“Aye, I know, short notice. We had another man ready to hold his hand, but he was the fellow who was murdered two days ago. So the Duke of York tells me to find a replacement. I thought of you, but didn’t know where you were, then God sent me to the theater and I find you guzzling ale afterward. Well done, God. And you won’t mind slitting a few Frog throats?”
“No, sir.”
“Our bloody guardsman says he doesn’t need a protector. Says there’s no danger, but what does he know? And his master, the Duke, insists he takes a companion, someone who knows how to fight and, by God, Sharpe, you know how to fight. Almost as well as me!”
“Almost, sir,” Sharpe agreed.
“So you’re under orders, Sharpe.” The General gripped the port bottle by the neck and pushed back his chair. “Are you sleeping here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So am I, and I’ve got a carriage coming at seven o’clock to take us to Harwich.” Baird stood, then paused. “It’s a strange thing, Sharpe, but if you do your job properly you’ll stop a war. Odd thing for a soldier to do, don’t you think? Where’s our advancement if we can’t fight? But all the same I doubt we’ll be beating our swords into ploughshares any time soon, not unless the Frogs suddenly see sense. So till tomorrow, young man.” Baird gave Sharpe a brusque nod and went back to his companions, while Sharpe, with a start of surprise, realized he had not been told why the guardsman was being sent to Copenhagen, nor been asked whether he was willing to go with him. Baird, it appeared, had taken his assent for granted, and Baird, Sharpe reckoned, was right, for, like it or not, he was a soldier.
The the general was in a foul mood at seven o’clock next morning. His aide, a Captain Gordon, mimed the cause of Baird’s ill temper by tipping an imaginary bottle to his lips, thus cautioning Sharpe to tact. Sharpe kept silent, settling on the carriage’s front seat, while Baird grumbled that London stank, the weather was wretched and the coach seats lumpy. The vehicle lurched as the inn servants strapped the General’s luggage on the roof, then there was a further delay as a final passenger appeared and insisted that his own luggage be secured alongside Baird’s. The newcomer was a civilian who looked about thirty years old. He was very thin and had a frail, birdlike face on which, astonishingly, a black velvet beauty patch was glued. He wore a silver coat edged with white lace and carried a gold-topped stick from which a silk handkerchief hung. His hair, black as gunpowder, had been smoothed with a perfumed oil and tied with a silver ribbon. He climbed into the coach and, without a word, sat opposite Sharpe. “You’re late, my lord,” Baird snapped.
The young man raised a gloved hand, fluttered his fingers as if to suggest Baird was being extremely tiresome and then closed his eyes. Baird, denied sport with his lordship, frowned at Sharpe instead. “There’s still blood on the coat, Sharpe.”
“Sorry, sir. Tried to wash it out.” The carriage jerked forward.
“Can’t have you going to Denmark in a bloody coat, man.”
“One supposes, Sir David,” Captain Gordon cut in smoothly, “that Lieutenant Sharpe will not be wearing uniform in Denmark. The object is secrecy.”
“Object, my ass,” the General said helpfully. “He’s my nephew,” he informed Sharpe, referring to Captain Gordon, “and talks like a bloody lawyer.”
Gordon smiled. “Do you have civilian clothes, Sharpe?”
“I do, sir.” Sharpe indicated his pack.
“I suggest you don them once you’re aboard your ship,” Gordon said.
“I suggest you don them.” Baird mimicked his nephew’s voice. “Bloody hellfire. Doesn’t this bloody carriage move at all?”
“Traffic, Sir David,” Gordon said emolliently. “Essex vegetables for the Saturday market.”
“Essex bloody vegetables,” the General complained. “I’m forced into a bloody theater. Gordon, then subjected to Essex vegetables. I should have you all shot.” He closed his bloodshot eyes.
The carriage, drawn by six horses, went first to the Tower of London where, after Sir David had sworn at the sentries, they were allowed through the gates to discover a cart guarded by a dozen guardsmen who appeared to be under the command of a very tall and very good-looking man in a pale-blue coat, silk stock, white breeches and black boots. The young man bowed as Baird clambered down from the carriage. “I have the gold, Sir David.”
