Sharpe's Regiment

CHAPTER 19

Jane Gibbons' journey to London had not been hard, a carter from Great Wakering had carried her to Rochford, and from there she had paid to travel in a stage that dropped her at Charing Cross, but London filled her with dread. She had visited it before, but never on her own, and she knew no one. She had money, eight of the guineas were left of those that, in a dew-wet dawn, she had rescued from the table in the pergola.

She carried two bags, a reticule, a parasol, and Rascal was on a leash. She was glad of the small white dog. The smells of the city were strange, the people frightening, and the noise overwhelming. She had never seen so many cripples. On her previous visits, insulated from the misery by the glass windows of her uncle's coach, she had not realised how much horror stirred and shuffled on London's pavements. She stooped to pat the dog. 'It's all right, Rascal, it's all right. She wondered how she was to find him food, let alone shelter for herself.

'Missy!

She looked up to see a well-dressed man tipping his hat to her. 'Sir?

'You look lost, Missy. From out of town?

'Yes, sir.

'And in need of lodgings, I warrant? He smiled, and because three of his teeth were missing and the others so blackened that it was hard to see them, she shuddered. He stooped for her large bag. 'You'll allow me to carry it?

'Leave it!

'Now, Miss, I can tell. .

'No! Her voice attracted curious glances. She turned away from the man, struggling with her ungainly luggage and wondering whether it had been truly necessary to pack so many dresses, as well as the silver backed hair-brushes and the picture of the boats she liked so much. She had her jewellery, those small few pieces of her mother's that Sir Henry had not taken, and she had her parents' portraits. She had the first two cantos of Childe Harold, her paints, and a vast iron flintlock pistol taken from her uncle's library wall which she was not sure would work, and for which she had no ammunition, but which she thought might frighten away any assailants. She lugged it all west, past the Royal Mews where, it was said, a great space would be made to commemorate Nelson and Trafalgar. She turned into Whitehall.

Twice again men offered her lodgings. Clean lodgings, they said, respectable, run by a gentlewoman, but Jane Gibbons was not so foolish as to accept. Other men smiled at her, struck by her innocence and beauty, and it was those errant looks, as much as the bolder approach of the pimps, that drove her to seek refuge.

She chose sensibly. She picked her helpers as carefully as Richard Sharpe chose his battlegrounds, and the chosen pair was a gaitered cleric, red-faced and amiable, and his middle-aged wife who, like her husband, gaped at the London sights.

Jane explained that she had been sent to London by her mother, there to meet her father, but he had not been on the Portsmouth stage and she feared he might not now come until the next day. She had money, she explained, and wished no charity, but merely to be directed to a clean, safe place where she might sleep.

The Reverend and Mrs Octavius Godolphin were staying in Tothill Street, at Mrs Paul's Lodgings, a most respectable house that ministered to the visiting clergy, and the Reverend and Mrs Godolphin, whose children were grown and gone from home, were delighted to offer their sheltering wings to Miss Gibbons. A cab was summoned, Mrs Paul was introduced, and nothing would suffice but that Miss Gibbons should accompany them to evensong and then share a shoulder of lamb for which they would not dream of taking payment. She went safe to bed, secured from an evil world by the multiplicity of bolts and bars on Mrs Paul's front door, and the Reverend Godolphin reminded her to say her prayers for her father's safe journey on the morrow. It all seemed, to Jane, like a great adventure.

The next morning, Saturday morning, when prayers had been said around Mrs Paul's great table, Jane persuaded the Reverend and Mrs Godolphin that she had no need of their company to wait at Charing Cross. The persuasion was hard, but she achieved it and, leaving her luggage and Rascal under the watchful eye of Mrs Paul, she took a cab to her uncle's house.

She watched the house from the street corner, half hidden by plane trees, and after a half-hour she saw her uncle leave in his open carriage. Her heart was thumping as she walked down Devonshire Terrace and as she pulled the shiny knob that rang a bell deep in the house. She saw soldiers marching at the end of the street, going towards the Queen's Gate of the park, then the door behind her opened. 'Miss Jane!

'Good morning. She smiled at Cross, her uncle's London butler. 'My uncle sent me to fetch some books for him.

'This is a surprise! Cross, a timid man, smiled as he beckoned her inside. 'He did not mention that you were in London.

'We're with Mrs Grey's sister. Isn't the weather lovely?

'It won't last, Miss Jane. Some books, you said?

'Big red account books. I expect they're in the study, Cross.

'Leather books?

'Yes. The ones he brings to Paglesham every month.

'But I distinctly remember the master took them with him. Just now!

She stared at him, feeling all her hopes crumble. She had so wanted to do this thing for Major Sharpe, a man who had given her hope and pleasure if only because of her uncle's enmity towards him. 'He took them? Her voice was faint.

'Indeed, Miss Jane!

'Cross! A voice barked. 'My boots, Cross! Where the devil are my boots? Lieutenant Colonel Bartholomew Girdwood opened the parlour door and stared into the hall. His eyes widened. 'Jane?

But she had gone. She snatched open the heavy door, threw herself down the steps, and ran as if every pimp in London chased her.

'Jane! Girdwood shouted from the top step, but she had gone. Far away, from the park, he heard the music which reminded him that he was late for the Review. Damned strange, he thought, but he had never truly understood women. Women, dogs and the Irish. All unnecessary things that got in the way. 'God-damn it, where are my boots? Is the cab coming?

'It's been sent for, Colonel, it's been sent for. Cross brought the boots and helped the Colonel dress for the great celebration of the battle of Vitoria which, this fine day, would grace the Royal park.

The massed bands played the inevitable 'Rule Britannia' as the French trophies were paraded about Hyde Park. Enemy guns, a mere fraction of the artillery that Wellington had captured, led the procession that was bright with the flags and guidons that were the lesser standards of the French. The flags were serried in colourful abundance, but it was the eight Eagles, brightly polished and held erect in gaudy chariots, that fetched the warmest applause.

Each French Regiment was given an Eagle standard. Not all of those on display had been taken in battle. Two, Sharpe knew, had been found in a captured French fortress, neither of them incised with their regimental numbers, obviously stored against the day when they might be needed for fresh units. One had been thrown from a high bridge by a trapped French unit, and it had taken days of diving by Spanish peasants to bring the trophy up from the river bed. They had presented it to Wellington and now, as if it had been taken in battle, it was solemnly paraded past the Prince of Wales.

The others had been fought for. There was the Eagle of Barossa, captured by the Irish 87th, which, like the Talavera Eagle, had been taken by a sergeant and an officer together. Harper stared at the distant procession. 'Which one's ours, sir?

'The first one.

Captain Hamish Smith, seeing for the first time the distant gleam of a French Eagle, looked in some awe at the two Riflemen. They had actually done that most splendid thing, brought an enemy Colour from a battlefield, and no soldier, however grubby his career, could fail to be moved.

'We've captured more than eight, Harper said cheerfully.

'More, RSM? Smith asked.

'There was two taken at Sally-manker, sir, but the lads broke one of them up, so they did. Thought it was