added. “Now empty your pockets.”

  Hocking dropped the satchel on the table, then thrust a hand into his greatcoat pocket. Sharpe waited to hear the chink of coins, but there was no such sound and so, as Hocking brought his hand out of the pocket, Sharpe slashed down hard with the saber. He slit the ball of Hocking’s thumb, then slashed the blade again and Hocking, who had been drawing a small pistol from his coat pocket, let the weapon go to clutch at his wounded fingers. The pistol fell to the floor.

  “Empty your damned pockets,” Sharpe said.

  Hocking hesitated, wondering whether to call for help, but there was an implacability about Sharpe that suggested he had best humor him. He flinched as he used his wounded right hand to pull coins from his pocket. The door rattled as someone tried the latch. “Wait!” Sharpe called. He saw gold coins among the silver and copper. “Keep going, Jem,” he said.

  “You’re a dead man,” Hocking grumbled, but found more cash that he piled on the table. “That’s all,” he said.

  “Back against the cages, you bastard,” Sharpe said and prodded Hocking toward the badgers. Then, still holding the saber in his right hand, Sharpe forced handfuls of the coins into the satchel. He could not look closely at the money, for he needed to watch Hocking, but he reckoned there was at least eighteen or nineteen pounds there.

  The click saved Sharpe. It came from behind him and he recognized the sound of a pistol being cocked and he stepped to one side and risked a quick glance to see that there was a hole in the wooden wall. Lumpy’s peephole, no doubt, and one of the young men outside must have seen what was happening and Sharpe stepped to the bed just as a pistol flamed through the hole to mist the room with smoke. Emily screamed from beneath her blanket and Jem Hocking snatched a badger cage and hurled it at Sharpe.

  The cage bounced heavily off Sharpe’s shoulder. Hocking was scrabbling for the pistol when Sharpe kicked him in the face, then slashed the saber across his head. Hocking sprawled by the table. Sharpe snatched up the small pistol and fired it at the wall beside the peephole. The timber splintered, but no shout sounded on the far side. Then he knelt on Hocking’s belly and held the saber against the big man’s throat. “You do know me,” Sharpe said. “You bloody do know me.”

  He had not intended to reveal his name. He had told himself he would rob Hocking, but now, smelling the gun smoke, he knew he had always wanted to kill the bastard. No, he had wanted more. He had wanted to see Hocking’s face when the man learned that one of his children had come back, but come back as a jack pudding. Sharpe smiled, and for the first time there was fear on Hocking’s face. “I really am an officer, Jem, and my name’s Sharpe. Dick Sharpe.” He saw the disbelief on Hocking’s face. Disbelief, astonishment and fear. That was reward enough. Hocking stared, wide-eyed, recognizing Sharpe and, at the same time, unable to comprehend that one of his boys was now an officer. Then the incomprehension turned to terror for he understood that the boy wanted revenge. “You bastard,” Sharpe said, “you goddamned piece of shit.” The anger was livid now. “Remember whipping me?” he asked. “Whipping me till the blood ran? I remember, Jem. That’s why I came back.”

  “Listen, lad.”

  “Don’t you bloody lad me,” Sharpe said. “I’m grown now, Jem. I’m a soldier, Jem, an officer, and I’ve learned to kill.”

  “No!”

  “Yes,” Sharpe said, and the bitterness was unassuageable now, drenching him, consuming him, and the years of pain and misery were driving his right arm as he sawed the blade hard and fast across Hocking’s throat. Hocking’s last shout was abruptly cut short as a fountain of blood sprang up. The big man heaved, but Sharpe was snarling and still slicing down with the blade, cutting through muscle and gullet and a flood of blood until the steel juddered against the bone. Hocking’s breath bubbled at his opened neck as Sharpe stood and stabbed the saber down so hard that the blade flexed as its tip drove into the back of Hocking’s skull. “One in the eye, Jem,” Sharpe snarled, “you bastard.” The door shook as the men outside tried to force the bolt from its seating. Sharpe kicked the door. “We ain’t done,” he shouted.

  There was a sudden silence outside. But how many men were out there? And the two pistol shots would have been heard. Men would be watching the rat shed, knowing that there would be pickings to be had from the violence. Bloody fool, Sharpe told himself. Grace had forever told him he had to think before he let his anger rule his actions, and he had not really meant to kill Hocking, only to rob him. No, that was not true, he had wanted to kill Hocking for years, but he had done it clumsily, angrily, and now he was trapped. There were still some coins on the table, one of them a guinea, and he threw them onto the bed. “Emily?”