“I should damn well hope you do,” Sir David growled. “Is there a jakes in this damn place?”
“That way, sir.” The young man pointed.
“This is Sharpe,” Baird said harshly. “He’s replacing Willsen, God rest his soul, and this”—Baird was talking to Sharpe now—”is the man you’re keeping alive. Captain Lavisser, or should I say Captain and Major Lavisser? The bloody Guards need two ranks. Bloody fools.”
Lavisser gave Sharpe a rather startled look when he heard that the rifleman was to replace the dead Willsen, but then, as the General went to find the lavatory, the guardsman smiled and his face, which had looked sour and cynical to Sharpe, was suddenly full of friendly charm. “So you’re to be my companion?” he asked.
“So it seems, sir.”
“Then I trust we shall be friends, Sharpe. With all my heart.” Lavisser thrust out a hand. Sharpe took it clumsily, embarrassed by Lavisser’s effusive friendliness. “Poor Willsen,” the Captain went on, clasping Sharpe’s hand in both of his. “To be murdered in the street! And he leaves a widow, it seems, and a daughter too. Just a child, just a child.” He looked pained, then turned to see his guardsmen struggling to move a great wooden chest from the cart. “I think the gold should go inside the carriage,” he suggested.
“Gold?” Sharpe asked.
Lavisser turned to him. “You’ve not been told the purpose of our journey?”
“I’m to keep you alive, sir, that’s all I know.”
“For which I shall be eternally grateful. But our purpose, Sharpe, is to carry gold to the Danes. Forty-three thousand guineas! We travel rich, eh?” Lavisser hauled open the carriage door, motioned his men to bring the chest of gold, then noticed the carriage’s last passenger, the pale civilian in the silver coat. Lavisser looked astonished. “God, Pumps! Are you here?”
Pumps, if that was his real name, merely fluttered his fingers again, then shifted his elegantly booted feet as the gold was manhandled onto the carriage floor. An escort of twenty dragoons took their places ahead of the carriage, then Sir David Baird came back and complained that the chest took up all the coach’s leg room. “I suppose we’ll have to endure it,” he grumbled, then rapped on the coach’s roof to signal that the journey could begin.
The General’s mood improved as the coach jolted through the soot-grimed orchards and vegetable fields about Hackney where a fitful sun chased shadows over woods and low hills. “You know Lord Pumphrey?” Baird asked Lavisser, indicating the frail young man who still seemed to be asleep.
“William and I were at Eton together,” Lavisser answered.
Pumphrey opened his eyes, peered at Lavisser as though surprised to see him, shuddered and closed his eyes again.
“You and I should have been to Eton,” Baird said to Sharpe. “We’d have learned useful things, like which side of the pot to piss in. Did you have breakfast, Lavisser?”
“The Lieutenant of the Tower was very hospitable, thank you, sir.”
“They like guardsmen in the Tower,” Baird said, implying that real soldiers would not be so welcome. “Captain Lavisser”—he spoke to Sharpe now—”is an aide to the Duke of York. I told you that, didn’t I? But did I tell you how useless His Royal Highness is? Bloody man thinks he’s a soldier. He buggered up his campaign in Holland in ‘99 and now he’s Commander in Chief. That’s what happens to you, Sharpe, when you’re the King’s son. Fortunately”—Baird, who was plainly enjoying himself, turned to Lavisser—”fortunately for you royal camp- followers the army has still got one or two real soldiers. Lieutenant Sharpe is one of them. He’s a rifleman in case you don’t recognize that bloodstained green rag, and he’s a thug.”
Lavisser, who had taken no offense as his master was insulted, looked puzzled. “He’s a what, sir?”
“You weren’t in India, were you?” Sir David asked, making the question sound like an accusation. “A thug, Lavisser, is a killer, a brute, conscienceless and efficient killer. I’m a thug, Lavisser, and so is Mister Sharpe. You are not, and nor are you, Gordon.”