  “Sir?” a small voice whimpered.

  “That money’s for you. Hide it. And stay hidden yourself now. Lie down.”

  Still silence outside, but that meant nothing. Sharpe blew out the oil lamp, then pulled on his coat and pack. He hung the satchel across his chest, dragged the saber free of Hocking’s face, then went to the door and slid the bolt back as silently as he could. He lifted the latch and eased the door ajar. He reckoned the two men only had one pistol between them, but both would have knives and cudgels and he half expected them to charge when they saw the door crack open, but instead they waited. They knew Sharpe had to come out eventually and so they were waiting for him. He crouched and felt for the badger cage that had been thrown at him. He placed the cage beside the door and slid its hinged flap open.

  A small light came from the shed’s far end, just enough to reveal a heavy dark shadow that crept out of the cage and snuffled its way forward. It was a big beast that tried to turn back into the storeroom’s darkness, but Sharpe nudged it with his saber tip and the animal lumbered out into the larger space.

  The pistol banged, flashing the dark with searing light. The badger squealed, then a club broke its spine. Sharpe had pulled the door open and was through it before the men outside realized they were wasting effort on an animal. The saber hissed and one man yelped, then Sharpe scythed the blade back at the second man who ducked away. Sharpe did not wait, but ran to the back of the shed where he remembered an alley that led to a noxious ditch up which small lighters could be dragged from the Thames. One of the two men was following him, blundering in the shed’s darkness. Sharpe shouldered the door open and ran down the alley. Two men were there, but both stepped aside when they saw the saber. Sharpe twisted right and ran toward the big warehouse where tobacco was stored and where, in his childhood, a gang of counterfeiters had forged their coins.

  “Catch him!” a voice shouted and Sharpe heard a rush of feet.

  He twisted into another alley. The shouting was loud now. Men were pursuing him, not to avenge Hocking whom they did not even know was dead, but because Sharpe was a stranger in their gutters. The wolves had found their courage and Sharpe ran, the saber in his hand, as the hue and cry filled the dark behind. The pack, greatcoat and satchel were heavy, the lanes were foot-clogging with mud and dung, and he knew he must find a lair soon, so he twisted into a narrow passage that ran past the Mint’s great wall, twisted left, right, left again and at last saw a dark doorway where he could crouch and catch his breath. He listened as men pounded past the alley’s entrance, then leaned back as the noise of the hunt faded northward.

  He grimaced when he realized his jacket was soaked in blood. That must wait. For now he sheathed the saber, hid the scabbard beneath his greatcoat and
then, with the pack in his hand, he went westward through alleys and lanes he half remembered from childhood. He felt safer as he passed the Tower where yellow lights flared through high narrow windows, but he constantly looked behind in case anyone followed. Most of his pursuers had stayed as a pack, but some cleverer ones might have stalked him more silently. By now they knew he was worth killing, not just for the value of his saber and his coat’s silver buttons, but for the coins he had thieved from Hocking. He was any man’s prey. The city streets were empty and twice he thought he heard footsteps behind him, but he saw no one. He went on west.

  The streets became busier once he passed Temple Bar and he reckoned he was safer now, though he still looked back. He hurried along Fleet Street, then turned north into a confusing tangle of narrow alleys. It had begun to rain, he was tired. A crowd of men streamed from a tavern and Sharpe instinctively turned away from them, going into a wider street he recognized as High Holborn. He stopped there to catch his breath. Had he been followed?

  Yellow light streamed from windows across the street. Go to Seven Dials, he thought, and find Maggie Joyce. The rain was coming down harder now, drumming on the roof of a parked carriage. Another carriage splashed by and its dim lamps showed a green-and-yellow painted board on the building with the glowing windows. Two watchmen, buttons shining on blue coats and with long staves in their hands, walked slowly past. Had the watch heard the hue and cry? They would be looking for a bloodstained army officer if they had and Sharpe decided he should go to earth. The carriage lamps had revealed that the tavern was the French Horn. The place had once been popular with the musicians from the theater in nearby Drury Lane, but more recently it had been bought by an old soldier who was partial to any officer who happened to be in town, and throughout the army it was now known as the Frog Prick.